[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[Zed-F]

Still thinking about getting a religion? I’m not spoiled so this isn’t a leading question.

[pindicator]

After Mysticism we are naturally going to want Masonry. Then we'll save money and see

[Hitru]

I think we save gold after myst and think about next tech. Not sold on masonry myself

[pindicator]

053

Just one thing to note during the turn and then the rest of this space will be dedicated to instructions for turns 54 - 60ish




This does not seem to be a light war.  Cornflakes has spent an immense amount of time in-game; he was logged in after his turn when I got back home and played just now, and as I was going over cities and worker movements to write up for this post he logged in again and spent another 40 minutes looking things over.  He and Mjmd have both risen to the top 2 soldier points, so I would guess this is the first real action that lurkers are enjoying.

We have a warrior in the area that I was using to keep an eye on Cornflakes' movements to our east, but now I suggest moving that warrior north to spy out the border between Mjmd and Cornflakes and find where the action is over.

For my part of 53 we built our first cottage this turn.  The first of many, I hope.

Here is my idea for the next ~10 turns.  I am not solid on a lot of this, so there is room for revision - especially if you can catch me over next 15 hours before I leave for vacation.


Big Picture Goals: Growth & Defense




We're at the spot we wanted to be coming out of the opening land grab:  leading in city count and food yield.  However this has come at the cost of being dead last in GNP.  Our soldier count is also deceptively high since we only field warriors.  At the same time we can't stop expanding entirely as there is still good land to grab, especially to our immediate east and west.  By focusing on growing onto cottages and getting adequate defense into Sushi Go & Dominion we'll be ready to then expand to further cities to our east and west.

Below I'll break down city-by-city goals and then show the worker plans to support those goals.

Wingspan




54.  Start axe Stay on granary unless the axe seems necessary.
55.
56.
57.  Give Sheep to Sushi Go, swap for 2nd cottage
58.
59.  Grow to size 5 end of turn
60. 
61.

Wingspan's primary goal is to grow to happy cap and work cottages.  It's challenge is in getting cottages down and also in needing to share two of its bonus food tiles with neighboring cities.  It has just grown to size 4 and will be working a lake until its next cottage finishes.  On turn 57 it will need to give up the Sheep to Sushi Go as that city grows back to size 2, so growth after then will be slowed.

I have the most unanswered questions about growing the capital.  Do we not give the sheep back in the short-term and keep the capital growing?  But then what of the additional worker turns needed?  Do we give the sheep back to Sushi Go but then take Azul's Deer back, leaving Azul to fend for itself until it can pop borders and get the Clams hooked up?  Do we leave the capital to slow growth with just the plains deer and instead focus on growing the sattelite cities?


Eldritch Horror




54.  Worker #5 finishes end of turn.
55.  Start granary
56.  Grow to size 3 end of turn
57.  New citizen works lake.
58.  Move citizen from lake to new cottage.  Swap build to axe.
59.  Grow to size 4 end of turn
60.  2 pop-whip with the axe at 4/35 to get max overflow.
61.  Overflow into a one-turn monument

EH is our best situated city for cottages: with an immense food glut and lacking much for natural production this is the ideal city to abuse 2-pop whip overflow.  It needs a culture pop in order for us to improve the Ivory to the west, and so we combine the two to get some needed military in an axe and then use the whip overflow to one-turn a monument, planning to hook up the ivory around turn 75.

There are 2 hammers invested into a warrior in EH's queue but I think we should let those rot.  (Another option is to replace the granary with a spear build, which might be feasible, but neither are going to be finished for some time.)


Sushi Go




54.  Swap build to axe
55.
56.  Grow to size 2 end of turn. Swap back to granary; only keeping axe at 5 hammers in the bank for now.
57.  Take Sheep from Capital
58.
59.  Grow to size 3 end of turn.
60. 

Sushi Go is going to be a strong production city down the road, but it needs to grow and have mines completed first.  In the meantime it will be a bit of a slow starter - potentially even a slower start if we keep the Sheep with the capital.  Being a border city with Mjmd it will want culture, but do we put in culture straight away with a monument or wait for religion/libraries?  We can either have it slow build the first axe out or leave the axe at 6 hammers and then slow build the granary.

Challenges for Sushi Go is that

Azul




54.  Copper mine finishes, work copper with new citizen.
55.  Warrior turns into spear, continue build.
56. 
57.  Spear finishes end-of-turn
58.  One-turn Monument with chop.
59.  Start axe, grow to size 3 end-of-turn
60.  Start settler.  Deer to Wingspan.
61.

