[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[Qgqqqqq]

How many unimproved tiles are you working?

[pindicator]

Just one, but that's only because we've been in a 4->2 whip pattern in all our cities (in part because we have no tile improvements).

My philosophy has come around to the following ideas for the early game:

1. Only work bonus tiles unless you have to
2. Slavery is your early game hammer generator, though only whip settlers and workers.
3. Use whip overflow and chops for important buildings and units.
4. Once you have happiness sources to grow (either luxuries or civics) then start getting tile improvements like coats and mines going and start growing cities instead of shopping.

There are always exceptions and the timing of the transition is a bit of a finesse, but that's generally what I like to do. It's largely what we've done here except I chopped a few times into settlers and the late worker technologies made things a little trickier. Normally I'd like to have started growing by now and have some cottages down. In this game we start our first cottages next turn.

[klops]

destined for the gold island (klops, your city name suggestion is about to be used here)

That island looks really nice.  But I am always struggling with moai placement... sure it screams "here I am!" but there are also 6 good land tiles and then it starts getting tricky to grow that city into moai-coast. Ignoring grassland also seems strange. I probably need more practise or more spreadsheets but this decision always drives me crazy :D


Oh and gratz for that hut, comes in quite handy... lol

[Jabah]

Finisterra seems a better Maoi city to me than island city. It has more food to grow fast to whip then work sea tiles and can give most of the (unexciting) land tiles to others once Moai is built.

[pindicator]

071

Well, we got it




Writing is still 4t away. After that we're going IW and trying to settle the north.

One thing I forgot about popping Monarchy was that we have wines in our borders and can work to get those hooked up:




We're hooking up the Ivory now, but after that these two workers are going to get Mather Point going.

Back in the core...




Settler & Worker are loaded onto the galley. Overflow and chops are getting granaries down. And workers are now finally starting a cottage. They'll work their way north. We have 3 pop to grow into now with Ivory, Gold, and Wine all about to be hooked up over the next 10t. Then once we get Iron Working we'll have another 3 pop to work with in Forges & Gems. After that it's calendar resources and currency. Lots of happiness here.

[pindicator]

073

Our 7th city is a pool of green in an ocean of blue.  Thanks to klops for providing the name:




We talked a bit about making this a slow Colossus run but after looking at it more I'm going to nix that.  We can still do that here but it will be slower - I think it's more important to get the gold hooked up and allow the mainland cities to grow.  Plus I don't see any worker help coming to this island in the next 10-15 turns, so this one guy has to do it all himself:  improve the sheep, chop out a granary, and then hook up the gold.  That will cover the next 15t.

The galley is going to see what is to the northeast, beyond that peak island.

Back at Mather Point, I think I've figured out some things:




The Ivory is too good of a tile to not work, but because we had to whip Cispus Pass to finish the Oracle this is going to mean Mather Point needs to take the tile until CP can grow back to 3 - and then take it again after the Temple finishes because we'll be hiring a priest specialist.  I'm going to only go for 1 spear and then the temple (to make up for another error in my planning), but basically Mather Point needs to take the Ivory now, give it back on t77 when CP grows to 3, and then take it back again on t81 all the way until the GP is born on t97.

We also decided to prioritize the Wine over cottaging flood plains, so one worker is moving to chop out the granary at MP and then improve the Wine.  The timing of all this means that Mather will be at size 3 needing to work both the Ivory & the Wine, so in order to have any semblance of growth we are farming the first flood plain.  I almost want to farm a second after that now, because we'll be looking at only +3fpt at size 3 and +4fpt at size 4 with just 1 farmed FP.

GNP skyrockets when teching Writing.  I didn't include a graph, but Commodore's similarly skyrockets with ours so he must be teching it too.  Makes me wonder if he also has a +3 prereq bonus (meaning was he also going for Oracle here)?

[pindicator]

075

Well, it's been 2 turns since I've posted, so here's my core:




The big development? Notice the island in the far east. We're going to send the galley back and pick up the warrior. Maybe he can be lucky with a second hut.

Writing has come in and I've tried sending Open Border requests to the rest of our neighbors. Amicalola has already turned us down - but worryingly he has OB with Commodore and Tarkeel both. I think our early wonder & hut success may be working against us here. If we can't get Open Borders it may be more difficult to spread our religion.

The work boat in Finisterra is a new addition. Next turn we swap to a worker there and then whip it out, using the overflow to finish the wb. That guy then heads south to scout along the coast - hopefully Bing lets us do that. Next turn we whip the granary at God's Thumb and then build a second wb there to scout north.

Scouting north a little with our warrior:




Will scout to the east a bit but I'll try sending Amicalola another OB request here once we want to go up to his borders.

We have a vulture staking out where our next city is being laid down. Next turn our workers by God's Thumb will add a road to the SW, to speed along our settler. Then on t78 we settle 2W of the cow.

Demos looking good

[pindicator]

076

I just remembered how many building bonuses I get as Zara. And not the nerfed +35% or +50% you see in RtR but honest-to-goodness 2x production bonus to libraries, lighthouses, and zigurats. Those buildings now cost about the same as a unit now (which is a dangerous analogy because we are also light on military).

