[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[pindicator]

You mentioned before maybe making use of Serfdom, can you expand on that? Are you planning to keep it long-term or just during the GA? I don’t see many windmills etc in your empire….

More of wishful thinking than anything else, as I really wish I had windmills for those hilly northern cities.  Gloomhaven, Dominion, and Citadels are all going to be difficult to grow.  There is still the benefit of faster worker turns and +1c to farms.  For a golden age I was looking at how to get commerce onto tiles which will not have commerce already - but we already have a lot of rivers and most of the worked tiles are already covered.

Still trying to figure out worker turns for the north.  All the rivers make movement difficult, and I sometimes lose sight of the forest for the trees (focusing too much on efficient worker movement and not enough on making sure that cities have tiles improved when they need them).

@Amicalola- I am working the Wine already.  It just made me think, with how I've been holding back on building units and emphasizing commerce:  is this one of those edge cases where the usual guidelines don't apply?

[pindicator]

090

Not much this turn. Cornflakes researched Iron Working. We finished 2 cottages.

I did hammer out some details & make some decisions with my workers for the next 5 turns: the biggest need is definitely at Sushi Go, and we are going to put our focus on laying down cottages there before helping Gloomhaven.

Also am tinkering with how fast I can get a 2nd great scientist out. If I can do it fast enough, then I'm considering bulbing Alphabet to speed along my path to Currency. But this depends on how much time an Alphabet bulb would save me. If it is only going to be a couple turns then it isn't worth wasting a bulb on.

[pindicator]

091

Sucksatciv becomes the punching bag again; Cornflakes declares war on him again. Having been in that position the last couple games I've played, I am so grateful that nobody wants to fight me early in this game.

Still, I am a bit cautious about the military situation:




After Mjmd offered Open Borders we have been both scouting each other's neighboring cities. I'm a little concerned about his buildup in HaulAwayBowline, but this could still be a strong garrison. HaulAway is the most important city for him on our border and the logical place for me to attack, if that was my intent.

However, one concern I've had all game is that if he were inclined, Mjmd has a good avenue for an Impi+Chariot strike on my capital. If a stack of 2-movers were ever to show up on the tile marked X, those would be 2 turns away from hitting my capital. Even worse, this is a valid city location - and not a bad filler spot for him as it can share multiple food tiles - which would give me just 1 turn and force me to keep a strong garrison in the capital. I'll look at this more, but as the world fills I think it is important that I settle those filler spots east of the capital sooner than expected, to make this X location an invalid city. Settling 2 south of X would not be a good city for me - it would only have a shared plains cow with Libertalia - but I could keep a garrison there that would be able to shrink my needed defenses.

I am not too concerned about the west, but I include it because Gloomhaven is going to be my unit pump. We will whip the Barracks there to completion next turn and then pop out 2 promoted units before the golden age. During the Golden Age, Gloomhaven is going to be one of the cities on missionary duty, at least initially. In addition, I want to get a settler out of Gloomhaven right before the golden age. This one will not be whipped because the Rice is going to Dominion as soon as we are able to lift the happy cap in the golden age. Most likely this settler will be the one to found a city on the spot 2 south of X, as it would complete eot100 and only be in position to settler by t105. Libertalia or Azul will produce the settler which grabs the horse city filler, aiming for the late 90s in that city.

We had another idea of grabbing the pig to our west, sneaking in a pure reach of a city between Superdeath and Bing. Sadly that idea died last turn as Bing got 3rd ring culture over the grass hill we would have settled on. That pig is lonely; someone needs to claim it. SD?

Worker turns have been figured out for the next 5 turns, and a good guideline for where they go in the turns up to the Golden Age:




As I mentioned last turn, the biggest need for cottages and tile improvements is going to be at Sushi Go. As the city reaches size 6 by turn 94, I need to have 3 more cottages in the next 3 turns. The orange group of workers will be able to accomplish that: they cottaged the second grassland tile at Dominion this turn and will move easterly cottaging as they go. Worker E, the southern Green worker, will help facilitate their movement with a road east of Sushi Go, and then move to join Worker D in cottaging the tile south of Citadels - shareable by both Citadels and Sushi Go. Worker E, in blue, is set to cottage the last grassland tile at Dominion and then either we will try to mine another hill for Gloomhaven.

In general I'm trying to empahsize food and commerce over hammers, and that leads to me reconsidering usual tile conventions. For example, I have a lot of internal debate against riverside grassland hill tiles. 1f3h1c are very strong tiles at this stage in the game, but they do not help growth - especially in cities which already have poor growth rates. Sometimes I work lakes or non-riverside grassland cottages over them to get my cities to grow and pull in more commerce.

Forgot to take the demo screenshot until after I ended turn and grew a few more pop points, but it looks very good:

[pindicator]

092

Cornflakes has no chill this game.




Sucksatciv I expect is just not putting up defenses. But wars with Superdeath are made at your own peril; blood feuds are forged from such things. Honestly, this is fantastic news for me. We're the only civ that has yet to be involved in a war this game. If that can continue for a little longer we're going to be in a great position.

Meanwhile, we keep growing, keep planting cottages, keep growing onto cottages. Cities are hitting the new happy cap and the golden age cannot come fast enough:




I whipped the library complete in Wingspan this turn, coming off the grass deer and grass hill mine tiles. I know we are aiming to grow cities, but Wingspan will be able to grow back to size 7 at end of turn and then hit size 8 right in time for the golden age and civic swap. I also want the great people points to start (and to get libraries down before I turn on the research).

