[PB 64] Ginger plays as Charlemagne, famed man of letters

[Ginger()]

Oof I made the instinctual swap into slavery as the settler is on the move and the workers are chopping, forgetting that I'm gunning for early religion, if I lose Buddha to coinflip or by one turn, feel free to point and laugh

[Ginger()]

   
Pillars of the Earth joins our empire today
Figured that together with Name of the Rose, it fits our Charlemagne-medieval chic for the first two cities. If I manage to secure Buddhism here, I also get a nifty cross-reference to Journey to the West and Buddha's palm. That's to explain why the name fits here, so next I'll cover why I like this book so much. Quick plot, fun and colorful characters (I love Prior Philip, such a great exemplar of trope of the nice, quiet, but crafty and pragmatic person who gets routinely underestimated), but the most fun part is Ken Follet's Cathedral Building 101 course about halfway through. It shares a lot of similarities with Shogun in its commitment to immersion while not being too fussed or religious about accuracy when it comes to building the pace of the plot. Speaking of, Shogun might make an appearance later on, but I'm not sure.

[civac2]

That city misses both relevant resources though.

[Ginger()]

That city misses both relevant resources though.

We’ll see how religion race pans out. Besides Comm is not connecting his copper, he’s chopping instead, so I’m safe for the moment, with vision on the resource I can tell when it gets its route and that gives plenty of reaction time to research archery and set workers to prechop. I considered settling one east but felt splitting the sheep and nabbing the plains hill was more important.

Edit: I realize I could planted the city 1N but for some reason I never considered planting away from the coast. (Subconscious intent to GLH?)

[Ginger()]

Well rip, turns out I’m in between a rock and a hard place, met Gav to my east. I’m going to make contact with the scout from the opposite side to try and maybe trick his settling priorities temporarily. The warrior will come back to my lands to fogbust.

I’m also finding myself building an annoying amount of workers, currently up to 3 workers for 2 cities and probably building a fourth next turn. Part of the reason for this is the religion push delaying Wheel/Agr which are required for more settlements.

[Mjmd]

Is the plan for the 4th worker to keep chopping more workers? Maybe have a worker party?

[Ginger()]

Is the plan for the 4th worker to keep chopping more workers? Maybe have a worker party?

Tovarisch, the worker's party is the only party

But sadly, yes, worker chop recursion is what it feels like right now. Part of the reason are the higher-than-normal worker turn requirements with this hilly land, not just tech-gating on cities.

I think it will be only 4 though, as I need more warriors. Sadly, I don't think I'll get the opportunity to pump some hammers into Henge. Barbs put a hammer toll on the early game when otherwise you might not want to be churning warriors when growing between worker/settler builds.

For something completely different, how much LurkerCoin™ will I be awarded if I plant my scout on Gav's sheep?

[Ginger()]

Well last turn I got Buddhism, then moved my scout into Gav's lands (on an unused tile) to get vision on his capital. Capital grows to size 5, two riverside grassland mines, one fish, and 2 sheep on different flavor hills gives a total yield of 14-10 food, 10 hammers, and 6 commerce, counting the city center. I settle my third city in 2 turns. 


However I screwed up, I'm too used to being first in turn order and didn't realize that I had double moved Gav, but not wanting to disrupt the lovely turnpace we've been enjoying, I sent this PM. Posting it here for transparency.

Hello, 
I realize after I've played my turn that I goofed and double moved you. The scout landed on the plains hill adjacent to your workers, before moving south to its current location. If you want me to delete the offending unit, let me know, for the sake of turnpace, I didn't think it was worth asking for a reload. 
-Ginger

I also sent a peace treaty to get us out of the split because I've seen all I need to.

[Ginger()]

Turns are moving by quickly, I will settle Dune, next turn so you'll get a report for that. This turn's report is largely theorycrafting and future fowl numeration.

I'm debating dumping my EP into Nauf or Gav in a couple turns. It's not really wise to start an EP escalation with (ORG) Sumeria, but since he appears to be rival highest GNP, I would like to know when he decides to research Priesthood. Unfortunately, I don't think that I would receive vision in time to make uselful decisions unless he doesn't spend in return. Also, since I'm already making all haste for Metal Casting, it raises the question of how exactly would the knowledge help me? Despite the scare of Nauf being rival top GNP, I'm fairly confident that this gambit will succeed, I will give it a lose-my-settler-to-a-lion/10 chance of failure.

As such I'm already counting chickens and planning ahead. Astronomy will be necessary on this map at some point, and as protective it'll be fairly easy to get a 4-promo unit, so Literature is looking very appealing. Stacking Great Library and National Epic in the windmilled production capital sounds like a good way to reach Astro in reasonably time.

However, when looking at the tech tree I noticed this little trick...

   

Yes, after Monarchy and Machinery, I will be two techs away from Guilds, and yes, an Engineer bulbs Feudalism before Construction, which I did not remember. Me thinking along the lines of running a little ole engineer somewhere to try and race the Oracle to 100GPP. 34 turns of running an engineer high-key sucks though on a map this food-poor. Non-PHI GPP generation before Lit or Philo is just Pain. 

Given that I'm an inveterate builder, I wonder if again I'm falling for petty distractions, and I should really just go straight for Construction after Currency and try some door-to-door Buddhist evangelism with Xbows/Cats. However, there's land to settle towards Gavagai and infrastructure like forges and barracks to multiply my expectedly high MFG will not cost maintenance like an army would. The reason I mention this is that when I was looking through past PBs for similar Machinery beelines, I found that Cornflakes tried a similar strategy with a hammer economy in PB43, seeking to wealth-build his way to Guilds, and he wrote that he regretted not translating the MFG lead into troops at an earlier tech milestone than Knights. We'll see how the circumstances change, but that's the current shakedown of priorities.

[Charriu]

As such I'm already counting chickens and planning ahead. Astronomy will be necessary on this map at some point, and as protective it'll be fairly easy to get a 4-promo unit, so Literature is looking very appealing.

I presume that you are thinking about Heroic Epic, when you talk about 4-promo unit, right? But you do realize that the requirement for that national wonder is a level 4 unit not a 4-promo unit.