[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[scooter]

That’s weird. Cairo ended urn, then reloaded & got a score increase corresponding to a city plant, then logged out. I’m not sure if that’s a city plant or not.

PBSpy occasionally has phantom reloads. In this case it was not a city plant. Probably just a pop growth.





Agreed that it looks like south of this island is ocean, but it's worth verifying just in case there's a relevant passage.





By far my favorite kind of settler whip: 6 -> 3, instant regrow to 4 while producing settler due to full foodbox. It's just so satisfying. I'm producing quite a lot of overflow, so that will get dumped into the Lighthouse, though I'll likely have to jump back and complete the WB at some point to prevent decay. Maybe I should just let the WB complete as there's no modifiers so it's a wash either way. Still planning to grow to 5, then build a worker or two. I think I'll repeat the settler at 6 whip again in 10T - it's a good cycle that I think is working out pretty well, and we have the food/granary to do it cheaply.





Going to drop here and then ferry the Warrior over. Archery is in, so I'm going to stick a turn into an Archer here so that it's whippable at size 2 if needed. This city will be somewhat expensive for me, so I do need to keep it as sz2+ ASAP and work the Gold to pay for it. Currency is going to be an expensive slog, and $$ will start to get tight on the way. Gold for population and Lighthouses for coast should help in that - we're working very few commerce tiles right now. That should start improving soon.

[Zed-F]

Yeah, right now we know we have neighbors NE and NW and neither of them should be anywhere near here yet, and there's no barbs to defend against, so the only info we are missing about defenses is where our eastern/western neighbors are. Depending on the answers there we might have a sizeable back yard that doesn't need much in the way of defenses. I guess we should add an eastward scouting WB to our wishlist to go with our westward scouting WB.

Needing happy for growth for commerce might be a good argument for settling CrabbyFurs before settling FishDeer, but are those cities far enough away that we should just not bother settling one/both of them at all until we have Currency? GoldenPig is 6E from the capital, FishDeer is 5E4S, CrabbyFurs is 8E6S. That last especially seems a long way without yet having gotten Currency.

[Zed-F]

What wonders might we try to get this game? Most don’t seem super relevant for our civ; thus far we’ve been working on the ‘more cities than thou’ wonder. About the only ancient / classical ones that seem convenient are MoM and HG. But would we really divert to early Calendar (after Currency) when we have only 1 calendar lux and no plans for a GA anytime soon? Denial to other interested civs is a decent argument and we do have marble nearby, and FishDeer has a good number of forests to chop, so maybe, but does it make sense? HG at least fits better with what we are already doing, and maybe it gets us an engineer to steal something later.

[Zed-F]

It’s been busy the last couple turns, globally! It looks like SD settled cities on T66 and T68, bringing him to 6 and momentarily in the lead, Cairo on T68 bringing him finally to 4, and Bing also on T68 bringing him to 5. But according to our plans we should be about to retake the lead… the question is whether our economy is strong enough to let us keep it.

[scooter]

A fair amount happened over the weekend, so let's get caught up.





I did go ahead and revolt while both settlers were moving. For now all this does is give happy in Ehrlitan and Aren. However, this does let me avoid an unhappy face in a turn or two in Ehrlitan, so that's helpful.





Li Heng settled here on T70 as planned. Initial plan is to borrow the Cow and build a Monument which will complete at the same time as growing to size 2. The WB out of Unta will explore the south islands and then circle back up to net the Fish when it's in borders in 17T, or if we get a lucky religion spread, sooner. Pale moved over to the cottage. My basic plan with Pale now that we're off the Cow for now is to double whip the Lighthouse at size 5 in order to unlock some more tiles as well as boost my food output.





Seconds later I settled Capustan. It was undefended for 1T, but I ferried over Y'Ghatan's warrior. Aren and Ehrlitan are growing on warriors currently, so I'll get a unit in there. Capustan put 1T into an Archer, then swapped to Granary. The thinking there is as soon as it hits size 2, I can whip the Archer at any time. Although of course I should have waited a few turns longer to do it to avoid decay, but realistically we're going to start wanting Archers in outer cities like this.





Neither city harmed our bottom line almost at all, and you can see why here. It's not quite accurate to say the cities are pure profit at 4c vs 3.4g expenses due to number of cities maintenance, but in general the 3c routes make settling cities quite cheap. I don't see much reason to slow down other than our cities are pretty busy right now.





Aren is setup to double whip the Lighthouse near max overflow once I hit size 4. The LH/Granary also make regrowing quite fast, so it's definitely worth it. The previous unhappy face coming off right on time is a happy accident. Overflow usage feels like it should be some sort of boat. Either a WB for cheap exploration, or maybe a Galley so that I have a second one. Actually, an Archer might make a lot of sense as this is a "front" city, and the warrior could go MP elsewhere.





Wide view of the empire as it stands. I think our exploring WB will likely meet someone else before too much longer. Our scout in the east is headed up to defog the area around the Stone, which is sadly looking quite bleak. My lean right now is to settle south of Capustan next due to the strong combo of food and the furs, but my hesitation comes from the fact that it doesn't really claim any new land. However, there's no other super compelling options yet.






