Good to have you along for the rest decision Dreylin
I was looking at it. I would have pushed 2 out for city MP, but I need copper hooked asap for the production into Mids and no warrior would finish before it queue upgraded into a spear. I think I started a warrior in city 3 this morning for that purpose, but no, not getting any more warriors. I finish a scout in city 2 eot though, because that is the cheapest unit available, I can get it into location to fogbust faster, and later on I will send it exploring on a galley to the west.
Thanks for the offer on playing the turns. Good to know there is potential cover available. I will also be going away for a few days in June after I get married, otherwise I have no plans for holidays.
Turn report to follow at some point today, but we have the front city location: OH still has only a spear in the front city, no roads,.workers or settlers visible. We are also about to be completely broke, but that's a separate matter.
Can't confirm no barbs, which is why the scout only moved onto the sheep this turn. Next turn it moves NW, checks the area is safe, then moves to the tile east of the crabs, and the entire north is barb busted. Been thinking about how to colonize this area effectively, and the answer I have is this: library in city 2 and reach size 4, stagnate on 2 scientists, plains sheep and a capital cottage. Settle the filler city, split off the grass sheep and chop the granary and eventually whip a library (enables the crabs and can stagnate on crab and 2 scientists). Use this city to get the workboats, it's a filler, whip it hard. Settle City X at some point with whatever micro fits. City Y has to wait until Maths, and needs to be settled and a triple chop lands a library: only other option is to wait for Caste, which is too long. Once borders expand, chop the granary and work both food resources as standard.
In the spoilers below there are F2 and some F9 screens:
I don't think we are going to get the slider above 20% breakeven (excluding Wealth builds) for a while. So I believe that with or without Rep, we need libraries, scientists and to try to stay out of the limelight.
T83 I'm going to do a full city run down and look more closely at the micro for each city, but somethings are evident already: As of next turn, every city is at the happy cap except for the two northern cities, and the newly settled city 8. We are struggling with breakeven rate, but we have decent MFG and crop yield. We are pushing against width and we can't grow any taller. I like this empire because it's a great example of why all those old "Tall versus Wide" arguments are bullshit.
Brought the city review forward a turn: thought I might get an opportunity to play T83 today, but I'm going to be busier tomorrow so now it is.
T82: World map and tech/wonder strategy
First of all, a new world map. Not a massive update, but something to look at instead of the stream of consciousness, incoming wall of text.
Right now I know we get the front city (Labelled Sing Sing Sing). So the next question that needs answering is do I get Mids? I am planning for both eventualities, if yes, an immediate revolt to Rep, growth of 6 core cities by 3 pop (so need to decide on the cities now) and likely tech path. If no, how to spend the fail gold to solve the immediate happiness crunch and costs issue stopping vertical and horizontal expansion respectively. I need a solution that fits both.
In both scenarios, the majority of commerce is going to be spent on costs. The slider is going to be quite low. Even in the best case scenario of growing into Rep happy, without markets or court houses the breakeven slider isn't pushing above 50%. Specialists and building research (and Wealth once Currency is researched) are the way forward. There are currently 2 cities that have libraries, and a further 3 can get them by T100: City 8 (Aint Misbehavin) and City 9 (Sing Sing Sing) can go library after granary, in fact need to to pop borders, and City 2 needs a library and to give up the grass sheep to the "filler" city so we have a western port. So without Rep, that's 37.5bpt, with Rep that's 75bpt. The main difference between getting Mids and not is, IMO, when we need Alphabet by.
