Cheater Hater, Ruler of the Modbreakers

[Cheater Hater]

Seems like we're having a quick turn today, even with the reload--though it means I'm one of the last players mainly since I waited last night to play because of the pending reload
T27-28 Report:
Bronze Working finished on the interturn--where's the copper?


So it is close--and I assume that wolf will suicide on my warrior in the interturn
That copper is actually the only copper I've seen anywhere close to me--the only other copper I've seen is by dtay and my far scout (more on that when we get to the scout move). While my copper's close (I'm assuming everyone has close-ish copper), the land doesn't seem that good, and there's no obvious city location for it that gives me both the copper and new food in the first ring. I guess this is going to force me to share food with the capital--right now I think the best site for the city is actually the plains hill the warrior's currently on, or maybe 1NE of there--I have some time to scout east of the copper to see if there's a site I can settle east of the copper.

In non-copper news, I started the settler this turn--it says 7 turns, but that should be sped up by an upcoming chop after I finish the mine. After I finish the settler I'll revolt to Slavery, start a worker I can whip (2-pop? 50 hammers is still fine I guess), then follow up with a warrior (or maybe scout? I shouldn't need many warriors when I get Impis going) or two to grow, then 2-pop whip my next settler.

Not much to explain with the tech--copper is nearby, so I don't need Animal Husbandry and can go for Wheel instead.

Far away, my scout healed up somewhat and has been moving again:


[maprant]And why is dtay's copper not only closer to his capital (could have been a capital move), but surrounded by two food resources on one side and a gold resource on the other?[/maprant]
I hope that wasn't taking too seriously--fun game, and I'm assuming the map wasn't intricately balanced--and for all I know, my two food resources with my copper are still in the fog

[Cheater Hater]

A PB18 report covering only one turn? PBEM58 better get going again sometime soon--AT posted, but I still don't see a save...
T29 Report:
Honestly, this report doesn't need to be here--just some interesting stuff, starting with the scout move:


Island! More notably, there's no forest to move into next turn (unless I want to "waste" a turn going SW, then NW-NW), so I might end up either healing or taking my chances moving onto the hill.


No defogging here, but switching onto the plains hill mine actually shortened the settler build by a turn--that means the chop doesn't actually speed things up (unless I decide to revolt into slavery before the settler finishes, which honestly is probably the right move--remember that!), but it means there's a lot of overflow coming at least

Also, I popped up the event log (making sure the wolf actually suicided on the warrior, since it didn't scratch the warrior ), and noticed along with the lurker's new Great Spy (does it have any use for them other than settling them, which it's unlikely to do since it speeds up its tech pace?), both dtay and Krill revolted into Slavery--that means they have Bronze Working and are likely whipping/had whipped their settlers. Granted, scooter's minor spoiler makes me worry for my pace in that case, but the pace isn't that meaningful, especially on the other side of the map--he could have gone worker/settler and popped BW from a hut, I have no clue

Also, I get Krill's graphs next turn--after that, I should focus my EP spending on Whosit for a couple turns (since I'm almost to his graphs), then go for the long haul on dtay. Speaking of which, I still have absolutely no clue on where Whosit is--maybe I should try to send another scout (or Impis ) to find more people, as well as maybe popping that hut.

[Cheater Hater]

T30 Report:
I don't know what's causing me to report this game so much in the last couple turns--I think it's a combination of interesting things happening, wanting to get away from the trainwreck that is PBEM 58, and the fact that the reports aren't that close together due to the Easter break.

To give context to those of you who aren't (or can't--hi Twinkletoes! ) read my PBEM 58 thread, I had a discussion with a bunch of lurkers about some of the things I've been doing wrong in that game--the one that's most applicable to my current situation is that I was placing my cities too far apart, and not using my space effectively. Let's take that into account as I get ready to settle my second city in a couple turns and look at the capital area for where I'm going to settle it.