GNP is still not amazing even with science turned on. Two other things jump out here. One, a PRO player has signed OB with a non-PRO player for some unknown reason? The only other PRO player is Superdeath, so I dunno why he's giving someone a ton of free commerce . Also, rival best soldier count has ticked up quite a bit the last couple turns. Someone has a real unit or two now. Speaking of foreign affairs.





That is a very early scientist. As a result, it could really only be Bing with CRE/PHI America. Normally a scientist this early is for an Academy, but I don't really have a capital that screams Academy, and I don't imagine that's different for anyone else. More importantly, Bing had a random tech-sized score bump this past turn. So I think he bulbed something?? The only thing that could really be is Mathematics. I don't recall seeing a Math bulb in awhile. Trying to piece this together, I can think of only two explanations. 1) This is him locking in the race to Calendar and therefore MoM, or 2) this is just him expediting Currency. Neither seem like worthwhile uses of your first great person, but maybe it's worth it? Both techs are more important than normal, and PHI America can do it cheaply, so maybe it's worth it. I guess this means he's not contesting Pyramids though, which is what I thought he would be doing? Ginger aka Mjmd aka Cairo was I thought the Pyramids competition, but they built Stonehenge and are quite behind now as a result. I'm starting to wonder if nobody is targeting it, and if therefore I should consider it.


Speaking of early wonders, Yuris landed Oracle and took some unknown tech with it. Metal Casting seems likely since he's playing Japan and it unlocks his UB, which he gets even more discounted with IND. I wonder if he rushes a Tatara in another city and tries to get his first GP to be an Engineer (over Prophet) in order to bulb Machinery and get him closer to Samurai.


ALRIGHT, I think that covers everything.

[scooter]

The WB out of Unta will explore the south islands and then circle back up to net the Fish when it's in borders in 17T, or if we get a lucky religion spread, sooner.

Actually not so sure about this. Think I'll instead send the WB east to explore the land east of Capustan. The Li Heng Fish can be quickly netted via Pale WB at a later date.

[Zed-F]

I’m thinking if it were me I’d prefer a boat in Aren over an archer as we seem to have no evidence anyone has even so much as scouted in our direction yet. I’d rather have something to speed finding good locations to settle and grabbing them e.g. before Bing can. Another galley would also help our scout island-hop independently from our settlement efforts as it seems likely he’ll run out of new land to look at shortly. We might want 1 turn in an archer at Aren though just in case, but I don’t know we need to complete it yet until we see foreign explorers near our shores.

Our scout will probably be able to explore the north of GoldenPig island (now Capustan island?) before our next settler is built; if there is a second food in the area that could be a decent alternative that is more forward placed. Otherwise I agree that south of Capustan is the best-looking spot from a growth perspective even if it does seem kind of back-lines from a border establishment perspective.

EDIT: noticed plans changed. Agree we want to explore east sooner and net Li Heng fish later.

[scooter]

Quiet turn today, so good chance to catch up on discussion and dump a wall of text.

What wonders might we try to get this game? Most don’t seem super relevant for our civ; thus far we’ve been working on the ‘more cities than thou’ wonder. About the only ancient / classical ones that seem convenient are MoM and HG. But would we really divert to early Calendar (after Currency) when we have only 1 calendar lux and no plans for a GA anytime soon? Denial to other interested civs is a decent argument and we do have marble nearby, and FishDeer has a good number of forests to chop, so maybe, but does it make sense? HG at least fits better with what we are already doing, and maybe it gets us an engineer to steal something later.

Yeah I haven't been sweating the wonders too much. One of the perks of a 5p game is sometimes wonders just slip through the cracks. But also, key early wonders being banned thin the available options. I think I mostly need to figure out what other players are targeting and fill in what gets skipped. For example, if MoM and Pyramids get targeted, maybe Great Library makes sense as it can generate some of the scientists needed to bulb for us. Or if Pyramids get neglected like I am starting to suspect, maybe it makes sense to go for it. One catch with Pyramids is it really is extraodinarily expensive with CtH nerfing stone/marble, plus the general lack of production on the map with very few forests/hills. I checked and Unta on Pyramids with Stone, OR, two Math chops, and 30H overflow on max-hammer config still takes over a dozen turns to build. In general, wonders are not great here for this reason - you basically have to slow-build anything you want.


I sort of suspect the Bing Math bulb was geared towards getting a jump on Currency/Calendar, and therefore the chances of racing him to MoM are quite unlikely. So I'm sort of coming around on one of two paths. Path 1 is targeting Hanging Gardens because 1) we're likely to maintain a city lead making it profitable for us sooner and 2) It'll provide an Engineer which is valuable in a low-hammer environment. Path 2 is targeting Great Library which has the side effects of spawning Scientists (Astro bulb path) and putting us close to Music (free Artist for Golden Age). This would put us in a spot where we might be able to win the race to Astro while also having the most cities, and then just hope we can use that combo to snowball the game out of control. If someone beelines it I sort of doubt we can win, but maybe there's enough other targets out there that GL is the one that slips through the cracks. I sort of like this the more I think about it, although it delays us significantly to Compass which is one of our big priorities here. It's hard to imagine winning this race after teching Compass first.


