[Mjmd #52 no players] Working on the Homestead

[Mjmd]

I do math bad. Axe is in 3 turns. To punish me further there are 2 barb warriors at the pig site. I had moved 1 warrior ahead and saw one so waited. It crossed the river and I was like sweet I can move onto the spot, it will attack across the river and lose and then I'll be fine. Expect there is a second barb warrior now flanking me not across the river........ LUCKILY I brought the 2nd warrior along and it can clean up next turn. If literally any barb shows up from the north I'm screwed. Or any other barb period. Injured scout will head north to barb bust for a sec.

[Mjmd]

The warrior across the river wandered off. The other barb warrior won at 50%. I cleaned up with my warrior and settled this turn. Also discovered NW neighbor is AT. Bordering your dedlurker and mine from PB51. That stretch of jungle is not as wide as the other. Workboat is going to go play barb buster up there for a bit. Between it and ATs culture I shouldn't have to worry about barbs from that direction. Which is good because in the west 1st barb spearmen is appearing..... I might single pop whip a unit  out of pancakes in 6 turns.

Edit: note Chairru's city placement. I assume there is a food in that black square near mined grassland hill its sharing.




Anyways, I'm not much of a cook, but here is simple recipe for Salmon that will impress!

1) preheat oven to 375; have a rack near the top of the oven
2) Pat salmon dry with paper towel and put in foil
3) Melt some butter, mix 3 parts butter 1 part maple syrup; I also squeeze in lemon at this stage. Original recipe had to drizzle over top and then to put lemon slices on. I found the pieces with lemon on didn't get cooked as well and the drizzle just made the butter maple syrup run off. So combine all 3 and then brush on.
4) Salt and pepper to taste. I like using sea salt. There are other various seasonings you can also add.

5) Cover with another piece of foil; but not air tight. Put in oven for 15-20 minutes (I find 18-19 minutes in my oven)
6) I usually take it out for a second to check its color. Remove top piece of foil, set oven to broil. Put back in for 2 minutes this will give it a nice finish especially with the maple syrup. BTW you will probably smell some burning at this stage.  Don't worry its just the excess butter syrup mix around the base of the salmon.

[El Grillo]

Charriu likely won't be too pleased with Salmon's existence. Once you pop borders the peak tile will see over the plains forest and have visibility on his city tile. I'd recommend having a real defender in there sooner than later.

[Mjmd]

Usually in civ your allowed to do 2/3 things. Expand, build wonders, and tech (believe those are the 3). I'm attempting to do all 3....... I have 1 warrior for 5 cities atm with an axe due next turn. Pancakes will 1 pop whip something in a few turns. What would you recommend. An axe or a spear? I don't think horse is hooked up yet. I'll watch his power and his whips.

I also made the mistake of settling it before he had played his turn........ Wasn't thinking early morning.

Have I mentioned building that workboat instead of a scout and a warrior was real bad yet?

[El Grillo]

You generally want to avoid 1-pop whips when possible, though the base MFG at Pancakes makes that a bit difficult. In that case, and with the plains hill mines, I'd probably try to 2-pop whip Workers timed for max overflow and immediate regrowth into military rather than 1-pop whipping military directly.

Axe is generally better against barbs but much worse specifically against opportunistic Chariots, so that's your call as to which is more likely. I personally wouldn't put Charriu on that plan, but it's not out of the question.

[Mjmd]

Pancakes has amazing productions actually with that plains copper, but messing up the earlier forest chop hurt my plans. Will see what happens with his power and when. I don't think Salmon will shock him as the location is very good. He probably is still unhappy. It is important to remember he should also be getting barbs about now. He has 2 warriors for 4 cities atm.

I would love to do 2 pop worker whips, but I don't know if its in the cards for a sec until I have some amount of whippable pop in the new cities for emergency. If that pop isn't used on emergencies I plan on doing some worker whips in them after granaries.

Have I mentioned I plan on doing another setter out of French Toast soon for the other spot near him? Not on the hill; going for the 6th spot shown above (btw I redid my numbering as I was doing settler count instead of city count and I think I like city count better). Overflow from settler whip will go into a unit.

Man this rexing uncontrollable thing is a nerve racking experience for some reason...

[El Grillo]

I took a closer look at the screenshot and Charriu already has horses in borders (it's always been hard for me to tell without the icons on), which means he could hit Salmon with a Chariot as early as T62 if he has 2 Workers available and emphasizes it. I don't think it's a PB51 spoiler at this point to say that Charriu and I did some very similar calculations in that game. Can you get a Spear into the city by that point? That's not enough time for Salmon to naturally grow to size 2 to 1-pop whip a defender either.

[Mjmd]

He settled turn 51. I took a look at whipping the power graphs and I think Salmon is lost. I think he did have 2 workers in place. I would have maybe been fine if the axe produced in Maple Syrup could have gone that way. I could have stuffed the scout in time and then axe maybe could have made it in time. Sadly axe had to go south to deal with a barb warrior coming at French Toast (and a spear shortly)

I have a spear that I can whip to save Delhi (which I only now realize I never renamed.....) in 2 turns from Pancakes. I also should be able to whip one there in time as well, but better safe than sorry.

Looking at his whip history he would have to have whipped when it was still unhappy in his capital if it was produced from there. His other 2 cities are farther away.

Assuming his power increase wasn't just to stave off his own barbs (   ) I can at least have units in the area after, chop out a settler from French Toast and then whip one out and still be ok. There is a difference in hitting someone with chariots on turn 40 vs 60.

OR I could always win a low odds batter

[El Grillo]

Sorry I wasn't paying more attention to the details of where you'd be settling and with what, but in general I'm personally really against settling provocatively without sufficient defenders. More concretely, a city halfway between your capitals like that wants to be on a hill and have 2 real defenders present from founding. That way your opponent sees it, considers they'd likely need 4-5 real units to take it, and decides that they'd rather not pay that cost. When instead they think that they can raze the city with just 1-3 real units, on the other hand... Maybe it all works out, but you run the risk where Charriu diverges from a previously peaceful gameplan to build just a bit of military because he "has to", and then you end up with a likely-razed city anyway, and he ends up with more military than he would've liked to build, and one thing leads to another and you find yourself at each other's throats all game long.

I may be overly paranoid about this, and it may not be as broadly applicable as I might make it sound, but in AI diplo games I see security in giving your opponent fewer reasons to want to fight you than reasons to stay at peace or fight elsewhere.

[Mjmd]

Mistake infinity. You know how I originally didn't have that spot with pig in first ring. Main reason was so his city wouldn't see it..... Then for some reason my brain forgot about it and went WTF MJMD why don't you have the pig in the first ring...... Meant for him never to see it so I could get military there in time. But ya messed up. Just have to roll with it now.