Turn Tracking Thread

[Sullla]

Turn 46 - 2160BC

We revealed a little bit more of the land in the southwest. Land that doesn't look so hot:



Where to place a city over here will likely depend on the presence or non-presence of seafood in that body of water. As for our warrior, where should he go next? I am assuming southwest onto the grassland hill, but let me know if you have other suggestions.



In the core of our territory, we are preparing for the placement of copper city next turn. (Related question: name for the new city? I kind of like "Focal Point" for this one. Here's the RBCiv game list to check out some other suggestions.)

Workers roaded the forest tile southeast of the deer, roaded the grassland tile south of the deer while moving into position, and put one chop into the forest tile. Settler moved out of Adventure One and into position to plant our new city next turn. Warrior in the capital is Boldy Going Nowhere as he provides military police for happiness. Third warrior is defending the cluster of workers against non-existent barbs (never hurts to be safe!)

We discovered Mysticism tech, giving us eight total techs for the game. That's the most in the game, and only Apolyton and CivFr have managed to hit seven techs. Polytheism is due in 5t, on T51.

We also revolted to Slavery this turn:



The classic "revolt to Slavery while your settler is in transition" play. Hate to burn those Anarchy turns, but oh well.



Here are the mid-turn Demos before revolting into Slavery. We'll see how they improve with the addition of a third city next turn. There were two pop increases and two tech discoveries this turn; see the C&D thread for more information. Not typing all that stuff over again here.

[Sullla]

Turn 47 - 2120BC

So we had the question of where to move our scouting warrior in the southeast. There wasn't a strong team consensus on this. I considered T-Hawk's suggestion to check out the coast for seafood, but ultimately I wanted to get our warrior back towards our territory, so that we can send another warrior off to the northwest to go scope out the fish area. I also couldn't help but remember the last time I moved a scouting warrior onto flat ground, which turned a unit into lion meat. In the end, I went southwest onto the hill:



Well, there's another lion. It's unclear how far the land extends down to the south; this being a Toroidal map, there's probably someone else down there if we go far enough. For the moment, nothing else too terribly useful spotted.

We have a promotion unused, and I suggest taking Combat I. No screwing around here, we don't want any mistakes. With a hill bonus, C1, and the slight bonus we get against barb animals, we should be huge favorites to survive. I have not promoted or ended turn to allow for team discussion. Assuming the unit lives, I plan to move northwest along the ridge of hills and return to our territory, so another warrior can go scout the fish.

We settled a city this turn:



There were few comments on city name, and I went with my suggestion of Focal Point. This lets us use easy two-letter abbreviations for each city: AO, MM, and FP. Useful to save time.

Workers A and C moved to the copper resource and mined it. Worker B put another turn into the forest chop, which is now 1t from completion and will be cashed in shortly. Focal Point is working the copper resource as listed in the micro plan; I believe that someone said that it can work the grassland forest instead and still finish the granary on time. Someone please confirm this before I make the tile swap.

We are running 0% science this turn, since we'll run out of funds otherwise. Focal Point took us from -3gpt at max rate to -8gpt. Cities are very expensive on this map. Polytheism due in 3t after we resume research, on T51. We will found Hinduism if no one discovers it in the next few turns (religion still unclaimed).



Here is Adventure One working the corn and all of the cottage tiles. Our micro plan calls for a 10t settler here, followed by a worker double-whip and then regrowth onto granary. Make your alternate suggestions now or forever hold your peace!

Mansa's Muse has picked up the deer tile, so that with deer + corn it will grow in 2t (and fill up its new granary in the process). Focal Point, as stated before, it currently on unimproved copper, pending confirmation that we can work grassland forest this turn.



Start of turn Demographics. We are surprisingly competitive despite 0% science, working a whole bunch of 2/0 and 1/1 cottage tiles, and not using the gold resource while growing to size 3 at MM. I'll take it. We need 2t more, at which time we'll pick up the gold again and an improved copper resource. Should look pretty nice about then.

Elsewhere, we were the fifth team to plant a third city, right in the middle of the pack. Expect CivFanatics to add their own third city very soon. We have tied Apolyton for the lead in total pop once again at nine pop. On this turn, We Play Civ and German team both gained 1 pop, and CivFr gained 2 pop. That's all I see so far, at least at the start of the turn.

[Sullla]

The posts in our temporary forum seem to have been swallowed up into the abyss. I'm not retyping those posts, but I will post all the pictures for anyone who missed them.

Turn 48 - 2080BC

Our warrior survived the lion attack:



Mining the copper at home:



Focal Point has a copper, ho ho ho:



Demographics:



Turn 49 - 2040BC

Exploring further south and dodging angry bears:



Pasturing the pigs:



Mansa's Muse working three very good tiles:



Demographics flashing some happy #1s back at us:



Moving back to defend Mansa's Muse later in the turn from barbarian hooligans:



And that's where we are now. Just waiting on German team to end their turn, 10 hours to go on the clock.

