Gavagai climbs the chaos ladder

[Qgqqqqq]

Really? Interesting.

[Gavagai]

Mechanics note:  Religion granting techs can not be popped from huts.

Heh, did not know that. Not particularly important, however, as one can decide to go for a religion after popping an important worker tech he does not have to research anymore.

[Thoth]

I think (but am not 100% certain) that you can't pop any tech that gives a "1st to" bonus.


But as you say, any popped tech frees up beakers for other uses.

[Gavagai]

I did some more simming and it is not looking good. My best opening seems to be WB - Worker - WB - Settler - Henge - Worker whipped into Henge. The basic idea here is that I grow the capital into working three improved tiles ASAP and then go chop-chop-chop. In this scenario I will get my second city on T35 (settled where my scout now is) and Henge on T40. This is respectable but does not at all guarantee me from random bullshit on behalf of other players - it is definitely possible to build Henge faster if you really focus on it.
In particular, the general can go Henge before the settler - in that scenario he is pretty much guaranteed to beat me. I considered doing it myself but it is very slow: Henge on T37 at the cost of getting the city on T43. I do not think that expanding after T40 is really viable and this plan does not even guarantee me Stonehenge as T37 is still not particularly fast.
Well, let's hope I'll pop a tech from hut, it will make things much easier (technology is a bottleneck in some promising alternatives).

[Gavagai]

56 gold from the hut. Not a tech but not the worst result either.

[Gavagai]

[Gavagai]

(The naming theme is my take on "England under Incan leadership")

[Gavagai]

Dotmapping this start is tricky. Here is one option:

So my initial idea was to put my second city 2E from where I have Big Brother here. I wanted to split off Corn from the capital and also capture the gold tile which I want to start working ASAP. This option, however, is not viable as I have just doscovered: it orphanes Fish. Therefore, I need to move the second city to the West.
The problem with this new location is that it is really dumb: 1 tile south would be a much better city. But it would give up the Corn and I want to split it off both for both medium-term and short-term reasons. The capital will not be able to fully utilize three food resources anytime soon and I am going to bring it to two pops while whipping into Stonehenge. The logical solution is to go for something like this, picking up the Corn with another city:

This, however, I also do not particularly like as my second city now should either pick up the gold or take the Corn from the capital. I would strongly prefer to be able to do both.

[Gavagai]

[Mjmd]

How are things looking? 1st city / other plans?