[PB70] The Cartographic Correction Committee convenes

[scooter]

We officially have more cities than Mjmd. Savor it because he's done a ton of 2-3 pop whipping the last couple turns which I'm sure is another settler wave. Bing settled yet another city somewhere vaulting him into a tie with IMP Superdeath for most cities. Can't say I expected that. This one is somewhere else - not sure - but his GNP continues to say he's basically broke, so I'm not too worried, but it's definitely been surprising.





Still kind of in the chasing pack - chasing Mjmd in food and Charriu in tech rate.





And the empire as it stands. Need more worker labor, but Nanjing is great for that - it can 4T a worker at size 3. Really handy utility city.

[scooter]

I think I figured out a plan. I’m indeed going for the double prophet roll. The catch is that the second prophet from Shanghai is like 60-65% odds if I just let it go, which isn’t great. Now, a Merchant would also be good. In fact, in terms of raw beakers, the trade mission would surely be better than a straight Theology bulb. However, the extra 8-9 turns or so that would delay causes a lot of pain when I’m trying to get Apostolic Palace up and running and not leave the door open for someone racing me.

So, I’ve come up with a few ways to mitigate. First, Beijing may run an Engineer for roughly 2T. This will increase my Engineer odds from ~2% to ~6%, which would be really unfortunate if it hit. However, getting the Shrine up 2T earlier increases Shanghai’s odds much more than 4%, so it’s a gamble I’m OK with. In addition, it generally seems good to accelerate Shanghai’s Great Person because if it is a Merchant, it buys me more time to run a trade mission. Shanghai is also going to slow-build a Temple (not as slow as it shows here though) in order to increase odds and speed the GP. The net effect is we’ll pop a great person from Beijing in around 10T and Shanghai another 8-9T after that. Definitely the fastest I’ve ever popped 4 great people before in a game. Those are definitely rough numbers - I can accelerate or slow either one by a few turns in either direction depending on what I want my dice rolls to look like.





How funny would it be if I pillaged this Bing cottage while it’s in my borders?





I’m gonna very briefly be happy about how this looks because Mjmd has put in a slew of double and triple whips in the last 2-3 turns in what I can only guess is a whole bunch of settlers and/or Hanging Gardens overflow setup.

[Qgqqqqq]

What would you do with an engineer if you grabbed it?

[scooter]

What would you do with an engineer if you grabbed it?

I'm not completely sure. Most likely a Golden Age and try to hit some of my goals that way. The downside is I wouldn't quite be ready to pull the trigger once it popped, so it may have to sit on ice for a few. I don't think I would use it on a wonder. For one, just waiting until I get to Theology and using it on AP is risky as there'd be a real chance I miss out entirely. Also, Engineer rushing wonders has quite a bit of anti-synergy with Industrious. To take AP as an example, how much value am I really getting out of rushing a 400h wonder when I have 75% production modifiers slow-building it? Surely less value than a Golden Age at least.


An Engineer would be really not great but not game-ending, which is why my risk tolerance is very low, but not 0%. But I've got some time to decide exactly what I'll risk.

[scooter]

Settled Marble City. After doing so, 80% science got me to within like 6 turns of finishing Iron Working at the same time as my Machinery Engineer. Figuring it would be nice to know sooner where my iron is and adjust my workers around it, I flipped through my cities and worked some very weird configurations in 2-3 cities for 1 turn in order to finish it on time.





Pretty good spot for that Iron. I'm glad I didn't start the Lumbermill here yet that I was going to build a few turns ago and then delayed. Hangzhou is a really killer city.





Here's my Engineer.





And another Iron here in a fairly convenient location. All-around I can't complain.





I have taken the foodhammer lead for a brief moment for the first time.

[scooter]

Bulbed Machinery. To my surprise that left me 12b short, but I completed it end of turn. Need another turn before I can finish Archery and another 2-3 turns to hook Iron, so I can't actually build them yet, but this should at least be major deterrent in the short term, and it allows me to have options. But enough about those, the real reason you're here...





Is to admire my 3/2/2 Forested Riverside Lumbermill Machinery-Enhanced Bananas, much more widely known as FRLMEB for sure. That's pronounced furl-meb in case you're brand new to Civ4 and aren't familiar with this standard pro move.





And since I'm not making that awful joke twice, here's it's 2/2/3 Silk cousin. (Ok fine, yes, it's pronounced furl-mess.) Yes, on a map where calendar resources are abundant and were clearly designed to be traded, we're going to totally avoid Calendar for quite awhile. Who needs it when you have Representation, Gold, Gems (soonish), and cheap Forges? I'm not winning the MoM race, so let's save the beakers for other prizes.





Ok, one last demo shot where I'm briefly on top of the foodhammer world. Amusingly, finishing Machinery vaulted me to a near-tie with Bing for the lead in power and has me 30% higher than Mjmd. Please somebody call him on the farmer's gambit. Anyway, I emphasized the word "briefly" because...





This is only happening because he's been whipping like an absolute madman recently. And look what happened after the last time he did that. He planted one new city this turn, and I would expect that to continue for a few turns all while he sports a military of like 4 warriors and an axe. I'm not even joking - "4 warriors and an axe" undersells me by like 3 units, and my power is 30% higher than his, so it's a genuinely decent estimate. I legitimately cannot believe the infamous Superdeath I hear so much about with a jungle/NAP on the other side is not calling BS on this. You see, I've never actually PLAYED in a game with him, and I feel like I'm getting the store brand version here. Granted, the store brand version comes with better early game micro which I assume is thanks to Cornflakes, but how does that help me? In fact it hurts me because he's a legit contender in this game, so I can't go zero-sum with Mjmd yet.

(Monkey paw curls and he NAP-stabs me tomorrow.)

[Qgqqqqq]

In all my time of reading here I've never seen the 'notoriously wildly aggressive Superdeath' people mutter about. I don't know if it was just a phase he went through, but it doesn't seem to describe reality.

[civac2]

SD has quite a few of early attacks to his name. The memes have a basis in reality.

[Magic Science]

He razed my 3rd city with an Impi on Turn 43 in my first game, which was his third game, Pitboss 40. That was in 2018.

[Amicalola]

I think it was a phase. People still get frustrated with him now, but for different reasons.