[PB66 Spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger split the bill

[Ginger()]

yeah it is what it is

blue dot comes at a good time to take the wheat

I'd like to double move Vanrober and road so we can get our workers out of the way and not tempt him with a double steal

[Miguelito]

looks like a crosspost, there's some more

edit: what is so good about that road anyway?

[Miguelito]

Assuming you are still busy I went and did as outlined in my previous post. If it ends in us getting our cities razed you can rightfully chastise me.
Lots of activity in Amica's thread. Hopefully others bordering the Romans and discuss what to do about that

[Miguelito]

Should've just waited and asked for 10hrs extension. Nobody seems to believe in 24hr turns anymore, anyway. Yes I'm sounding grumpy.

What do we do if Amica refuses peace? Settle blue anyways?

If there's nothing left to do might as well post statistics:




We're still above average with whips, but of course people with granaries and cities aredoing better. A few people are doing deliberate low whip strats (Plemo, MS, Gavagai with Sury?!). With GKC / sd it might at least in part be due to low city count. Meanwhile tarvac's figure here is just crazy. Even considering they have 2 more cities than us (but those are only 4 and 1 turns old) and Exp granaries, it's unconceivable how they can afford it if they have somewhat similar food and happy to ours. But also they're surely just playing very good., I'm just jealous.
... as well as of close to everybody in the city count. Even Jack has surpassed us in a quick rush. Problem is, our last three cities have had dryrice/copper, dryrice, and drycorn second ring that we're still waiting for. So they haven't really contributed yet, and on the contrary, we've had to spend a lot of energy on securing them.
What could we have done to get returns faster? Really the only way to get faster or better food would have been to get that corn first ring, or superpinkdot Amica for the High Knob corn, but with what army? With Santiago in a different spot  we would be worrying less about vanrober, but also we'd be without any luxuries until Calendar.
I don't even think that we will catch up very soon. If we get the coveted Amica peace we found a city on this turn 78, and then need to struggle to get another settler out and found purple dot so it gets a caste artist 4 turns before peace runs out. And then maybe towards t90 expand east towards the coast and Jack. But that's nothing compared to other people's snowballs.
Caveat: Our relative GNP is improving considerably. If everybody's going broke we may equate their city count eventually, if much later. But we also mustn't go broke before Calendar.

[Ginger()]

I wouldn't read too deep into the tea leaves, especially on a supposedly even map. Someone whipping critical infra will have shit for demos/score.

I know that we've had to divert a lot to not-fantastic cities and have delayed granaries in key cities (Thomas especially is big sin, but makes sense with Mids build and happy cap so And now, when it loses wheat, there's reason to even further delay). But we've also had to build 3 monuments and a truly ungodly number of roads.

Also a lot of the cities have bad 4-food sources, but theyre sources nonetheless and theres not a lot of reason to delay them. With the Rathaus unlocked we are in a strategic mode of maximizing growth. Don't worry about commerce or a maintenance trap because I don't think it's going to happen. The courts already give nearly 3 gold per turn if they were built. It's all about mass mass mass. I think mids is good as we're doing it now, a casual build that doesn't interfere with growth

[Miguelito]

Amica doesn't give peace. What now? Rough plan:

• Whip the spear in Santiago. It's decaying and vanrober has 2 chariots there now. He sent back deer/deer, but with 2 chariots the temptation might be too much. Sucks to delay the granary further, but with the chop incoming it shouldn't be too bad.
  
• Pull the two chariots from Santiago to Expeditus. They can threaten the new city there, together with 2 axes. That might achieve peace. Would we rather want a raze or peace? I think peace.
  
• use the spear from Nick to guard against chariots in both Nick and blue dot, which we found anyways. Vision means that we always have a turn to react, and we will soon get  more spears from Thomas and Marge. Second axe for Nick is incoming.
  

What do you think?

edit: just saw your chariot rename. Can't disagree

[Miguelito]

We chatted and agreed to do as outlined. I offered peace to Amica because Ginger's objection was delayed.

In other news:

• Mjmd took a (big) city from Jack. He's growing into a monster, but otoh I can't be mad if Jack is focused on other things than settling towards us. Let the Romans take care of Mjmd or whatever.
  
• Magic Science razed a city of GKC's bringing him down to 4. Seems like GKC's game is more or less over already. Superdeath also has just 4 cities but at least the wonders (no, I don't think they'll save him). MS seemed to be lagging with settling, but is back on track with 8 cities, and has razed cities of 2 players already. Not sure if that's good for him, but surely it is for the lurkerdom.
  
• Gavagai has a size 8 capital. He has neither a religion nor is he Cha, so he has (shall I say at least?) 3 distinct early luxuries (I need to remember to check if the stone is connected)
  
• Ginger's desired road can be built by the Santiago worker after chopping/farming. If it gives us routes to Gav or sd, as Ginger pointed out in chat, probably before farming.
  
• I set Thomas to avoid growth. That way it will not whip the spear next turn, but the cap can finish one on a mine, thanks to Thomas taking the cottages.
  
• Units can do effective zone defense from the tile E of the peak. Our big asset is awesome vision around High Knob, although Amica would have to commit a huge mistake to lose it. But the vision will remain long term, and only go deeper in ~30 turns when Nick pops 4th ring.
  