Azul is a sattelite of Wingspan and so needs to get its own food tile under culture and improved so it can give the deer back to the capital.  With that in mind I am leaning towards using the worker that is improving the copper to chop out the monument on turn 58 and then help cottage for the capital.  Another option is to whip Azul upon growing to size 3 as there is no improved tile for it to work with current plans.  The chop can then go to the capital instead.

I suspect Azul is where our next settler is going to come from, in order to hook up the horses.  After it completes a monumnet we can have the city work a settler at 3 and then whip the settler out on t64.  We could alternatively whip the monument on 58, grow back to 2 that end of turn, then start the settler on 59: working the copper and a mined grass hill we would still finish a settler end of t64 but this would let the capital take the Deer back from turn 59 onward.  Then Azul would build its work boat and slowly grow off the clams - getting the deer back only when Wingsapn hit max size.  I don't list that plan above as I don't feel right about whipping the city off its copper, but it is an option if we want to emphasize the capital.


Dominion




54.  Swap to axe
55.
56.  Rice farm is completed.
57.  Grow to size 2 end-of-turn.
58.  New citizen works the mined silver.
59.
60.
61.

Despite being the newest city, Dominion is going to be getting some of thoe most attention due to its numerous resources and front-line position against Bing.  This will be a strong city later in the game as it has a lot of production plus a lot of commerce from riverside tiles.  Early growth will be slow as we want to work the Silver as much as possible to fuel our early-game research.  With that I'm advising 2 workers here so that the silver is finished as soon as the city reaches size 2.  After that the city will not need a lot of worker help, and we can move the workers to help Sushi Go and the capital.  I would suggest farming the dye at some point but it does not need to be worked right away - and the city may end up stagnating on size 3 with Masonry and the improved Stone.


Worker Plan




Worker 1 is currently farming the rice at Dominion. It will finish its farm then help worker 2 mine the silver. I know it's a waste of worker turns but I really want that silver worked as soon as Dominion reaches size 2. The dye farm after is a bit more fluid; it may be better to chop out a monument or granary at Dominion or move the workers over to Sushi Go.

Worker 2 just finished a cottage at the capital. It will move north to Dominion, putting a turn into a farm on the Dye to not waste a turn. Then it moves to the silver and mines the tile with worker 1. Similar to worker 1 I'm not as certain what to do with it next.

Worker 3 will build another cottage for the capital and then move west to build a mine on the riverside grass hill for Sushi Go. Alternatively I could see W3 and Worker 5 teaming up to cottage or chop around the capital.

Worker 4 will finish the copper mine, then move E-NE to chop out the riverside forest for Azul's monument. Then cottage the riverside tile for the capital to work. Then it will road towards our next city - either east for the horses or west to put a border up against Superdeath.

Worker 5 I am least set on. Initially I had thought it would build cottages around the capital and Eldritch Horror but I'm now wondering if it should help the settler out of Azul by chopping that out. Again, I'm thinking about moving the Deer from Azul to the capital.

You can see I'm not certain on some of these plans still... I'll post any updates later tonight.

[pindicator]

054

Mjmd and Cornflakes ended their war, but not first without fireworks.




Looks like Cornflakes tried a quick push with metal units and it failed. Hope this has the two of them looking at each other and ignoring me for some time.

I decided my plans from before were bad. And Hitru talked some sense into me. Also, I know Bing hasn't hooked up his metal yet, so I feel reasonably safe. I'm going to push granaries in the short term, and moved a worker to chop the granary at Dominion. This will delay the silver mine a bit but I think this is a good trade off in the longterm.

Debating whether or not to whip the granary at the capital next turn. Will whip on in EH when it grows to size 4.

[pindicator]

055

Superdeath claims some of the lush lands to our west as that part of the world fills up:




I've marked what are probably the only spots left for claiming in the west.  Star would be a defensive front city, but not really claim any new land and seems more likely to annoy Superdeath.  Diamond claims the silk and crab and seems a little more justifiable, though it's still superdeath so we're probably still upsetting him moderately with a plant there.  I think we can still grab that spot, in time.  It may be better to go east first, however.

Honestly, we're likely upsetting superdeath just by being in the same game as him and competing for resources, so that's not a strong indicator of how I would choose settling sites.

