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

[Miguelito]

With the southern area again for reference, some points for discussion:

1. (URGENT) I am again considering moving the fur city 1S, and build Moai there. Assuming we don't need the fur in the core right away, do you think it's a good idea?
   
2. how do we develop those cities, beyond the crabs? Granary/lighthouse seems a given, but I'm a bit of a loss what to do with the land tiles besides chopping.
   
3. Next research target. Sailing appears to me pretty obligatory for ICTR... but do we want a shrine? In that case slotting in priesthood before might make sense. I still have the CoL-bulb currency idea in the back of my head, although the prize is diminished now a lot as we already have our religion.
   Mid term I see the options of a) straight writing -> maths -> currency, b) writing -> CoL -> maths -> currency bulb, c) HBR -> archery, d) metal casting. Priesthood slotted in where needed. My current tendency is b) or c)
   

[Rusten]

1) No, IMO that's a bad idea. On the furs is much stronger. Moai Statues is the most overrated wonder in the game and people plan way too much around it. It's one of the biggest noobtraps. You can still put Moai there even if you settle on the furs, you don't need all water tiles for it. You're just missing out on ocean tiles compared to 1S but gain one coastal tile. It's also so much faster to build it if you settle on the furs and speed matters.

Making the "perfect" size 20 Moai city is not something you should worry about.

2) I'd probably farm the grassland, this map is low on food.
3) Option b seems best to me. I wouldn't stress too much about the shrine, getting a different GP first does much more for our game. We can try to maximize our chances to get one for later GPs and hope for a good roll, but to guarantee one slows us down too much.

edit: option C works if you want to (try to) run over Gira with HAs, but I'm more inclined to settle our good cities, hopefully discover some more islands out east and getting cataphracts.

[Miguelito]

1) No, IMO that's a bad idea. On the furs is much stronger. Moai Statues is the most overrated wonder in the game and people plan way too much around it. It's one of the biggest noobtraps. You can still put Moai there even if you settle on the furs, you don't need all water tiles for it. You're just missing out on ocean tiles compared to 1S but gain one coastal tile. It's also so much faster to build it if you settle on the furs and speed matters.

Making the "perfect" size 20 Moai city is not something you should worry about.

2) I'd probably farm the grassland, this map is low on food.
3) Option b seems best to me. I wouldn't stress too much about the shrine, getting a different GP first does much more for our game. We can try to maximize our chances to get one for later GPs and hope for a good roll, but to guarantee one slows us down too much.

edit: option C works if you want to (try to) run over Gira with HAs, but I'm more inclined to settle our good cities, hopefully discover some more islands out east and getting cataphracts.

1) I agree.
2) just forget about the plains then, particularly the eastern city? grow on coast and eventually work a mine?
3) My idea for HAs is more to have a quick strike force if an opportunity comes up, eg Cairo gets under serious pressure from Elkad and/or naufragar. And a mobile defense force. Probably not justified to hold up the core economic techs for that. Anyways, we agree that sailing comes first, right?


t65 just quick, had work tonight:


don't know what that is supposed to mean, he has his own horse. Something about Cairo? I sent back rice/rice to signal friendship.

Elkad didn't accept our OB offer, and El Grillo recently got writing and asked us for OBs, but I see no reason to give them to Mr. GLH at this point. If he has a route defogged to our land, but we don't, and assuming we have sailing, do we then get TRs? I'll prefer to trade with nauf or Ruff in first place, anyways.

still saw this in Elkad's border city vs. Cairo:



got his cheap monument/granary pair running, and as many axes there as we own

Stats, with el Grillo included. He has five cities, so we overtook him this turn.

[Rusten]

I think all but one of the river plains tiles can be turned into a watermill, so I'd probably wait for that before using them. If you feel commerce is a very obvious bottleneck you can cottage, but it's not an inspiring choice. Coast/whip/specialists/mines seem better short term options.

Agreed on sailing.

