[Spoilers] Pindicator accepts his fate

[pindicator]

Fast Staycationer if anything -- this is India after all.

Turn 058

So this is what I need to grab:



Those gems are going to be huge. So huge that after Pottery I'm going to tech straight to IW. Ideally we can grab IW by the time we're ready to start chopping those gems out, but that may be asking a lot with all the expansion I have planned.

Grew another pop this turn. 3 more next turn, counting the new city I'm about to plant.

I think Commodore is right about chopping another settler out. I can even bank the chop early so the previous settler comes out a turn faster, so I found that first gems city the turn that the rice is improved. Then the next settler likely heads south of the capital -- I think it will be too soon for the jungle gems. I'll have to work on that some -- maybe Andrad builds a worker or two that helps get that hooked up. Or Andrad builds a settler that takes care of the jungle gems later on.

It's going to be really dicey with worker actions in about 10 turns with all this settler spam


My C&D is off again. But this time I think it's not the formulas, it's how I've attributed the increases. I seem to be about 7 land tiles short and have too much population attributed. Not sure, but I think I have gsorel's total population overstated.

[pindicator]

Nyles burned a size 1 dcodea city last night. Probably neighbors then, unless Nyles just got lucky with a scouting unit.

[pindicator]

Turn 059

Well, things escalated quickly there.

I already mentioned that NylesStandish took a size 1 city off of dcodea and then burnt it -- so those two are clearly at war.

But then things went even crazier as OT4E took TWO of ipecac/wetbandit's 3 cities. And these weren't tiny border size 1 cities -- team wetbandit and ipecac lost all if not a great majority of their land points. That means their capital got taken, and another city taken and razed. With all the whipping wetbandit had been doing OT4E only got a size 1 city out of it, but we're going to see that team be the second one off the board here in very short order.

It also is a reminder that we have to keep a pulse on our neighbor's military while pushing for settlers in the near term. Really don't want to end up as the next civ off the board. This reminds me, I didn't check graphs this last turn -- I'm going to go do that now.

And glad I did:



We still have 5 turns of enforced peace, but I'm not going to send by axes too far out because this is not something I want to have to suddenly deal with on my border. Maybe I slow down this settler rush a little bit, but hopefully dcodea can bloody Nyles a bit in return and make things interesting.

As for my turn, there was one big piece of news: we hit city #4!



StarDoor settled his 4th city earlier in the turn, and we should take note that you can see it's borders in the lower right of the screenshot. This makes me want to rush out to those gems even more -- it's more likely that StarDoor will go for his own forest gems first, before taking jungle gems. But I don't want to take that risk.

And this leads me to Pindicator's Micro Moment for turn 59: the fastest way to grow the new city of Torheven. It's not camping the deer first. The work boat could be chopped out by eot62, move to the fish the turn before borders pop, and then net the fish --- but that's not the fastest growth micro either. Instead the fastest is to delay the work boat to end of t63, and overflow as many hammers as possible into a granary, and then chop + whip that granary out at size 2. This gives us 2 extra food over fastest work boat at the coast of 2 commerce.

The reason why is because Pottery won't finish researching until end of t63 (cross your fingers it doesn't get delayed later due to unforseen expenses). So if we get a fastest work boat, that slows down the hammers going into the granary enough that it more than makes up for the extra food from a faster fish net. I don't know how many people care about little micro details like that, but to me this detail was utterly fascinating.

It's just an incremental gain, but all those things add up. For instance, remember this little tidbit?

I should have worked the Rice and Pigs this turn and previous turn, then swapped to a work boat next turn with the Horse and Pigs. As such, I'll only have 1 hammer into a work boat when I could have had 4. I dont' think that will end up mattering -- but it might.

Turns out those extra hammers would have made a difference: they would have gotten the work boat out a turn sooner and that would have in turn let us grow Andrad faster. Stuff like this is how I'm going to get back in the game.

Because I'm going for the farmer's gambit, at least for the next 15 turns:



Or until someone sends a stack of axes my way.

[Commodore]

That power to me says dc is doomed.

[pindicator]

Maybe. Just eyeballing things here, but we can use our 3 chariot surge as a reference. 3 spears were an built by Nyles. Add in archery tech which he recently finished. I'd say there's only room for 1 or 2 axes in there after all that.

[oledavy]

But then things went even crazier as OT4E took TWO of ipecac/wetbandit's 3 cities. And these weren't tiny border size 1 cities -- team wetbandit and ipecac lost all if not a great majority of their land points. That means their capital got taken, and another city taken and razed. With all the whipping wetbandit had been doing OT4E only got a size 1 city out of it, but we're going to see that team be the second one off the board here in very short order.

