[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[Old Harry]

If you take the eastern one they'll find it harder to culturally steal the corn. If you want to annoy agg Rome...

Would expanding to the west be more productive until you need the extra happy?

[YossarianLives]

If you take the eastern one they'll find it harder to culturally steal the corn. If you want to annoy agg Rome...

That line of tiles with the corn and copper is 5 tiles east of our capital, and 9 tiles west of the Roman capital. I hope they wouldn't be annoyed by either city on our side of the corn. I'm hoping that this isn't even a border city with them, but maybe that's being too optimistic.

Turn 36:

More food down south looks pretty nice. I'll go SW-SW with our scout next turn.

Would expanding to the west be more productive until you need the extra happy?

Those overview shots give an updated view of our surroundings. If we settle west, we'd probably go for the dry corn, and originally that was the next city I was planning. But then I changed the micro so the next settler is coming out of Silent Neighbor, and I figured it might be better to send him east rather than backtrack north and west. Plus, the earlier we can start working that gold, the better. We really need a boost to our economy. I'm receptive to arguments for the west, though, if you guys think that would be better. The settler isn't completing until T45, but the worker micro will start gearing towards the eastern city pretty soon so now's the time to decide.

Demos and graphs and whatnot:

Hmm, that power spike kind of looks like an Axe, no? Gladiator's haven't settled a second city yet, so that would mean they have copper in Rome's BFC. Hopefully that means no iron?

Lots of pop increases this turn. Orgy's capital grew to size 5, Afrique's capital grew to size 4, Care Bears grew but I'm not sure if it's their cap or second city, and Eagles & Condor's settled their second city.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 37:

Well, I guess this means no neighbors directly south of us. Probably a good thing, right? We really do need to find someone else and get diplo / alliances going to counter the silence from the Gladiators, though. Maybe we should have kept going east with the scout after all.

I took another overview shot of the west, to give a better view of where cities over there could go. I'm thinking NE of the corn and N or NE of the sheep? Then again, a city SW of the corn would be really good. In the south, a city NW of the fish would get pig and could share the gold. Or, putting it NE of the pigs adds some river tiles. Either location would make a pretty good Moai.

It looks like I forgot to switch SN off the settler and back onto a quechua to grow this turn, but after I hit end turn I did remember and made the switch.

Demos:

Ponies grew their cap to size 5. Since it's ranked below a size 4 city, that makes me think they're working some unimproved tiles. Eggheads grew their cap to size 4. Dinosaurs finished a tech, I think it was The Wheel. Care Bears actually settled their third city this turn!

[Old Harry]

Are care bears imp or exp?

I love sw of the corn as a city site, but until you up your happy cap it won't work all its good tiles so it might as well be two cities, one of which grows cottages for the cap...

[YossarianLives]

Nope, Care Bears are Vickie (Fin, Phi) of India (Myst, Mining), so they should have one of the slower starts in this game...

I'm still very conflicted about the dot map. I'll probably play out some more sims, but since I don't have the maintenance set correctly, the info I can get will be limited.

Civstats shows that Gladiators did settle their second city this turn, as did Maga's sub. Hopefully the GG city was settled away from us, and that unit (axe or maybe chariot?) that was produced earlier is just to garrison the city. But again, probably wishful thinking, and the smart move would be to prepare for a rush...

[YossarianLives]

Turn 38:

Our quechua will leave our borders and start exploring northeast soon. The scout will go northwest next turn. We'll get growth and a new quechua out of Server Problems on T40. We're on track to whip the settler out of Silent Neighbor on T44, to be settled (with a road connection) on T46. I didn't do any more sims but I think we're locked into the eastern city because the workers are already shifting towards that direction. Since we don't have AH and can't pasture the cows yet, I think the city next to the corn is the better option. We'll farm the corn and chop out a terrace ASAP, so it'll pop borders and start working the gold fast enough.

GG's power spike actually isn't enough to be an axe. At 4k soldier points, it's almost certainly a chariot. Looks like they got another warrior on top of that, also. What do you guys think about writing to them again, telling them we know they have a chariot, they're not going to be able to get a surprise attack against us, so they should send that to their other neighbor. Fortunately, they have found our borders yet. We approached them from the south, and then brought our scout back east, so that might have thrown them off. I took a close look at their visible lands, and there are no forests missing or mystery hammer yields, so I can't see where they settled or where their horses are. I'm definitely wishing we had left moiraine over there to scout their surroundings better.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 39:

Nothing interesting revealed by either scouting unit. We'll grow and finish the quechua next turn, which will move south to cover the worker prepping the new city.

The Gladiator's capital grew to size 4. EggHeads also had a pop growth this turn. Dinosaurs planted their second city, then 2-pop whipped their capital back down to size 2. Ponies 1-pop whipped their capital down to size 4. Finishing TW gave us a small power boost, and turning research back on while we work on Pottery with all the pre-req's puts us in 3rd for GNP.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 40:

The land that the scout is currently uncovering should be about halfway between us and our western neighbor, if the distance between us and GG is any indication. The quechua in the north will move to that hill next and then probably head back into our borders to be available in case we need it. Server Problems grew to size 3 and is borrowing the Corn for one turn to finish our next worker on T42. The quechua that just completed is heading south as planned.

