[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Have you decided how you want to pop borders yet?

I kind of like the idea of getting what we have termed as #4 up soon. I don't see #3 helping us that much, and I do not anticipate others eating up the real estate in that direction soon given that land in the opposite direction (SE for us) is so much better. Initially we were going there for the horse. Now we have a much better site with horses SW of Newt.

Related to how you want to pop borders, when do you want to tech fishing? Depending on city placement, the city SW of Newt will benefit from that as soon as we can build a WB. I suggest settling on the hill 2N of crabs near Newt, then on the PHF on the island later on. I thought of the site NE of crabs so they're first ring, but I think corn + horses is more valuable, and this way you don't lose the grassland forest while picking up hill defense. I like crab first-ring placement better overall, but I'm concerned about how long it takes to get that city up and running. On the hill, I think this is by far the best for city #3. We can grow/whip/chop a lot out of here pretty fast. What do you think?

Also, the one listed as "filler" will be a good site, sharing the crabs/corn with the island. Border pop won't be important because everything (except southern crabs) will be first ring.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Number One: I'm inclined to believe the corn/horse/crabs site is the best site for C3. It isn't marked on the screenshot for this turn but when that settler finishes in 3 turns I think that is where it should go, to the grass hill.

T26 - Our first settler is complete and is in position to settle next turn. Two workers will being pasturing the sheep for C2 as soon as it is in cultural borders, on city founding.

With improved sheep that will give the new city +5 food per turn at size one. Even without fishing to net the fish resource we'll still be able to grow working three grass hill mines, so I think that would be the short term improvement plan for that city (let's call it Mitt Romney since he's probably #1 in the polls right now). I guess that will make corn/horse/crab be Rick Santorum, and then whatever is next Ron Paul. Then we'll recycle old candidates. Anyway, at size 4 working the PH city center + sheep + 3 grass hill mines and still growing for whip possibilities, that city will churn out plenty of settlers, workers, and units for us. After we get caught up on our growth curve with the immediate settler/worker necessities, I want a granary + barracks ASAP, and then bowman after bowman as we research toward an eventual HR civics swap.

Before we take the Monarchy path, though, I really want to make a run at the GLH to prevent Sian from sweeping the early wonders, minus Oracle. There are a lot of good coastal spots for us and we can mostly chop the lighthouse and then the wonder, especially out of the site marked east of Newt. We should get the FP city up and growing first, I think, so the GLH city would be #5 by this count. That's a tall order --can we get enough settlers and workers by then (plus garrisons) AND think the wonder won't fall by that time? What do you think about this, Number One?

As for popping borders, I guess it depends on if we can get an early religion. Hinduism is still out there, but everyone other than us already has Mysticism I think, so it's likely to go before long. If we can't count on a missionary we'll either have to build a few monuments, which I don't want to do, or wait until Writing and put libraries in what will be commerce cities and monuments elsewhere. Honestly, though monuments are only a 1 pop whip, we could probably do that mostly on overflow if we worked it correctly. Maybe that's just the way to plan for now. Mysticism is only a 4 turn tech, so it doesn't set us back that badly and we need it to make our run at Monarchy anyway.

Near term tech plan: Finish BW, then Fishing, Sailing (start workboat builds now), Mysticism (whip WBs, overflow onto monuments where needed if that is viable at this point), then depending on if we need more military options for some reason HBR, if not then on up the monk line toward Monarchy, the route probably depends on if Judaism is still available. Someone will probably beat us to it but it's worth a shot. If not, we can get Monotheism later when we can use OR and skip for now, going via Priesthood since it's a cheaper tech and will get us triple prerequisites for Writing. That would put Writing at 6 or 7 techs away depending on HBR, but if we research it too soon we'll be the first to it and paying more than we'd have to if we let someone else break ground for us.

I guess the question becomes when does Newt need a library built, and the same for C4 (FP city). I expect C4 will be able to run us a pair of science specialists for a fairly early GS, either to settle in Newt with its cottage cheese improvement plan, or for an early academy. I think it may be too early to bulb, but if we're still without a religion and want one, and Philo is reachable, that may be an option, but I doubt we'll have CoL by then. (If we're first there, though, then bulbing Philo for the science becomes unnecessary, though it may be desirable from a beaker point of view). Anyway, that's getting very far ahead for now.