[Sullla]

Turn 50 - 2000BC

Despite being a milestone date, this was a fairly quiet turn.



The movement of the bear was a non-issue; the intention all along was to pull backwards a space this turn. I moved Xenu northeast, and unless the bear would move to block his path, the idea is to keep moving northwest along that ridge of hills until we return back to our territory. Xenu needs to go and scout the land around our upcoming fish city in the northwest. We do not have any other units available to do this right now, and Xenu is only available because Goldilocks is playing zone defense and covering two cities. Scouting out the distant depths of the south is not a priority right now, and losing one of our few current units would hurt significantly. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "move into the fog on flat ground and hope for no barbs" approach.



At home, two workers roaded the copper for our upcoming double-whip into spear in Mansa's Muse, while the third worker chopped a forest tile at Focal Point. This completes the granary next turn, a perfect 50% food box completion as FP grows using the 6 food pigs tile. Very nicely managed. Adventure One is still on its worker build, and Mansa's Muse puts a second turn of production into Stonehenge.

A note on unit poisitoning: warrior Goldilocks is currently sitting on the tile southwest of Mansa's Muse. From that tile, he can move into Focal Point or onto the gold tile at MM as needed. We are fortunate that the barb warrior in the northeast retreated. With luck, it won't show up again until we have our spearman on hand.



The Demographics look similar to last turn, no major changes. Two teams gained a population point this turn and that was all. We are now guaranteed at least a coin flip's shot at Polytheism by virtue of it being due next turn. Barring a very unlucky break (another team simultaneously discovering the tech and also winning the coin flip), we should found Hinduism next turn. It will very likely appear in Mansa's Muse, which would be a nice spot. I don't want to jinx anything, but I'd say our odds on founding the religion are 90% or higher at this point.

I think that's all for this turn. I've ended our turn, so have fun waiting for German team over the next 40 hours.

[Sullla]

Turn 51 - 1960BC

The German team was an improvement this turn. They only made us all wait 23 hours of clock time - we got to skip waiting the final 10 hours! Baby steps, baby steps...

There were a lot of score increases this turn, including three other teams researching a tech. Fortunately they were either researching something else or they got very unlucky, because we now possess the might of Shiva and Vishnu:



The religion popped in Mansa's Muse as expected. This is a nice city to have as a holy city, and it opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities for our future. Here on a Huge map, the opportunity to get a shrine up and go bigtime horizontal expansion looks mighty tasty. Now if only we were planning on building something in Mansa's Muse that gave us free Great Prophet points... and if only our civ had some kind of unique building that let us run Priest specialists...





Here is the core of our civ with most of our units still unmoved. I have to keep turning the resources tab off, or else the copper completely blocks all the info for Focal Point, bah. Warrior Xenu in the south has a safe route back to our borders without any barb issues, and so I'm moving him northwest along that ridge of hills as explained before. Off to go check out fish central in the far northwest.

Our barb friend in the northeast is back again. I plan to move our own warrior onto the gold hill this turn, and begin building up the fortify bonus there. I'm not sure if we've hit the point yet when barb units will enter your borders (genuine barbs, not animals which never do). I know there's a grace period when they first appear when they will wander around but not enter your territory. Might as well get up there on the hill and get some cover just in case. We do have a spear getting whipped in MM in 2t, so not terribly scary. I've left the warrior unmoved, let me know if there are any objections.

Our workers are all set to move into forests to begin their Stonehenge chopping operations. This is the last turn to cancel that move before we waste 3 worker turns moving into forests. Speak now or forever hold your peace if you oppose. Seeing as how Stonehenge is still alive and well, and we can build it in 4t according to our current plan, I think we should continue to go for it.

I've heard no real suggestions on what to build in Focal Point now that the granary is done. It's stuck on a tentative axe for now. If we don't get Stonehenge, we'll probably need to do an obelisk there. Suggestions?



Mansa's Muse also grew to size 4 this turn, in addition to getting its own religion. Sadly, we are reduced to working an unimproved grassland forest tile. (We could finish the plains cottage here, but not if we want to go chopping for Stonehenge.) The city already has 5 culture, will pop borders next turn, and then pop them again in 19 more turns. The early culture is very nice indeed. Our capital also hit the 100 culture mark and expanded borders this turn, giving us more visibility and early barb detection. Seeing as how our capital was very vulnerable on the diagonals earlier (all four of them hill tiles able to see into our city), this is very welcome news.

