Team Gaspar - how PBEM47 was lost and where it got us.

[Gaspar]

Alright. So sort of just chewing on the situation in my brain, a couple quick thoughts.

I think all things considered I'd rather put city 2 in the SW because the most useful thing for a second city would be to overlap on those cottages, growing them faster. Sort of using my previous experience from Commo-maps, I doubt we'll see any food there though, which would be necessary since it can't share any of the caps food tiles. But I like the idea that they can be on alternate whip cycles and just trade the riverside cottages, that'd be a nice boost to get them mature faster. There is a school of thought, mostly advocated by mackoti, that you shouldn't whip your capital to benefit other cities which I sort of agree with, but early on I think a few whip cycles is pretty key to get the expansion curve bending properly. You do eventually want to keep your capital on as close to max size as possible, though.

If we go with the current T30 Oracle plan, the warrior born on T10 can go SW-SW-S and check out the desert hill which should be enough info to know whether we want to plant there and then maybe just sit there as a sentry until we need it for MP. The exploring warrior can take a wider berth and perhaps go NE-N-NW and cycle around before eventually landing on the PH forest in the NW as a sentry. The peaks in the SE should be impediment enough to someone coming to say hello, so we'll just need to address the NE eventually.

In terms of plan, while the C&D seems to indicate we'd be safe to T33 I'm not entirely sure I'm personally comfortable with it. I sort of feel like I'd rather be sure we land Oracle and play catch up on expansion than risk the key wonder for us. I'll mull some, and would like opinions from the crowd.

[Gaspar]

casual lurker/cheerleader checking in. I really wanted to ded-lurk serdoa, but it he doesnt seem to be updating this game :/. This clearly will be the most entertaining thread good luck team underdog!

I think you should rename your team from "team gaspar" to "the bad news bears," personally .

Unrelated to the above, but my first thought when you said this was that rego was definitely Tatum O'Neal.

Unfortunate WK and rego don't play, since otherwise we'd definitely be Team Werewolf.

[Lewwyn]

Zak can you do me a huge favor and try simming with farming rice first? Rice or sheep is going to be our biggest choice next turn and will decide the paths. I keep getting T32 Oracle with my good development, but I'm always just 1 worker turn behind on the last chop. If you could look into my previous sims you might see a way to get the Oracle built on T31 with the early settler and the second settler almost finished.

[Gaspar]

I think the main questions here are:

• When does Meditation come in and can we get a 2nd city planted before it. If we planted the cows/gems site and could land Buddhism there, that's a pretty good 2nd city. If its planted after Buddhism we have to divert resources to border popping and then a potential SW city seems better to me. Especially since its likely our first GP will be a prophet from Oracle, though depending on the situation that might be better spent on a bulb than a shrine. Keep in mind also that the faster the wonder is done the faster we get that prophet.
  
• What's worth delaying the Oracle? I would say T33 is the absolute drop-dead date for landing it. I don't want to rely on mackoti *not* doing something crazy, which is my sort of base inclination for just sticking to the T30 plan. I know we're going to cry a bit though if Serdoa's on 5 cities before we've planted #3. In my mind, advancing the date of city 3 by a significant amount is the only thing that's really worth the risk. Can we do that?
  
• I don't have a great handle on zak's follow-up plan, but if the ideas are between the Lewwyn T32 plan and the zak T30 plan I don't think the development curves are different enough to be worth delaying the extra 2t.
  

So I guess that's basically what we need to answer. If nobody has a good argument otherwise I think I'm inclined to just stick to the T30 plan, but if we could resolve either 1. landing religion in city 2 or 2. getting 3rd city out significantly faster, I think I would favor a slight delay. There's no use in my pretending I'm going to outslick the two of you on micro though.

[Gaspar]

Have you micro mavens considered a 2x worker open? We'd lose 3 beakers we'd have to make up somewhere else but everything finishes a turn earlier production-wise and conceivably we can make those beakers up with a faster cottage? I'm not worried about getting Mortiused, if we get Mortiused we just sign up for a new game where we're not playing against Seven and mackoti.

[Gaspar]

Let's hold the save a touch until we come to a decision here. If nobody says anything convincing I'll play in ~6 hours following the current plan (warrior, sheep mine first.)

[Gaspar]

Moved the warrior, who revealed nothing of note. I'm going to sleep.



I'm going to name the workers after Bad News Bears unless anyone has a better idea.

[zakalwe]

Let's hold the save a touch until we come to a decision here. If nobody says anything convincing I'll play in ~6 hours following the current plan (warrior, sheep mine first.)

No time unfortunately, but for what it's worth, my T33 plan also followed this route IIRC. I think it would land religion in the second city, and could perhaps be tuned to build Oracle EOT32. In other words, sticking to the T30 plan would keep our options open, and isn't terrible even if we change our priorities later.

I only tried rice first once, so I can't discount it. I just don't have time for more simming until next year.

The next decision point is whether or not to finish the warrior as we grow to size 2.

[zakalwe]

Have you micro mavens considered a 2x worker open? We'd lose 3 beakers we'd have to make up somewhere else but everything finishes a turn earlier production-wise and conceivably we can make those beakers up with a faster cottage? I'm not worried about getting Mortiused, if we get Mortiused we just sign up for a new game where we're not playing against Seven and mackoti.

I didn't try this either but I don't see how a double worker opening comes out ahead production wise. Did you try simming it?

[Lewwyn]

I say go ahead and mine the sheep. My earlier sims required at least one chopped forest into the settler to get it out early enough so I don't think that's happening.