By the time we get here, it may be time to decide on if the GLH is still viable and work it in quickly as C6. In that time, though, we could probably chop/build it out of C3 already. That's probably a better plan if we want it. That issue aside, after the FP city if we don't need to build a city in the forests NE of Newt to chop a wonder we can settle our original C3 site (wheat/horse/silver/fur) in the north for +2 happiness. If we're already in HR by then, though, this is less important since we can spam bows quickly out of C2.

Not important now, but the tile our workers just finished the road on will need a fort later in the game for a canal. And keep in mind that this is a good tile improvement for us because it's one way to utilize our protective trait since we get those bonuses to city defense and a fort acts as a city for combat purposes.

Demographics:

We should advance a bit in MFG when Sian's numbers drop off from finishing his wonder build. He completed Stonehenge this turn to complete his fake-creative trait (religion+monuments).



Also, if Sian fully intends to go wonder crazy in this game like it sounds he plans to, Dazed showed me a fun game we can play. It goes something like this:



Just imagine Sian's peasants are the ones from that game and you'll have it right. Build lots of wonders = not building lots of something else (hopefully military). If you get caught, you will be punished. Maybe it will come to that. See also: BURNINATE!

[spacetyrantxenu]

One annoying note I forgot earlier, I had to drop research to 90% this turn because the settler walking out of cultural borders cost me 1 gold, I believe. That gives us 11 beakers instead of 13 with +1 to our gold output, so we're losing one beaker to rounding. I assume that confirms that settlers and/or workers cost unit maintenance outside cultural borders? I had assumed it only applied to combat units. I guess workers have to eat, too.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Number One: I'm inclined to believe the corn/horse/crabs site is the best site for C3. It isn't marked on the screenshot for this turn but when that settler finishes in 3 turns I think that is where it should go, to the grass hill.

I agree.

...snip...

With improved sheep that will give the new city +5 food per turn at size one. Even without fishing to net the fish resource we'll still be able to grow working three grass hill mines, so I think that would be the short term improvement plan for that city (let's call it Mitt Romney since he's probably #1 in the polls right now). I guess that will make corn/horse/crab be Rick Santorum, and then whatever is next Ron Paul. Then we'll recycle old candidates. Anyway, at size 4 working the PH city center + sheep + 3 grass hill mines and still growing for whip possibilities, that city will churn out plenty of settlers, workers, and units for us. After we get caught up on our growth curve with the immediate settler/worker necessities, I want a granary + barracks ASAP, and then bowman after bowman as we research toward an eventual HR civics swap.

Granary first, we'll chop that out as soon as the sheep is done. I want the granary complete before size 2, particularly because Mitt will only have one food resource for a little while, until we get the borders popped. Granary first will help the growth curve.

Also, let's take a look around to determine how soon (if at all) we'll really need HR. If you plan to take GLH, you'll be doing more horizontal growth than vertical growth. As we expand in #cities, we'll be taking in more happiness resources. Also, not needing to switch to HR will help because:

1. reduced civic cost
   
2. fewer units needed (production to growth instead + less cost for unit maintenance)
   
3. we may not need the higher happy cap
   
4. may not have to tech Monarchy (opening up other economic techs like Writing sooner)
   

We are protective and I think this alone will serve to deter invasion. As long as we can keep an eye on power charts, there's little need to build and keep up a large force.

Before we take the Monarchy path, though, I really want to make a run at the GLH to prevent Sian from sweeping the early wonders, minus Oracle. There are a lot of good coastal spots for us and we can mostly chop the lighthouse and then the wonder, especially out of the site marked east of Newt. We should get the FP city up and growing first, I think, so the GLH city would be #5 by this count. That's a tall order --can we get enough settlers and workers by then (plus garrisons) AND think the wonder won't fall by that time? What do you think about this, Number One?