We are running 0% science this turn, seeing as how we used up our treasury on our Polytheism run. That brings up the question of what to research next. With a religion already in hand, I would argue that we have less of a need to drive to Monotheism/Judaism immediately. My suggested path would be:

Fishing (needed for next city anyway and very cheap)
Priesthood (pre-requisite for Writing/Monarchy and also dirt cheap)
Writing (very cheap with 60% pre-requisite discount)

And then our planned Masonry -> Monotheism -> Monarchy route after that. Yes, we're not exactly emphasizing libraries here, but they will be a useful building to dump production into when regrowing from worker/settler whips. We knock out granaries super fast and we are quite possibility getting obelisks for free. Need something to throw production into, and libraries are better than barracks. Yes, military units are another option, but infrastructure is always good. Keep in mind that Writing is very cheap with all three pre-requisites; at 216 beakers and 60% bonus, Writing is only slightly more expensive than Masonry at 20% bonus:

Masonry: 144 beakers, 20% bonus = 120 effective beakers
Writing: 216 beakers, 60% bonus = 135 effective beakers

Seems like it's more worth it to pick Writing up before a religion that we're not even going to be using. (And we're not revolting to Organized Religion until we also have Monarchy/Hereditary Rule civic.) That's my thoughts, in any case. Knock out a bunch of cheap stuff in the upcoming turns, then go for OR/HR.



Here are the start of turn Demographics, looking very good indeed. We are #1 in GNP with no tech selected at 0% research, half again the "Rival Average" and more than double the "Rival Worst". If I select a pre-requisite bonus tech and flip research to 100% it just gets silly - our GNP is 65 if I do that with Writing tech. (Yes, some of this is holy city culture, but that's not a bad thing either.) We are also tops in Food by a pretty decent cushion for this early in the game, as well as tops in Total Pop points with 11. Production still lags behind, but have I mentioned that we are picking up a 1/5 copper mine tile in 2t? Without getting too cocky, this is all looking exceptionally strong so far.

I'm starting to worry that we're going to look way too good in the Demos, and inspire some Pitboss #2 dogpile action from the other teams. Not exactly sure how to avoid this, because we definitely have no plans to stop kicking some serious ass in this game.

Other team score increases:

CivFanatics: 1 pop
German team: 1 pop
CivPlayers, UniversCiv, Spanish Apolyton: new tech each

I don't have any real idea of what they got; global power increase was 8k. One of them could have taken Bronze Working, but that would mean no other power increase anywhere in the world, which seems unlikely. I'll let kjn take his best guess when he wakes up tomorrow. For Spanish Apolyton, this was only their 6th tech of the game, 4th if you ignore the initial starting two. By comparison, we discovered our 9th tech, and Apolyton is the only other team with 8. Our techs are also more expensive in beakers than the ones Apolyton has discovered. Again, you get the idea. We have the most pop, the fastest growth, the best research, and the game's first self-founded religion.

Plenty of room for input from this turn, let me know what you think.

[Sullla]

Turn 52 - 1920BC

This was a very uneventful turn for us, but that's good news in Stonehenge-land. Three more turns to go, and the wonder remains unbuilt.



The barb in the northeast moved back into the jungle, the borders at Mansa's Muse popped, and... ummm... that was pretty much it. Our workers began their chopping operations too, I guess. Quiet turn.



Here are beginning of turn Demographics. CivFanatics planted their third city (Mantra) right at the end of the previous turn. We'll be able to see it in the Food/Production numbers next turn. I have research on Fishing tech (2t), with the intention of overflowing into Priesthood (2t) after that. The enemy team score increases were mostly Land points, with a new tech from CivFanatics and the German team.

A lot of good discussion here about potential Oracle targets (Feudalism, Mathematics, Currency) but I would argue that all of them are worst options than Metal Casting. If we are looking to slingshot something, that one feels like the strongest option by a wide margin. Forges + OR civic make for an amazing combination.

[Sullla]

Turn 53 - 1880BC

We interrupt the endless Oracle discussions to play an actual turn.



This is the turn that we had to whip Mansa's Muse as part of our Stonehenge play. Two pop were sacrificed to the Egyptian gods, resulting in 64/35 production on the spear. We will make a further 5 production this turn, and overflow 34 total production (69/35) into Stonehenge. Along with three forest chops, the wonder will finish on T55. It would be pretty funny/tragic if another team completed the wonder just as we were dropping in our whip and chop production, but at least then the fail gold would speed us along to a better Oracle target. We shall see.



The first three workers are all on their second turn of Stonehenge chopping. The new fourth worker had no instructions listed; I moved him onto the corn tile and put one turn into roading it. That guy can finish the road next turn, or move onto one of the two forest tiles to start roading. I think the micro works better for him to move onto a forest tile, since Worker C (on the plains forest hill) can move over to the west, putting one turn into a road each turn, and finish the corn road on T57. Feel free to advise.

