[SPOILERS]The 3 Muscateers playing Ragnar of Rome!

[Catwalk]

t23 report

Just whipped the settler, bringing the capital down to size 3. It has 4 improved tiles, so after sharing one with the expansion it will be at the right size to produce a worker and probably another settler. I forgot to move out the warrior after whipping

I agree with settling near the copper, although I'm not sold on the location. Settling on the PH instead gives us +1 production, lower upkeep and a defense bonus. It also lets us utilize a bad tile for the city centre (PH) instead of a good one (river grassland). Settling 1W gives us immediate access to FP and later access to clams.

In other news, I have finally climbed the hill east of the sheep and discovered wet wheat and ocean fish. I want to settle S of the sheep next, possibly followed by a city NW of the horses (might bump this one down one or two spots, depending on how fast we need horses).

Desert explorer

Demographics

Central area

Angry Angora

[Catwalk]

Also, our second and third expansions will be named Benevolent Bengal and Cheeky Cheetah.

[slowcheetah]

Just whipped the settler, bringing the capital down to size 3. It has 4 improved tiles, so after sharing one with the expansion it will be at the right size to produce a worker and probably another settler. I forgot to move out the warrior after whipping

I'd probably build a couple of workers next, and then maybe chop out the settler.

I agree with settling near the copper, although I'm not sold on the location. Settling on the PH instead gives us +1 production, lower upkeep and a defense bonus. It also lets us utilize a bad tile for the city centre (PH) instead of a good one (river grassland). Settling 1W gives us immediate access to FP and later access to clams.

Settling 1 west does also allow more capital cottage sharing, which may be important to grow them due to the apparently low initial happy cap. Consider me agreeing on the plains hill, although I am loathe to give up the greater longterm potential of the crabs, and the health loss from being non- coastal/riverside.

In other news, I have finally climbed the hill east of the sheep and discovered wet wheat and ocean fish. I want to settle S of the sheep next, possibly followed by a city NW of the horses (might bump this one down one or two spots, depending on how fast we need horses).

I'm not sold on south of the sheep for a third city, sheep and dry plains wheat aren't particularly strong tiles. I'd rather settle a pigs/corn city in the south east. It wouldn't be any further maintenance wise.


I'm liking the names Dirty Donsky for out fourth?

[Catwalk]

The wheat is wet, it's next to a lake. Keep in mind that we can't pop borders easily right away, for our third expansion I think it's critical that it has 2 good tiles in the inner ring. Settling by sheep or corn means we will only get one of them (or none until borders pop, if we want both).

I'm not keen on getting two workers before another settler. This is only Prince, the ROI on settlers is considerable. And there are relatively few forests around, I fear that we will run out of tasks if we get a third worker before the second settler. With another worker we'll have one worker to set up Benevolent Bengal and one ready to set farm and pasture Cheeky Cheetah. It can set up a PH mine ahead of time, which can be utilized for a granary while we're getting the farm ready.

Dirty Donsky is nice, but it fails to meet the requirements! My wife suggests Devious Devon Rex.

Thinking ahead, we need to consider what to do abour our happiness situation. We have seen a single luxury resource, and it's covered in jungle. Should we try to get Monarchy or a religion? Hinduism was founded a turn ago, I'm guessing by waterbat (IND + FW + Mysticism, he will likely cruise ahead to Oracle). I doubt we will get Buddhism unless we go for it after The Wheel and put Pottery on the backburner. I assume we don't want to do that. We could go for Monotheism, which is also on the path to Monarchy. Requires Masonry + Polytheism.

[slowcheetah]

Plains hill sheep isn't really the most spectacular tile, how about 1NW of the southernmost pigs?

The ROI of getting cottages up earlier is also considerable, particularly capital riverside cottages. We need workers to road to new cities, hook resources , chop and cottage. 2 for three cities isn't going to be enough to do all of that.

Monotheism definitely sounds a worthy goal to me, particularly because it is on the way to monarchy and thus HR. Do you want to build any of the wonders at masonry? I'm thinking GLH primarily.

Ah, the first three letters must match. Will Devious Devon Rex be running spy specialists:neenernee

[Catwalk]

The third worker will follow immediately after the third settler, after which it will cottage the capital. The capital won't have grown any up until then, so it will have no pop available for cottages. The expansions won't be that big either, and they will both have a worker devoted to them.