I think if we wait until city 6 someone will have it. City 3 should take it. We will use one chop for the granary (EXP bonus hammers). That leaves 2 forests to chop without borders expanding, so not a lot. We'd have to count on someone else not building it. I think it is worth it to take a chance. If Sian builds it, we'll want to put together a force to bring him down a peg. No wonder-whoring allowed.

As for popping borders, I guess it depends on if we can get an early religion. Hinduism is still out there, but everyone other than us already has Mysticism I think, so it's likely to go before long. If we can't count on a missionary we'll either have to build a few monuments, which I don't want to do, or wait until Writing and put libraries in what will be commerce cities and monuments elsewhere. Honestly, though monuments are only a 1 pop whip, we could probably do that mostly on overflow if we worked it correctly. Maybe that's just the way to plan for now. Mysticism is only a 4 turn tech, so it doesn't set us back that badly and we need it to make our run at Monarchy anyway.

I think I can live with delayed religion. I think getting onto the islands first will be more important. Stone to the SW, Gold to the NE, and likely both could be contested. Also, I'd like to explore the coasts a bit, so getting there early will help. If Judiasm is there once we get done with Sailing, we can try for it. I'm not that fussed.

Near term tech plan: Finish BW, then Fishing, Sailing (start workboat builds now), Mysticism (whip WBs, overflow onto monuments where needed if that is viable at this point), then depending on if we need more military options for some reason HBR, if not then on up the monk line toward Monarchy, the route probably depends on if Judaism is still available. Someone will probably beat us to it but it's worth a shot. If not, we can get Monotheism later when we can use OR and skip for now, going via Priesthood since it's a cheaper tech and will get us triple prerequisites for Writing. That would put Writing at 6 or 7 techs away depending on HBR, but if we research it too soon we'll be the first to it and paying more than we'd have to if we let someone else break ground for us.

I pretty much agree with this. I'm not looking to get HBR just yet. Fighting at this age seems counterproductive.

I guess the question becomes when does Newt need a library built, and the same for C4 (FP city). I expect C4 will be able to run us a pair of science specialists for a fairly early GS, either to settle in Newt with its cottage cheese improvement plan, or for an early academy. I think it may be too early to bulb, but if we're still without a religion and want one, and Philo is reachable, that may be an option, but I doubt we'll have CoL by then. (If we're first there, though, then bulbing Philo for the science becomes unnecessary, though it may be desirable from a beaker point of view). Anyway, that's getting very far ahead for now.

Early library would be nice, but we're behind on expansion IMO, so let's focus on that first. Also, this can be decided if/when other religions fall.

By the time we get here, it may be time to decide on if the GLH is still viable and work it in quickly as C6. In that time, though, we could probably chop/build it out of C3 already. That's probably a better plan if we want it. That issue aside, after the FP city if we don't need to build a city in the forests NE of Newt to chop a wonder we can settle our original C3 site (wheat/horse/silver/fur) in the north for +2 happiness. If we're already in HR by then, though, this is less important since we can spam bows quickly out of C2.

I think I like both FP sites in the SE better than the one currently tagged #3. We don't need the extra happiness just yet.

Not important now, but the tile our workers just finished the road on will need a fort later in the game for a canal. And keep in mind that this is a good tile improvement for us because it's one way to utilize our protective trait since we get those bonuses to city defense and a fort acts as a city for combat purposes.

I'm hoping we make our "last stand" in what we're calling city 3.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T27 - I played this quickly but here's the end of turn map:

We founded C2 - Mitt Romney and the workers will finish the pasture at EoT 28. Mitt builds a granary then can contribute to empire needs. The settler underway at Newt is still nominally headed to the site now marked C3, but we're discussing if it needs to take the less useful/more forest spot NE of the capital for C3, for use in beating Sian to the GLH. I'm not sure which way to go. Obviously the horse/corn/clam site is great, but I don't want Sian to sweep the good early wonders. On this map the GLH will be very good and I'd like to control it myself. Having it would help subsidize city spam, which we'd like to do to grab a lot of territory.

Catwalk has a warrior on our proposed C4 site, just looking I suppose. Our warrior is approaching his area in a similar fashion. As long as he plays nice we will too.