This game tho...

[pindicator]

Turn 60

I forgot all about work boats getting +35% production. That really changes things - the granary trick I detailed last turn doesn't work because I either get the wb done too soon or the overflow rounds down and the granary comes too late. So ... yeah.

The better part of this is that all the work boats I need to build in the upcoming turns are going to be quite a bit cheaper.

Every worker is chopping this turn. Even the new one that just finished from Karego-At. Worker 6 is chopped, done at end of turn.

[pindicator]

Turn 061

New faces!



So all EP now goes into chumchu. We'll lose our research vision on NylesStandish soon -- he just planted his 4th city -- but I'm not terribly afraid of him. He has yet to improve the plains cow tile that I pillaged, and he's never improved the plains cow tile in his 2nd city.

Still reworking my plans since my gaffe of forgetting RtR's +35% production to wb for EXP. It is going to make some things easier though. Tentative projections are 7 cities at turn 71, 8 cities at 75, potentially 9 by 80 but I may just want to grow upwards at 8.

OT4E captured another city off of ipecac. Ipecac is down to a single size 2 city. OT4E has caught gsorel in total population and total cities. We live in amazing times.

[pindicator]

So going back to my dotmap, here are ETAs for each new city:

• I was able to sneak Orange dot up to t65.
  
• White dot - t70
  
• Magenta dot - t71
  
• Green dot - t75
  
• Yellow dot - t80
  

This is all contingent on not being invaded, of course.

[pindicator]

Turn 062

Augh, I fucked up. In last turn I forgot to switch Andrad to a work boat -- for some reason. And that means the wb comes later, the city gets to take over the rice later, and now that settler that was coming out t72 to get to the green dot by t75 is coming a turn later. Maybe I can fix it, we'll see. Really, even if it comes on t76 instead it likely will still be before Iron Working comes in, meaning we aren't going to lose out too much. The only thing that matters is claiming it ahead of StarDoor.

Chumchu kept the scout near my warrior after playing, so I had a bit of a quandry whether or not to attack. In the end I decided that since it was his starting scout the odds are that his starting area is far away and there's no real difference whether he sees this or not. And while killing it would be cool it would also set my warrior back 2 turns on any future scouting. Plus, barbarians would likely finish the job. So I didn't attack.

Karego-At is about to blow up:



The Fish will be netted next turn, then the Deer camped a few turns later. At size 4 this city will be pulling in 18 food-hammers. At size 5 we'll be at 24fh. In fact, I may not whip this city to get the magenta dot by t71, because why would I want to whip off a 5 or 6 yield tile just to save a turn on a non-contested city location?

I pulled the archer out of Karego to defend our worker -- enforced peace with Nyles ends in 2 turns. And with a second archer finishing at end of turn we should be solid enough. Next turn we'll start another work which will be sent east to net seafood either at Andrad or at the Magenta Dot city. Then at size 4 we'll start another settler here.

Also you can see what I mean about Nyles not developing his territory. Commodore is probably aghast at those plains cows being left unimproved so long.

We chopped a settler out of the capital:



The worker that did the chopping is going to head north to help chop out a settler from Karego-At and then go on to help set up the Magenta Dot city. The worker south of Gont is going to road to White Dot and then chop out a work boat for that city. I really could spare someone to hook up the furs though -- happy cap is 4 right now and I'll have a number of cities hitting up against it soon. So I'm tempted to have White Dot fend for itself and instead send that worker to hook up the Furs. But I will have Gems hooked up in about 10 turns as well, and I don't think any city will want to grow to 5 by then -- too many settlers and workers being made.

This was before I noticed the gaffe at Andrad. (I hate making stupid mistakes like that after figuring out a good plan for a city.) But Andrad was swapped to a work boat which finishes in 3. The workers will finish the rice on t65, which is the same turn that the settler from Gont will found our next city. There's a barb warrior somewhere in that fog, so we have an axe nearby, and can always pull the chariot scouting to the north back if need be.



And then in the south Torheven had its work boat chopped out. With my previuos plan squashed the new idea here is simply to grow as quick as possible. Simple and sweet. Borders pop end of next turn and the work boat will be right there to net those fish.


C&D

I wish I had taken screenshots of the graphs -- our MFG spike with all this growing going on is crazy, and our food and GNP are nice too. Our neighbors are pretty stagnant, though StarDoor is doing a fair job. Nyles' power has stopped growing as well, so I am feeling fairly confident that we are safe to continue growing. All EP is being sent to Team Chumchu / Gawdzak, but our other neighbors are putting the majority of their EP towards us sadly.