[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.

[plako]

This is exactly the situation where just running once the sandbox would have helped. BW should have been postponed and Wheel/Agriculture researched instead. You probably should take Agriculture then instead of Wheel next and prepare to improe that Rice when you finish Agriculture.

[Caledorn]

Absolutely, plako! So that's one thing learned well for the future

I have had a stressing weekend, so little reporting. Apparently I've lost the screens for T30, and I have no idea how that happened. But here's the screens for T31-33 at least.

T31

T32

T33

[Caledorn]

Here's a short turn report for T34, as nothing substantial happened. Our scout was attacked by the lion, and won - since it will take 4 turns to heal him, I decided to just keep moving with him. He's lived for a long time and has been extremely useful, but letting him sit and rest for 4 turns is probably not the best decision. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong though, as he is in an excellent position to heal if that is a better course of action.

I also moved the warrior back from the lion, onto the hill, as I plan on keeping that warrior around as defense for the third city I am planning to build. As placing that city will start converting animals into warriors and spawning warriors, defense for the outpost cities is important.

I have included a suggested dotmap. I am a bit uncertain about how good it is, so I am hoping for some good feedback on it (Dot 5 has fish 2S1W of it by the way). For instance, should I build the copper city (marked as 2) before building the city I have marked as 1? Should the copper city be placed differently? Are any of my suggestions up for considering to be "filler cities", and should be down prioritised if better alternatives come up? Should I expand aggressively towards the two golds in the NW?

Turn Screens T34

Dotmap Suggestion

Remember that the option to log in is available to you guys if you want a better overview and perhaps screenshots to use if you want to create a dotmap of your own! The password is still just "cal" without the quotes.

[Haram]

It looks you are working unimproved plain hill instead of grass hill mine.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

It looks you are working unimproved plain hill instead of grass hill mine.

This was indeed the case and has been corrected as of T35.

T35

I didn't take any pictures on T35, only after doing some moves on T36. I still need to log in and move the workers but I did not have a plan to follow and didn't have time this morning before work to come up with a plan. Also, I need to decide on where to send the new settler. I decided on using some of the settler overflow for a worker since we are shot on worker labor. City #2 put a turn of production into a warrior to finish growing to size three. It is now working pigs, a forest mine, and a forest watermill. Great hammer production with very little worker turns invested. We can pump some military out of here as needed.








As for where to settle the new city, I'll use Cal's dot map as a guide. This is, after all, still his game. I"m just a caretaker. Under the circumstances, though, I want to make the best decision possible so I'm going to use his dot map as a guide, not as sacrosanct. Plako, please give some input if you have a moment. For reference, Cal's dot map:



As of T36, both workers are unmoved and free to do whatever. We do not have the wheel. Location #1 can get trade routes without a road network and has an improved tile available (either the cow or the mine). I can tile swap the capital back onto the pigs and put city #2 on the flood plains or the cottage. Right now, we can chop or mine and that's about it.

I'm considering moving the worker that is currently E of the ivory NE/NE and starting to chop the forest. I'll probably mine the hill next, unless I do some simming (btw, is there an updated sandbox anywhere?). City #1 location can grow to size 2 and work the cows and a mine, or size 3 and work a cow and two mines, then pour hammers into military or IMP settlers. Once we are able to build cottages, we can then start incubating cottages for the capital. This feels like a pretty solid bet for the settler. I don't see anything immediately that looks better, given worker positioning and our current tech situation.

The other worker, currently 2N of pigs, I think I'll move it SW to the GRH and chop into a worker or settler, whichever is in production. Then mine the hill so both cities can use it. Ideally I'd move something straight down to the rice but I hate wasting worker turns and as long as city #2 is utilizing the hammers (settler!) then the rice isn't hugely important given the tiles it can currently work. The worker that city is currently building can get the rice fixed up quickly enough, especially if chops are supporting the production of that worker.