If we finish Mids, we don't really have much spare production to dump into Research builds for a few turns: City 6/BCR is building two archers, for itself and for City 7/JJ. The capital has given up the horse so makes 4hpt and needs to finish a library on growth, or stagnate on a settler or worker. City 5, in this scenario is de facto on Mids. City 4/TJ makes 1hpt. Before T100, the main source of Research builds comes from City 5/Kalamazoo if we miss Mids at 17hpt, capital, city 3 can push 8hpt combined. Given then we finish a GS eot92, I see an argument for just saving gold until T95: if Mids has not fallen by that point, then we go for Alphabet with the Academy in place and make an extra 75 beakers. There is also a reason to just rush Alphabet: we can try to force OB with OH to explore and get the trade route commerce. If we get OB, then we would make the beakers back from the extra trade route yield, but we risk OH saying no. The way to force the issue is to move the chariots and axe onto the border with workers underneath and demand the OB, which if OH's front city still has a single spear, is perfectly understandable for OH, who has full map knowledge of us: let me through or I have no reason to be nice. I don't know if this will work, because OH is increasing in power, and I don't know if he will try to run a settler through Sing Sing Sing to settle for something, but we can always cancel OB and declare war later, nor can we stop him dumping a settler off via a galley so I don't see this as a concern. Another point is we don't even know if OH is on the same landmass as us: he may have settled his front city from a galley, and he wants intercontinental foreign trade routes with us in which case OB is worth only 7 commerce per turn to him but 13 commerce per turn to us.
If Mids falls, we should get roughly 200 gold as of this turn. We also have enough gold saved already to finish Alphabet as a 4 turn tech: finishing eot86. This would put a straight Currency rush, ignoring everything else at finishing around T92 (If Mids fell any time between now and eot86). If Mids didn't fall, then after T100. A Currency rush seems worth it to me, because it also gives us the option to grab markets, which is cheaper than a library for us, comes with the +1 happy and the commerce modifier is more relevant: I'd build them now instead of libraries if I could. If we are going to be curtailed on horizontal expansion due to costs, markets give us the option to pay the costs more easily and also gives us something to grow on vertically, plus the obvious wealth builds though an Academy. Either with or without Rep, Currency still seems to be the wiser option before then heading for the other happiness options or HBR (with Sailing thrown in as a necessity at some point).
You thought I'd put a picture now, but I'm sorry, the wall of text continues.
Moving onto the GS, an Academy is only one choice. The second choice of trying to bulb Philo is still available now, but I think it's not going to be realistic: If we hit Mids, we are too far behind to do it with the first GS and might as well try to do that with the second GS: We will already have burnt a turn to get into Rep, and we are so far from getting another other civics I don't see the point in using the second GS for a GA: We will generate a third easily enough from a city working 2 scientists and 2 merchants anyway. So if we hit Mids, we'd need to basically be without any classical era tech to defend ourselves, and that seems dumb. If we hit Mids, I say play safe. Grab Currency and then head back to HBR, IW, Maths, Calendar.
If we miss Mids, it becomes a bit safer to grab, but I'm still not sure how smart it is. If Mids falls by eot86, and we hit Currency eot92, then we need to research Mysticism, Meditation, and CoL to bulb Philo. I think it's cheaper to just research Priesthood before CoL as well, but we also may just need to grab CoL to get a religion and possibly save the bulb. Straight CoL would be around 562 adjusted beakers. With wealth builds enabled, and no OB with OH (it's worth 7 commerce per turn minimum), we can hit 100% science via wealth builds, which will be a minimum of 100 base bpt. That would be CoL eot97 if we go straight there, or we can stack overflow via Myst (get it as close to completion as possible on first turn then finish, and overflow the extra little bits from Med and Priesthood), for Myst eot94, Med eot95, Priesthood eot96 and CoL eot99; a Philo bulb also requires Maths is researched, so we would alos have to grab that at a further 3-4 turns of research, for the bulb and religion to land on T103-104 (and another turn revolting into it).
One higher variance play is worth mentioning though: on T93 we can trigger a golden age. We have no civics to revolt into, we have not grown onto even 15% of the available tiles, but it will speed up Mids by, I believe, 2 turns and would give us the free turn of revolt into Rep. I'm not going to do it, mind, but it is worth mentioning.
And then there is always the really bad idea, of just holding off on Alphabet, bulbing Maths and then researching straight through Currency. I really hate this idea, but I think it is the quickest way to get Calendar and Currency. Still doesn't make it smart though.