In general our game is REX on trade routes and be reactive on the tech tree. So I'm hesitant to lock into a path just yet. Very open to suggestions here. I'm sort of inclined to stay razor focused on the path here and avoid detours.

I’m thinking if it were me I’d prefer a boat in Aren over an archer as we seem to have no evidence anyone has even so much as scouted in our direction yet. I’d rather have something to speed finding good locations to settle and grabbing them e.g. before Bing can. Another galley would also help our scout island-hop independently from our settlement efforts as it seems likely he’ll run out of new land to look at shortly. We might want 1 turn in an archer at Aren though just in case, but I don’t know we need to complete it yet until we see foreign explorers near our shores.

Yeah I think this is right. We're going to want a second Galley soon anyway, whether that's to open another expansion path, or if we keep pushing east it'll shorten our supply lines.

Our scout will probably be able to explore the north of GoldenPig island (now Capustan island?) before our next settler is built; if there is a second food in the area that could be a decent alternative that is more forward placed. Otherwise I agree that south of Capustan is the best-looking spot from a growth perspective even if it does seem kind of back-lines from a border establishment perspective.

EDIT: noticed plans changed. Agree we want to explore east sooner and net Li Heng fish later.

I decided to split the difference on the WB. I'm circling around WineIsland just to seafood-check, then headed as far east as the coasts will take me. The detour costs only a couple turns of movement. I need to know who our east neighbor is and how far away they are ASAP.



As for today's turn, it was super uneventful so no pictures, but two things.


1) Cairo is spending EPs elsewhere, so I should meet someone else soon in that direction.


2) I'm considering building a Settler at size5 in Unta rather than worker. Reality is we just don't have many tiles to improve right now, and with Lighthouses going up in a bunch of cities, the need for worker labor is light. So I'd like to keep pushing on expansion. Unta can finish the Lighthouse and then 6T a settler, which should line up perfectly with whip anger expiring to grow to 6. Settler destination can either be Stone or TundraFood, depending on what our scout finds. I'll be shocked if the Stone is foodless as it's usually a balance target which is why I'm holding out hope, but we will find out in a few turns. Getting Stone ASAP would be really nice as it would allow me to get rolling on Moai, but the cities south of Capustan would be easier to get up and running.

[Zed-F]

Agree that settler next at Unta sounds better than a worker there. We probably want enough workers built on the main island to continue being able to send some overseas, but don’t really need many on the mainland at any given time, at least for the moment. I imagine other cities will be able to help with that as our lighthouses complete & foodhammers grow.

I agree that it doesn’t feel like other players are targeting Mids for the moment. I don’t know that I’m too sanguine about a big diversion to Literature and away from our Compass-oriented game plan. I’d rather look for opportunities that are more along our current tech path. To me that means HG. We might expect to have some competition though; SD seems to be following a similar REX-first strategy, and might also be eyeing it. I’d feel better about wonders in the top part of the tree if we had a better idea of what Cairo and especially Bing are doing, since the opportunity cost of getting into a wonder race there is much higher. PHI leaders will be interested in that part of the tree and Bing has a head start, but his specific intentions aren’t yet clear.

If we want lots of chops to win a wonder race we would need to ferry several workers overseas. TundraFood is the only spot we know of right now that has a lot of forests available for chop timing. Doing that for Mids in OR would also mean building a missionary while in OR and founding the city sooner rather than later. It’s still a lot of setup even with the extra forests; building HG on the mainland with just a couple chops is probably a lot simpler overall. That said, a lot of the things we would do to set up a Mids chop might have value in and of themselves. Mids would be pretty nice if we got it; maybe it’s worth trying to line up a late chop attempt there? The opportunity cost might be sufficiently moderate if we don’t use up TundraFood’s forests until we are confident we can land it. We would need to make sure we don’t lose a big investment to Yuri building a forge and engineer-rushing it, so if we are going for Mids this feels like the play.
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[scooter]

Busy day so light on commentary, but a thing happened.





He has met Cairo and appears to be the person Cairo was spending EPs on.





Fled the area slightly afraid he might kill the WB. I initially thought SD must be west of Cairo, but now I'm not so sure as I can see culture NW-NW of the WB. Instead, Cairo is the person SD was giving free trade routes to via OB. I wonder though if maybe he is still west of Cairo and OB was the only way to make it past? I dunno.





Lighthouses finishing everywhere right now. Whipped in Aren next turn I think and Ehrlitan shortly after. (The random plains cottage next to Ehrlitan is just a function of workers walking past the tile and dumping a turn into it 4 times. A similar thing is happening with the farm going in next to the Corn.)





6T settler in Unta post-Lighthouse. City is crying out for growth after the settler. It's brutal not working a Lighthouse lake right now. Whip anger subsiding and Gold coming online soon after will do wonders here. Missed a picture, but I found a Fish on the south end of WineIsland which makes me glad I did the quick diversion to scout it.





Starting to feel the GNP crunch a little. It's better at 100%, but still bad. Gold coming online and Lighthouses unlocking coast should both help a little.