Meanwhile, the deer goes to Azul:




Azul! What to do with your citizens? All its improved tiles are shared with the capital, and we want to grow ... but there is not anything good to grow onto! We are currently chopping & cottaging the last flat green tile (chop helps the library finish in 3 turns). Non-riverside grass hill mines are meh. But I also don't want to whip the city down because once we swap civics and the happy cap raises, once again the grass deer is going to go to the capital to fuel its growth.

I had been thinking this was a natural spot for whipping out a settler for the horses. But again, I keep running into the problem of regrowing Azul after. The horse city will also mean we have a 3rd city to share the deer with (though I imagine this city would get the short end of the that).

What I'm leaning towards is running a pair of scientists here during the golden age. This won't get all the way to 200 GP for our next great person but I may not want to get all the way there: I'm not yet sure what to do with a great scientist? (Academy?? Philosophy? Paper? Optics? Save for Later?) This is all just bridging the gap until Sailing. Azul really wants is Sailing, and more specifically a Lighthouse. (Some more improved tiles wouldn't hurt either.) Then we will have good growth here even without the deer and coast tiles to grow swap citizens over to as the capital starts taking over cottages in the north.




Finally, Eldritch Horror has also reached its happy cap - it is still weaning off the multiple whips from worker & library that the push to Oracle & Writing required. So we are taking EH off the Deer and onto another cottage.

Predictably, we fell out of lead for crop yield with these changes. Also fell out of mfg lead as well.




But the GNP keeps going up!

I could have turned on the tech to finish Archery this turn, but decided to hold off a turn. Libraries finish at Wingspan and Dominion both, and I felt a one turn delay in getting cheap defenders is okay at the benefit of being more efficient with our gold.

Speaking of gold, anybody want to guess when we get Currency? We were just at -9gpt at 0% a few turns ago, but already we're up to +14

[pindicator]

093

Superdeath's war must be pretty dicey because he logged in and out 3 times before playing, even posting in his thread in the middle of it all. Have to hope there isn't much lost, as I don't want Cornflakes to get too much for free.

Meanwhile, Mjmd settled his 11th city. How does he afford them all? Don't tell me the Great Lighthouse is actually doing some good work for him. He must be cramming in cities every 3 tiles on the north coast. But it does make me nervous:




As Mjmd and I scout each other out, I haven't seen any settlers approaching the south, but I'm not going to take any chances. He already can see we have minimal defenses in the capital and all it would take is a couple Impi to make this a bad day for me. So we are going to settle a city 2 south of that X as our next priority. Libertalia grew to size 4 at end of turn and will switch over to a settler next turn, whipping it out and getting us a city down by turn 97. It's not going to be a good city, but at least there will be green tiles around. I don't know if I let it take the plains cow off Libertalia or if I just let it suffer on its own.

Also shown: our giant worker stack planted another cottage at Sushi Go. We're moving an axe along with them, as they will cottage the tile to the east next turn. That axe will probably then head down to the new city (Catan? Should we go with that classic?) along with the spear that's been playing zone defense between Clank! and Libertalia.

I turned on the research to finish archery, and we'll be building a number of archers soon, especially in cities on hills (like the capital). In the meantime, I like how the GNP graph is looking:




Mjmd, Cornflakes, and I are still all neck and neck for the food lead.

[pindicator]

094

Discovered that I had been miscounting the great person turns. You start earning GP points the very turn you complete a building or wonder, unlike research bonuses, like libraries. Doesn't have a huge effect on anything; what this means is I'll be able to fire a scientist at EH a turn early. Probably would have been more helpful to not have hired the single sci spec back on turn 86, but it's a little late for that now.

I think I see how Mjmd is paying for all his cities:




This tells me he really isn't. He must be riding the edge of bankruptcy just like we were, to be resorting to cottaging hills. Still, non-riverside grass hills might be all right - but I would rather get windmills on them. I don't see us having to resort to cottages on our hills.

Settler started at Libertalia. The axe that is covering our worker stack by Sushi Go is going to keep shuffling east and cover the new city.




Need more military, but I have archers building in a lot of places now.

[pindicator]

095




I believe that is Cornflakes with the Theology bulb, giving him his own religion and a pretty hefty tech lead. His GNP has shot up again; is this the push to Currency from him?

Really, I wouldn't be surprised if he just snowballed out of control at this point. He keeps gobbling cities off neighbors and they just keep seeming to let him. Superdeath lost a city - I believe it was razed - and then peace was given. I didn't see Sucksatciv have his city count change any, but I know that it isn't the most realiable indicator. In any case, Cornflakes leads in all metrics I can think of and he doesn't seem to be stopping.

I swapped Clank! to an archer and we whip it to completion next turn, overflow will finish the Walls there. I really need to get some culture in that city to get control of the Sheep in the 2nd ring. And Cornflakes' culture is already there so we're in an uphill battle.

Golden Age is 4 turns away...

[Zed-F]

How do you feel about your chances? Seems like you might be doing ok (if not awesome) and flying under the radar a bit while Cornflakes is doing very well but making a lot of enemies.

[pindicator]

I think there's still good chances, especially if I can gather together a coalition with Mjmd and Superdeath. Cornflakes is still definitely the favorite at this point. Guess I would put odds somewhere about 40% Cornflakes, 25% Me, 25% Mjmd, 10% Superdeath

[pindicator]

It's only been 2 1/2 days since I last saw a save ... and we're just now starting sucksatciv's turn to hold the game up for just shy of 24 hours.

Sigh