[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Rusten]

If I were to give you a rule of thumb or general point it's to always be at the happy cap in every city. Copper city needs one desperately to reach its happy cap. Fish+Pig already grows faster than we can manage unhappiness I think, but we are getting ivory+furs soon, so maybe we want one there too. To me it makes sense to get granaries now (everywhere) and then settle these 2 southern cities in quick succession. We've already settled the profitable contested area. If we had a clear spot in mind I would get a settler in Horsefish right now indeed, but I don't think we do. The added happy from ivory, furs (and hopefully religion) soon will mean that we'll be way below our happy cap and will take a long time to reach it without granaries, even in Horsefish.

Whipping or not makes no real difference as far as I'm concerned. What matters is to complete it at a time that gets full regrow use (food bar) and makes sense for the happy cap. In an ideal world we whip a settler into an immediate granary the turn after with full food bar regrowth. Whip settler 4-2 -> complete granary -> grow to happy cap.

To answer your question more directly: High food cities need granaries with a high happy cap. Low food cities need them always. If we had no luxuries or religion coming I'd not advocate for a granary in Horsefish.

edit: Not sure what you're referring to in the copper screenshot, but it's late here so maybe I'm missing something. It shows as 3 hammers which means he has BW, but we already knew that I think.

[Miguelito]

Thanks, I got educated and mostly convinced.

Your talk of happy cap made me realize that I made a minor mistake: Agentes (horsefish) needs an MP unit, but if I change the WB to a warrior this turn it would finish the turn we connect copper, and get transformed to a spear. I'm considering delaying the copper mine a turn, instead starting the road, which would result in 3h lost in Akritai. We don't need the copper for units yet as our neighbours ate just now connecting theirs. Disclaimer I'll have to see in game if the WB still comes out in time that way. Your thoughts?

The other issue with Agentes is that for all its growth potential it runs out of good tiles pretty fast. There are 3 resource tiles (but the pig will want to pass to the cap frequently), a green hill that can be mined, and a riverside grass forest that I would use for a cottage (?). After that it's dry grass cottages or riverside plains. How would you develop that land? I think eventually we can run a nice number of specialists there (hence why I think that cottage maybe better be a farm), but in the short term I'm unsure what any pop above 4 would do there. Atm I'm planning to get our next worker there once it reaches size 3 (1pop whip, have to see if growing to 4 and 2pop whip makes sense but I doubt it).

Re: the copper shot, the mouseover says requires route, but not requires mine, so I understand the mine is there but no road yet.


Edit: regarding the next dots, are you sure it's the southern dark blue pair over stonefish or copperdeer? Sure it will be good to get that furs online, but it needs quite some preparation/ hammers ( 2 settlers, 2 WB, 1-2 roading/ chopping workers, 1 unit for cover), do you think we can get that moving fast enough?

[Rusten]

Copperdeer first is fine if we struggle to get everything ready.
Delaying the copper seems fine.
Agentes will keep whipping settlers and workers in the early game, but I'd be inclined to cottage and start maturing the tiles that are in the capital BFC during regrowth cycles.

[Miguelito]

t44

Interesting situation over at gira's:


I think gira wants to found on the grassland tile. Plains might be better, but blocks the lighthouse lake city which I think he'll want to get. We'll see if the barb lets him. Possibly we can just zoom past the barb and keep on heading west, but we may also have bad luck and get blocked by gira's culture and run into the barb.

• gira meanwhile is mapping us out well. Sadly, he saw the fresh chariot in the cap because he played before us. I refrained from killing the scout, I hope he behaves (also a reason why I'd rather not declare war on him to get our scout through his lands - if the scout obnoxiously starts blocking tiles we'll have to whip a chariot or something. We'll need an axe por two at purple rather soon as he'll know to bring spears.
  
• I could not start the warrior at Agentes this turn, as the WB would come a turn late. So the copper mine is delayed 2 turns if we want to build that warrior. If we do, the granary at Akritai is not delayed and finishes either way eot 51, but it gets finished with 6 foodhammers less: delayed copper has 14-16/24 food and 0-2h overflow (depending whether we work plains hill forest or unimproved copper); immediate copper has 16-22/24 food and 0-6h overflow - but the granary doesn't actually like more than 12/24 food, right? If so, then I think the delayed copper is def ok.
  