Demos:

[YossarianLives]

Cal and I chatted about the turn a bit today.

YossarianLives
I'm just glad the gladiators haven't shown up yet with a chariot to tear through our cities
Caledorn
Do you really think they're that reckless?
YossarianLives
Did you see my suggestion that we send them another email telling them we know exactly what they have and they won't be able to catch us unawares?
They might be. They built the chariot, and we have nothing that defends against it
Caledorn
Yeah, do you think we should do that?
YossarianLives
I'm not sure. Conflicted whether it would help, or just make them think we're scared
I am scared though. Like I said, they could wreck our game with one chariot and a little rng luck
Caledorn
Yeah, but if they think we are scared, they'll know we're a prime target
We wouldn't be scared if we could defend ourselves...
YossarianLives
But their scout hasn't found our borders, so if they are rushing someone, you'd think they'd go after the neighbor that they've already located, right?
Caledorn
Yeah, I would call it extremely unlucky if they actually come for us with that chariot
YossarianLives
We are getting the copper as soon as possible. We'll 1-turn the terrace in Silent Neighbor the same turn pottery comes in, and I'll make sure we have the workers in place to road and mine it immediately.
But I wonder if we should go for hunting-> archery soon for more protection
Caledorn
Doesn't chariots have bonuses vs axemen?
I think that if we're really spooked, we need archers
YossarianLives
And if we do, then would we want hunting before ah for the research bonus? I hate delaying ah anymore though, since we have cows and sheep that need to be improved
Caledorn
How long to complete ah?
YossarianLives
Yeah, axes are no good against chariots
Caledorn
This is something we definitely need lurker feedback on..
YossarianLives
I'm not sure, some six to eight turns I imagine
Caledorn
If you can come up with some quick scenarios I will ask scooter to take a look?
Hunting should be like 4 turns max then?
YossarianLives
Yeah, hunting should be quick
Caledorn
And is that research bonus really worth it? It's miniscule?
YossarianLives
But four more turns of not working improved food is pretty bad
Caledorn
Maybe one turn if we're lucky I'd guess without knowing the exact math
Yeah that's my thought too
YossarianLives
Research bonus would be 20%
Yeah, probably one turn
Caledorn
This is a gambit
Either we play safe and get archery asap
Which means we'll be set back behind the other teams
Or we get ah and then go for archery
YossarianLives
Yeah, what really needs to happen is gladiators need to get back to us confirming we have a NAP!
Caledorn
That I consider unlikely
YossarianLives
Yeah...
Caledorn
Since they haven't responded yet, it's fairly safe to say that they're not going to commit until they know what neighbour they want to hit with their praets
which basically means that we should either consider going after them with some axes (which would be a stupid idea really)
or we just have to hope they'll opt for their other neighbour
the distance between us is fairly spacious though
how would you say we're doing overall, compared to the other teams?
YossarianLives
Right now it seems we're middle of the pack. But we have momentum. 10 turns ago we were near the bottom
Our cities well be set to explode in growth soon
Just waiting for ah to have some decent tiles to work
Caledorn
then, I'll say we should just go ahead and do the gambit opening
which means AH->Hunting->Archery
if GG's chariot is headed our way, we lose
and the gambit didn't play out
if they're headed for the other guys, our gambit pays off, and we'll be safely put in the middle to the top of the teams
I can't see that we have much other choice if we want to stay competitive
YossarianLives
Yep. And if they come after us, they can't eliminate us yet, so our new goal becomes wrecking their game
Caledorn
yeah, sounds like a good plan

tl;dr

We're concerned about GG, so we're pushing Hunting=>Archery a little further up the research chain, but otherwise pretty much sticking to the plan and crossing our fingers that they're not sending an army out against us.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 41:

We've uncovered another copper up north. A city on the snow hill wouldn't be too horrible once the borders pop, notwithstanding the Gladiators. At least scouting up here shows us that they're not trying to send anything sneaky at us from this direction quite yet.

The capital gave the corn back to Silent Neighbor, since it can finish the worker next turn without it. I'm thinking it's better to road the plains hill since that allows road movement between the cities that doesn't cross a river, but it does lose a worker turn getting up there. Should I just road the farm south of the city instead? In Silent Neighbor we're still on track to whip the settler on T44. We do have a few hammers invested in a quechua though, so we can whip that out at any point if we need it. The other quechua will be in the city next turn, on it's way towards the third city location.

A wolf ended up next to our scout, so it looks like we're finally going to have our first barb battle of the game. We're on a jungle hill so I'm hoping we can even get out of this untouched. The water in the fog is very interesting. There's ocean south, west and northwest of us, but then in the middle of it all there is one fresh water tile. Could it be that we've hit the edge of the map, and Gladiators are our only neighbors? I can't believe that's the case though, there must be a land passage around somewhere.

Demos and graphs:

Looks like GG built another warrior. I was commenting to Caledorn about how weird it is that Orgy haven't settled their second city yet. Well, I missed an Orgy whip earlier, and it looks like they did overflow it into a Wonder that they completed this turn. I'll check the event log next turn, but I guess this was probably SH.