[SPOILERS] Isabella of Carthage, starring Ellimist, SleepingMoogle, and Nicolae

[Commodore]

Is that a riverless flood plain I see there? Hax.

[SleepingMoogle]

That looks like an oddity yeah. Good catch Commodore.

The current city position between the pigs and horses looks like the obvious one, although that kind of limits what we can do with the coast right next to Sirius, and to some extent the land to the southeast. Right now those floodplains, rivers and general grassy area are worth considering for a high-commerce and future capital city (maybe the hill NE of the Worker, or the one 2SW of the Warrior). Depending on what's still hiding in the fog of course.

I'll try and do some dotmapping over the weekend.

Anyway, I would suggest both Sirius and Canopus to work on getting a MP Warrior sooner rather than later while growing (unless it would cause them to work unimproved tiles). Getting another Worker or two would also help setting up the new cities asap.

[Ellimist]

What do you think about tech? Code of laws next to let us be creative? If we're delaying infrastructure anyway to REX, we may as well ignore missionaries and get free spreads eventually.

Once writing comes in, we'll actually have several options open to us. I wouldn't mind planning on getting Schwedagon Paya after the REX winds down.

[Ellimist]

By the way, I did some calculations and I'm fairly certain that the donut is not solid. It either has water in the center or a center island surrounded by water. I'll post the math later.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I agree with the current location of City #3, that is absolutely beautiful, settle that asap. Put city #4 on the plains hill between the wet corn and pigs, and voila we have a bureaucademy supercapital. If you really really want a filler city to work some riverside tiles, then you an slot a city in 3S of the whales.

I'd be confident picking up copper with City #5, chariots should be all we need for a while, and it's not like anyone's going to axe rush us (watch me eat my words lol).

[Ellimist]

Played T56. Writing finishes EoT 57.

Next turn the settler unloads and city 3 is founded on T58. I quit exploring with the worker so it can improve the pig immediately. (For now it's just building pointless roads.) The warrior is heading west toward the city site for now
I built a second scout in Sirius this turn, both of them can board the galley on T58 and unload T59 in 2 different places. The ivory finished this turn so MP for both cities can wait a few turns. Once the cities grow a bit, Canopus can pump workers while Sirius does settlers. I'm not sure how much whipping is appropriate here for Sirius; I'd prefer to have Canopus just keep working the hammer tiles.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Disagree, whip Sirius like crazy, don't whip Canopus at all. I really think we should have farmed Sirius so we can whip and regrow continuously. Looking at the land we have available to us, I sorta regret sacrificing growth and beakers on the Oracle, there are so many riverside tiles that it's absurd.

I sorta regret arguing to get a granary quickly in Canopus as well, I think we were better off stagnating at size 5 and pumping out a few rounds of workers. Oh well, so what if it's a sunk cost, I'd say build another worker and then we can start growing while building a forge. Also, if we're going to be dumping hammers into something while growing, if it's not an MP warrior then it should be a forge. I think 2 scouts is plenty to scout out the mainland.

[Ellimist]

I prioritized them before MP, but 2 scouts is definitely enough.

If we're going to build infrastructure between settler whips, do we want to go for OR next? Personally I prefer CoL over monotheism, but I can see a case for either.

Full options:
(turns at current tech rate)

• Aesthetics(12)
  >>Literature(8)
  
• Alphabet(12)
  >>Currency(16)
  
• Archery(2)
  
• Code of Laws(12)
  
• Horseback Riding(9)
  
• Iron Working(7)
  >>Compass(16)
  
• Machinery(23)
  
• Masonry(3)
  >>Monotheism(4)
  
• Mathematics(10)
  >>Currency(16)
  
• Meditation(3)
  
• Monarchy(10)

[SleepingMoogle]

I agree with the current location of City #3, that is absolutely beautiful, settle that asap. Put city #4 on the plains hill between the wet corn and pigs, and voila we have a bureaucademy supercapital.

Uhm.. that location would have 5 hills, 2 peaks, and a number of tiles not adjecent to a river. It would not make for a very good capital.

I'll have a look at the current map..

[SleepingMoogle]

We have the next turn. I opened it to make a screenshot for dotmapping purposes, but haven't done anything else.

Anyway, here's the plan that the markers in-game propose:



I have a few issues with this arrangement unfortunately.

There is a vertical stripe of very fertile terrain, including two floodplains tiles, that will go to waste with this city arrangement. Blue dot as a capital is decidedly average with so many hills, peaks and non-river tiles. Worse, yellow dot needs farms to work all its hills and the obvious candidate for that are grassland tiles that it shares with blue dot, which would force us to either choose to make yellow dot food-poor, or further reduce the commerce potential of blue dot.

I strongly advocate moving blue dot 2SW. It would place the corn in the second ring, but will also give the city 4 floodplains to work (there is one to the south but almost impossible to see in the screenshot), increase the number of river tiles to cottage, and enable yellow dot to get the farms it needs to thrive.