[SPOILERS] Serdoas and Nobles Thread with a little bit of Gaspar sprinkled in

[NobleHelium]

There are no lurker civs. So yeah someone must have 1 pop right now. I went ahead and dropped our research to 60% since we still finish it in 2t and still don't lose any commerce to rounding.

Upon further looking at the map it looks like our directions to expand are south, southwest and north. So I'm liking the copper as the third city more, transitioning into the borderish city with Donovan and then settling the desert hill with stone fifth. After simming last night I definitely don't like the desert hill as the third city anymore, it's just not good when it wants to suck the wheat from Pagle and we haven't unlocked the other food at Pagle yet. Keep in mind that Donovan does not know where our capital is or how far away we are. Techwise I think Archery into Mathematics is a good idea.

Also, I'm guessing the turn that CH missed is when he was supposed to revolt to Slavery. Why he didn't do it anyway the next turn is a mystery.

[GermanJoey]

Yeah, we were going to try to use Novice's observer tool instead of adding a lurker civ, but then it ended up messing Caledorn's server somehow.

[Serdoa]

I agree with the tech-choice Noble. I tried some sims yesterday, but going for Mono is really not worth it I feel. We can build Chariots as soon as we have Horses connected but I feel we really want Archers for defense, especially if we make a hard push out to 6 cities (which I would prefer).

As for the cities, I agree as well with copper being next. Has added benefit of giving us copper which isn't the worst thing in the world. Depending on how Donovan settles towards us, we should think about settling on the hill 2W of your gold/corn city instead. I know it is not as good, but it is a perfect choke point, prevents any settling in our direction and has him either go through that city or move onto flat land if he ever tries to attack us. If he isn't using Chariots and Impis, but then a mixed force of Axes and Spears on the hills behind is his doom regardless.

[NobleHelium]

I realize you said "depending" which is a good disclaimer, but the forward hill doesn't really choke any better than the backward hill. What it does is claim a bit more land, which is okay but we're kinda fighting over a little bit of land when we can spend that time expanding elsewhere where there's lots more room. It slightly increases our chances of being able to plant a city south of it, but it's still iffy either way.

It does have the advantage if not having a hill in front of it, which is good and may or may not be important later, but it's going to be very difficult to plant on the forward hill straight from the copper. That said, Donovan still does not have a second city so either he's got a two worker opening or a bad opening. If he doesn't plant in another couple of turns I'm going to call it a bad opening. Anyway, if we want to plant on the forward hill which isn't out of the question, I think we need to do the desert hill fourth and then the forward hill fifth. Which is pretty late, which is why I generally prefer the backward plains hill. But we'll see what Donovan does.

One other option is to move the copper city 1W, which trades the sheep for the deer and is otherwise the same. That invalidates the plains hill which makes it very risky and if we don't get the forward hill it becomes a mess. But it does make going from the copper straight to the forward hill a more realistic scenario. I do not recommend this, but it is an option.

Actually I just noticed a big problem with the copper city. It orphans a fish. If we want 1S instead it becomes a super strong city (also picking up jungled gold) but we'll need culture for the copper and also leave a grass hill unused in the middle. I think we still need to do that though, plant on the shore. We might need three workers before the second settler...

Some general things:
1) Donovan started spending EP on us (max) so we lost graphs, I reassigned to get them back. I'm not sure if we should even bother spending on Borsche now, he's very far ahead and we could spend on taotao instead. He probably will get research visibility on us if he keeps spending max either way, so maybe we just ignore him.
2) CH's quechua showed up south of the capital with Woodsman 1. It doesn't have C1 so it's not really a threat, and our workers will be away from the border before he gets into range, but it could be an issue should we decide to send a warrior out or if it hangs around. We'll see in the next few turns.
3) Very important, there is marble in the south that we can definitely claim! We definitely want that.
4) Also important, the sheep at Pagle is forested! That changes micro around there definitely.
4) For the lurkers, we met taotao in the northwest when his scout appeared. He knows Donovan so it's safe to say he's our northwest neighbor.

[Serdoa]

One of our scouts has Woodsman 2 btw.

Rest I'm going to respond to later when I've done a little bit of work.

[NobleHelium]

Is your response going to beat this?




Overspark could use some improvement but I think the rest is pretty great. We're probably not going to get Stonehenge t65-70 but there's definitely a stone wonder in there somewhere. Even Great Wall on the border might be good.

[Serdoa]

Looks good Noble. I'd like to get one more city between crab and deer please.

Btw: We tech Archery next, or any reason not too? I know I've delayed that normally forever in the past, but with not getting copper till ... what, T70? ... it's necessary I think.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah Archery next. We can do an archer in Pagle pretty soon.

[NobleHelium]

CH has retreated so I moved our warrior out.

Here's what I'm thinking now - if copper is going to be so slow anyway, maybe it's better to plant on the plains hill for third city after all? I'm not sold on it, but with Donovan still not having planted a city it's tempting. We need to make a decision in two turns when the new worker finishes, to decide whether to build a settler or another worker next. I am doing a bit more simming, and doing another worker doesn't necessarily rule out planting the plains hill as third city.

As such, I think we can poke around a little bit with the warrior (at least until the plains hill unless we meet a unit from Donovan) and see if we see any movement from him. Our capital is completely safe unless a barbarian warrior spawns and meanders north or CH turns around.

Updated sandbox to next turn.

Edit: here's a super greedy opening...




The first chop of the game is right after Math to build the monument in the desert hill city. I think it's actually better to do the monument before the granary at the plains hill city, which allows us to get creative with culture to claim the copper early. You'll see soon...

[NobleHelium]

I think this is about as perfect as it gets.




Gold city pops its borders eot60. See where the magic happens?