• On the signs you see the plan for founding purple - C is the selected  worker (Constantine), A is the one N of pig (Arcadius), S the settler. The workers mostly build roads while moving (save A's turn 45), so the city gets connected the turn it's founded (hope I remember this time to build the road first ), and 2 workers are around to farm the rice right away (one spends the first turn roading, which doesn't hurt). What do we build first in purple? granary? monument? unit?
  

I like this:



3 of our friends have Pottery this turn, giving us a little extra push over the finishing line - we really have to decide now, does the overflow go into sailing/writing or towards mono? I kind of like the ballsy play, so mono? We can then afterwards take sailing and hope that Cairo and nauf research writing for themselves. If we do that, I have to ask again - green dot of stonefish anytime soon? (Are we sure that nauf doesn't feel adventurous and just tries to settle there offshore?)

[Rusten]

-I'm happy to settle stonefish next if we have the worker force to irrigate FP and chop size 1 granary.
-I like mono next. If someone beats us to it we can just switch back to sailing. Seems like a good moment to bank some gold though.
-Barb warriors will start to make an appearance which is why having these chariots will be so helpful. A stray barbarian axe can also be taken care of easily.
-For the record it's not a big problem if Agentes is unhappy on size 3. It's not picking up a power tile there anyway. Not ideal, but it doesn't stop us from growing to size 4. You can also spend one of the unhappy turns into a worker or settler to whip on size 4 later. Unhappy citizens don't eat food when producing settlers/workers.
-12 food is the max food overflow, yes. As long as you get that amount it doesn't matter when the granary completes.
-Purple gets a granary for sure. Size 1 is a pipe dream, but we should be able to chop 1 forest and 1-pop whip it on size 2.

edit: But if Agentes will be unhappy on size 3 while fish, horse and pig are all supposed to be worked that's a disaster that must be avoided.

[Miguelito]

...and t45 came around right when I finished the report.

I set research to Masonry while saving gold (with sizable overflow from Pottery) and started the warrior at Agentes (the copper mine is not delayed yet. Next turn it's either finishing the mine or start the road), but Rusten if you feel like one of those are wrong feel free to log in and change. I saw that you logged in and looked around last turn, appreciated - edit: missed your crosspost

taking a look at the island:



we can scout 1 tile further before having to turn back. There seems to be another land tile 1SE. I'd hope for a lux, else it's kinda underwhelming?

our chariot seems to be the first real unit around. We're getting a second one this turn.



even with the cap at size 1 demos don't look too awful:


although it shows that our new cities so far have claimed a total of 1 plains cow in terms of food (gonna change soon )

with the settler I could map out for possible spots and found our neighbours' second cities (Elkad founded this turn or the last - played a double turn - and revolted to slavery this turn):


: why would Cairo not settle this wheat first ring? It maybe has to do with sharing capital food, but it still suprises me. Also Elkad's plant is in the spirit of its colour - he already had the sheep in culture because of his religion, but to reach for the corn seems pretty offensive vs gira (who probably can just take it back though with CRE culture, even has a tight hill plant available. Tension among our neighbours? I approve
The "nauf 2nd BFC" tiles are no legal spots, but the ones on our shore are. That could mean it's indeed a seperate landmass, or the 2nd city is NE of the grass tile. In any case it seems like nauf just planted right in Cairo's face

over at gira's, the barb wariror moved NW, so gira is free to plant on the grass (would the barb attack the city though? then it's a bit risky, although gira's warrior gets the city defense bonus). I moved the scout a bit stupidly W onto the plains and had to turn S (so ended up W of deers). Likely going to get teleported E this turn, then hopefully we can eschew the barb if he's still alive.

[Miguelito]

edit: But if Agentes will be unhappy on size 3 while fish, horse and pig are all supposed to be worked that's a disaster that must be avoided.

It is not unhappy even without MP if it has no whip unhappy (which wears off in time), anyways I think it might be time for the capital to get the pig for a while and grow once Agentes has the fish online (I'll have to assess the details, still 2 turns to go). But rest assured the tiles will be worked, in particular since I've decided in favour of the MP warrior

[Rusten]

I had a look around and I think Agentes should keep the pig until size 4 (and then whip something). It has no other good 3rd tile whereas the capital does.

[Miguelito]

Hm, my plan was to get a 3rd worker out of there at size 3 (1pop whip), I'll compare that to growing and 2pop whipping the worker.
Cap has no good third tile without more workers to improve FP and stuff

[Rusten]

An unimproved flood plains is still a good tile. It also has a grass river mine.

On that subject working a 0/3/0 tile in order to finish the granary in copper city in time is a little suspect, but I think we're committed now.