• It looks like the next mine in Thomas is not immediately necessary, so worker D can help at Jeanne. I should rather have sent the other one this turn, but noticed too late. We should debate if on t80 we want to cash in on the chop that we're preparing out of borders, or rather get the corn a turn earlier. The immediate chop should enable the granary whip, and ofcourse would save a worker turn.
  

[Miguelito]

Peace in our time!


It was a victimless war, but nerve clenching at times nevertheless.

The rest of that picture btw:






Now once more we have ten turns to focus on development. That should include a round of caste for some border pops - I don't think that we want to work any specialists, do we? Maybe at Nick? (I am quite unenthusiastic about a shrine, but I think you have mentioned it? But I'd argue a math bulb is much better for us)

So the focus goes back to development. It's a stony path, but here's my plan:


Marge remains the only source of settlers, which is really bad, kinda? Well Nick will be able to join the 6->3 whip club, but only after caste. Anyways, Marge has a new settler out t84, and by chopping purple dot we get the city founded just in time so it still has 3 caste turns for the border pop.



After this turn Marge needs 14f to reach size 6. It can't make more than 11 in one turn, but over two turns there's room to give Nick the deer next turn.
I don't think finishing the spear now makes much sense (unless we want double at Santiago), rather dump hammers into a library?



This is more than a bit detrimental to my mids ambitions, but I felt like we really want a new worker, and didn't see where else we'd get him. Whip next turn.



Rathouse gonna pay well here. With just one worker we manage to cut two of the forests - which two of them would you like to? My plan was to whip the rathouse, but we could also do another worker and get the other forest. I have even thought about a settler for yellow dot (island corn), but even if we play risky and do caste 84-89 we're still a turn late for the border pop.
Then there's the question of what to do with the hammers. Could be

• a barracks - I know you don't love it, but this city is making some good hammers and no coin.
  
• a settler for a 2pop whip after caste - it is about the worst place for our planned expansion to the SE, and cornisland without Sailing nor culture is pretty bad, but a settler is a settler, even if he has to run 2 more turns than the others.
  
• plain old axe
  
• ...?
  

Here the next few turns go like chop forest t80, corn farmed t83, whip granary 81. Granary finishing time is pretty suboptimal, but what do. Earlier granary is clearly better than corn a turn earlier. 



Here it's really interesting - with 5 artist turns we can claim the corn from Amica, but unless weget a Hindu spread we won't really have the culture to defend it (and they  could counter with a library, which they might be preparing anyways to get third ring someday).
Now if at size 2 we make it something like 8 artist turns (still have to feed them) Our chances might be better.
We don't really need that corn right now, but it would be hilariously spiteful towards Amica - and not unlikely to be a casus belli in ten turns.
I'm interested in your opinion here.

Immediate decision due (turn has rolled already, but I will not make controversial moves before tomorrow evening, so you can have a look and voice your opinion): 

• Worker whip in Thomas?
  

[Miguelito]

us: copper is 7 tiles walking from our capital around a snaky lake that makes defense impossible, over 2 rivers and through jungle, has dry rice for food (that can't be irrigated before conquest), but only if we settle up on our neighbour, otherwise it's lighthouse lakes.
van: copper is 4 tiles in a straight line from the cap, has riverside(!) gold for a sidedish and two floodplains plus surely some yet uncovered food. Or you can just share with cap.

But surely everything balances out, somehow?
van capital: 2x riverside hillpig + deerforest + floodplains + 2 riverside forested calendar luxes of situational use during early turns
our capital: 1x dry hillpig + riverside grasshillsheep + deerforest + floodplains + 1 dry calendar lux that before improving is no better than a riverside grassland.

Note that van's first 3 tiles are straight up better, and then the other ones are as well. The one! thing we've got going for us is that we needed one turn less for improving.

This map was balanced by the most experienced guy on the forum, who stepped in to take it over from Mjmd so he could play. I don't really want to antagonize Krill (and might be a bit afraid ) but what the hell .

[Miguelito]

played t80 and whipped the worker. Question for the upcoming turn is what we do in Expeditus

1. whip rathouse
   
2. whip a worker, enabling, in the first place, the third chop.
   

My tendency is 2., although the chops don't line up perfectly, ie they don't come simultaneously. The rathouse will then get finished quickly with the first chop while growing back. We can use the workers suboptimally so the chops do come simultaneously, get 40h into a settler and whip him once we're back out of caste.

Fishing is finishing, and while we have to save gold for a good while, I'm wondering whether Sailing or Monotheism should come next. Sailing's strengths are evident -settle islands up north (before Amica claims them! - might be too late already though), get ourselves glorious Org lighthouses for Expeditus, Peter and purple dot.
But it also is increasingly a necessity to get religion into border cities like Santiago, Expeditus or Peter, to counter the culture pressure from vanrober's Cre (we could have trouble keeping the furs, because with a library that city of van's can get third ring pretty quickly) and Amica's ubiquitous monuments.

Jack lost another big city to Mjmd. Hopefully he can stabilize yet, but we may need to think how we can avoid that gold becoming Zulu... because at that point it's well and truly game over.
edit: it was the one with the lighthouse that we knew, so it might well be too late already.