[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Nekira Sudacne]

I've found the use of scouts for eairly fogbusting to be minimal compared to using them for their actual purpose in defogging tiles. If you don't have real units on hand for human barbs they're mincemeat, and they just soak vs. your unit cost total if they're sitting in your borders doing nothing. finding even 1 extra civ is worth the 15 hammers, and you never know, every now and then they do come home

[Krill]

Confirming BW eoT33, worker eot33, and then assessing the situation. I think Ventessel just got BW, but need to confirm with power graph spike next turn.

[Krill]

Also Poly finishes about 9 turns after that. A settler takes 6 turns, 3 turns walking to the old capital site. And if Ventessel has copper that means ye older cap is the place to find some for me, if Ventessel doesn't have copper...then that's something to consider as well.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I am curious what's the primary draw of early religion in this particular case? Are you going Monk, or just want a 40 hammer happiness unit?

[Krill]

Tech options are dependent on Ventessels actions and copper location.

If copper is at the old capital, then dropping a holy city into the second city means immediate border pop that requires no hammer investment, only other methods of popping borders are monument (I'm AGG, no reason to do this), barracks (30 hammers, no inner ring forests to chop) or terrace (60 hammers, needs Wheel+Pottery, still no inner ring forests to chop). So using religion to pop second city borders is one way to use commerce instead of hammers to speed up expansion at the immediate cost to tech speed, as I'm not getting other relevant techs. Polytheism specifically is the option, because I'm keeping an eye on Oracle>Aesthetics and that means I'd be 322 hammers away from Lit, 8XP from HE. Longer term religion is necessary for Theology and unlocking commandos in all cities, Oracle+Holy city = shrine, combined with using GL as a quick route to a 200gpp GS. Shrine usually makes sense IMO, but in this instance Poly is about setting up a mid game where my neighbours have to react to my highly promoted and cheap units.

Other tech options make sense in other situations: Fishing BW>Poly comes too fast and I want to slow it down, and I will be settling a second city that needs to go straight work boat (but this is not true of the starting capital). The Wheel makes sense if I have copper available at the capital but it's not river adjacent, or I have a second city location that does not need a fast border pop (but then again, this is not a reason to ignore Poly either). AH makes sense if there is no copper visible and I think I might have an opening for a chariot rush. Pottery needs to be timed so that when I finish it I can build cottages and I want to chop terraces, which means I need to have enough workers to do those things. No reason to rush it otherwise. Archery, if there is no copper and I figure I need something other than quechua but I honestly can't see a scenario where this is true. Sailing can wait until I have a port city that can build a galley, the whales are settled and I have the production to start settling islands.

Monk economy doesn't exist. It's a term with a meaningless definition.

[Krill]

Currently identified dot map: this will change, opening thoughts only. All directions based of the numpad.




Second city makes sense on old capital, 111222, 3 food tiles, bit of a river, drop in the holy city means relatively quick third ring borders to help wider spaced dot map to work with CHM happy and the 3 happy res already identified. Not threatened by anyone due to moving starting settler. Needs a road though, and Fishing. And 30 hammers for a workboat, not without cost. If copper is at the original capital (which I don't know if it's the case) then whilst that raises the risk from Ventessel towards me, I know that I can move and settle a strong city that he can't threaten that will give me copper. At size 4 capable of 18 food hammers per turn if copper present. Only 2 hills, but 6 cottageable river grassland/fp tiles so potential for swapping to a whip cycle after Pottery. Or just grow and work everything at size 9 with the happy res.

877 to split off a silver, grab a sheep and pick up second silver looks good but is a forward plant, needs spears to hold so until I build 2 spears I can't settle this location. Building 2 spears basically means growing the capital from size 4 to size 7 though, which I want to do but then raises questions about tile allocation. Only a single 5 food tile means growth is hard and the city will cap out at size 3 or 4 early on, main reason is to get the quick boost form the silver and also puts a bit of pressure on Ventessel. Easily attacked by chariots, flatland, very risky plant but it's worth keeping in mind. only viable city in that location which is also defensible to any extent. Longer term +2 food from the lakes is helpful but underwhelming.

4444 from the capital also picks up a grass hill, fresh water corn (5/1/0) and that plains hill sheep. Coastal, but only one grass hill so not a long term powerhouse. +2fpt from lakes later on though. Again a pretty dismal long term prospect but it might be a viable candidate for Moai? Only 9 coastal tiles though. 13 foodhammers per turn at size 3, 14 if it steals that silver. Needs a border pop is the main issue. This city has to get workshopped to the gills.

122 from the capital is a filler, but picks up the pig and grass cow from AF, can grow cottages for olde capital, grabs the whale, can work a few hills. Probably a good investment in terms of commerce growth and shouldn't need much more than just worker turns from passing workers to help it develop. It would only really be able to keep the food reources to help it grow, and then have to give them back to AF, so some tight micro is needed but it's workable.

I'm not saying this is the dotmap I'm going to use, or that this is the order that cities get settled in, but it's a shape of how to play out the game to T70.

[Krill]

Ventessel has a size 2 capital and BW confirmed, now to wait and see. Scout 3 turns from full health and continuing scouting duties

[Krill]

Hmmmmmmm. Question on game mechanics.

When an opponent unlocks a tech, say, BW, they gain visibility on a resource I can't see. They can see the updated tile yields. However, am I also correct in that I see the updated tile yield for terrain within their borders? ie is it true that I would see Ventessels capital as a 2/3/1 tile if he settled on copper? I think I would, but asking for confirmation here.

[pindicator]

Yeah, that's correct. You can see the correct yields for his tiles regardless of your technology.

[Krill]

Then copper isn't on the starting tile...or any of those visible tiles, not on a hill.