[90 Spoilers] Saxony's splendour and Miguelusten's glory

[Miguelito]

Amica, your take ?

[Miguelito]

after spending the night not simming and instead going through PB59 threads, I decided to accept that there's no way to avoid errors, and went ahead:


You called it, but at least it isn't orphaned. Just have to settle that way. It also means that we did not necessarily settle the cap in the wrong direction, as there may be multiple directions for overseas expansion

Set research to hunting and queued the worker. The archer has to move straight to the capital now by the referee's orders, so it will take a few turns yet until we have scouted the whole island. My plan is to camp the fur right away and tech as fast as possible. The big question for me right now is the order of Fishing/Mining/BW/Sailing/Pottery, but we can scout the island first and decide then (and meanwhile read more PB59 and post a wrapup).

[Miguelito]

there may be multiple directions for overseas expansion

on that note, flying camera tells me that the wrap is toroidal, and the map extends significantly wider E-W than N-S.

[Amicalola]

Amica, your take ?

Sorry, my morning was really busy. I have been reading but didn't have time for thinking (hence 59 silence also).

Looking at your proposed spots above, I like the one you chose the best (and would have said 1NE from spawn, before you decided). You risk orphaning seafood no matter where you settle, like you say, and I prefer having the option to settle 3 cities overall. Doubly-so with FIN. I remember you pushed for a lot of tile-sharing in PB55 when you/Mjmd were teaching me Civ 101, and I wasn't super impressed by the results, but I think I was mistaken back then, and I've got a lot more appreciation for it now.   Doubly-so in vanilla where Slavery is run for even longer.

Also, even knowing the fish is there, I would probably have chosen the current spot. To be clear, I have no outside knowledge of the map.

Edit: To see if I understand you correctly, you are proposing a camp on the furs before the deer?

[Miguelito]

Thanks Amica, always feel welcome here

One thing that is not-so-bad about the fish: we'll have it in borders by t50, so if around that time we send a galley north we can settle for it in the second ring and still get running immediately.





So we are looking at 6/0,0022/18 approx. 150 tiles per player. That gives me hope that by the time we have Sailing we will at least still find uncontested land.


The terrain looks terribly un-Saxon. You'd expect green hills, peaks, rivers and the sea far away. I'm debating to just switch to safari.

[Rusten]

I should be able to sim a bit the next couple of days, although I might wait to see what our 2nd and possibly 3rd city will have in its BFC.

My starting thoughts/priorities:
-Early granaries could be good if we're short on settling spots and need to wait for techs (sailing)
-Need to have a wb ready for that northern settlement immediately when settling. Huge tile with FIN.
-No more than 1 worker.

[Miguelito]

Civforum games are a test of patience. We will play a 120, 130 or 150 turns with no better than copper units. We will watch one mover stacks slowly crawling towards conquest or doom. Each of those turns might take two days. The first one took six. It took three for the last team to even claim their civ. But we are patient, because patience is the way.


Good thing that we nuked PB59 and there's something to read up on.

No new tiles yet. Demos:



There is a capital with just 4 land tiles in the first ring, and none is completely landlocked. OF 18 players 16 founded on t0, with just newbie leolo and (rusty?) vet Ari moving for a turn. I felt bad for not having a plains hill option, but maybe most people didn't. At least from what I've seen on Civforum it seems that it's rather unusual for the settler to be placed on top of a plains hill. Also, noticed how SIP would have left us with no second city site on the island at all ?

In fact, we have no hills at all. Now we can expect for the land overseas to look different, but I'm already speculating about leveraging Ind for the AP to compensate a low production. Without early stone/marble (reminder this is BTS and the bonus is 100%) and the need to invest in overseas expansion we don't have a great shot at early wonders, but the bonusless AP might come at the right time. Civforum players love to adopt and spread the AP religion, and I've never built a shrine in MP despite founding a religion in every game (don't remember PBEM64 tbh). Wondering if we could get a prophet for a theology bulb, but the only path I see would be Artemis? Well that or just plain temple for the first GP. But I actually thought that we should pursue a really clean Currency beeline. Well it's all pie in the sky so far anyways.

I should be able to sim a bit the next couple of days, although I might wait to see what our 2nd and possibly 3rd city will have in its BFC.

My starting thoughts/priorities:
-Early granaries could be good if we're short on settling spots and need to wait for techs (sailing)
-Need to have a wb ready for that northern settlement immediately when settling. Huge tile with FIN.
-No more than 1 worker.