And I thought my settling decision was going to be so easy after the PBEM 58 discussion--settle the plains hill so I can share the sheep to start with, then transition onto some grassland cottages while sharing the mines to build things with. But no, the warrior had to find a plains cow to tempt me with
Right now I think the main three spots in consideration for my settler are 1N, 1W, and 1S of the copper. They're all similar in that they have the copper first ring and share the sheep with the capital, but they have slight differences. I think I can discount the southern site easily--it does have another food resource, but the land overall's a lot worse, and it means I can't settle a city 1W of the wheat (which looks like a decent city--two food resources not counting the pigs it'll start out on along with lots of lake tiles, though it doesn't have much else--though the land down there's not that good in general :/ ). The decision between the north and west spots is a lot tougher--the plains hill has a lot more production potential between the hill itself and the mines I've built already, but the northern site has 3 more riverside grassland in addition to the cow. Thankfully I have some time before I need to make the decision--I revolted to Slavery this turn and can 2-pop whip exactly in 2 turns, then I'll settle 3 turns after that and move onto the plains hill on the second turn. A lot of this will depend on how the rest of my dotmap turns out--though a lot of the north's still foggy :/

Now to less important stuff, starting with the scout move--yes I did risk it; did it turn out?


Yes! And now since we're exploring dtay's northern border, we should see fewer barbs for the next couple turns--of course, there's also fewer trees to hop between, so it's a wash :/

Now to what technically could be called C&D, but I think of it more as "where I stand". First, let's start with the demos:


Unfortunately I forgot to check this before I revolted, but thankfully anarchy only affected GNP, and that stat's the most distorted in the early game anyway (because of Creative civs, not to mention the lurker civ's GNP advantage being much more pronounced than the other stats). What's more surprising is how well I'm doing in production, though that's mainly because my city's so big--which in this game means I'm not whipping as much as I should be, though I will soon

Speaking of my big city, here's something else that surprised me:


Yes, ignoring the lurker civ, I'm actually second in Top Cities! Of course, that makes me wonder what's beating me--I'm assuming it's from a Creative civ and has similarly improved tiles, but I doubt I'll ever see it regardless

[Cheater Hater]

T31-32 Report:
If you've been reading the last few reports, you know I whipped the settler this turn, which means I finally need to make a decision on where my second city is--but first we have the scout move:


Turns out dtay borders water, and since I don't want to declare war just for scouting purposes, it's time to backtrack! At least I have trees to move between again
You can also notice that Barry Lyndon founded Hinduism and converted to it--does it mean anything that the new player was the one to immediately found a religion?

Now for the domestic planning. We'll start with a shot of the surrounding land, with my capital hiding in the corner:


Not much new here, as I sent my warrior back to guard the new city. As you'll remember I'm debating on two spots: 1W or 1N of the copper. In order to try to decide which spot's best, I made a dotmap based on starting with each spot. Obviously these are rough dotmaps and very rough orders, and they are very likely to change (notably when I can see horses and iron in the short term), and the order also doesn't include any southern cities I'll eventually found--they have a bunch of resources (most notably a fur, in addition to a bunch of food), even if the rest of the land is water and tundra. To start, we have the blue dotmap, based on settling 1W of the copper (the plains hill):


I like this dotmap a lot--lots of stuff being shared between cities, even the later ones, getting all the relevant tiles, getting high-quality tiles in all the first rings, and overall it looks better than my PBEM 58 layout already. The only downsides I can see is that I'm not expanding that much (though from what I've been told that's not that important), and that if I settle cities 7 and 8 such that they both fit, I can't actually net the clams
Anyway, those are minor issues and can be fixed as I defog more tiles and finalize the dotmap. Now let's look at the red dotmap that settles 1N of the copper:


Oh my--I'm surprised at how bad that dotmap looks in comparison to the blue one. It all starts when I can't place the blue 2, instead getting the red 2 which while it does have a lot of resources, its only food resources are the capital's sheep (which is still being shared by the copper city at this point) and the spices (which barely counts and can't be improved until Calendar). That starts a cascade of moving all the cities away from their best spots, and there isn't that much sharing going on either. This certainly means I want to settle the plains hill spot, then move to settle the next city quickly.

