[Spoiler] Team slowwalk of the Reservoir Cats (Suleiman/Korea, slowcheetah + Catwalk)

[slowcheetah]

Ok quick turn report

Kept the scout moving along the coast and found some wheat (Yay). I also started the process of swinging the warrior back around.
For next turn, I think NW with the warrior and WNW with the Scout are probably the next best moves.

Also someone now has a production of 4, since borders popped end of last turn, it looks pretty likely that there are no two hammer tiles within the EXP civs LC.

[Catwalk]

Two small scouting suggestions:
1) 2x NW with our scout, letting it backfill the area west of our capital in case we want to settle there (especially with the wheat discovery)
2) Keep trucking with the warrior, hoping to make contact and maybe discourage exploration in our direction. As mentioned earlier, we'll need a warrior in our capital before too long so I'm not sure if we really need him to circle back. If safety is your main concern, we can put one turn of production into a warrior after the worker is done. We may not even need to do that, considering that there is a lake 2W2N of our capital. That means a western invader will have to cross 3 tiles in full visibility, easily letting us put up a warrior. If you're concerned about clearing the northern tiles for sake of expansion, I think the potential of meeting another civ exceeds it. It's not particularly important that we land the elephant with our first expansion, happiness likely won't be a big concern before our third expansion. We likely don't want to grab hunting yet either.

There.
*takes a breath*

One reason I'm keen on continuing with the warrior is that I circled around in PBEM25g and I ended up regretting it. Early contact was of very high value, and I was at no real risk of invasion.

[slowcheetah]

Scout- 2NW sounds fine

Warrior-I dont disagree with the priority you are placing on meeting other civilisations, but I still think the warrior should circle back round, at least for two more tiles. going NW followed by SW. That site looks like it has the potential to be the best second city site by some margin and not because of the ivory.
Firstly, it looks to be the nicest land we can settle for a second city, its riverside grassland which is far better than the plains elsewhere.

Secondly, it can share corn with the capital for a fast start, this is crucial particularly if we want to go with a wonder building strategy where we are tying up a lot of early resources in things other than expansion.

Thirdly, the site also seems to have good early game production and a fair few forests to chop, maybe even enough to directly chop out the mids.

Fourthly, other city sites, look to be both slower starting and a heavier tech cost. For example to get the most out of the eastern coastal site, fishing, animal husbandry and preferable sailing would have to be researched. They also look to be more in our backlines, although the scout might be able to tell us more.

I think the extra scouting information (which comes at the costs of an extra four turns away from searching for contacts) will prove important in solidfying our early game plans. Although, I am still primarily thinking the mids (with or without oracle gambit) are a good idea, the land around isn't too inspiring for a specialist economy (it is in general rather food poor). The land being rather poor in general also limits the amount one high happy cap city can generate, leaving a lot of lower happy cap cities possibly more productive, particularly on prince maintenance.
There have also been hints from commodore that islands are important, im thinking probably contain lots of happiness resources.
Consequently, I think that if the ivory site is poor, then we REX hard instead of building wonders and concentrate on getting boosts like circumnavigation and early settling of those islands, maybe also the great lighthouse but that could be rather optimistic.

TLDR-Ivory site good, I think we continue thinking towards the wonderscheme. Ivory site bad, I think we aim to chop workers and settlers scout out the islands and then maybe aim for some of the middle age wonders for economy (thinking The Great Library) and then go all bulb happy with fast PHI scientists.

That was a long essay to come out of a scouting decision wasn't it :P

[Catwalk]

Warrior-I dont disagree with the priority you are placing on meeting other civilisations, but I still think the warrior should circle back round, at least for two more tiles. going NW followed by SW.

I agree that detouring a little bit and then trucking on is a viable option, delaying the far trip a little won't set us back too much. I see a water tile NW of the cows and one N of the ivory. If we move W and then SW we'll get water visibility and then stand on the hill. If we know enough after that we can then continue NE.

That site looks like it has the potential to be the best second city site by some margin and not because of the ivory.

Which site exactly are you referring to?

Firstly, it looks to be the nicest land we can settle for a second city, its riverside grassland which is far better than the plains elsewhere.

