[spoilers] pindicator goes off the deep end

[pindicator]

Turn 15

Not much to say on the home front... James N. Garner has finished taking care of the cows, now he is tending to the crops along the riverside.



Internationally, Sian has debunked all my C&D theories by increasing score the last two turns. Last turn he grew to size 2 and now he's researched a tech that gave no soldier points. I don't think he teched Masonry in 3 turns, the top GNP has only been 22 so he's putting at most 16 beakers a turn in. So that leaves Fishing, which also makes more sense.

[pindicator]

Turn 16

We've got the whole island uncovered!



Right now I'm thinking cities go 1N of the wine, 1N of the cow, and either I fit two in the tundra or I waste a grass tile. Dunno yet.

Can't see anything more without a boat in the water. So I've got to get creative in screenshots for the next... 11 turns. (Current plan is finish settler, put the overflow into a worker, then build work boat while we grow to 2.)

Demographics show a 2,000 point increase but no changes to top or low score. So either Gaspadore or Sian built a warrior. I'm going to guess it was Sian building a warrior while he grew to size 2.

[pindicator]

Turn 17

Rego got another tech. No soldier points so it has to be either Mysticism (51 beakers) or Pottery (82 beakers). Took him 5 turns to research, and I'm guessing he's pulling in 11 commerce at 2 pop right now... so I think he would have researched Mysticism last turn if he was going for that. Besides, Pottery fits in with my pre-conceived notion of what he was teching

Plus, I went back and tried to reconstruct everybody else's turns as best I could. I got this for rego:



I can explain why I think this later, but I don't want to write 500 words on the subject if nobody wants to see it. Maybe I'll do one of these a turn for the other 3 opponents, if that's what you guys want to see.

Edit: By the way, has anybody tried Paint.NET as a free image program? I am pretty pleased with it so far for cropping and editting stuff for these posts!

Edit #2: I think I was wrong about rego getting to 9 food. I'm now in 4th place in crop yield, plus if he was farming his FP they would have been farmed end of T15 or 16. So I think he's roading to his city #2 site while building a settler. And either Yuris or Gaspar/Commodore are now working a farmed FP.

[pindicator]

Turns 18 & 19

Well, John went and finished his farm, so he asked Frank "What now?"
Frank was sitting on his despot's throne, carving on a piece of wood. He looked up at John, then looked out the window and motioned with his chin, "You got one done, but we got 2 others out there to build."
John took his hoe and walked out, cursing.


Demos!

We also had score increases each of the last two turns. Sian grew his capital from size 2 to 3, but hasn't brought out a 2nd worker yet so I'm guessing he's getting a scouting work boat out pre-settler. And Yuris became the first person to 2 cities! Congrats Yuris!

While we're talking about Yuris, here's what I've been putting him down as doing so far:



I had suspected he went worker -> settler because of his starting traits, but seeing city #2 confirms it. And as for what tech he's going for now, my money is on Sailing. I think he would have already picked up Meditation if he was aiming for that, and if I did my addition right he'll pick up Sailing next turn if that's where he's aiming. Maybe 2 turns.

I also got some nifty info out of the city place. For starters, notice I'm now in sole possession of last place in land area. So Yuris was the other civ who settled in place; the other three settled SE. Then after I ended turn, everybody got their land points for settling on T0 - and it confirmed as much. Yuris & I picked up 20 points each, and Rego, GaCo, and Sian all gained 27.

Secondly, his 2nd city has 7 land tiles. I can't find anywhere on my starting island where I can place a 2nd city and get 7 land tiles -- well, nowhere that's a legal spot to settle. So I'm guessing that the immediate area around the capitals are the same, but maybe not so much the starting island. Hmmm, I thought with the obviously out-of-place tundra on mine there was good odds everybody's starting island would be the same.

