Actually, we need to decide on the third city site this turn. It`s a tough call, as there are good arguments for all our three proposed sites. My thinking is that the city NW of Borte is of least priority because it will demand a lot of worker turns to be set up and it`ll be quite slow before it gets to size 2. It`s also strictly worse in an economical perspective, as we don`t get to work the furs in the near future.
So, that leaves us with two candidate sites. You`ve made a good case for building S of the furs. I`m willing to go for that site next, as we`re moving towards the disputed area with GJ. Note that if we build both these cities, we`ll waste a grassland forest to the east. I`d rather have two good city sites going asap than working all the tiles tbf, but it`s something to bear in mind. Seriously, placing the cities on this map is just so hard.
I checked in game that dtay has two cities atm. If he lost a city to the barbs it could potentially be a big blow to him.
Joey was spooked it seems! He moved his warrior 1S to the next hill. Is someone doing an ambitious farmers gambit!?
Look at this area! We won`t have a chance to colonize horse island though. Dtay or his neighbors certainly will claim it.
- The argument I originally made for the city South of the furs was assuming it had horses in its BFC. Without that, the best it can do above size 2 is to share a grassland cottage and/or grass hill mine with the capital - not bad options, but limited. It's still in a pretty good strategic spot and a long-term monster, obviously.
- You're right about that grassland forest, and if we don't place a city E of the horses now, we should probably delay it significantly: Enough that it would be better to eventually place it on the tile you originally marked C. It's too much of a back-lines location, and adds too few new resources/tiles to be a mid-term priority.
- I think I still prefer the southern location, almost entirely as a strategic move toward GJ (supporting a push for the border city by the corn for city 5 or imaginably even city 4) but it isn't an easy call. Those two extra shared cottages for the eastern city would certainly make a difference; my main concern with it is that it would mean either a long, unsettled route between Borte and the front city with GJ, or delaying one or the other of that city or the pig/corn site until our sixth! (And the next front city - whether the sheep and silver site with GJ or the copper plant with dtay or something more conservative - until at least our seventh....)
GJ's warrior move is sensible. He doesn't have metal units yet, and this way he should be able to ensure his city is safe. When we move to the hill that gives visibility on Sparta, he'll probably move SW to the grassland forest, which would enable him to enter the city before we could attack (whether it would otherwise be empty, or whether he just wants to be 100% sure we won't win with a lucky die roll).
Honestly no idea what's going on with dtay. Maybe he planted a city right at the turn roll again between T42 and T43, and the barbs took it this turn? But in that case I'm not sure how to account for the increase in score (that retroactively didn't happen because he played differently after the reload) in the middle of last turn - unless he got his third and fourth settlers out really close together. Or I'm completely misreading civstats: Always a possibility!
Agreed. I think the decisive factor here is the fact that we move towards our neighbor with the city south of the furs. Without that city, we really can`t defend the city east of the river bordering Joey, as the supply lines would be very long. As we`re about to build a city sharing tiles with Borte, the need for another tile sharing city is less for now. Borte needs most of its strong tiles itself. We can think about the placement of the city east of Borte later. We shouldn`t wait too long building a cottage sharing city, I think.
Also, we need to decide on when to build those border cities down south. Maybe something like fourth and sixth? I`m thinking about building NW with our fifth settler. As Muqa will soon reach its happiness limit - how about making a settler there soonish? We obviously have a lot of other things to build there, though. I can`t wait for it to pop borders. We have some forests in its bfc as well, to speed up the development.
Yeah - it's a really tough call. A city south of the furs could (and would) share one cottage with Borte at least. I think we can get Pottery in 5 if we turn tech on at this point and not run out of money, even with the new city (not actually tested). What's the plan for the tech path after that?
On city order: The front city with GJ would only have two improved tiles any time soon: The corn and (once we spend the 8 worker turns to move to, chop, and improve it) a mine shared with Toregene. It'll desperately want a barracks, a granary, and Iron Working. The frustrating thing is that the hill where GJ's warrior was standing would be a much safer and initially-better city for him than anything we can plant in the area, even though it's significantly closer to our capital than his, so we can't be sure we're not in a race for that region. The NW city is obviously a much better city early, with corn, pigs, two forests to chop, and a hill to mine all in its first ring, plus the oasis it can steal from Borte, and a second-ring grass hill to mine and river grassland to cottage for which it won't need to pop borders since they're in Borte's third ring.