On the espionage front, we have graphs now on both Sian and Catwalk but I didn't have time to grab screens while I played this at lunch. I'll load the save back up tonight and post those. I maximized effort to get graphs on Catwalk and Sian in the early game and have zero points invested in Dazed's civ. That was a result of meeting them first because by choice I'd like to know what Dazed's power graph looks like. Someone's power is getting closer to mine and I'd like to keep track of who it is so there are no surprises.

More news at 11.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T28 - One worker finished the sheep pasture so now Mitt Romney is growing at a nice pace:

I moved the other worker onto the PHF tile the two cities share. Mechanics question here: BW is due in 2 so I can't chop or mine/chop the forest yet. All the worker can do is build a road. If I have him start the road next turn and cancel the action, will that save two worker actions for the next turn when BW is done, or will that just save the roading action for the next turn? I'm a bit confused on how cancelling worker actions and carrying their action forward works. If I'm wrong about being able to cancel the road and storing that action to begin the chop, I'll probably just put two turns into the road so another worker can join him to finish it faster. I'd like that mine to be done so Mitt will have a second improved tile to work soon after it grows to 2.

I'll have to decide which city should get the hammers from that chop, depending on when it comes in the decision could be easy. It may come down to if Mitt is still building the granary it goes there, or if one of the two of them is building a worker it would be an easy choice for 3 free hammers.

Here's Newt this turn:

Mouseover shows we lost a hammer in the bowman so it's been sitting there for 10 turns now. No biggie, settler finishes this turn, the bow the next turn, and then the city will grow to 5 while building the granary. You can see the queue lined up. The barracks are just there because we have 2 hammers in it. That well could decay off before we build a barracks here (if ever). I guess that would depend on if we go to war!

Demographics:

The GNP number looks awful but that's just Sian's Stonehenge+Buddhism showing up. He should have the GNP lead for a while to come because of that. If it makes him look dangerous, so be it. I'm OK not being at the top of the score sheet because it makes someone else be the potential dogpile target -- unless someone else is really bad in diplo and doesn't play well with others.

I'd be worried about the MFG number except that I think Catwalk must be spamming settlers with his IMP trait. Either that or he has several hills mined already and is working those. I know he was going to build Oracle soon, but he won't get any bonuses for that yet unless he has a forge up already.

Talked things over with Number One, we're committing to the GLH push. Tech path will go Fishing | Sailing | Masonry and we're going to build it in the upcoming C3 at the horse/corn/crab site. The crabs won't come into play unfortunately because we have no way to pop borders yet. But with the hammers from the horse and a PH mine to go with 4 chops, we hope we can beat Sian to it. Maybe he'll prioritize something else and not research the necessary techs in time. Who knows. I wouldn't have gone into the game thinking we could beat IND/ORG Roosevelt to the GLH, but I think it's going to be powerful enough that it's worth the effort.

I still have graphs for this turn on both Catwalk and Sian. I've switched my EP allocation to move all points onto Dazed and have told him about my intent to get graphs on everyone. If he keeps points on me for denial there's nothing I can do about it before CoL anyway so I thought it better for diplo to tell him in case he wonders what I'm up to. He already knows I'm the power leader (even though it's mostly on paper right now) but it's better to not give someone reason to be paranoid when you're in EXPANSION MODE.

Here are the graphs I promised yesterday:

Catwalk's decline here may mean he has recently built another city. I think would be his third but I'm not sure. However, in conjunction with his MFG graph maybe he just switched off a commerce tile onto a hammer tile.


Catwalk's MFG is through the roof. Previously speculated its cause, whether IMP powered settlers or mines/chops for his oracle push. If it markedly decreases next turn maybe we can infer that he finished his chops?


Sian seems to be expanding well. It looks like he has good food tile improvements being worked. You can see the jump we had last turn when the sheep pasture came online (or is that from the city founding? I ended turn before taking these screen shots so I don't know if that eliminates the delay on viewing charts or not, since my production phase had already run. Can anyone clarify?)


Power. Not a lot to say here as techs drive the early power rating. Interesting that Sian shows upward steps and Catwalk shows more quick jumps. Maybe Catwalk is not building much military and is getting his power increases from techs and population growth?


