[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

That's bad news He has metal already hooked up, we don't even have our copper city planted yet. Keep checking for horses. Second dot map looks the best (if the orange spot is on a hill), it is more secure than trying to get two cities up there in time.

[The Black Sword]

Ok then, switching the road toward plan 2:


That little patch of fog will be pretty much uncovered when we found the city, so the scout can either continue south or go back to poke around dtay's border.

The power graph contains unfortunate news though:


That one looks like an actual unit to me. Copper will be the first thing we hook up at this new city site and we can start an axe immediately. After the axe we can chop in the granary at size 2 once the missionary from Jetboy arrives for the OR bonus. Agriculture should come in just in time for the workers to start the wheat farm right after the copper is hooked.

We revolted to slavery and OR this turn and also founded Judaism in Dr Tachyon:

Which might be useful down the line if we get lucky with a lot of free spreads, but for the moment, just means no free Hindu spread so close to capital.
That worker you see is coming out next turn after the revolution. He can immediately chop the plains forest into a Missionary in Jetboy, as it regrows to size 6. It will be unhappy there, but that should wear off after the next settler build.

Also, any idea why dtay might be researching Masonry? Writing was the last tech he finished. Must be a Wonder run?

[Jowy]

Wonder, or a long-term strike against us. Masonry -> Maths -> Construction. We are a good target: We are behind in military and slightly in expansion, and we have a wonder, religion and an eventual shrine to covet. Don't get too scared though, just by keeping up a decent garrison we can fend off any 1v1 attacks, and we can prepare for them with research visiblity (city visibility soon?) and by keeping an unit near his borders as a look-out. I'm not too concerned, just gotta make sure we have more than warriors defending our cities, especially the border city. If you think he built an axe, we might wanna keep our scout as a look-out for now. An axe could do some damage against our warriors, and we know that he scouted us and knows we only have warriors.

[Ceiliazul]

Wow agriculture on t61 might be some kind of record! good luck, and thanks for reporting.

[The Black Sword]

Masonry -> Maths -> Construction.

Yeah, if not a wonder, then that makes the most sense. I just couldn't figure out why he wouldn't go Maths first without a wonder. Had a thought though; he's Philosophical, maybe he plans to bulb maths and Masonry is a good choice while he waits.

Wow agriculture on t61 might be some kind of record!

If this wheat hadn't shown up we might have been able to push it even later .

[Jowy]

Ah bulbs! I should use those sometime, maybe I'd remember that they exist. I can't find the bulb paths, but he could be trying to bulb Theology or Monarchy as well.

[The Black Sword]

Bulb lists

I'm not sure how he'd get anything else than a scientist this early, which goes for maths. A theology bulb with a prophet sounds very powerful, but generating it would be difficult.

[The Black Sword]

First whip of the game:


Dr Tachyon:

Needs another chop before 1 pop whipping the Granary. Then 1W can be farmed for faster growth. I'm not too sure what to put the overflow into, thinking workboat to explore the south island and should be able to get Sailing in time to regrow the rest on a galley.

Scout:

[The Black Sword]

City 3, renamed The Turtle was founded and dtay's scout got himself into a spot of bother:


I felt 64% was too risky though, so I let him be. Actually, I think I would have done so anyway, we've gotten the land we wanted here, signaling peaceful intentions is a good idea, hopefully he'll be similarly kind with our scout. I'm just putting the hammers in the granary for the moment, since a warrior will be upgraded to a spear in the cue. Copper will be hooked next turn and it can start an axe.

I did some simming for this city site, and I really like it, we only spend ~3 turns at size 3 before the border will pop and we can improve the cows. Then probably grow to size 4 or 5 and whip the settler for cow/gold/fp site. It should be a great hammer site long term.



The scout ran into another barb warrior and I decided to take your advice, turn around and keep an eye on dtay's border for a while.



Interesting border pattern there, I was thinking 2NE next turn, the desert hill might be a good option too.

Demos:


Considering we just sank 75h into the Oracle and settled our third city so far away, I thought we'd be further behind in food/hammers.

[Jowy]

Wasn't that scout there before..?

I checked older pics, T54 he was also right next to that tile. He's keeping an eye on us.
Makes me wary, but we've got copper now and he could just be doing it for defensive purposes like I had planned with our scout.

EDIT: You have a sign "unit T57" on his lands, what unit was that? If it was an axe, it could attack us on T64 (if he didn't road outside his borders).