So Academy if we get Mids, Philo bulb if it does, but not if we can grab CoL first.
Rush Alphabet if we want to risk OB with OH, don't if we expect to get rebuffed.
The capital has given up the horse. City 8 is going to need it now, so more cottages need to be made and improved. If we want to, we can get every cottageable tile worked without further happiness, not even Rep is needed. It does fuck up pretty much every city though.
Given that I'm going to gamble on OB with OH, this library is not going to finish in time, but should be finished for when research into Currency starts ie: I'll whip it if I have to, but due to lack of cottages, going to work a mine at size 6 and finish it and also retard growth, rather than build a settler (although it will likely build a settler after this until we know what happens with Mids). Both grass hills need to be cottaged in the near future.
Read the bit in spoiler after you read the rest of the report otherwise it might be a bit of a jump:
Now that I have more of an understanding of the micro, ITM gets the pigs back on T85, and it is about to grow into unhappiness that will not wear off until eot86. I think it needs whipping again...it can pick up a mine for a single turn, and grow eot83 and whip the library T84, and regrow@5 eot85, which is still slightly too fast! So better to just sit on a settler for a turn and delay everything. Still have to see how the new city affects costs, but I can't see total costs being lower than 50gpt even with 1 unit disappearing and 5 units no longer being out of culture borders. So it could be that we sit on the settler T83, growth@6 eot84, whip T85, growth eot86 just as the first whip unhappy wears off and then stagnate on the settler and 3 cottages, and gives us the settler to respond to needing island trade routes or grab the emergency gems to the south. This would fit better with turning tech back on, on T86.
The demographics have shown that our power is not that great anymore, and OH is increasing. Despite that, I don't see a need to build more units from here, as city 6/BCR and City 3/MtK are building those atm. I would rather get the library, but that will require a double whip and a chop, however no chop can land until T87, so no whip until T88. Even working the mine would not speed this up, and the city will reach unhappiness before then. Given the whip timer is still counting down yet has a long way to go (wears off eot87), I'm probably just going to build and whip another worker. Build worker T82, whip T83, dump overflow T84; regrow@3, save 12 food overflow 3 eot85, regrow@4 eot87 (2 hip unhappy, but 1 wears off), whip library T88, regrow@3 eot89, but then we hit happy cap issues. OTOH, if we just double chop the library, there would be 40 hammers of chops landing T87, we would overflow about 33 hammers from the worker and already have 4 hammers in place. That leaves 13 hammers to generate. Growth and working the mine for a turn covered that, so using 2 forests, eot87 finish the library and then sit at size 4 with 2 further scientists if needed. We do need a settler from somewhere to split off the grass sheep, and this would be a good time to do that (with the two workers now available to set up the new city) but that means the settler needs to come from somewhere else. Oh look, an empty build queue:
City 3 is trundling along, but the whip unhappy is about to wear off. No chops needed, but growth@5 eot84 and picking up the "Forbidden" hill over the lake would allow a double whip T90. If we give up the horse for 2 turns, it doesn't even impact the GS; if we do, it delays the GS until eot93 (one turn, might be worth it), and found Filler city T92. Those 4 turns of allowing LBJ to keep both food resources pushes it close to size 5 for when the whip unhappy wears off, so the micro is still sound.
There is an archer in the city, and in the build queue as back up, there is the medic scout here as well, and the 6XP chariot is healing. This should be enough to keep this city safe for now.
Changing the city ordering for this report now by area. I had the micro worked out for the quickest way to grow city 8, but it is not the most efficient in terms of beaker output.
AM is going to work the corn and horse T82, then fp cottage horse T83-T86. Then it works the horse and hill mine T87, T88 to finish the granary. This allows TJ to work corn, fp cottage and two scientists but still grow eot87 as the whip unhappy wears off, and pick up the capital cottage T88 to will generate a bit more food, because on T89 AM takes the corn and fp for two turns, growth@3 eot90 with 12 food saved, and 2 overflow, meanwhile TJ will be stuck working an unimproved tile and starving but continue to work every tile and spec. Or we can use the avoid growth trick and allow AM to grow eot91 with 12 food saved and 5 overflow, if it works horse and corn on those T89 and T90 (with avoid growth), and TJ just works three cottages and 2 specs. I think the latter is better because it also allows the capital to focus on cottages, and at worst use a river hill mine compared to TJ working an unimproved tile.
