The scratching post

[Catwalk]

Looking good. Some unsolicited advice:

That's the best kind!

You can still change your mind in Thunder Kittens regarding what to whip, it doesn't cost you anything. Ideally you would have chopped both the work boat and the granary, though.

Good point. A worker is ready to chop one of them, which should I do first?

Pro tip: Don't work plains hill mines if you're trying to grow. In fact, Fur Fighters could have borrowed your capital's pigs, since your capital is stuck on a worker build anyway.

That makes a frightful amount of sense. I will change that next turn.

Catnip Factory is managed unorthodoxely, but I'll let it slide since it's building a wonder.

What are you thinking about in particular? Working the silver instead of the flood plains?

[novice]

What are you thinking about in particular? Working the silver instead of the flood plains?

Well, the lack of a granary is questionable, especially since you're expansive. Also, there are exceptions (e.g. getting the granary asap), but in my opinion it's normally better to improve resource tiles before chopping forests. A forest chop takes 4 turns and yields 13 hammers. That's 3.25 hammers per turn produced as long as the worker is chopping. If you improve the cows (a 3 turn job), that tile produces 1 food and 2 hammers extra for the rest of the game.

At TK, ideally you'd chop the workboat T0, and chop the granary no later than T1, so you get the full granary bonus from the get-go.

[Catwalk]

I would have gone for a granary first if not for wanting to secure Stonehenge. Maybe that was an ill-advised priority, but I'm happy I'm getting it soon. And yeah, so far I haven't really prepped sites before planting the city. Having a hard time shedding the last of my Civ2 ICS mentality where cities are instantly productive.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a good dotmap for the Ad Hoc border. Considering a city on the southern wine, but that makes it difficult to put another city on the Ceil border.

Considering the red and blue sites. Means I miss out on the whale and a forest grassland, but I will stake a decent claim on the border land.

[haphazard1]

The whale is essentially lost unless a city is founded on that tiny lake, as no work boat will ever be able to improve it. So on the wine or where marked will make no difference for getting the resource, although you could work the unimproved tile from the wine site. Of course, Optics is not exactly a high priority on this map anyway, although you will get to it eventually if the game continues long enough.

Border pressure with Terminus might be a bigger consideration -- without a significant culture push you are unlikely to get that rice tile. Similar with the banana at Thunder Kittens. And enough culture to get them would presumably have diplo impact....

At the red site, you could shift SE: add an oasis and flood plain, avoid overlap with Hazard, save a forest. If you went for the wines site it would reduce overlap there as well. It is a bit further away so costs would be a bit higher. I am not sure what you plan for further east of that site, maybe you intend another city to claim there in which case the shift could be negative.

[Catwalk]

Good point about missing out on working the whales regardless. It's best to make that sacrifice, whales are not exactly amazing anyway. Moving the red site SE makes sense, but it means giving up another 4 tiles: Forested grassland, river grassland hill, river grassland and forested river grassland hill. I would be able to claim 3 tiles by moving the blue spot W. No matter what option I choose, there'll be a lot of unclaimed land in either direction.

Alternately, I could cram the cities tight and live with a lot of overlap. Would probably kill me

[Catwalk]

Dotmap for tight city cramming!!!

I think Ceiliazul would agree to this, as he has stated an interest in me claiming the area between me and Ad Hoc. Ad Hoc might be a bit provoked by the purple dot. The green and yellow lines are the equi-distance lines marking the natural borders with Ceiliazul and Ad Hoc, meaning that our capital distance to the tiles it goes through are the same. Settling on the line is rather bold, but I think I can get away with it. This pattern lets me use up all tiles within my territory, claims a sizable amount of resources and allows me to settle more cities. I'll cautiously claim this to be a good thing. Open borders with Ceil next turn and Currency coming in the not too distant future make a large number of cities highly profitable. Each one gets 5 free happiness, and at size 5 (will happen soon enough, all spots have good food) all of them will be highly profitable.

I have added Ceiliazul's and Ad Hoc's cities and likely expansion sites.

Okay, tear it to pieces

[Catwalk]

Hmm, looks like my equi-distance lines are all messed up. Going to try again!

This octagon accurately marks all territory that is within a distance of 7.5 tiles of my capital. 7.5 was chosen because all enemy capitals are 15 tiles away. This illustrates that there are 4 pockets of dead man's land between us that is a bit farther away from all of us than the main territory is. I have crudely added all expansions I'd like to plant in the long run. No expansions are located in the octagons of other players (except Cull), but many are planted in the no man's land. I think this is a pretty good illustration of land boundaries, I think I will be able to use this to my advantage in negotiations.