The other option is whatever our western front city against GJ turns out to be. The Sheep + Silver city won't be easy to defend at the same time as the rest of our empire, and doesn't really block off any territory for us apart from what it directly claims. The plains hill option in that direction will still be there for a later city, and doesn't have great first-ring tiles to work either - and the tiles in its BFC that Borte's third ring claims are ... uninspiring.
I agree with starting a Settler in Muqa once it's grown onto its resources, and with assisting its infrastructure via chops. And I agree it'll be great to see it pop its second-ring borders!
I decided to go for the city south of the furs. We`re ready to settle Toregene next turn. A barb could still interfere with our plans, but it`s very unlikely.
We`ll have a few turns to decide on where to build our fourth city. I think it all boils down to whether GJ is thinking about building an even more aggressive city on that hill north of his existing city or not. If we think we can get away with waiting some turns, the city with corn and pigs is of course a much better city short term.
Our warrior got a good view of the second greek city. GJ obviously renamed it since last time I checked. It looks pretty similar to Muqa. That`s not unexpected.
I`ve been doing some thinking. Our city 5 SW of Borte is just indefensible without a city close to it. Maybe it`s not a bad idea to review that hill plant after all. It has this 2/4/0 copper tile there for our taking, as well as corn. It looks like it`ll block off the land from Joey very effectively. The city is still on a hill. It`ll be really hard for Joey to take it before he gets catapults. And another point: If we build that city we have a fair share of territory with him. (Assuming 14 tiles between our capitals). He planted aggressively towards us, I say we do the same to him. As you rightly point out, our city east of the river is.. not very good before Iron Working.
The key here is controlling the tile 2N of his city in order to be safe from forks. We`ll soon enough have two cities producing culture on that tile, so we should be able to wrest control from Joey at least in the mid game.
So, do you feel like a change of plans?
Btw: I haven`t thought much about the tech path yet. We`ll have a few days before we need to decide which way to go.
Looks great! I agree with your assessment of the situation, but it's hard to tell what GJ is planning to do.... I also think he whipped Seven Mysteries this turn. Also, it looks like - for the moment - it doesn't have a barracks yet (nor any other building).
Some notes on turn splits: If we can play turn 47 before GermanJoey, obviously not attacking him (I assume we had no plans to do so, independent of the fact that attacking before he plays would be a double move) but moving to a tile where we don't threaten his Worker, that would mean he does not need to protect his worker and does not need to move it away from the silver (in case he wants to road the tile). It would be a way to signal peaceful intentions toward him and his city. If I'm right that he whipped Seven Mysteries and it turns out to be for a unit, then we'll already have cost him something by moving our warrior as we did (unless it's a unit he'd have wanted to whip anyway) but we can't help that. More likely, he just whipped a monument or something, and intends to move the Worker to a forest or something anyway, but you never know.
Of course, I don't know what kind of intentions we do want to signal here. Maybe we'd rather let him wonder for one more turn (and maybe he'll play before we have a chance next turn anyway).
I`ll try to play the turn as soon as I can. If we were to keep a strict turn split at this point it would probably kill the turn pace. I`m glad that common sense prevails! I really want to continue westwards to see what riches the map maker has made for us to claim. If Joey builds a second warrior to join his first on that forest, I think we`ll have to step away. Hopefully he won`t do that.
Also, did you see the post I made after the turn 45 report? We`re not in a hurry to make a decision yet, but having input on that would be very helpful.
Er, not sure which question you mean, even looking back at the posts. Maybe because it's almost 5 AM here - I'd better get to sleep! Sorry for missing it though - what kind of input were you hoping for?
Hmmm, weird. I was talking about this post (quoted in full here):
"I`ve been doing some thinking. Our city 5 SW of Borte is just indefensible without a city close to it. Maybe it`s not a bad idea to review that hill plant after all. It has this 2/4/0 copper tile there for our taking, as well as corn. It looks like it`ll block off the land from Joey very effectively. The city is still on a hill. It`ll be really hard for Joey to take it before he gets catapults. And another point: If we build that city we have a fair share of territory with him. (Assuming 14 tiles between our capitals). He planted aggressively towards us, I say we do the same to him. As you rightly point out, our city east of the river is.. not very good before Iron Working.
The key here is controlling the tile 2N of his city in order to be safe from forks. We`ll soon enough have two cities producing culture on that tile, so we should be able to wrest control from Joey at least in the mid game.
So, do you feel like a change of plans?"
Btw: I haven`t thought much about the tech path yet. We`ll have a few days before we need to decide which way to go. And - have a good night`s sleep!