This is making me realize I need a naming scheme more--I just need an idea of something to do, and quickly before the Zulu names become even more unprouncible than they already are

I also got Whosit's graphs--nothing groundbreaking. Unfortunately, the whip tanked my stats and took me off the top cities list, but that doesn't matter

As for domestic matters, the plan right now is to build a worker next, using the chop as the main accelerant and finishing it relatively quickly, then I'll build a warrior to defend the next city and grow, then I'll finally start on settler 2 I think. I don't know what I'm doing in the second city though--warrior or worker maybe?

[Cheater Hater]

T33 Report:
Well, this is interesting--things are going a lot faster than I expected:


Wait--I'm 1-turning the worker? That's a lot faster than I thought, and worth looking at the city screen for:


It started at 4 turns, went down to 2 after the chop came in, then dropped to 1 when I switched from the crabs to the plains mine for the expansive bonus. This means I have to decide what I'm doing with both the city and the new worker. I think I'm going to have the worker chop something (the SW grassland hill I'm thinking, though a lot of it depends on when Pottery is coming in), and having the capital go Warrior->Worker or Settler, hopefully growing before the Warrior finishes--though I also need to not have the chop go into the Warrior, so that's a tricky balance, especially considering the capital is losing the sheep to my second city soon, at least temporarily.

And before I settle my second city, I want a naming scheme! I should seriously start thinking about stuff soon, though I have a ton of other stuff to get done :/

[Cheater Hater]

T34-35 Report:
Quick update here since I'm running out the door in a couple minutes, but I did settle my second city:


I also was able to time Ravnica so that the warrior would complete when the city grew, though I'm not 100% sure whether I'm going to go Worker or Settler next there. As for the newly founded Theros, the warrior won't finish there--it should turn into an Impi when I connect the copper right? Scout is boring, so I'll leave it there.

[Cheater Hater]

T36 Report:
The most interesting thing here is the scout move, since we're actually seeing new territory again


Admittedly, there isn't much new territory this turn at least--though what is dtay doing with his warriors? And his worker's out here too, just to road the copper (and settle the jungle hill, which looks like a really good city)?


Not much new here--everyone we know is in Slavery now, and Stonehenge got built somewhere (already? That seems really early, like someone went Worker->Stonehenge and put a couple chops into it), though not anyone in my immediate area--I should be able to tell who it was from the portal, but since I wasn't looking for it, I now would need to dig through all the score changes until I see a change that's around 16 points--it doesn't matter right now, but I'm just curious :/


A quick look here to close us out--I'm surprised my GNP is so high, though I guess a lot of that's just based on arrow bonus and that I'm actually working a couple tiles with commerce.

[Cheater Hater]

I'm surprised I'm doing so many reports for PB18 too--I even found time for a full report for PBEM 58! PB20 better start soon
T37 Report:
Let's start with the scout move, since I promised so much yesterday:


Apparently I shouldn't promise so much
Still, dtay has his second city already? Did he not settle copper with his second city--maybe he settled horses instead? And his copper city looks so good--the only problem with it is that it doesn't overlap the capital, so it's a bit slow I guess?

Anyway, to the capital area:


I am surprised at how well things are going here--notably all the tiles I'm working are improved!
I finally decided on a worker first for a couple reasons:

• In general, I need more workers--this has been shown in PBEM 58, and also shows up in my SP play--one way to fix this is to just build more, even if my instincts say they aren't needed.
  
• Right now, if I were to settle the second city on the dotmap (the one up by the pigs, though part of me has been wanting to move it 1E--I need to stop that urge since I want to be able to settle 5 so it shares the pigs), it would be really bad--working the unimproved pigs, and then taking Ravnica's grassland mine? The problem is that my workers are all busy--the eastern one is finishing the copper mine, roading it, then roading the sheep to connect the cities together (as well as the copper to Ravnica), while the southern one is chopping and cottaging the riverside grasslands. The settler would have come out in ~4 turns (6 turns now, and it'll get another chop, or I might have whipped it), and there's no time to get any cottages built north of Theros for my new city. Instead, what I can do is get my new worker out quickly, chop both riverside grasslands into my settler, then maybe whip it and get it out around the same time (except with an extra worker), or let it naturally complete and follow it up with another worker I can whip, then grow while building some Impis.
  

