[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[pindicator]

081

Plemo built Great Lighthouse.




Meanwhile we're going to hold off on making contact with that blue civ until after our city is planted.  Our running bet is this is GeneralKilCavalry's France.

So I ended last post with what our strategy was not; what is it then?




It started with the first two techs of the game and grabbing an early religion. Now we are working to get the shrine up. Cispus Pass built the Oracle and finished a Temple last turn. Now we hire a priest specialist and will generate a Great Prophet on t97. Shrine in the capital t98.

To boost the shrine we're running Open Borders with everyone and we have units scouting to try and open up trade routes and get more free religion spreads. Currently a chariot is running through Bing trying to uncover his capital, and a warrior is up north in Amicalola's capital - though we have not uncovered a trade route with him. We did find a religion spread to one of Bing's cities this turn:




But are we happy with just one shrined religion? Not really. As soon as the capital gets its shrine it will immediately hire 3 priests and our 2nd Great Prophet will come out t118. There are two options for this: bulb Theology and get a second religion (main choice), or if someone else has grabbed Theology by then we'll stash him and try to tech Code of Laws or Philosophy for a religion (backup plan).

What does this leave us for a golden age then? Our 3rd great person will need to be designated for that - and we spent a bit of time in recent turns trying to guess when we would want the golden age. Currency eot95 feels like a good ETA based off my sims, but adding on Calendar, Iron Working, Masonry, Polytheism, Monotheism, Construction, Horseback Riding, and either Feudalism or Code of Laws before we kick off the GA. Guess-work for all that was t130. So which city can we peg for that task? We need 300 GPP points by t130, which means Library, Temple and running 3 specialists by t95.

First choice was Mather Point:




Oh, Wine and Gold both were improved which is a very big jump for our GNP. Mather Point right now is working the good tiles. And that is the problem with Mather Point: It's all good tiles. We don't want to run specialists here, we want to grow onto riverside cottages and work the Ivory tile for production (and so Cispus can finally grow after it finishes it's great prophet in 16t).

So we spent some time looking at other candidate cities. God's Thumb was too slow to get up and running. But Palouse seems to be the sweet spot. So it's going to be Palouse getting our 3rd GP sometime around t128.

[Qgqqqqq]

Will you spread a second shrined religion to your own cities?

[pindicator]

Will you spread a second shrined religion to your own cities?

Most definitely.

082

We've had a number of plans and revisions of plans lately so I'm going to try and go through the current worker plans this post.  Keep in mind that every time I talk about a new idea or change in direction it often means a complete reworking of the worker plans in that area.




Getting Cathedral up to speed is the main goal for the green and orange workers here.  Borders at Cathedrals pop end-of-turn, and so orange is going to move to the marked plains forest to chop out the granary.  Orange has to do it next turn instead of yellow this turn because of the timing for when Math comes in.  Anyway, yellow improves the Horse and both are finished on t86.  This is just in time to get the granary finished t86 with Cathedrals at size 2 with 13/24 in the food box - pretty much ideal for timing growth.  Cathedrals then works the Horse as soon as its improved (2nd pop will work a 2f1h forest until then) and we have 4 turns to get a 3rd tile improvement before the city grows again.

As far as tile improvements go, I think I want to lumbermill the forests here - at least the grass ones.  The reason is Cathedrals doesn't have a river like the southern cities and so isn't quite as natural a location to plant cottages.  But those forests could turn it into a production city quite easily.  Also, we can't really whip it with only getting +3fpt until Calendar & IW are done.

So orange worker will move to the forest and build a road, finishing t89.  Yellow worker dallies a turn (cottage somewhere) on t87 then finishes the road on the horse t88, and after the road finishes on the forest 89 will start a lumbermill.  This will let us get the lumbermill in on t91 with both workers just as Cathedrals hits size 3 and needs it.

Meanwhile, Palouse needs to be ready to hire 3 specialists as soon as it reaches size 6.  (Preferably 7 but we have a settler to whip first.)  This is going to be achieved with the two workers in blue.  Palouse first whips on t84, its settler loading up on the galley t85 and then unloading for a t89 city plant on the island.  To get it to regrow the two workers in blue are going straight to the flood plains after finishing their mine next turn. The farm completes t88 and then they both move to chop a forest out t90 in order to get a temple finished in time.  Need a temple to go along with the library in order to hire 3 specialists.  Palouse regrows to size 3 eot85, then size 4 eot88, size 5 eot90, and then size 6 eot92.  The temple is finished with the chop end of t91 letting us hire all 3 specs starting t93.

Actually, if we start all 3 specialists on t93 then we hit 200 ahead of the capital, eot115.  We may decide to keep it this way as the capital would finish the 3rd GP eot127 and even if we get a scientist that can be used to either bulb Philosophy or start the GA sooner.  In any case, that's a decision that can wait and I appreciate the flexibility.

After chopping the forest then we have a decision to make:  do we move both workers to the island or just 1?  Either way the galley will be back on t92 to pick up someone to help improve Bassa Verda, and especially to get the Stone hooked up as soon as Masonry finishes (eta for Masonry is eot97, so that would make t100 for the Stone), and Bassa is another city I'd like to put lumbermills down for.

One more thing to talk about the north:  the settler I just started at the capital this turn.  That settler is whipped on t85, moves into Palouse on t86, and will be on the jungle SE of Cathedrals t87.  So there really isn't time to help road it along to either possible city location.  For that reason I'm not going to even really bother, although the road on the lumbermill tile will help connect the city eventually, even if it doesn't speed up the settler.  That city will be settled t90 for either location we're looking at (either 2S of the dye or NE of the dye).

