[Spoilers]Krill PB80 - The Long Road out of Eden

[Krill]

Turn 32/82 (game turn/in relation to standard ancient era start)

Suprise.




Well, not much of a surprise, I pointed this out three weeks ago.

The reasons are obvious, not going into it, except to note I will revolt into Rep after the settler finishes in the capital, so T34? FWIW I have done no sim work, and I should have finished Mids a turn quicker but I screwed up the worker micro without checking. Would have completed 500/500 eot31 If I'd put in the effort.




Here is the terrain. It is not dotmapped, because I simply haven't bothered to look at it yet, except for the gold (settler from capital, due to settle T36). There are jungle gems to the east, and no copper anywhere nearby hence the need to go straight to IW (after my folly of starting research on Currenecy for a few turns).

Here are the cities:




The capital. Just not that great. Going to have to split off the rice to power a southern city (but that city can have a granary and lighthouse chopped, and just focus on generating commerce to fund expansion. Building the temple for the shrine GP, hence I don't really want to split off the rice, but needs must on a food poor area of the map.





Crop yield and the whip is great and all, but sometimes you just need a high production city. I will use avoid growth at size 5 until the turn before the revolt, and then it can sit at size 6 working another hill mine for 20hpt. I will probably build a barracks here first. I need more archers to barb bust, but this city is the antithesis of the RB second city: disposable to power expansion which I feel is a nice touch to a game which is also the antithesis of the usual RB game. 20hpt gets me pretty much whatever I want. I'm unlikely to get MC in time to make a Colossus play but I feel I would rather leave that in the air to stop players heading for Astro.





RCT. Settled because it required no worker input whilst I focused on Blind study getting Mids. I have just whipped the granary and will save the forests for something more useful ie a lighthouse with whip overflow. It's a basic whip cycle: ignore happy, whip at size 4, and grow from 2>4 forever. Probably dump overflow into workboats etc. Theoretically it's a possible Moai site...except that is only buildable on ancient starts. Going to get a few archers no just to make sure I don't defend cities with a single unit.

Demographics:

[Krill]

Pin found me with a workboat up by the scout, so I'm not isolated by ocean.

He has four cities as well so he is ahead of me there.

[Krill]

Turn 41

Just whipped the worker, will overflow a temple and should work a priest from T43, for an expected Shrine T68 including movement. IW due eot42 and then I'm considering tech paths. MC is high up on my list for lumber mills at the capital, I don't really have another decent production city, and I don't want to chop it that hard.




Someone built Colossus. It wasn't Pin or Thoth. Oh yeah, met Thoth a few turns ago. I don't think I've ever bordered him before. I need to be rigourous with a defence.




Minor matter that Thoth just declared on Pindi. And have a gander at a rough dotmap. The cow city should be settled T46. The road is going to long way because that serves the on corn and gems city better, and with only two workers on the road at present it doesn't make any difference to current city settling times. Once the cow city is down I can have almost this entire area barb busted with three archers. With six archers it's trivial, so things are looking OK, even if demographics shows me at half of first place in crop yield.

[Tarkeel]

That looks like a very interesting area to dotmap and get settled. What's your reasoning for settling on the corn?

[Krill]

If you look at the world map, you see there are two fish, and one of them has to be orphaned from the mainland, and they are only workable by settling on either a hill pig or dry corn.

In other words, two of the resources have to be lost to access the other two. I figured the 3 food city tile is worth it, although I would prefer to settle on a hill for the defensive bonus. Furthermore the pig/rice/gem city is more important to get up and running, and can get up and running quicker with a missionary and chopped granary. It's basically resource maximising.

I'm really worker constrained. I can build easy 4 turn settlers from Blind Study but each settler needs about 24 worker turns to get the road in place, granary chop, food hooked. BS is slowing itself by getting the missionaries out as well but that's only 5 turns total.

I plan to do another update this turn because IW came in and now the tech path needs consideration.

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, the fish was cut off from the image I was looking at. That reasoning does make sense.

[Krill]

I'll try and do an overview post at some point tomorrow. Probably will not have a world map stitch but will have screenshots around Thoth and Pindi and an updated (colour coded) dot map.

[Krill]

Turn 46




Probably the worlds smallest empire, but I've just gotten to 5 cities with the seixth settler complete. Planning on whipping a settler out of RCT for the southern red dot at size 4 settled T55, and a settler out of the capital QE at size 6 (iron popped there under a forest, so the mine/chop finishes a lighthouse, and it needs to work two food, the iron and a priest so size 6 double whip is quickest I will get it out). The capital settler is for the northern red dot.