That's the best I have just glancing at this situation. Without a current sandbox I won't do much better than that. I don't micro in my head, I micro through iterations. Plako, if you have any suggestions, kindly post them. I'd like to leave Cal in good shape so he'll have something positive to come back to when he is able to resume playing.

[plako]

#1 is just a filler not bringing in enough value to be worth settling early.

#2 is bringing in copper so probably best to go there, if there is sufficient warrior escort. However I would move city 1N to get Pigs in BFC. Alternatively wasting flood plains tile and settling above it would bring pigs immediately workable. Might make the dot map very hard though so probably not worth it.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

#1 is just a filler not bringing in enough value to be worth settling early.

#2 is bringing in copper so probably best to go there, if there is sufficient warrior escort. However I would move city 1N to get Pigs in BFC. Alternatively wasting flood plains tile and settling above it would bring pigs immediately workable. Might make the dot map very hard though so probably not worth it.

I view #1 as a snowball booster and not much else. It works a cow and grass hills and pumps units. The good news is that everything it immediately needs is first ring. At current tech rate, we're still 13t from having the wheel, so anywhere else we found is going to lack trade routes, costing us at least 2g/turn.



Are you available on gchat? I'm logged in right now trying to figure this out.

Dot #2 is by far a stronger city, but we are not in position to settle it immediately. The closest unit is 5t away, which is 3t behind the settler. I can take a chance on leaving city #2 empty because it can produce a warrior in 2t and has second ring borders, so safety is not an issue there just now. We're also good on happy cap until we grow again without a garrison. I think we could take a chance on not having a warrior immediately for the bronze city because geography is giving us good visibility in the area now from capital culture. Only the tile NW of the PH is an unknown. I've moved the wounded scout in this direction to fogbust to try to mitigate this concern. By next EoT the area will be fogbusted completely aside from the land jutting into the lake.

The issue for me is increasing expenses without increasing research capacity. It is taking us a long time to tech and we aren't seriously increasing commerce at all until we get some cottages. Getting a trade route at the wheel for our existing cities will help some. A trade route at the next city feels pretty critical to me or we'll delay access to cottages even longer.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This is more or less what I was afraid of, moving toward a position without any kind of military escort. Now I need to see if I can figure out precisely when barbs will enter borders. Our warrior can be there on T40. I can settle the city on T38. Or, I can push closer toward gold, with only the single worker in tow as support but this feels like a terrible decision. The worker has one movement point left, the western warrior is unmoved, as is the settler.



Eastern warrior engaging in fundraising. The plantation did nothing to the yield on the grass tile so it has now served its purpose.



Dreylin founded Buddhism.

[plako]

I wouldn't take risks with that barb. If that means delaying settling by 1T that is ok. Settling on top of plains hill should be considered. On flat land there is a fair there is way bigger chance of Catastrophy in warrior-warrior fights.

Now looking at it again south would have been decent settling direction too, even if it is good to claim copper too. 1E from Sheep would have been good. Offering also river connection + windmill tile.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T37



We begin the dance. I decided that the PH is nice, but not worth giving up two second ring pigs. If the barb delays me settling the city a bit, so be it. NW/NW of the settler (hidden by the banana) is a lion, so there's that to navigate as well. The longer I sit and think about it, the more I want those gold resources. We're IMP so settlers are cheap. The constant dose of gold commerce is going to be quite good, so settling in that direction seems like a good idea. If the barb warrior comes closer I'll skip settling the T38 plains location and scoot further NW, keeping an eye on the lion with the scout. This may end up just a waste of time dancing around, but until the warrior arrives to defend the settlement nothing is certain anyway, just reacting to the barbs. I wish I had just settled the weaker filler city to the east and started up on mines. It's a cheap investment now and not worth much in the long run but it would have grown quickly enough to size 3-4 to then churn out a steady stream of units or settlers. Absent a sandbox, though, I'll just have to mull this over and leave the second guessing for later.