TJ will finish the work boat eot90 at the latest. AM needs to build a library or a barracks to pop borders: the simplest use of AM is to build wealth or research, but it must pop borders to open up those two hills. Barracks is the cheaper option, but given the extra culture from the library and the potential of Rep, I'm not sure that cheaper is better here. At size 5 it can work a capital cottage, the corn, horse and has 4 spare food for either some form of whip cycle, scientists or hill mines. Given that it will grow@4 eot93, it can either whip a library T96, or it can whip a barracks T95. The library brings in the tiles quicker, and over those turns will regrow to size 4 well enough anyway, that it seems better even if AM just builds wealth or research rather than Rep scientists.
Copper mine up T83. Mids due eot98 through per turn production.
204 hammers into Mids, 12 food in the box. With running down the food box by swapping the pig for deer, Mids eot98. Chop the 5 forests to the west and north of the city, that are outside borders: Mids eot95. Chop the deer as well: Mids eot94. Whip the Mids: eot93. Cost: Decimated northern city location. Supply costs for 5 workers in FoW. Trading 150 of post Maths, and 100 hammers from the deer, for 53 hammers? It's not going to stop me. Mids eot93 is the current timetable.
Now watch someone Maths+stone chop it T90.
I also have to steal the deer this turn, in place of the bare copper tile. This changes the city micro for JJ and BCR, but Mids is more important than everything, so meh. Kalamazoo will then steal the deer for 7 turns start on T85 to run the food box down: so the capital is going to have yet more food to do something with.
These pictures were taken before I started on this report, and before I started working on the micro. BCR has stolen the corn to grow this turn, next turn it will take the deer back, but I'm going to focus on growing BCR rather than JJ, because once the deer gets taken away BCR doesn't have too many great tiles to work other than the food, but I have no concerns dumping JJ onto the furs for a turn or two.
I had originally planned for the three workers to stay in this area and improve it, but now they are going to run a long way to chop those out of borders forests. Due to this, the second furs will not be roaded, the plains hill mine is not going to be hooked any time soon despite being 1 worker turn away from completion. No further grass hill mines for BCR. So I'm growing JJ to size 3 and working furs and a food resource, and BCR grows to size 3 to work mine, grass farm and a grass hill mine. And I will even consider just growing BCR to size 4 and whipping a worker: yeah, considered, but given the workers are back in position from the Mids chops by T92, and a worker whip arrives around T89, I'm less certain this makes sense. More certain I want to grow JJ to size 3 ASAP and then give the food over to BCR, and just let BCR work what it has to finish that archer, for the MP later on. This works best with Avoid Growth; get more food in both BCR and JJ by using it, and the turn with one fewer pop is irrelevant from a commerce perspective as the one commerce it would generate is eaten by city maintenance.
Decision to delay Alphabet is somewhat irrelevant, it is likely to be delayed by the front city costs. However, going to tech it and push for OB with OH.
Mids is being pushed to the detriment of everything else with a straight swap the into Rep if it lands.
Currency after Alphabet is a must regardless of Mids.
GS could be delayed a turn, but if we miss Mids we can push straight through to CoL and a Philo bulb. Otherwise Academy.
Report to follow, however if we don't hit Mids I don't so much as worry about the tech rate as I worry about everyone else's. We are now at 9 cities, more than everyone else. There are no PHI leaders to force a race to Astro, and without Astro we are safe from intercontinental invasion even if Paper and Astro is enough to let other people defend against Carracks. But that pushes people away from Knights which will be needed to threaten the continent we started on, and tech is sloooooow. There is one ORG leader, and two FIN leaders, none of which are doing well in score, and all players are... conquerable. This game is heating up to be a slugging match.