I'm not sure what that naufragar message is about either. Does Cairo have a city with those two resources? Maybe he's at (or about to be at) war and fears having his horse tile pillaged and wants to secure a safe alternative, just giving us a heads up? Best I can do, it's very strange.

[Miguelito]

With the foundation of stonefish coming closer and us very likely going the CoL route and some sort of (at least temporary) specialist economy, I have been thinking a bit more about how to get the pyramids going.

I think it clearly has to be Akritai, there are some forests in the south but those cities are slow to grow and were founded just recently (while Akritai will have 3 (shared) FP farms). A little problem with Akritai is that it can't really set up 2pop whips where half of the hammers go into the wonder. With cow and the copper mine, it gets 10 base hammers, so can't set up axe/spear whips and not even missionaries (only if leaving copper unworked, which is bad). Otoh, worker whips only get 15-20 whip hammers into the wonder. The city currently has a barracks, axe, and spear in queue, 3*/2/2 turns from completion (*might be 2 with OR).

I have not simmed this yet, but here is my general idea:
By my count we are 8 turns away from connecting the stone, if we want to use both workers for that, which I think we should. In those I will aim to make the above 1/1/1, with as little hammers from completion as possible. Also a new worker, or maybe settler if the capital can't do the job. Maybe we can cascade from barracks over a worker into the pyramids the turn we get stone, I have to see if we can still land at size 4 with that. Over the course of building the wonder, we can then work cow/copper and 2 FP farms, whipping the prebuilt units whenever we get to size 5. If it takes longer, whip another worker, or missionary. I'll have the two workers from the stone chopping, but I don't think we'll build another mine there, or should we?

I'll sim during one of the next days at which eta we arrive this way.

This also means that missionaries will have to come almost exclusively from Frumentarii via 2pop whips, but with rice/oasis/FP that city grows reasonably fast now.

The rough plan for converting cities is stonefish (hook the fish) -> fur city (hook crab, bonus for granary/lighthouse) -> Akritai (in time for barracks) -> Magistranoi/Agentes for happy. The island likely needs a missionary as well and he should be on the first galley. If we get a random spread I won't object of course. Western blue dot isn't included yet, probably get one from fur city, but it's not needed desperately.

Also I think I'll pull one of the southern workers back after the first chop; there are just not very many exciting tiles down there, and the cities can work crabs and whip for the while being. He should finish the 3rd FP farm at Akritai (if I don't get a worker there faster from the city itself), then get more cottages down at the cap.

Agentes will build a WB and then whip a galley, and maybe even a worker before if it fits. Settler has to come from cap or Akritai.

Then we have to get the tundra spots settled and are out of known land (you mentioned possible islands in the east. We could also think about stealing that icy, silver over sea, but it sounds unwise).

I'm planning with lighthouses in all cities that have seafood (Agentes, stonefish, the 2 blue dots) at prio 1 or 2, ie after granary/galley in the case of Agentes. Do you agree? It's a 2pop whip that can also be a settler or worker or missionary so I'm not sure. Now that I write it, probably best to first get the tundra spots settled.

I'd be interested in what you think of all this, mostly the pyramids part.

[Rusten]

Before anything else I'll just let you know that Naufragar no longer has horses, so my speculation might've been accurate. Do we need chariots right now? I'd think not. He's also down to 3 cities (from 4 the turn before).

[Miguelito]

Yeah let's gift him. I was planning to delay on connecting the new horse at Frumentarii (because that's 4 worker turns), but I think they're not needed right now anyways. If suddenly we're really desperate to build a chariot we can always declare on him.

[Miguelito]

t66
offered free horses to naufragar.

I'm not sure what gira is doing here:


If he's preparing a plant I'll be unhappy, not sure if we could allow it. If he's just fogbusting after losing his pasture to a barb spear I approve. For the case that he wants to intrude I moved the chariot to the plains tile NE of incense, but I'd really rather not get tensions here... but him going south would require some reaction, we have a single, promotionless axe down there.