EDIT: Updated this again, added little bolts of lightning to indicate overlap. As is obvious, there is massive overlap in the south east area. I'm thinking about planting a city N of the cross to the east and moving the city 3E2N of my capital N. Would allow me to utilize the remaining 3 tiles. With this setup I will also be able to make use of the whales. With whales being a luxury resource, I think they're worth prioritizing.

EDIT: Updated again I'm having far more fun with this than I'm supposed to. I subdivided the dead man's land zones into 4 sections each, giving me an even awesomer overview of the natural borders. It becomes apparent that my current dotmap is quite ambitious in most directions, if that becomes obvious to my rivals they might give me a hard time during border negotiations. Should I try to negotiate border agreements with all players now or hold off?

Also, I was thinking about buying some of cull's lands with workers or settlers. If I get a lucrative border agreement with him and help him shore up his borders with the other players, my position improves.

[Catwalk]

Updated the overview map again. Planning on sending the following message to Ceiliazul, feedback on the plans and wording would be greatly appreciated:

Hello mighty Ceiliazul

I would like to inquire into the possibility of entering a secret long-term alliance to go along with the border agreement. Terms as follows (still up for discussion):
1) We have a binding NAP which lasts until there are only 3 players left, at which point it is dissolved with 10t cooldown
2) We will keep each other informed of all diplomacy with other players as long as the NAP lasts
3) We will not mention this agreement to other players, if need be we will bend the truth and state that we have a long-term NAP
4) We will not enter NAPs with other players of a duration of more than 50t without mutual consent
5) The agreed on border between us will be the only partition we make, any expansion we can make on rival territory (including conquest) is fair game
6) We are not bound to rush to each others aid in case we are declared on (NAPs would likely make that impractical), but if either part is declared on the other part will supply military units to be repaid at a cost of 1gpt per hammer worth of units purchased after the war

And as stated, the above also assumes we can agree to a reasonable partition of the lands between us. Long-term, I think I'll be playing rather expansively and seek to claim a lot of territory. I think you're the strongest player in the game at present, with me and Pegasus probably tied for 2nd. This arrangement would protect us both quite effectively from a dogpile and all but ensure that we will finish #1 and #2 in the game. I will note that I currently have an agreement with Ad Hoc to share all diplomacy with him, but he stopped doing so quite soon and I have ceased as well. I see him as my main rival at the moment, and I'm making plans to claim the territory on his border.

As always, I'm a mere newbie with illusions of grandeur so I don't know if these terms are even remotely practical or realistic. I just like negotiating and planning. What say you?
Best regards,
Catwalk

And for Ad Hoc, along with a reduced version of the above dotmap showing only the border area:

Greetings Ad Hoc. I have laboured long and hard over dotmapping, and would like to make the following proposal. With Terminus being planted so close to my border at an early point, I will need to plant reasonably close to the border as well. As is clear from the dotmap, I'm also making an effort to secure my border towards Ceiliazul. I would be willing to give up either the SE site (SW of Terminus) or the NE site. Let me know what you think.

If he doesn't agree to this partition, I'd have an excuse for being less willing to sign a long NAP with him.

[haphazard1]

Dot mapping is one of my favorite phases of the game as well. Expansion, planning for the future, ambition -- all good things. Of course events rarely go exactly as I plan as other civs move in and mess up my carefully designed plans, barb cities spawn in poor locations, etc.

I am a bit curious about the score differences at this still early stage of the game. How have the Ottomen gotten over 50 points (a significant margin at this point in the game) ahead? How has Baylife fallen that far behind? I would not expect such large gaps yet.

Score is a combination of population, land, tech, and wonders. Land might contribute some (especially for a creative civ), although there is a delay before land points are applied. Population means more cities -- can you see on the diplo screens how many cities he has? Tech is certainly a possibility, as points are per tech with each era's techs being worth more; several cheap early techs can mean more points than one more advanced tech. Wonders does not seem likely to be a factor yet.

So the Ottomen being 50+ points ahead would seem to imply they have been settling new cities rapidly and growing population, and maybe sticking to early techs?

[Catwalk]

I believe the point difference for Ceil is because of the delay in land points. You get a substantial amount of points for this, I just rocketed up 30-40 points or so one of these turns. I think Ceil is on 4 cities as well. Cull is behind because he is doing very poorly, and is being ganged up on a bit by Ceil and Ad Hoc on top of that. Ad Hoc doesn't seem to be doing great either, check the demos.

What do you think about tight vs spacious city planning, and what do you think about my proposed diplo? Ceil has been very active in his diplomacy with me and seems to clearly be the strongest player. On top of that, Industrious will let him land a bunch of wonders. I have a long NAP with him already, so I can't really take him down through pressure. My proposed alliance would allow me to gang up on him together with the third remaining player later on if he's still ahead by then.

Also, what do you think about my octagons?