Turn Discussion Thread

[HitAnyKey]

Real quick update in case you log in later, since I'll be unable to type much of a report until later this afternoon. I played the turn and there wasn't a whole ton for me to do or change this turn.
Annoyingly, I mistimed one of the workers by Opportunity and the chop completed this turn. I didn't want it to complete until we started on the Lighthouse. So next turn we need to put a turn of production into something else while we wait for Sailing to complete for us to start the Lighthouse. We have two options IMHO: Put it into a Settler (which will delay growing by a turn) or put it into making another Work Boat which we could use right now for exploring the island to the west (and see if there is any land beyond that...and then explore the coast to the north around Pirates if not). I think both options are good ones, but not sure if we really want to delay growing, hence why I'm thinking of possibly the workboat. Let me know your thoughts.

For Talking Parrot, I've moved an Axe/Warrior onto the Corn and the worker has started a road there. Next turn, the city comes out of revolt and we can make the farm.

Out of Animal Farm, I'm sending an Axe (named him "Ferret the Explorer") SE to check on Gillette and our border area down there. I want to confirm that they haven't made any more cities along that mountain border region, since we never did hear from them on their proposed border agreement. We do need to followup with them at some point. I'll try to do that later as well.

[TheHumanHydra]

Sorry, but yeah. Everything from the storm and all has been playing havok with my thought process, so I haven't been thinking much about the game when I would get home from work. Plus, I've been fighting a head cold for the past week and a half.
I'm around enough to play the turns, and give short turn reports, and maybe a little discussion, but that's about it at the moment. Like this weekend, I'll barely be around at all. Tomorrow morning I drive down to NJ to spend the weekend volunteering to help with the disaster relief in my fiance's parents's area and neighboring towns. So for Sat/Sun I won't even have internet capability until the late evenings.
I'll try to post some more thoughts on our current plan while at work today, but again....with being out of work all last week, this week has been very busy with catchup.

Ok, no problem! I just hoped it wasn't that you were beginning to vanish as has happened to some others. Everything you did for the turn looks good; for Opportunity, I might actually suggest Scout, as it gets maximum overflow from the chop into the Lighthouse and we could use it to check our borders with Gillette instead of the Axe and generally guard against sneak attacks and settling encroachments.

[HitAnyKey]

Btw, I forgot to mention....if you didn't see it in the CivStats....Trolls captured one of TEAM's cities. It's nice to see the top two teams fighting it out like that.

As for whether to go Scout or Work Boat....I'm still up in the air. Scout does also sound like a good idea too. I just think Scouts are going to be rapidly losing their value in this game, so not sure how much time I would want to put into building more of them.

LP, any chance you can offer a thought on that before we play our next turn? It would be nice to have a 3rd person's input on it.

To sum up why we need this decision is as follows. Oppotunity is finishing a work boat next turn. We don't get Sailing until the turn after. So we need to put production into something while we wait until we can build the Lighthouse. I originally thought of doing a turn towards a Settler, but next turn the city would also grow....but only if not working on a settler. So IMHO that leaves either Work Boat or as THH suggested a Scout.

[TheHumanHydra]

Two of the teams made peace as well; I don't remember which two.

[HitAnyKey]

Ok, turn rolled last night so I took a couple moments this morning to essentially get everything done for the turn (really just entailed moving the scout & fortifying the units protecting the worker). But there is a decision to be made, and I won't be here to put it into action because I gotta get on the road within the next hour and then won't be around until late tonight.

For Opportunity, if we change the citizens to work as such:


Then we'll get the Work Boat in a single turn, and next turn we'll start the Lighthouse.
Or you switch the citizen back to the Fish and build a Scout which also will finish in one turn.

Personally, I think I'd prefer having an exploring work boat right now rather than an exploring scout. But I leave this final decision up to you. I tossed a quick note to LP for him to hopefully pop over here when he wakes up so that you can have a 3rd opinion before actually doing it.

But you'll need to log in at some point today to set the city to whatever the decision is, end the turn, and post in the other thread with the fact that it is not Gillette's turn.

Chat later...

[TheHumanHydra]

I finished the turn. Since HAK left it up to me, I switched to Scout and working the Fish tile instead of the grassland forest. Here is a screenshot:



We have some decisions to make with regard to tile assignments since both Animal Farm and Opportunity grew at the end of the turn. Talking Parrot came out of revolt - are we sure we want a Barracks there? Sailing finished; Pottery now researches in 3 turns, but our deficit just shot up to -7 gpt. I set Opportunity to building a Lighthouse after the turn flipped, as planned.

[TheHumanHydra]

It was the Trolls and TEAM that made peace. Their peace negotiations went a lot fast than ours!

I am okay with the Work Boat but would prefer the Scout. The overflow from the Scout will shave three turns off our Lighthouse build, almost as many as the full chop - it basically makes up for our micro error earlier.

Hopefully Lord Parkin can help us out here!

I'll log on and finish the turn later as instructed.

[HitAnyKey]

Turn Report - T58:

Have a good handful of things to report and one immediate decision to be made. THH, you'll most likely be the one needing to end the turn once we've agreed on the decision, since I won't be able to log in again tonight after I get home from work.

First, a few updates:
Capra the scout found a dead-end by the Trolls, so he is now forced to backtrack over the places he's already been. Sad.

We'll have to decide if we want to try to send him through that little stretch of land between the Troll borders (and risk them declaring war and killing it) or whether to send him all the way back to Gillette (and instead of using the new scout to explore them, to instead use Capra to do that). The new scout could then just head directly east through the center of the map. As I type this, I'm thinking that's probably the best option. We should make that decision right away, so that I can change the course of the new scout if we decide to send him straight east into the shadows. Sadly I've already moved him off of our road towards Gillette, so that'll be a bit of lost movement, but not horrendous if we make the decision before next turn.