I'd consider this to be mainly a long-term consideration, not so much of a determining factor in putting down our second city. Our first 3-4 cities are probably going to develop at the same speed long-term (as they'll be stunted by early happy caps), so I don't think we need to take long-term considerations into account yet. For the 2nd city I think we mainly need rapid short-term development speed, meaning that the first handful of tiles it'll be working early on matter matter far more than the next 10.

Secondly, it can share corn with the capital for a fast start, this is crucial particularly if we want to go with a wonder building strategy where we are tying up a lot of early resources in things other than expansion.

This I agree with, will help massively in early development speed. For this reason alone, I will probably end up agreeing on the northern site 2nd.

Thirdly, the site also seems to have good early game production and a fair few forests to chop, maybe even enough to directly chop out the mids.

Agreed, forests are also an important early consideration. I don't think we'll be chopping out pyramids though, it'll take 25 forests prior to Mathematics to complete it I don't think the pyramids are worth constructing (without a GE) for a non-IND leader.

Fourthly, other city sites, look to be both slower starting and a heavier tech cost. For example to get the most out of the eastern coastal site, fishing, animal husbandry and preferable sailing would have to be researched. They also look to be more in our backlines, although the scout might be able to tell us more.

Agreed, we haven't seen other good locations yet. We should know enough in 2t (3t at the most) to determine build order and settlement plans.

Although I am still primarily thinking the mids (with or without oracle gambit) are a good idea, the land around isn't too inspiring for a specialist economy (it is in general rather food poor). The land being rather poor in general also limits the amount one high happy cap city can generate, leaving a lot of lower happy cap cities possibly more productive, particularly on prince maintenance.
There have also been hints from commodore that islands are important, im thinking probably contain lots of happiness resources.

Consequently, I think that if the ivory site is poor, then we REX hard instead of building wonders and concentrate on getting boosts like circumnavigation and early settling of those islands, maybe also the great lighthouse but that could be rather optimistic.

Again, I still don't know what a specialist economy entails Does running 3x2 scientists after Writing constitute a specialist economy? I think that would be sufficient for Pyramids to be worth it, we get 18 bpt from that plus 3 happiness in 5 cities. The capital, the northern site and a SW sheep/wheat site can all support two specialists fairly easily. An engineer could also be added to that for a shot at another GE. Pulling off the pyramids gambit and then grabbing GLH is asking for trouble, though.

TLDR-Ivory site good, I think we continue thinking towards the wonderscheme. Ivory site bad, I think we aim to chop workers and settlers scout out the islands and then maybe aim for some of the middle age wonders for economy (thinking The Great Library) and then go all bulb happy with fast PHI scientists.

I'm still pretty keen on the Pyramids gambit regardless. What's more, we have a good chance of grabbing an early religion in the process. If we land buddhism, the oracle and the pyramids then we've very effectively dealt with culture issues for a long time. Both the capital and the oracle city will provide borders for neighbouring cities easily, and we will be able to spread religion for the first border pop instead of building monuments.

[slowcheetah]

I meant the corn-ivory city site north of the capital(which I believe you did get eventually sorry I didn't make that clearer).

Seems we are agreed on a brief turnback for the warrior, getting to the SW hill sounds fine to me.

My comments on the land being poor for a specialist economy were derived primarily from the low food. Specialists give produce a total of -2 food whereas cottages can range from -1 to +1 depending on tiles. However, you have resold me on the pyramids, 18bpt is not to be sniffed at early game in addition to the happiness, and we do have sufficient food around to make it worth our while. Coupled with the culture boons, it makes a convincing case. I also hadn't counted up quite how many chops the 'mids would take. Oracle gambit definitely sounds the way to go, besides it'd be cool to pull off

Also, the Great lighthouse was just a suggestion if we decided to go a primarily naval route I can't see us being able to build both. Although hopefully it'll disract Sian enough to let us build oracle and pyramids.

[slowcheetah]

Opponent analysis
This is going to be brief and is mainly for my benefit because I keep forgetting things about the civs we're facing.