[pindicator]

Actually, if we don't want the 3rd specialist straight away (to let the capital get it's Great Person out first) then we should not chop that forest. We can either lumbermill that forest, cottage the riverside plains and send both workers onto the galley, or cottage the riverside grassland and send one worker onto the galley.

Edit: Can't hire the 3rd specialist until t99, so that's plenty of time for the Temple for finish without a chop

[pindicator]

083

Here's the other half of the worker plan:




Mather was originally going to just have 1 worker improving it, but that was back when we were hiring specialists there for the 3rd great person. Now we're set on growing cottages on all those riverside tiles, so I'm keeping both workers in the area. This comes at the expense of the next city, which will be on the purple circle and is the settler we just started at Finisterra this turn.

This spice city won't have a good tile to work straight away, but will probably be able to steal the grass farm from the capital a bit. I think longer term if we can't steal the Corn away we'll have to farm a couple tiles - but keep in mind that spice plantations also turn those into 3f tiles.

GNP is looking rather good:




Math was picked up by one of our neighbors - I'm going to guess Amicalola. We'll be a couple turns behind, but I think we're still on the path for eot95 Currency.

And our chariot has given more insight on Bing's lands:




He seems to be at the southern end of our landmass, so no wonder he was able to settle up towards Comm and I - he has no other way to go most likely. And why Commodore hasn't been settling north - he's been racing with Bing in the southwest.

[pindicator]

084

The best laid plans...




We met GKC at least. I offered him open borders and fish-for-fish. We don't get to take the island but we move on now. There are still 3 settlers coming down the pipe and we still will be able to push them north into the jungle...




Crap, that's Amicalola with IW isn't it?




So the north is now being competed for. We are going to need units there to go along with our settlers. Our goals are still to take the two spots we've identified: the dye/rice and the coastal sugar/banana. However, if one of those falls to Amicalola then we will have to settle the northern spices as a backup.

Also, I believe the second person with Math is GKC - because I think I only saw 1 individual with it before we met. (GKC was playing the turn at the same time as I was, so it isn't clear cut when I opened the screen or saw before or after...) In any case, the more concerning bit to me is the HBR. That could be Bing. That could also be GKC.

Bing just whipped a lot this last turn - which is something you'd expect two turns after HBR, not the turn of. Still, I'm pulling the chariot back through his territory to look. He still maintains a large power lead over the rest of us; we are relatively close to Commodore and Amicalola by comparison.

Oh, we found Tarkeel's borders too.




I suppose Plemo is farther to the northwest.

So on one hand we dno't have to expend any resources to the east now. On the other hand, we are in a race for settling the north and at the same time may have a hostile neighbor to the south gearing up for invasion.

Time to build more units!

[pindicator]

085

Some redeeming news. Amicalola settled a city but not in the jungle.




Our first settler is currently southeast of Cathedrals. This guy will reach the site marked 1 on t87 and settle 88. We won't have a road at that time, because the two workers in the north are currently chopping out The Cathedrals' granary, but after that they both will start building a road to connect that city and also to site 3.

Whipped the capital this turn for the settler going north to site 3. That settler will found the city on t90.

Lastly, there's a third settler in Finisterra which will be whipped next turn. That is going to found a filler spot in the south on Bing's border. Mostly because we don't want too many dead cities before we can tech IW and Calendar. But God's Thumb will start a settler when it hits size 4 and that will head north to site 2, and reach the location t95. It probably sits until we can finish Currency at least. Unless we uncover something good in the fog.

Funny enough I'm not too worried about city maintenance from all this delaying Currency. I am a bit worried about unit costs, however:




Math finishes end of turn. Hopefully we still can get Currency by eot95. After that comes Masonry, and then Calendar and Iron Working.

[pindicator]

GKC took the open borders! 3c trade routes! This is huge for getting Currency faster.

[pindicator]

088

Had to squeeze in the turn before work, but we settled 2 new cities to reach 10.

First one was up in the jungle, Waimea Canyon:




Waimea is going to be a bit useless until we can get Iron Working in. And at best bet we're looking at 20 turns for that. But it does have a trade route straight away, thanks to the river, and when borders pop we can work that grassland tile to its west for it to get some semblance of growth. Later on, after we've invested approximately 10,000 worker turns, we will a really nice city here. We're grabbing it now because we want to stake our claim before Amicalola starts pushing south.



I've never actually been to Waimea Canyon but a good friend of mine just returned from a trip to Kuai and did the hike.  I've heard from other people that it is gorgeous.  The pictures certainly back that up.

I have been to our next city, Eagle Cap:




Eagle Cap was the destination for last summer's backpacking trip and the view from the top was spectacular:

Eagle Cap will be our filler to work all the calendar resources along our border with Bing. But more importantly it will be there to push back culturally against Bing's reach of a city. We are going to chop out a granary and follow that up with a chopped lighthouse. For the short term, Eagle Cap will work the grass farm, but as soon as the capital reaches size 7 we're going to take the Corn. Then we'll grow onto some farmed spice tiles.

Planting both these cities have put our expenses up to around 50gpt. This is going to be hit even harder when we settle our next city in the north on t90. Getting Currency by eot95 still looks like it's on the table, but I am starting ziggurats to try to ensure we get there.

[Zed-F]

How are you building a lighthouse in a landlocked city?