[PB28 SPOILERS ] Fenn Presents: A Comedy of Errors

[Fenn]

Turn 3
This is interesting:


Saltwater unfortunately, but this still looks nice. We'll want to grab Fishing somewhere down the line. Where the Scout's standing could be a decent Moai spot later - lots of hills and 8 water tiles - but that's more of a longterm prospect. It lies far from the capital, behind some hills even, and only the Deer in first ring; we'll have to look elsewhere for our second city. The forested grassland in the fog might be on its own landmass, hard to tell for now.

Now I need to think about where to scout next. Probably going to head southwest to try to look for a good place to send our first Settler.

[Cheater Hater]

I think you'll want to settle spot 2W1S of the scout first, even as the second city--it gets the plains hill bonus, shares the wheat, and gets more food from the fish, and that's just from what we can see. Later we can settle the city 1SE of the scout as an obvious Moai city, though I'd expect it to share its food with another city (maybe 2N1E of the scout? It has fish, deer, and spices, and we don't even know half of the fat cross.

[Fenn]

Very good points - 2W1S could work, although it still would want us to tech Fishing early. It actually looks better than before now with the scouting I did on turns 4-5:



Dry Wheat isn't a lot but it'll help when we take it off of the capital's Wheat. With Civil Service we'd only have to farm that plains tile NW to irrigate it too.

I like how swift the turn pace has been, but on the other hand it means I need to hurry with the sims

[Fenn]

Turn 6



More coast...starting to think the Dutch wouldn't have been too bad here, we would still have started with Agriculture at least. Still, I think China was a good pick given what I could see of my start.

[Cheater Hater]

Things are working out perfectly--we can then put a city 1SE of the southern wheat, and hopefully get at least one more piece of seafood in the fog.

Tundra to the north, water to the south/southeast--did our map overlords give everyone an isolated start?

[Fenn]

1SE of the south wheat sounds like a backfill spot (would have Ocean tiles in its BFC), but I guess it'll be worth it to found eventually.

Here's some rough sims I did for our early game:

Code:

Sim 1, Worker-> Warrior-> Settler
    Work Deer Hill until Worker 1 is completed; then work Grassland Hill until Wheat Farm completes;
    When Wheat Farm completes, Worker 1 camps the Grassland Deer
    Turn 15: Beijing grows to size 2, produces a Warrior
    
    1a: Grow to size 3, improve Hill Deer first:
        Worker finishes Grass Deer and camps the Hill Deer; Beijing begins Warrior 2
        Turn 19: Beijing grows to size 3, working Wheat/Grass Deer/Hill Deer
        Turn 27: Settler 1 produced, Bronze Working researched, revolt to Slavery
        Turn 28: Warrior 2 is 1t from completion, Beijing 3t from Size 4
        Turn 29: Shanghai founded, steals the Wheat (5t growth); Warrior 2 completes; Beijing starts on Worker 2 (3t); Mysticism 5/6t away
            (could start Settler 2 first, then chop/whip overflow into Worker 2)
        Turn 36: Mysticism researched
      1aa: Grow to size 3, improve Silver first
          Turn 23: Silver Mine completed
          Turn 26: Bronze Working researched, Worker 1 camps Hill Deer
          Turn 27: Settler 1 produced, revolt into Slavery
          Turn 29: Shanghai founded, steals Wheat, Beijing starts Worker 2 (5t)
          Turn 30: Hill Deer Camp completed
          Turn 31: Mysticism researched, Worker 1 at Beijing

    1b: Build Settler immediately:
        Turn 25: Settler produced (9h overflow)
        Turn 27: Bronze Working researched, revolt to Slavery
        Turn 28: Shanghai founded
        Turn 29: Beijing reaches size 3, Shanghai steals Wheat, Beijing starts Worker 2 (5t)

I like 1aa the best out of these three; 1b doesn't seem to offer any advantages. 1a gets Worker 2/Settler 2 out faster due to sooner chop/whip, and lets Worker 1 build a mine/chop for Shanghai quicker, but the Silver will likely stay unimproved since the Workers will have to tend to the newer cities' needs.

[Fenn]

Been simming some openings based off my 1aa above to grab Stonehenge...right now I have two main candidates involving chopping three forests and doing a 1-pop whip of Beijing: the first completes on Turn 38 but either leaves the Deer Hill unimproved or leaves no Worker labor near City 2 which means it works unimproved tiles once it grows to Size 2.

The second completes it on Turn 40 with the Deer Hill improved and Worker 2 mining City 2's grassland hill. Both of these plans delay the third and fourth cities quite a bit (~T45 and T55) what with all of the chops and whips going into Henge instead of Settlers.

Adrien and Mardoc are very active in their thread...I worry they're plotting a Stonehenge grab of their own.

[Fenn]

Alternative Stonehenge plan: Go Warrior->Worker->Settler->Henge; this founds Shanghai on turn 32 (not that the earlier version does much anyway...), gets the Hill Deer improved, a grass hill S of the capital mined, and finishes Stonehenge on T38. Is that notably early for a sane Henge build?

The inescapable truth, though, is that if Adrien and Mardoc want Stonehenge, they'll probably beat me to it. I have to hope that they delay it just long enough for me to snatch it.

[Cheater Hater]

I don't know which one is best off the top of my head--I need to start simming some myself if I want to provide meaningful input; how long do I have before the paths meaningfully diverge (aka when Worker 1 finishes the wheat)?

[Fenn]

Turn 13: Wheat Farm finishes
-This when we can decide between going to size 3 or making a Settler immediately; IMO slow-building a Settler at size 2 doesn't accomplish much since an early-founded Shanghai still has to wait for Mysticism and possibly Stonehenge to be complete before it can do much more than work grass hill mines.

Turn 19: Beijing grows to Size 3
-Here's where we can decide between building Settler 1 or Worker 2.

Here's an updated Worldbuilder save that includes the terrain around our proposed Shanghai spot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s29qdw5girlefv...BSave?dl=1