[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Zed-F]

Where will you send the settler? Will your boats have returned by then?

[scooter]

Turn 117

Lots to cover, so let's start with the foreign news:



Nice of him to build that for mackoti.



... I guess I would have expected it to be the other way around?



Okay, I promise I'm going to do my best not to spam about this every single turn and be TOO insufferably whiny... but just know I fully expect this to be the story of the game. 2 of those 3 GLH-enhanced trade routes Plako is receiving are completely free. Sigh. Just trust me when I say we learned in PB8 that GLH is still ridiculously powerful on this type of map - especially when almost all your cities are coastal like his (we passed on rushing for it since we had so many inland cities). I think Plako might just have the best two wonders in this entire game. Well, he went through the hassle of building them, so credit where credit is due, nicely done. In an 18 player game it's practically inevitable that people will give him routes. Anyway, I'll move on to various domestic things. The farm finished at Pirates and the settler completed at Bulldogs, so I did some tile shuffling. I'll spoiler it since there's 3 of them in a row, but if you want me to change it, let me know pindicator:

Figured we'll want a Courthouse there at Bulldogs, and it needs to grow a bit so I gave it back the rice and got off the quarry. I also went ahead and swapped Tigers to a Courthouse:



Also went ahead with the settler at TB:



We can get off that grass cottage and speed it by a turn. Let me know how you want to configure it. I'm fine with this... I'd normally get off the cottage immediately here, but I figure we care about commerce above all else here, so it's worth a second thought. Actually... we don't even lose any commerce immediately by switching to the mine (just a few turns of growing into a hamlet), so I think I'll make the switch.

Anyway, we won't really have the military to fling this settler into a vulnerable spot, so I'm kinda thinking we put this guy into the Wheat backfill spot on Big East island where it can safely sit with no military for a short while. We're going to have a minor logistics puzzle to figure out too to even get him over, but I think it's doable.



Another thought: Bulldogs may need to go onto a unit now instead of a Courthouse. Since we can finally retreat those 2 units on the Orioles border next turn, I think we shuffle the Orioles unit over east so we can get another real unit over on our eastern islands. Builds:



I did end turn, but there's no way it rolls tonight, so I'll make any requested changes (plus the ones talked about in this post) in a couple hours.

[NobleHelium]

What is mh, some sort of Industrious?

[scooter]

Where will you send the settler? Will your boats have returned by then?

Crossposted . But here's the Wheat spot I referenced in my post that would make some sense (old picture, not current):



Doesn't need military protection immediately. Anyway, the boat is already going to be back for a settler that's headed to the far northeast, so it can grab this settler at that point. Although I'd kinda like to take a military unit too, and that's one unit too many. I should be able to work something out, though.

[scooter]

What is mh, some sort of Industrious?

Yeah, Qin I think? Which is... Ind/Pro? I think?

[NobleHelium]

Yeah Qin is Bismarck.

[scooter]

Where will you send the settler? Will your boats have returned by then?

Okay let's answer this a little better since I wasn't satisifed with the logistics just yet. So I forgot about one pretty wonderful detail:



This worker completes EoT, and then the galley completes the very next turn. So that gives us 2 galleys to work with:



So okay, Randy Moss is at the east side of the screen, and Valiants galley will be ready to roll in 2T. The first galley will likely grab the settler 1SW of Red Wings and the Spear 1NE of Tigers. The second galley will grab the second settler and the capital worker (I'll find something for it to do for a few turns - likely cottage that plains river). The worker will get dropped at Big East temporarily to make room on the galley. It'll probably actually drop on that forest 1W of the Wheat to chop it for Valiants before we settle on it later.
Then the trailing galley will grab one of the military units from Wolverines on the way up to the northeast island. Pindicator and I talked it over, and we're going to try to put 2 settlers on that northeast island. So initially we get 2 settler and 2 military units onto the island, then the faster of the two galleys will bounce back to Big East to grab 2 workers.

Barbarians is the most likely issue we'll run into, so we definitely need 2 units up there. However, the island is oddly a lot safer from opponents than you'd think, since retep is certainly not boating that island, and it's sheltered from Commodore via our Big East island. So that's the current plan. As always, could change any time and probably will since that's just how things seem to go for us.

[Zed-F]

Thanks for the update.

[scooter]

Oh! I totally forgot to mention something last night. Azza apparently teched Alphabet and offered us Open Borders. I accepted. It didn't really do much for our core cities, but all of our island cities got a nice boost in trade route income.

[antisocialmunky]

You could always just burn down all of Plako's coastal cities that he's going to spam up, you are the vikings wtih Circumnav after all.