I'm not feeling terribly keen on wonders in this game, especially early on. I feel the risk of making a failed bid is significant, I'd rather go for a later one. I feel more confident in going for Monotheism and Monarchy, if we go for it right after Pottery.

[Catwalk]

t23 short-term micro plan

t24: Settler completes => 8h towards worker, 14 production
t26: Settler founds expansion, chop complete, W2 complete => 21h towards settler, 12 production (giving up corn for mine), W2 road SE of capital
t27: W1 road corn, W2 mine PH
t28: W2 move on PH, road connects expansion
t29: W1 mine copper
t30: W2 mine PH, settler done => 4 hammers towards worker
t32: Settler founds expansion, works PH mine a few turns for a granary, W2 road east of PH
t33: W3 complete

Long story short:
1) PH mine will be ready for Cheeky Cheetah to use for a granary until the wheat farm is ready
2) Copper mine will be ready a bit after Benevolent Bengal grows to size 2 on a warrior
3) Both expansions will have trade routes in fairly short order
4) A worker will be ready to start building cottages by the time the capital is ready to build a granary

I think we should get 5 settlers in fairly short order, this is Prince and we have enough suitable locations. Get cottages up in all 5 and rush to Currency, then contemplate a Praet rush.

[Sian]

I wondered about something ... you say you only have found 1 kind of luxory as of yet ... is it the gem or the gold (both clearly viewable on your desert screen) that appearently have stopped giving happiness (or that youre not planing to connect)??

[slowcheetah]

If we go IW after currency then it won't really be much of a rush

Sian I think Catwalk just forgot to mention the gold, although I assume there is one reasonably close on the desert arm to the northwest of AA. The gems is pretty far away which is why we were talking about alternative forms of happiness.

[Catwalk]

t24 report

Yeah, forgot about the gold. It's a bit far away, but we will definitely get it. It still means we're starved for happiness overall, unless we find more in our immediate vicinity on the edges of our known surroundings. How about this tech path: Pottery => Mysticism => Iron Working => Polytheism => Monotheism => Writing => Mathematics => Currency => Monarchy? Very much subject to change, several items can be switched around.

Here, have a dotmap:

A: Our glorious capital of Angry Angora. Lots of food here, will be used to help expansions grow and then grow it into a commerce city.
B: Our first expansion Benevolent Bengal. Will grow on Corn while producing a warrior (which will explore NW), then work Copper while producing a granary.
C: Our third expansion Cheeky Cheetah. Various micro options for it, will post my thoughts on that soon. Lots of grassland available, can borrow PH mines as needed.
D: Dingy Dingo. Not sure if this will be our third expansion or not, might do E instead. I decided against putting it 1S of this spot, as that will invalidate the nice seaside spot H which can use both lake tiles.
E: Elegant Elephant. Obviously, I gave up on the cat breeds. Also a solid city with lots of good land.
F: Frenetic Frenchy (French Bulldog), chasing horses and fishes all day. Solid site for a fishing town, plenty production for infrastructure.
G: Great Dane! And no, that's not cheating. PH city, able to fish two lakes with a harbour and has grass pigs + flood plains as well as two river grasslands. Lots and lots of food and commerce here, and it will be less squeezed by other cities.
H: Hamstrung Hamster. Yet another inland fishing village, possibly more goodies lurking in the black.
I: Impressive Impala. This will be our gems city, should probably be bumped up a bit on the list if we get Iron Working soon enough.
J: Jabbering Jabiru (will that fit?). Gold city! Clams, corn, 4x flood plains and a gold mine! And it has fresh water access to ensure there will be no problems with bad health from the flood plains. Recon suggests no additional seafood is hiding in the fog.
K: Kinetic Kingfisher. Another excellent city, note it is next to an oasis. Has 7 good tiles (2 shared with J) and around 5 coast tiles. We should definitely convince our neighbour that the mirror site is also rightfully ours. I hear Praetorians are superb diplomats
L: Lobotomized Lobster. Looks uninteresting, but has 4x flood plains and clams. Add 2 grassland and plenty coast and it's not bad at all.