-Sian is Roosevelt (IND/ORG) of Sumeria
Starting techs- The Wheel, Agriculture
UU-Vulture (strength 6 axeman with only 25% bonus against melee)
UB-Ziggurat (Courthouse avaliable at priesthood)
Thoughts- Probably the best traits in the game, with solo IND in particular being very powerful. I doubt Sian particularly values Ziggurats but they are at the same tech as the oracle (along with his nice cheap IND forges if he hits metal casting). Very large threat to our particular earlygame.

- spacetyrantxenu is Mao (EXP/PRO) of Babylon
Starting techs- The Wheel, Agriculture
UU-Bowman (archer with +50% against melee)
UB-Garden (colosseum with +2 health)
Thoughts- Should be very safe in the early game with protective bowmen and cheap walls. EXP should also let him REX at a reasonable lick. However, PRO is just so terrible and their looks to be a nice variety of Health resources so the garden is unlikely to be important. Probably the weakest leader/civ combo, but bowman could choke in the early game if he's our neighbour.

-Kuro is Justinian (SPI/IMP)
Starting techs- Agriculture, Hunting (scout start irrelevant since we both started warrior scout)
UU-Immortal (chariot with +50% against archery units)
UB-Apothecary (Grocer which provides +2 health)
Thoughts- Doubt we'll be defending with archers early game so Immortals probably won't be too relevant. SPI/IMP is quite a nice combo with a little early game impetus and nice late game strength.

For reference we are Suleiman(PHI/IMP) of Korea
Starting techs- Mysticism, mining
UU-Hwacha (catapult with +50% against melee)
UB-Seowon (+35% research university)

We build big strong catapults and generate lots of great people at our exceptional higher education institutions.

[Catwalk]

My comments on the land being poor for a specialist economy were derived primarily from the low food. Specialists give produce a total of -2 food whereas cottages can range from -1 to +1 depending on tiles. However, you have resold me on the pyramids, 18bpt is not to be sniffed at early game in addition to the happiness, and we do have sufficient food around to make it worth our while. Coupled with the culture boons, it makes a convincing case. I also hadn't counted up quite how many chops the 'mids would take. Oracle gambit definitely sounds the way to go, besides it'd be cool to pull off

We're actually in a really good position to pull it off as we're the only civ to start with Mysticism. That helps us in two ways:
1) We have a shorter path to Oracle
2) We discourage other players from going for an early religion, as they won't want to risk wasting the tech

Also, the Great lighthouse was just a suggestion if we decided to go a primarily naval route I can't see us being able to build both. Although hopefully it'll disract Sian enough to let us build oracle and pyramids.

Agreed, GLH is likely more of a temptation to him. I can't imagine anyone will let us get away with grabbing all 3. That said, what should we do with a second great engineer, in case we land one?

on the opponent breakdown, very useful. I think we have the strongest pick in the game. Our traits are useful, our starting techs will work out nicely, our UB is decent and our UU is definitely useful. I agree that Sian also has a decent combo, the others look weaker.

[slowcheetah]

Today we found some seafood

Crabs in the north


and Fish in the south

[Catwalk]

The spot NE of the furs looks great for our 3rd city. It will be a little slower to develop than the planned 2nd city to the north, but will be perfectly suited for a 3rd city when we can spare a worker to quickly get it up to speed. Fishing will be a slight detour from our tech plan, but I think that will be worthwhile.

Sian contacted us:

hello Slowwalk ... just met you to my southeast, spotting your scout with mine, how goes?

So we know he's NW, or maybe W-NW since our scout is W-SW currently. I suggest that we exchange some map information with him and start laying the foundation for a positive relationship. If we make one friend early on we have much less reason to fear a dogpile. And getting an early overall impression of the map will be invaluable. If he seems to be trusting, we should also try to inquire about his plans. I think we should also see what he thinks about a brief NAP, maybe t20 or so. What are your thoughts, and do you want to send off a message to him?

[slowcheetah]

Oh yes, I think a port location is very important for this map and would like to get one set up as soon as possible. NE of the furs does look like a very good city site as well.

Regarding Sian's message, yes I'll send him a message, I wouldn't mind him as an ally, but I think the really crucial piece on information would be his wonderplans in the early game. I'd ideally like to ask him before he asks us, so we can see what he's thinking first but I may leave that for a second email.