Yeah, I'm surprised at how much better it seems like I'm doing, just based on putting my cities closer together and building more workers. All of my future cities look so good, and the only problem I see is my low happy cap until Calendar--do I need to just rush to Monarchy for HR, try to rush for Calendar, keeping my cities small with many whips, or something else? I do think I need to prioritize settling my southern fur (and researching Animal Husbandry as well--which I think may be my next target after Pottery), but I don't know when that is--I think it's after settling the pigs, but should I delay it to after my horse as well? Probably not, considering Impis cover a lot of that role--though when is the next settler coming out? I think my plan is Worker->Settler->Worker->Impi->? in the capital, and I don't know where all the rest of the cities fit into the plan--the new city could go for a scout (in an attempt to pop that northern hut again, assuming dtay hasn't gotten there first and avoided all the barbs somehow) or a warrior (for future HR purposes), but I have no clue what Theros is doing after the Impi--another Impi I guess, since I want it to grow some more? Maybe that's where the fur settler will come from?

That went longer than I thought it would--a quick demo peek before I go:


Hooray, tied for first in production!

[Cheater Hater]

Seriously, how do I drop so far after skipping one uneventful update?
T38-39 Report:


I got a forest growth! Hooray RNG!
Not much else going on here--both chops will happen as explained earlier, which means the settler will complete in 4-5 turns. Theros continued onto an Impi as I assumed it would, and even though 8 turns is a lot, that'll accelerate quickly when I start working the copper.


I finally found Whosit's territory! No clue which city those borders are from though; I assume I'll be able to get by Whosit at least, but I'll need to start heading east of Krill/Novice eventually--maybe I'll build another scout sometime and push it in that direction? 3 teams was a lot fewer than I thought I would find by this point--maybe there's some other civs on the other side of the canal? I do need to get a scout over there sometime, but that means I would need to invest in a galley and Sailing--I should get a scouting workboat out there sometime at least

[Cheater Hater]

T40-41 Report:
Not much preamble this time, just a report where I've finally made some decisions:


I was so pleased with myself when I discovered this plan, even though it's basically the same as what I did last time: 2-pop whip the settler this turn, overflow to (almost assuredly) 1T a worker (since the second chop comes next turn as well), then use the rest of the overflow to grow while building a granary as I grow. After that I'll probably build an Impi in Ravnica, then get to building the next settler (which is headed east of Theros, and that Impi will guard it after scouting the area a bit I think).

Theros is a bit more tricky to plan, since it's not the focus of my settler production--I can build a granary there after building the Impi, but I'm not sure what size it will be when it finishes that--I think I'll be able to fit in another Impi (or maybe an axe for balance) before it builds a settler it can 2-pop whip--it should get a chop or two to help accelerate that plan sometime, and I'm not sure when.

The worker micro also needs to be settled. The one by Theros is mostly settled, since it'll finish connecting the two cities by roading the sheep, then build some cottages for Theros (which can be shared by city 3), though it might want a farm or two--the sheep is Thero's only food source (unless you count the wine). The two by Ravnica have easy starts (chop then cottage), but then I'm not sure, and then I have the new one showing up in a couple turns. For the southern one, I think I like having it move 2E onto the forest after it finishes the cottage, then chopping it into Theros. As for the eastern one and new one, I think I actually want them to move to improve Theros (eventually moving to city 4), while the old Theros one moves up to the new city after a turn or two of cottaging/farming, so I can pasture the pigs quickly.

That was longer than I thought--onto the scout move!


No land in that direction either, it appears--I'll start moving back around dtay next move, and hopefully I can find some more people before I need to start relying on known tech bonus to research stuff

A quick look at the demos to end today:


Hooray, a clear first in production! I guess copper+two mines+two cities on plains hills will do that. Of course, my mines go away next turn when I whip, but still, I'll enjoy it while it lasts