What do we want to do with this spearman completing next turn? We could have it hang around as a "real" defender against barbs, or keep the Focal Point axe around for that purpose and send the spear out scouting. Does anyone know when barb axes start to appear? I'm somewhat tempted to send the spear straight northeast and go find We Play Civ's borders. Thoughts?

I have of course canceled all chop/road orders after taking this screenshot so we can do whatever we want with the workers at the start of next turn.



Demos are down slightly after losing two pop at Mansa's Muse. No other score changes mid-turn so far.

[Sullla]

Turn 54 - 1840BC

Hopefully this is the final turn before we land Stonehenge. Time to chop down the forests:



We're now all in on the Stonehenge plan. Cross your fingers.

There was no consensus at all about what to do with our spear. I opted to have him go scout out We Play Civ, since they are supposed to be only 9 tiles away to the northeast or whatever. Time to go meet them and see exactly what that distance looks like. I am not too terribly worried about barb defense, because Focal Point has an axe due very shortly, the city will expand its borders in a few turns for more visibility, and in the worst case scenario, we could 1-pop whip an axe there (with granary in place). That would only slightly dampen the city's growth curve. I think we'll be fine on defense, and the whip is sitting there if we aren't.

I used the last worker to road the bananas next to the capital, as this allows us to speed up our own scouting warrior to the northwest by a turn as described by NobleHelium. We will need to draw up a more formal plan for the workers next turn once we get Stonehenge or miss out on it.



I had six different pieces of advice on whether to put something in the production queue for Mansa's Muse or not. For now, there's a settler sitting there. Hopefully this should be a non-issue, but if it's not, someone please give me a straight answer on this. I'm not interested in reading about Pitboss 5 (which is using a mod anyway, if that affects anything).



Here are the Demos after ending turn. The only difference should be the third city founded by Spanish Apolyton.

[Sullla]

We got an increase of 21 points on the interturn. You know what that means:



I don't think the event logger is enough of a notification. Let's see inside the city:



Wow, 14 culture/turn now in Mansa's Muse! But still not good enough. Even closer:



Yeah, that should do it. We're now Financial, Expansive, and mini-Creative, plus we get our unique building free in every city. Border popping and Great Prophet, here we come.

So after the first 55 turns, we are in the following position:

* Highest Food in game.
* Highest GNP and best research in game.
* Most techs discovered.
* First to found a religion.
* First wonder of the game completed.

This image more or less describes things so far vis a vis the other teams:



U mad bro?



More seriously, here are the early turn Demos for kjn's use. It's late so I won't be crunching the numbers myself, maybe tomorrow. We've achieved our two big time early game goals thus far:

- Simulating out the first 40 turns up to Mansa's Muse founding.
- Cover the next 15 turns up to founding religion and building Stonehenge.

Let's work together now to get the next 15 or so turns hammered out and fully simmed, as we push for our planned Oracle -> Currency slingshot. We're off to a good start there, now let's keep it going. Let's turn this game into a total farce and steamroll everyone else with an unbeatable economic lead.

[Sullla]

Turn 55 - 1800BC

The big news for this turn was our completion of Stonehenge, as posted earlier. We're going to follow the Oracle -> Currency plan as outlined by SevenSpirits for the next dozen or so turns, which does a very fine job of balancing expansion against economy. That means there's not too much more happening on this particular turn.



Here's our civ after moving the workers. Three of them are heading over to improve the soon-to-be-founded fish city. We funnel three forest chops into it to produce granary and work boat almost immediately. The fourth worker stays over in the east to improve more tiles. Mansa's Muse produces a fifth worker, Adventure One will triple whip its settler next turn, and Focal Point is building axes for defense. It's a nice split of responsibilities.

I've moved our Combat I warrior (Xenu) into Adventure One, while the other unpromoted warrior (Boldy Going Nowhere) heads off to the northwest fish spot. It should be fairly safe on top of those jungle/forest hill tiles. We'll get a quick look around and then come back to guard the new city.

Our spear is heading off into the northeast to go find We Play Civ and find out just how far away they really are. Focal Point will self-build an axe before anything too threatening can move next to it.



End of turn Demos. Our GNP is just stupid at this point in time (although fair warning, some of that is indeed culture). I checked every tech we could research, and we received no bonus on any of them in GNP. This means that CivFanatics doesn't have any of those techs, which fits nicely with what we have in our C&D tables. So at the very least, CFC does not have Sailing, Writing, Masonry, Priesthood, Iron Working, or the extremely unlikely Metal Casting/Horseback Riding techs. Pretty sure we have every single tech they do and more.

Will we get another turn in today? Probably not, with five different teams still having their turn left unfinished. But hey, Sommers says we should just join more games as a solution.