[strike]Edit: I just noticed how high MFG was. I think that has to be Yuris as well - only Sian can be the 11 food, and I don't see how he can get 11 food & 9 MFG with 3 citizens. But if Yuris' capital is working the cows, and if his new city is on a plains hill + working a fph (forested plains hill) that could be 9 hammers.[/strike]
Edit2 - No, this is wrong... Sian or Yuris could be either top MFG or top Crop

[pindicator]

Turn 20

We just got in a third turn today! This is a great pace guys; whatever happens later on, everybody deserves kudos for the speed of this game at least. Let's blow through these early uneventful turns.

Yuris grew another pop; looks like his capital made it to size 2 now.

My settler comes out next turn.


So I've been thinking hard about Stonehenge. It's a "nice-to-have" but is it worth pushing for early? It will be nice not having to worry about border pops, and I won't have to worry about whether i need to whip a monument in fishing towns or if I can wait to whip a more costly library.

I did a little micro earlier and if I want to I could go Mysticism - Masonry after Bronze Working, and settle a city on top of the stone and get Stonehenge in city #2 via whip overflow and 1 forest chop. But is it worth that? I could also just slow build it in 4 turns. And if I get fail gold, then I'm grabbing 2.5 gold for every hammer put in.

I don't think it's worth rushing for, or curbing expansion (too much). I definitely wouldn't go for it earlier than after netting Bronze Working, and I'm considering pushing Mysticism farther back, to after Pottery. I mean, I did pick an Ind leader but Stonehenge isn't exactly at the top of the wonder list.

[pindicator]

Turn 21

It's a settler party!

:hat:

The settler finished end of last turn and moved E towards promises of more cows. Yes, the driving force of my expansion is livestock! I put a worker in next turn, but that's just to grab the overflow. Next turn I switch to working the plains cow - it will slow down growth a turn but it's past time I got a work boat in the water and this will time the work boat being built with growth to size 2.

A number of score changes this turn:

Yuris picked up Sailing
Gaspommodore grew their capital to size 2 and teched Bronze Working.
Regoarrarr teched Mining

I also got Sailing after ending the turn, so when that new city is put down it will already be paying for itself in trade routes alone. I don't have plans to mine as my worker's been farming flood plains. The only down side to this is if copper is in a spot where I would want to adjust my settling plans immediately for it but that seems unlikely on a water map.

[pindicator]

Turn 22

Sailing came in last turn.
This turn I'm throwing research to 0% to save up in anticipation of settling next turn. If my sandbox is accurate there are actually ramifications for saving gold this turn as opposed to saving next turn after settling. Overflow from Sailing gives me 5/51 beakers into mining. I get 1 beaker this turn to go to 6/51, and then the next three turns I should see 14 commerce and 15bpt. So I should see my research go like this:

Code:

T22  6/51  10g  -@ 0% research
T23 21/51   9g
T24 36/51   8g
T25 51/51   7g

If I save gold next turn we get

Code:

T22 11/51   0g
T23 12/51  13g  -@ 0% research
T24 27/51  12g
T25 42/51  11g
T26 67/51  10g

And while getting Mining a turn later won't be a big deal, there are issues later on in timing techs with some of my sandbox scenarios. More practically, if I remember how beaker overflow works you want to have high overflow when researching techs with lots of multipliers, and low or no overflow when researching techs with no pre-reqs.

Here's the plan for worker micro:



The 2nd farm will be finished just in time for city #2 to be settled. Then we pasture the cows, and finally the mine will be built. After the work boat we'll get the 2nd worker out and he'll farm the last flood plains. I used the turn between finishing the original pasture and Ag coming in to move to the far flood plains for this very reason.


In demos we had two more score increases. Rego put his 2nd city down and Yuris' 2nd city grew to size 2. So I'm the only one left with a size 1 capital but that will change soon enough.

[pindicator]

Turn 23

2nd city is up!



AAA is alphabet soup for the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

From Wikipedia

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (Triple A) (Pub. L. No. 73-10, 48 Stat. 31, enacted May 12, 1933) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant part of their land (that is, to let a portion of their fields lie fallow) and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops, The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies. It is considered the first modern U.S. farm bill.