That would be lovely! I'm attaching a sandbox with the new tiles. The later save is upon finishing Hunting. You'll get another once we have uncovered everything in reach.

On your points:

• granaries terraces require Pottery though which in turn delays Sailing. Now going into this I was sure I woul want Pottery as soons as imaginable. Both for the superawesome UB and to get started on cottaging in order to avoid expansion bankruptcy. But now we are looking at just two riverside cottages in the capital and no more than four on the whole island. We will most probably want to cottage the dry tiles as well, but it doesn't look too appetizing. Better to get by on coast for the time being and take Sailing first?
  
• Workboat for the northern fish upon settling, Sir yes Sir! Also for the southern one if we go that way. It is actually quite nice to have those fish tiles on the expansion coast, as we will not be able to share tiles in the new cities, and I usually dislike having to improve a tile in a new city with a worker.
  
• Yes, and even that worker will be terribly bored soon enough. In my preliminary furs camp first plan he builds the two camps t11-21, then idles for 4, then takes 9 turns for the corn farm (until t34) and after that? Well maybe/probably/hopefully there's a copper mine, but apart from that he can basically spend the turns prechopping all the forests. I don't believe that we ever want to build a plains farm; basically that citizen costs more than they rake in.
  

Edit: To see if I understand you correctly, you are proposing a camp on the furs before the deer?

Missed this the last time. Yes indeed that was my idea. I took the opportunity to actually compare the variants: Deer camp first is up 19 foodhammers, while furs gets 17 additional raw commerce, reaching BW 2 turns earlier. And with this start I think that trade off is an option and I would lean towards taking it. The city also grows much later with the furs camp, and meanwhile has nothing to build but quechuas or a barracks. Both of which are not good for anything for a long time (we even already have the garrison for city 2). In the end however the settler comes just 2 turns later (t31 vs 29) because he can take full advantage of the corn chop, while deer camp first has the settler getting 16h overflow that can not be used for a WB yet. This got convoluted and I try to make it more clear.

Furs camp first has

• BW turn 26
  
• settler turn 31 with 0 OF
  
• Fishing turn  30
  
• 25 hammers into quechua/barracks
  

Deer camp first has

• BW turn 27
  
• settler turn 29 with 16 OF
  
• Fishing turn 31, or 32 if second city maintenance hits already
  
• 12 hammers into quechua/barracks. And we have to see what to do with the settler OF and the subsequent turns' production, but I guess that can just go into the next settler
  

Now under normal circumstances of course the deer camp is a total no brainer, but here I am not quite so sure. If we find seafood for the second city I also want to explore researching Fishing before BW, because then the early hammers can be put to some actual use. But of course that delays BW, lets the worker idle more, and delays the settler as well.

[Miguelito]

Two questions to the general lurkerdom, because I feel like I really should get the maintenance right in the sims this time:

1 - Is there a way to infer the actual map dimensions? I remember vaguely that people would issue goto commands into the fog and see when the world wrap would send the unit in the other direction, but that only works after Calendar doesn't it? Is there another way? i suppose I could guesstimate with flying camera, but that sounds painful and imprecise. Or at least the max distance value that I believe is what governs maintenance?

2 - Anybody got the city/civic maintenance formulas at hand? I know civac has posted them in threads occasionally, but it feels weird to ask him given that he's playing. Otherwise I'll go digging.

[Miguelito]

this is grim.


I thought that Rob/Ziankali were trolling when they made it so SIP would invalidate any other spot, but maybe they were trying to save us from agony?
Really starting to doubt whether we even want to put another city on this godforsaken island (before Currency or w/e). But probably sharing corn and deer will still be worthwhile for the quest of getting out of here. Or will it? Before the lighthouse the capital will have +7f on size 3 and 4, so before terraces the city will not really stack whip anger from 2pop whips... but still, having another city should at least let us use foodmore efficiently during settler/worker builds, and Fin coast should make it at least mildly profitable... right ?
But maybe we want to give Sailing before BW some consideration? At size 5 the galley takes just 5 turns, and we'd get an overseas route (as opposed to a city on the southern island coast, which would be unconnected before Sailing).

[Rusten]

I'll be surprised if a 2nd city isn't worth it. Even if the food will be low there's next to no maintenance and it enables trade routes. Chopping early terraces will be a priority.

I refuse to believe that sailing (and building a galley) without BW is even an option.