Demos:


That crop yield sure looks nice, and it's only getting better. GNP is quite bad considering we're researching with 5 KTBs. It is not going to get a whole lot better very soon, but at least we're getting started on *some* cottages.

With the foundation of stonefish coming closer and us very likely going the CoL route and some sort of (at least temporary) specialist economy, I have been thinking a bit more about how to get the pyramids going.

I think it clearly has to be Akritai, there are some forests in the south but those cities are slow to grow and were founded just recently (while Akritai will have 3 (shared) FP farms). A little problem with Akritai is that it can't really set up 2pop whips where half of the hammers go into the wonder. With cow and the copper mine, it gets 10 base hammers, so can't set up axe/spear whips and not even missionaries (only if leaving copper unworked, which is bad). Otoh, worker whips only get 15-20 whip hammers into the wonder. The city currently has a barracks, axe, and spear in queue, 3*/2/2 turns from completion (*might be 2 with OR).

I have not simmed this yet, but here is my general idea:
By my count we are 8 turns away from connecting the stone, if we want to use both workers for that, which I think we should. In those I will aim to make the above 1/1/1, with as little hammers from completion as possible. Also a new worker, or maybe settler if the capital can't do the job. Maybe we can cascade from barracks over a worker into the pyramids the turn we get stone, I have to see if we can still land at size 4 with that. Over the course of building the wonder, we can then work cow/copper and 2 FP farms, whipping the prebuilt units whenever we get to size 5. If it takes longer, whip another worker, or missionary. I'll have the two workers from the stone chopping, but I don't think we'll build another mine there, or should we?

I did a fair bit of simming tonight. With a barracks->settler we get 59 overflow the turn the quarry finishes. With a worker we lose a lot of overflow to the cap, but of course we can just put the whip hammers into the wonder one by one, it's not like we're getting it out in few turns such that this mattered (there's some trouble with hammer decay on the units though).

Also if we want to, we can have a settler/galley the turn after sailing, but I don't see yet how we get more support (worker, missionary, MP - ok there's an axe from the cap that I wanted to send to the border) for a plant in time. There is a work boat that was intended for stonefish that can probably go there and easily be replaced in time, if there is first ring seafood on that island (the same WB can scout).

Also it feels like there is alot going on in the dark. At this point in the game I think that's usually a good sign? We may be the only players around not to have suffered a turnsplit yet (ok there was the scout stuff in the very beginning, and I think gira has had eternal peace as well)

[Rusten]

Your wording is leaving me uncertain. You are suggesting granary before LH in all cities, right? I'm OK with getting lighthouses early, but not if it means delaying a galley and settler for the island city (or a different city) for instance. That's much more important than +1 (or +2) food. I'd say that if there's anything you feel you need at the time you should prioritize it over a lighthouse, be that a worker/settler/galley/wb, infrastructure is not a big priority in the expansion phase.

Akritai for Pyramids is good. It's not a city that will struggle for happiness or keep being whipped hard long term, so doing 1-pops for the wonder is not a problem. My first thought would be to aim for size 6 and working all the mines+ivory, but your simming plan at size 4 (without the extra mine) sounds OK too. Yours should be a little faster, especially with all the forests available.

I think we should try to get a galley the turn after sailing and settle this island city immediately if it's possible as you say. It's a nice area and who knows what might be in the fog. At minimum we should send a work boat out there ASAP to see if the island connects to other islands (or a different continent). It could be a very important island city strategically.

Demos look great, you're outplaying your opposition.

[Miguelito]

Yes, granaries everywhere before anything else, and if a settler is needed he'll get whipped over a LH.

We get a WB the turn we get sailing, so it has 2 turns headstart on the gallery with the settler to scout for seafood, hopefully that'll be enough. We can put an axe from the cap on that boat, which will also help scouting. It was intended as MP for stonefish, but I think we can do without for a while, as naufragar has other worries than sniping a city of ours over the channel, do you agree?

Yes I included the ivory into the Pyramids plan now. I also think I throw out the cascade idea, just overflow separately from worker and barracks gives more hammers, and the worker is needed.