I also found out that my sandboxes are too big. I had -1 gpt for my sandbox, but the game is showing 2gpt expense.

[pindicator]

Turns 24, 25, & 26

I picked up Mining at the end of T25 and spent T26 saving up gold for a run at Bronze Working. I'm targeting BW to get the additional production via chop & whip. After Bronze Working I'll have some decisions to make as far as the next goal, whether I go Wheel -> Pottery or Mysticism -> Masonry

Ending turn on 26, some exciting stuff happened:



Both my cities grew to size 2 and my exploratory work boat started in the capital. I'm sure I'm not the first to get a boat in the water, and that very well may be a strategic error on my part. We will see. I'm now finishing the worker I started in New Deal. One micro detail that came together nicely was that by taking the overflow off the last settler I grabbed 13 hammers for the worker. Now that I'm at size 2 I get 9 food/hammers a turn, and 13 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 40. So the overflow means one less turn where the city isn't growing.

In AAA you notice the Trade Post. It seems the best use of hammers while I grow in this city. Maybe a warrior would be better, but I'm eventually going to want Navigation-powered boats coming from this city too. My plan here is to grow the city as much as possible before timing a settler to come out right before a navigation-powered galley comes out of New Deal. I calculated that out to growing to size 3 in AAA, while New Deal grows to size 4 and eventually 2-pop whips a galley. I tried to make that work the other way around but couldn't find a way to do it faster. I should have trading post/galley + settler both complete in 11 turns.


[SIZE="3"]C&D stuff...[/SIZE]

T25 Yuris grew a pop in his capital (now size 3) and teched The Wheel. (He also could have built a warrior and teched Mining but he's probably our top GNP right now so Mining would have come earlier. Plus it makes sense that he'd want Pottery soon for Terraces. Yuris has the highest population right now, so probably has top scores on demographics.

T26 Rego grew his second city to size 2. He's in 2nd place for population, tied with me with two cities at pop 2.

T26 also saw Team Gaspar / Commodore research something, probably Agriculture but I'm only 80% sure of that. The only soldier points go to Rego's growth, so the only techs it could be are Agriculture, Mysticism, and Masonry. They are also still at 1 city so I am thinking they went worker, worker, work boat, grow to size 2, and are now working on their settler. The only reason Mysticism or Masonry makes sense is if they really want a wonder. I don't think they do, at least not yet.

[pindicator]

Turn 27

Work boat left friendly shores, headed west. I want to get a peak of that western island - it already looks pretty tempting for city #3. So I am sailing around the southern end to see if I can spot anything. But the WB is not to linger, he is to head west until he can go west no more.

John Nance, the worker, finished pastures just in time for pop #2 to need them. This gets me to a pretty spiffy demo screen



#1 in crop yield!
Yes, it's still very early, but I'm savoring the small victories here

Soldier points also went up 2000 this turn. [strike]No score increase so this was a unit or a building. I can also see it was Sian that built it, because I had him down as the low man on the soldier score at 9000, and the next lowest was Yuris at 12000. So Sian built either a warrior or a galley. My hunch is a galley since he just picked up Sailing 4 turns ago. He's been sitting at 1 city this entire time so far; I bet he's built a couple work boats while growing to 3, got a settler out, and now has his galley to settle off shore. If so he'll be the first off the starting island, which has to be good, but is it worth delaying a 2nd city so long?

Perhaps Gaspar & Commodore are up to a similar strategy; they are the other team that is still with 1 city, and there's has been at size 2 for millennia.[/strike]

Whoops, there was a score increase this turn; I just forgot about it! Oh, dear. Sian went from 122 -> 128, so he probably teched Mining. Yeah, it's possible he built a galley or a warrior and teched Masonry -- maybe he wants to settle city #2 on the stone -- but that doesn't seem as likely as him teching Mining.