[pindicator]

056

In our own effort to hype up the new Civ 6 PBEM 22, we have started playing one turn every two days. (Go check it out, that one looks like fun!) But this has given me some time to get my plans into a spot where I am happier with them. Infinitely happier than what I rushed out before going on vacation. (I swear, I either think I feel a deep need to subvert the principles of Civ 4 or I just plain forget them; I'm not sure which is worse.)




We are pushing out granaries and plan on getting them finished in all cities by t60. Except for Azul, which is giving some initial copper military. After the granaries finish the emphasis will be on getting a couple of axes out by t65, mostly for defense in Sushi Go and Eldritch Horror. I am less concerned about Dominion as BING still has not hooked up his copper and apparently is just at 3 cities. We'll know more on BING when graphs come in a turn or two. We also have 2 more settlers planned to go east and west, and get us up to 7 cities by turn 70: east to grab a defensive front against Cornflakes and in the west to grab what little good land there is between us and Superdeath. This likely will piss off Superdeath, but I say that just because I think anything we do will piss off Superdeath.

The big downside to all this is workers - we don't have enough. I'm hoping to get 2-3 more in this timeframe but with our cities being as spread out as they are it's far more difficult to have a single worker drift from city to city improving each as needed. And now with chops and cottages being at a premium, in addition to building roads to the new proposed cities, we're going to need more than what we have.

Worker plan in more detail:




The northern two workers will be tasked with getting Dominion and Sushi Go up to speed.

B finished the rice farm this turn. Next turn he moves to the Silver and build a mine and road on it. Then will make a farm on the Dye. Originally I was against farming the Dye, but I think Calendar is going to be farm enough off that we will get good use out of the extra commerce. Dominion will be a slow growing civ without grass farms, as Rice & Silver only leaves us at +3fpt.

D will finish its chop into Dominion next turn, which will let us whip the granary when that city hits size 2. D then puts one turn into a farm on the Dye (originally was a chop on the hill SE of the dye), and then move to the riverside hill to mine that for Sushi Go. After that mine is finished will move to the riverside plains hill and mine that as well. I'm attempting to emphasize riverside tiles over non-riverside in all instances, considering our commerce woes.

Sushi Go will use the mines as a main production/military site down the line. After the city 1-pop whips its Granary it will build an axe and then probably 4-turn a worker at size 4 (with two mines and the Sheep/Pig it gets 16 food-hammers; with 3 mines we can give the sheep back to the capital).




In the south the workers will be chopping out the granary for Wingspan and then laying down the roadwork for our next two cities.

A will finish the second cottage for Wingspan and then combine with E to build a riverside grass hill mine. Then it heads east, building roads on the hill SE of the capital and NE of the horse before joining C to improve the cow right after City #6 is planted (eta t66).

C will chop into Wingpsan's granary and then farm this tile. Originally I was set to cottage here, but I think a farm will do a lot of good for the food issues I have. Especially after whipping the next settler out of Wingpsan, the farm will help us grow back to size 4 faster. Hitru, if you think this is then I'm prepared to change this to a cottage. Then Worker C joins A in roading towards our next city, building a road N of the horse before improving the cow.

Note: we will not be able to road every tile between Wingspan and City #6: the hill NW of the horse will be unroaded in this plan. I'm hoping this is enough but if it is not then we will need to find more worker turns to fill the gap.

E will chop into Wingspan's granary and then mine the same hill with Worker A's help. Next, E will build a cottage for Eldrtitch Horror one tile to its west, and finally will start building roads towards the City #7 location in our west. Again, I will not have full road coverage by the time the city is planted: only roads on the ivory and the hill to its SW will be in place when the city is expected (eta t69-70).

As for where these settlers come from, the first one is definitely being whipped out of Wingspan. It's the only city that isn't accumulating some whip anger, and we should be able to grow it back up to happy cap fast enough (especially if we stagnate Sushi Go at happy cap working mines for military). The second one is probably coming out of Azul. Azul hits size 3 on t60 and then will swap to a settler, whipping it out on t64. Alternatively we can whip a granary here instead and stack whip anger at Eldritch Horror, but that is a slower option for the settler. Also, I would rather use the food at Eldritch Horror to get another worker or two out while it waits for the whip anger to subside. Azul might just be the city that I neglect for the sake of the empire this game.

[Krill]

Not going to sign up for the Civ6 PBEM then?

[pindicator]

Not for me. I have too much RL stuff on my plate, and I still have a two-week vacation to Sicily in October I need to plan out / book things for.

Speaking of which, want to cover my turns in October if Hitru can't figure out his technical difficulties?

[Krill]

If you can remind me where the instructions are then sure.