Our cities:
Opportunity

This city has started it's Lighthouse. The Crabs (or whatever that seafood is to the north...I forget) gets it's fishing boats next turn. I'm thinking as soon as we finish Pottery, we whip the Lighthouse. Overflow into a Granary (while we're working on Masonry) and then when the Granary is finished we start the Great Lighthouse. I don't know the timing of each of those things, so we may have to put some hammers into something else for a turn or two while we wait for Masonry to complete.
I'm saving the final turn of chopping of all the forests for the GL. So next turn the worker chopping that eastern forest needs to be stopped, and he can switch to making a road. Just like the one to his west has already done.

Animal Farm

The Axe that is getting finished will stay there. The warrior in AF will head over to Opportunity, since that city needs a military presence to quell the unhappy people. Next up is the Settler. We need to decide where we want to send it. Best options are either somewhere to the East for the resources and land south of Talking Parrot, or to the NW to get that bountiful land and Horses.
After the Settler we would make a Granary. Though I suppose there's also an option of switching to Granary as soon as it's available, then whipping it out for the overflow into the Settler. I don't know the math enough to know if this is a better benefit or not.

Talking Parrot

This is where we need the decision confirmed. You had asked if we really wanted a Barracks there. It was in the queue cuz I had to choose something when I captured the city, and it was the best thing I could think of at the time. As I think of it more, a Worker might be best. Right now it shows 15 turns, but the Farm will be finished in 5 turns (I think?) so that should shorten it. The borders also expand in 10 turns. So it'll be good to have 2 workers there for improving all those resources (the Ivory being first on the list)...then the gold, then the cows (or maybe swap gold/cows, but we have lots of time for that decision).
So....if you agree with the Worker option, then log in and end the turn.

Lastly, here is the lay of the land for LP and others to view so you have a bigger picture of what's going on:



Also, our Demographics as of this turn:


So the decisions to be made:
Where to send the new scout (who also needs a name). I'm now thinking he goes NE-NE to Animal Farm, follows the road as far east as he can, then continues through the center of the map.
Where to send Capra when he backtracks. I'm thinking he goes back to see what Gillette is up to.
What to build in TP. Worker is sounding best.
Where do we sent the Settler? I'm leaning towards the NW coast to get the horses and other resources. Also gets us another coastal city to benefit from the GL. The spot I'm thinking is best is either the Plains south of the horses, or the Grass south of that one. Both allow another city to be settled further north to get the Sheep/Fur/Stone/Whale.

[TheHumanHydra]

HAK, I'm very sorry, I somehow did not see this post yesterday, so I didn't know to end the turn. Just one other observation:



Somebody is pushing for the Oracle! (At least, that's what I'd assume.)

I agree with everything you did, HAK, as well as your proposals regarding the decisions to be made. The only concern I have is that while the north-west does have some of the best city locations for us, it is backfill land - we're not in a race to get to it. It might be more worthwhile to claim some of the southern/south-western land on the frontier to mark out our territory. The only exception would be if we want to make a run for the Pyramids, since we're getting Masonry soon, in which case we should settle next to the Stone. Rules question: if we quarried and roaded the Stone, it would be transferred down to our other cities via the coast, since we have Sailing, right? We wouldn't need a long road connection? I wonder if that would actually be a good idea. Having both the Great Lighthouse (hopefully) and the Pyramids would paint the hugest target imaginable on our heads, though. If we could use them to tech up to our Elephants fast, though ...

Anyway, I'm going to go write that diplomatic message that I didn't get to yesterday.

[HitAnyKey]

Hmm, according to that screenshot it also looks like we now have Trade Routes with Gillette. If you log in again before me (it'll be about 7 hours before I can do so), can you check on that? If that's the case, that'll be very nice as it should give us a boost in commerce.

As for the religion, it's either Gillette or TEAM that go it. Someone who is better at C&D should be able to figure it out for us. Gillette's score went up by 14 points and TEAM's score went up by 9 points. So I'm thinking it's probably Gillette.

Back to the big topic at hand....next city. I had thought about that too, with regards to the fact that it's a back-fill city and all that. Personally, I don't think it will matter as all the teams are still far enough apart that we'll still have plenty of time to settle the area directly west of Animal Farm, even if we make a city (or two) to the NW first.
But let's discuss positioning in the meantime. If we go "east", the first question is...do we go NE and settle near TP? If we do that, we would probably do so on one of the tiles by the peaks such that the new city can work the Sheep&Deer. Then we would need to decide if we want it closer to TP so it can also work the Gold when TP can't. Or do we settle it a little further south so it has more river tiles to work. I'm almost thinking the best spot might be directly south of the eastern peak. That would give it access to the Sheep/Deer/Gold/Copper. The drawback of that spot is that it's pretty far away.
Or do we want to go S and start developing our border with Gillette? I'm thinking best option for this choice would be to go SE towards the Corn & Cows. Maybe the grass/hill SE of where our Axe currently is. The area to the SW can wait until later, I think.

Right now, I think I'm more inclined to settle the next city near TP since it's our northern territories that will need the most protection right now. At least, unless Gillette decides to backstab us. I'm hoping they'll eventually decide that the Trolls will be their biggest threat and need to attack them before they attack us. But the Trolls being such a military powerhouse right now might also push them our way eventually.
The other reason I'm thinking near TP is better, is because it has more production capacity. And right now I think it'd be best for us to build cities that can produce for us quickly.