[SPOILERS] JR4 tries his luck in PB 37

[JR4]

TURN 65

The barbarian warrior decided not to attack our warrior and instead continued toward Borte. The chariot had 99 % odds and won. We got 2 XP, which is very good to have in the future. I`m planning to switch the chariot and the warrior next turn, so that the chariot will scout the missing tiles in  the NW, while the warrior will fog bust the other tiles.

Muqa is actually growing too fast right now. It`s set to grow already next turn! If we work the tiles listed in the micro plan we`ll have to eat a turn of unhappiness. It`s obviously not too bad, as the whales will come online the turn after. An option could be working another plains forest in order to time the growth with the netting of the whales, but it would lose us a coin and some food. Muqa needs more happiness.

We still didn`t get any Buddhism spreads. It looks like Chubei`ll have to build its own monument. I`d rather spend those hammers on other builds, but we need the border pop soonish.

[JR4]

Graphs and demos:

Joey built a bit more military, but nothing too frightening.

[RefSteel]

Muqa is actually growing too fast right now. It`s set to grow already next turn! If we work the tiles listed in the micro plan we`ll have to eat a turn of unhappiness. It`s obviously not too bad, as the whales will come online the turn after. An option could be working another plains forest in order to time the growth with the netting of the whales, but it would lose us a coin and some food. Muqa needs more happiness.

Thanks for catching that!  I think the thing to do is to put a turn into a Settler at Muqa next turn (when Chubei should be size 2 and back to borrowing the corn, and the plains hill mine should be finished so Muqa can work that, I think?) - because for whatever arcane reason in civ's code, unhappy citizens don't eat food when the city is building a settler or worker. (I don't think that's changed in RtR, though I haven't tested it.) Then Muqa can resume its axe the following turn when whales are hooked and the city is happy again.

[JR4]

Thanks for catching that!  I think the thing to do is to put a turn into a Settler at Muqa next turn (when Chubei should be size 2 and back to borrowing the corn, and the plains hill mine should be finished so Muqa can work that, I think?) - because for whatever arcane reason in civ's code, unhappy citizens don't eat food when the city is building a settler or worker. (I don't think that's changed in RtR, though I haven't tested it.) Then Muqa can resume its axe the following turn when whales are hooked and the city is happy again.

If that`s the way it works then surely it`s a very good idea! I can try it out tomorrow before I play the turn. A settler is a solid build anyway as we need to build our next cities soon.
EDIT: Yes, the plains hill mine will finish next turn.

As I see it our next 3 cities should be an island city, the pigs/corn site and the city south of Toregene, in some order. The jungle city will need a ton of worker turns (which we really can`t spare right now), but is the most important one from a strategic perspective. I can`t believe that we keep pushing the very good pig/corn site down the priority list as it`s a very good city in its own right, but doubling our trade routes sounds like a good vitamin shot for our economy. Right now I`m thinking 1)Island city, 2)Pig/Corn and 3)Jungle. It`s risky to leave that jungled area alone for too long, though..

[JR4]

TURN 66

The chariot was able to discover a few new tiles in the NW. There`s another island out there. In the SE there is another barb incoming. We could whip the spear this turn, as we`ll grow right back on turn 67 (I haven`t done it yet). Another option is sending down the spear from Borte, which will arrive in time to deal with the intruder. Btw, the spear isn`t finished yet, it`s set to complete next turn. When Borte grows to size 6 it`ll get another unhappy face so we`ll need an MP unit soon. I`m not comfortable about taking the warrior vs. warrior battle here. Hmm, maybe it`s best to whip out that spear after all..

Our first two mines completed this turn. It`d be hilarious if we got a resource pop before we got a religion spread. Yes, you`ve probably guessed it - no free spreads yet. I adjusted the slider, so we`re now at 100 % science. Our output is 41 science, while our expenses are 17 gpt. We might just be able to 3 turn Writing on full science when the whales come online on turn 67.

[JR4]

Our demos now look very, very good. At end of turn we`re 1st, 1st and 2nd on the gnp, mfg and food demos respectively. It obviously helps a lot to live in the quiet neighborhood of number 8 and 9 on the power ratings!

[RefSteel]

No need to whip the spear at Toregene this turn. That can wait until the barb is closer at Borte can work another of the shared tiles, if it's even needed at all. Remember, barbs move after all the end-of-turn processing is complete, so it won't be too late to whip if we have to even when the barb is right next to the city.

On settling: Before we can get an island city, we need to produce a galley from Muqa. I see a couple of options for that right now, but they're both intricate and slow. Each double-whips the Galley on T71, but puts something ahead of it in the queue immediately afterward so as to delay the galley (and more importantly, its overflow) by a turn. The Galley therefore hits the sea T73 in each case. In one version, we would double-whip the Settler T74, getting some overflow but not a lot. The other version one-turns Workboat out right after the Galley, double-whips the Settler T76, and one-turns a Worker with the overflow from that.

There are faster ways of doing it of course, with e.g. chops or even bigger whips, each costly in their own way.

[RefSteel]

Being this nearly first in all three top categories is kind of incredible. Of course the GNP has something to do with teching Writing with two "or" prereqs at 100%, and we won't hold onto all three leads indefinitely, but even so....

And yeah, I apologize for the mess I made of the above-posted microplan, between the food miscalculation at Muqa and the spear miscount at Borte. I was a bit sloppy about recording when things would complete. I'll try to double-check more closely next time I post one of these. (Hopefully tomorrow sometime, but we'll see....)

[JR4]

I agree, let`s just hold off the whip for now. Toregene is producing a lot of income for our Empire. We want it to work all its strong tiles.

Waiting another 10 - 12 turns on founding our next city sounds a bit slow. Hmmm, maybe we should prioritize the corn/pigs city site after all? It`s easy to set up, and can work the oasis early on for commerce, so it won`t be a big burden on the economy. I find it hard to choose between the two.

Also, do we need a spear at Chubei when the peace treaty with dtay is coming to an end? It can probably invest 5 hammers in a spear itself, as Muqa has a lot of other things to build right now.

[JR4]

Being this nearly first in all three top categories is kind of incredible.  Of course the GNP has something to do with teching Writing with two "or" prereqs at 100%, and we won't hold onto all three leads indefinitely, but even so....

And yeah, I apologize for the mess I made of the above-posted microplan, between the food miscalculation at Muqa and the spear miscount at Borte.  I was a bit sloppy about recording when things would complete.  I'll try to double-check more closely next time I post one of these.  (Hopefully tomorrow sometime, but we'll see....)

Oh, the micro plans have been immensely helpful. I surely wouldn`t be doing so well in the demos if I was planning all by myself!