This one is still easy to read, which makes it useful for getting a real reading of the GNP graph. Increase 1 is founding Buddhism, increase 2 is building Stonehenge. Until Sian starts building other culture buildings we can also use this to see when he builds a new city since it will start with a monument, causing a minute upward tick in the culture rate.

That's all for now. For any lurkers out there, if you can answer either of the two questions from this turn I would appreciate it. Also, do you guys have any questions for me or want to see something I haven't shown?

[spacetyrantxenu]

T29 - So annoyingly I lost graphs on Catwalk. Switching points back to him until we get an agreement in place about EP spending. We're even with Sian right now at 44 points, so hopefully he's spending on someone else or we'll lose him trying to catch up to Catwalk.

Catwalk has about 66 hammers into something right now in his capital so it looks like he's already working on the Oracle. The next most expensive thing he could be building right now would be a settler, at 65 hammers. I'll try to remember to check his progress next turn to see what his production rate is.

My northern scout has begun his trip into Sian's area and the southern warrior has met Catwalk's northern border. He'll jog SE next turn and then continue back the other coast the way he came in, going NE. Since I've still done a poor job scouting the area near my eastern border I'm sending the warrior that had been garrisoned in Newt to clear out the fog. The bow that finishes next turn will replace him on guard duty.

The settler finished at end of turn, he'll begin the two turn trip to the coastal grass hill site for C3. I realized this turn that I should have done a better job managing the workers and probably could have had a road over there to make it a 1 turn move from the capital. If we miss out on the GLH by one turn....

Oh, after I ended turn I had my graphs back on Catwalk. Dazed is going to have graphs on me soon, though. It seems like he's spending most of his points on me.

Photos:

[spacetyrantxenu]

Diplo with Team Kitty:

[COLOR="Cyan"]Greetings fellow dictator,

Your warrior appears to have found our borders this turn. Unfortunately, border controls are strict these days, so you won't be able to legally cross to the other side of our 'hub' before someone discovers 'Writing', because apparently our people have created enough of the mystical property known as 'culture' to be able to seal off the area from troops. I'm not sure quite how romantic songs about knights who say 'neep' accomplishes this, but my top priests assure me that it works.

On the other side of the coin our warrior has been up near your borders for a couple of turns, he is about to turn round and defog the other side of the coast in the hopes of having a means towards profitable trade relations before a road network is erected between our nations.

Yours maniacally,
slowcheetah and Catwalk.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hail Co-Dictators!

We've noticed the closed borders and although it's inconvenient we'd rather not be challeneged to chop the tallest tree in the forest with a herring in order to pass through. Similarly, our borders are closed because we fear an outbreak of NEEP if your warrior is presently allowed to pass through, so sadly we must keep him out for now until we can find a way to open the borders without risk of inadvertant NEEPing, or accidental use of ancient relics such as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, if he happens to be in possession of one.

For now our warrior will continue his exploration of the wilderness, searching for new and interesting ways to torture our peasants. He plans to head back northeast along the coast to see if he can discover anything new that way.

How do things fare in your empire? It looks like your Oracle build is going well, from what we can see. Have relations improved with Sian since you two came to an agreement about your wonder building plans? How have things gone with the new Rebel Leaders in control of the former Pirate lands? We've had a few discussions with Dazedroyalty and find him to be an interesting leader. His interest in mathematics and logic concerns us, though, since everyone knows Mao is irrational at all times.

One other topic I had been meaning to bring up involves spending espionage points on one another. We currently have graphs on you and you should also have graphs on us. Would you like to agree to not spend further points on each other so we can both keep visibility on the demographics charts? I would like to prevent paranoia on either side about a sudden military buildup and having visibility would be a good way to provide that security to both of us. If you don't want to make a deal we'd have to keep spending on you when we'd rather catch up our charts on someone else.

Anything else interesting going on? We always love to chat, especially over the sounds of wailing and suffering peasants as a pleasant backdrop.

Hail Ronald Reagan!