The settler just completed in BS will be for the gems city. This will lead to a slight pause, as I need 3 more missionaries for each city as they all need to pop borders, I build axes and more archers for barb busting.

I am now food limited, not happy limited for whipping.





The red dots are the next expansion wave, then black, then green backfill. I can't quite barb bust everything my side of the isthmus, so I'm being a bit more cautious and keeping archers on hill. I just got within one hit of losing an 80% defense against a barb axe at the triple seafood city.

The fifth city will be roaded next turn with religion. The triple seafood site will have a workboat from BS, plus two more following on. With the rice as well this is intended to be a critical location to get running, but I need the road in place so it actually lines up with the RCT whip (city settled T55, road completes T54) quite well.




Black are second wave. Needs the road in situ. I likely start this early with one worker but it's all flatland so I need axes to safely push forward. I either build them in BS (quite likely around work boat builds) or chop them in Methodology.





This land is pretty nice and a reason to rush to isthmus. Realistically I will need early CoL and triple whip court houses in the north, then palace jump to the south. A good number of forests available to make that happen.





Thoth is a worry. I need eyes on, but I don't have anything capable of reaching him. I need to get Machinery for Xbows to be secure, and MC>Machinery is a nicer path for me than Monarchy>Feudalism.





Pindicator and Thoth had a skirmish. No idea what over. Possibly scouting. Thoth settled a new city but not sure in what direction.





I have graphs on Thoth but they are not interesting, power is similar. Demographics are improving, but dor context this is the map: I'm working dry rice, dry wheat, two ocean fish, plains cow and a farmed flood plain. IMP is going to do heavy lifting for powering expansion without high food yields, and OR is a godsend for border pops. Barbs will have a large impact on what happens going forward.

[Krill]

Post but no real update. Thoth found me with a galley; I have cities moving forward and I should have the nexus in my control. I can cover all the cities as well. I'm getting to the point I can double whip libraries (yay FIN and OR) and the quickly regrow to work scientists, avoiding the need for Caste and to lose slavery. That's an easy way to get 150bpt without touching the slider. Shrine remains on track.

No, the reason I'm posting is I only just realised Thoth and Pindi have been at war for the past 6 turns and Thoth has completed the trieme quest so he has MC. The MC isn't a shcok, the number of triemes is a worry when I'm behind in tech due to the entertainingly off centre capital.







Tech path remains up in the air, although it will be brute forced via specialists and the slider will pay for cities and military; the shrine will support this approach well enough. I want Calendar to hook the dyes, sugar and banana, but I don't really need the happy. I will almost certainly go for MC and HBR and Construction next. CoL is only worthwhile once I have a good amount of population in cities so I can safely whip court houses in one go and then palace jump to the south. Machinery is high on the want list and makes sense in lots of ways.

[Krill]

Turn 83

I'll try and do a weekly update but I'm not promising anything.




Thoth scouted along all the way to Observer Bias, and he just saw the borders of Correlation on the way in. On the way out he saw Outlier get settled, and he has kept his galley as a sentry. Maybe he is watching the garrison to calcaulte what he needs to capture the city. Maybe he wants to see if I'm crazy enough to settle further forward. This is the limit of any expansion I expect to complete all game, at least in the direction of Thoth.

I doubt he is pleased with this, but I reckon he is also annoyed I will not trade him maps. I've re-offered him fish for fish, and thrown in marble on my side: Thoth has Calendar.

Thoth and Pindi have HBR and Construction and MC over me plus other stuff. I need time to get into a defensible position: Machinery, and Optics are the order of the day. I am backward. I doubt it will improve until I can afford to run lots of scientists and merchants. This area is fofucsed on granaries, lighthouses and the abilty to whip units if I need to.





The "Core" as it is has the libraries down and most of the markets. BS is about to buiold a forge to go for a high odds Engineer, but if Thoth is going to invade me it would come to late fo Xbows. I want Calendar to get the few big cities a bit bigger, but that is a luxury I don't have. Forges will gives +2 happy which is enough for the time being, and there is one easy ivory I can settle for.

There is no sentry net possible until I get Optics. There is no defence of this part of the map without heading to Optics. Construction, HBR, Guilds, none of this matters if Thoth gets to Optics and upgrades 5 caravels with there 1 unit transport capacity and wants to take a decap shot.





Commodore has built HG, but it doesn't look like his position is that fantastic. Solid, definite leader, but lots more steps to get through. I'm mildly pleased with the recovery so far, pop is not horrific.





Commodore is up 46 food, that's the spread between first and last place. My GNP is tech at 80% but with some KTB. I think Commodore has Colossus, and he has Roosevelt, so it will be interesting to see if he falls off.