So naturally we want to build everything everywhere all at once but I am trying to maintain some semblance of priority. Just spitballing a bit here:

Goat Rocks: Capital, commerce-hub, future great priest farm - getting all the green and riverside tiles cottaged, and growing to max size (8). Will finish its culture then build a library which it will finish with help from some newly finished mines and a 3rd-ring forest chop. Want to get a lighthouse to get +1f on the fish but instead I might skip the lighthouse and swap the Fish to Finisterra in exchange for the Corn.

Have 2 workers here now building a cottage on riverside tiles. They'll get a mine down next and then Cottage the riverside plains before heading north to help cut jungle.

Finisterra: Worker whip center, future moai site - If we didn't need to push exploration and make use of this early religion I'd overflow the worker whip her into a lighthouse. But instead it's a work boat, then finishing the vulture in queue, and then whipping out another settler to take the filler spot west of the capital. Then a lighthouse and moai.

The worker we whip out here will mine a hill between Fin & the capital, then chop the tree on the filler spot west of the capital and then joining up with another worker from the western wine to either start cottages at The Palouse or chop the granary at the filler city.

The Palouse: Cottage city (eventually), military city (sort of), whip settlers for north (until the capital is done growing) - Just whipped the settler for the gems city and using the overflow to 3t a library. As soon as we grow back to 4 it's back to a settler to once again send north. IW is about a t88 eta and when that happens we are claiming the north, starting will a hill plant NE of the dye that claims all the relevant tiles up north. The plan is to keep the 4>2 or 5>3 whip cycle here until either the capital needs to hire specialists or we can get some cottages down on the green tiles in this city. So not for another 15-20 turns, in other words.

Cispus Pass: wonder city, early GP city, military pump - Next turn Cispus takes the Ivory from Mather Point, then gives it back 5 turns later when it needs to hire a priest specialist. This city needs no help for 20t because it will be stuck on a paltry +1fpt until the GP is born. After that I think lumbermills on the forests and turning it into a unit production center is the way to go. No worker help needed for the next 20t.

More later...

[pindicator]

078

City #8 is The Cathedrals

I thought this would take a dent into our expenses and delay IW but it barely registered. We made up in unit support almost everything we lost in maintenance. So IW is pretty well locked in for eot84. We spent a fair amount of time hashing out how to get the next settler from Palouse up north to claim a spot in jungle and all those calendar resources - and now there's talk of delaying IW entirely and just going for Currency straight away, because we also found this:




It's hard to see but there are borders in the fog to the north. So the next settler is going to head out here with a vulture, and I think we're looking at a t88 city. We do have a bit of a lull in settlers right now but that is soon to be fixed: Palouse starts the settler for the island next turn, whipping it t83. Fin starts a settler on 83, whipping it t86. And we're going to be able to fit in one more settler from the capital between now and when we need it to run priest specialists. I think that settler starts 83 and is triple-whipped complete on 84 or 85. Haven't sorted that out entirely but it's more important to whip sooner even if it means a triple whip because it needs to have any whip anger worn off by t97.

So we can load the settler from Palouse along with a vulture on 84, land it on the island on 87, and then take the island on 88. This means we maybe don't need to tech IW next and can instead go straight for Currency? It's something we're debating right now. And I think we're going to do it: swap to Math, that is. With two island cities we'll be looking at least at +20cpt from trade routes.

Now i have to go redo all the worker micro, however... Math finishes eot84. Currency probably somewhere in the late 90s. Then Calendar, and only after all that IW. We'll still probably settle those northern spots - so far cities have been dirt cheap. Cathedrals only cost us a net of 1gpt.

[pindicator]

080

After some debate we are switching gears for Math & Currency. We've saved enough gold and this turn the beakers get turned on to the tune of Math-in-6. Then if my projections are right Currency takes 9 or 10 turns, finishing eot94 or 95. The northern gems and jungle city gets put on hold, though there probably will be a settler that goes there and stays put a while. I'm starting to notice expenses going up by 1g every 2 pop of growth, and so now that we're growing cities there is a bit to grapple with there. (And I was worried ziggurats would be useless...)

Our next 3 settlers are coming out turns 84, 85, and 86 from Palouse (started this turn), the capital (starts in 2t), and Finisterra (starts in 3t). These 3 settlers are going to the island in the east, a northern location (either rice+dye jungle or the spices to keep Commodore away), and the southern spices - a filler spot west of the capital to solidify our border with Bing. We'll have all 3 settled by t90, though again I might hold off on the northern spot and just park the settler if I don't like the expenses. After Currency comes in we'll settle everything we can, which means I need two more settlers for the north. I think we push one more out of Finisterra in the mid 90s and then either Mather Point or maybe one of our northern cities can get a settler out by then: God's Thumb or The Cathedrals.




I meant to scout out the jungle with my warrior but then stumbled on Amicalola's borders. Rather than clue him in to us scouting the jungle (and then him thinking we might be looking to settle there) I continued north to look at what he had. We have a work boat coming from God's Thumb which should get the rest of the fog lifted, but it won't complete until t83. I spied a galley on the tile north of Curtis (the Rice city), so I might need to whip out a vulture before that work boat finishes.

So far no settlers spotted, which is good news. We probably don't get Iron Working until t110 with this new plan but we'll need to have settlers ready because there are two good spots in the north we want for ourselves.

Colossus fell this turn. That's insanely early, especially since Great Lighthouse hasn't been built yet. And we were the ones who picked Metal Casting with Oracle! I wonder if that caused them to rush for it, thinking there was competition. But there seems to be a good amount of water on this map so it should treat its owner well. We just have a different strategy.