Mao (meow),
Chairman
Republican Party[/COLOR]

TL;DR - We both have a warrior at the other team's borders that can't pass through without open borders, we're both turning around to continue exploring, and I asked about an agreement on EP allocation so we can both keep graphs on each other.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T30

"It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair." -Homer

Mao delights in quotes like that, keep 'em coming Leonard! BW is in, which will enable Mao's favorite civic in the history of whipping peasants. Since the settler finished in Newt and is en route to the C3 site, I went ahead and revolted into slavery. Thankfully that nasty looking GNP of 1 only lasted until I hit end turn, so it doesn't feel like we lost a turn of production.

Newt is going to finish the bow that's been in the queue for about 12 turns next turn and will put one turn into a granary and reach size 5. Since the worker at Newt (Brian Naylor) won't have a 5th tile improvement finished by the time the city grows I'll probably put a turn into the next worker and whip it. With overflow coming from this turn we'll be at 20 hammers next turn on the granary when we return to it, so 4 more turns to complete it while regrowing after the worker whip. Also, with two workers available they should be able to mine/chop the shared GHF between Newt and Mitt. At that point both cities will still be working on finishing their granaries. Maybe the chop should go into overflow onto another settler for C4, or a worker for the fourth worker. Probably a worker to get these cities growing and getting those forests pre-chopped down by the as yet unnamed C3. (We need a name for that by the way. Are Santorum and Paul even relevant in the race anymore? The Florida primary is tomorrow and neither are expected to show well). On the other hand, a settler to move ASAP to our C4 site would be great since copper just popped on the desert hill tile SW of the marked settling location. If we settled that now, though, we wouldn't have enough workers to improve all 4 cities quickly enough, nevermind having enough worker turns for the GLH push. So my vote is to get worker #4 before settler #3 out of Newt.

Noob worker lesson, vets disregard as there's probably nothing interesting for you here (unless I got something wrong ) :

Audie moved onto the PHF 1N of C3 after road/cancelling last turn. I figured out how the cancelling action works, no new information here for vets but the cancel action puts in the action the worker performed and leaves him without orders the next turn. If you go back the next turn and repeat the action it will show the previous turn's progress toward completion. So an action like a two worker turn road completes on the second turn if you cancelled it on the first turn. But I found that what I was trying to do with the worker on the shared GFH would not work. I tried to bank a worker turn by roading/cancelling, and then save that cancelled action and use it on a chop (since BW wouldn't be completed until the next turn after I wanted to start the chop). That will not work, as I found. No big deal, I just finished the road on the GFH and will move on next turn to start on a cottage Newt can use at size 5. When the next worker finishes I'll send them both to the GFH and mine/chop it quickly.

You can see in the shots below our scout movements and where our copper popped. Unfortunately one of the two () copper resources we have is underneath one of our planned city markers. I don't want to give up a productive riverside copper, but moving the city off that location probably makes it a lot weaker, depending on what is in the fog off the coast -- we missed scouting that spot earlier. We'll have to think about what to do there but I don't think it changes our C3 location at all.

Photo time:

Inconveniently placed copper is the site north of C3 on the western coast. The other copper is very nicely placed for us, as it will give us a 5 hammer desert hill tile. C4 looks to be a great hybrid city, cottages on the FPs and the one grass tile, lots of fishing after a lighthouse, and then 4 hills that can be mined and worked. At size 11 that city will be great, and can still grow to fish the coastal tiles.


First Catwalk's border, then Sian's. Looks like Catwalk built his second city toward what would be our ivory area. Lots of grass and river there, should be a nice city.



I can't tell as much here yet, but this is a second ring border from what is probably Sian's second city. He built toward what ended up being our western copper city. I hope he built the city before he had BW and settled on top what would have been a great tile to work.

We need to explore the central area and find out what is down there. Maybe a treasure island? Maybe nothing worthwhile? Won't know until we explore it.

(Yes that's the worst Paint work ever. And it only took ten seconds!)

[Commodore]

Okay, seriously? I give you a freshwater site with riverside copper, corn, lighthouseable lake, crabs, and horses and you complain?

Seriously, it's just funny, because the veteran Mao complained too. Sorry, next time I'll put up a huge neon sign saying "SETTLE HERE"