[PB63 Spoilers] Fabled, Amicalola, and JR4 are woven into the pattern

[Amicalola]

Hey JR4, it just occurred to me to ask, how familiar are you with CtH? It looks like you stopped playing just before its release, but I'm not sure how much you lurked. There are quite a few changes at this point, but we are playing a relatively unchanged combo, with many of the (normally better) options being nerfed. The only change from base BtS here is that EXP loses its worker bonus, but gains an aqueduct bonus. Oh, and we can build a work boat without fishing (same as rtr, right?).

[JR4]

Hey JR4, it just occurred to me to ask, how familiar are you with CtH? It looks like you stopped playing just before its release, but I'm not sure how much you lurked. There are quite a few changes at this point, but we are playing a relatively unchanged combo, with many of the (normally better) options being nerfed. The only change from base BtS here is that EXP loses its worker bonus, but gains an aqueduct bonus. Oh, and we can build a work boat without fishing (same as rtr, right?).

Well, I dedlurked Fabled in PB 62. Apart from that, I don`t have any experience with CtH at all. I very much like the heavily modded Rtr but no one else seem to play that anymore. So, Exp get cheap Granaries in this mod? Then we should plan to get up those Granaries asap. 

Playing Civ 4 MP is a massive time sink and it`s still a lot of fun to be part of a team. Let`s hope we can get off to a good start here (and win the neighbour lottery).

[Charriu]

There are still people playing RtR. Like so often in life it just needs someone to organize it

[JR4]

Well, it`s a small miracle that we`re still playing a 16 year old game on RB. Playing CtH does make it slightly easier for new players as well as players from other forums to join in.

[Amicalola]

Alright, I'm getting my simming done now, but with the game being up soon we also need to talk scouting. I favour moving the scout on the plains hill 1S of the wheat, or up onto the grass hill N-NW. Reasons being the former is where I suspect we'll settle our 2nd city, and the later is towards the north which looks possibly coastal (salt water fish), thus starting a neat circle. I think I favour the 1S-Wheat hill, and then starting a circle anti-clockwise around the capital. A warrior can check out that (hopefully) little northern strip before our settler is out regardless. Do you guys have any thoughts?

Speaking of the neighbour lottery, this game has a remarkable number of what I affectionately term 'shit-tier neighbours.' Mjmd and Superdeath suck to neighbour because of their playstyles (imo), while Cornflakes, Cairo, Pindicator/Krill and Bing would all suck because of their picks. So we're really hoping for JackRB and Ginger as neighbours here, I think. What a strange group, that Rome and IMP are the neighbours we want.

[Amicalola]

So I did some more simming. In spoilers.

Here were some general thoughts/notes I had while doing this:

• Sharing the wheat with our second city could be really great, because the 3/1 banana tile isn't too much worse. 
  
• Building non-resource mines on hills is a waste of worker turns here, because a 3/1 tile is better while growing, and equal when building civilians. The only thing we'd need early hammers for is a granary, which we can do with chops anyway (yay EXP! ).
  
• The above gives us a lot of time to focus on chopping out those first three granaries and roading, which should take priority. Lumbermills are good in CtH, but a lumbermill at the capital is a wasted early chop (imo). 
  
• Culture is rough for us. If no one has Stonehenge by T40, we could seriously consider teching Mysticism and chopping our remaining forests into it (even better at the 2nd city). Would require pretty careful micro to have a shot, though. 
  
• Tarkeel reminded me that the capitals are at least 12 tiles apart, so we might get away with settling copper with the third city (~T44-5?) if it's in an unhelpful position. Very dependent on the map. 
  

I ended up with this:

On T38, we have three workers, a settler, Slavery, and a completed granary. From here in theory, we'd probably grow to 4 on a second warrior, and then start our next settler to 2-whip ASAP. Whipping isn't great until granaries, but with a granary it's fantastic and something we want to do as close to every 10 turns as possible. Our three workers are all on 'flex' here; probably two of them are chopping/improving the 2nd city, and the third is chopping the capital to help whip that settler earlier. 

The build order for this was Work Boat -> Worker -> Warrior -> Worker -> Settler -> Worker -> Granary. 
The tech order was Fishing -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery. 

Notably no Animal Husbandry, which is why I mined the pigs (2/3/1 tile is still great early on). I think the early granary is more important than improving the total foodhammer yield by 1. 

And finally here's the detailed micro for my start. Let me know if this is legible or not.

     0. Settle, work bananas, start work boat (WB). Start Fishing. 

1. N/A
   
2. N/A
   
3. N/A
   
4. N/A
   
5. N/A
   
6. N/A
   
7. N/A
   
8. Grow to Size2, work ForestPlainsHill. Finish Fishing, start Mining. Working the forested hill gets the WB to exact hammers. 
   
9. Finish WB, start Worker1. Switch working ForestPlainsHill to Oasis.  Same foodhammers, with 2 extra commerce. 
   
10. WB nets fish. Switch working Oasis to Fish. 
    
11. N/A
    
12. N/A
    
13. N/A
    
14. N/A
    
15. Finish Mining, start Bronze Working. 
    
16. Finish Worker1, start Warrior. Worker1 road 1E Istanbul. May as well put a turn into a road, since we can't farm the wheat this turn. 
    
17. Worker1 farm wheat. 
    
18. N/A
    
19. Switch working Banana to PlainsForestHill. Finishes the warrior a turn sooner, while still growing to Size3. Excess food is unimportant, since we are Size3 for a long time.
    
20. Grow to Size3. Switch working ForestPlainsHill to Oasis and Bananas. Finish Warrior, start Worker2. Warrior go scouting. 
    
21. Worker1 finish Wheat farm. Switch working Oasis to Wheat. 
    
22. Worker1 move 1SW towards pigs. Switch working Bananas to Oasis. The extra commerce from the Oasis nets BW a turn earlier, which lets Worker2 start chopping immediately. Does not affect Worker2 build time. 
    
23. Worker1 move onto pigs.  
    
24. Worker1 start mining pigs. 
    
25. N/A
    
26. Finish Worker2, start Settler. Worker2 move to forest. 
    
27. Finish Bronze Working, start Pottery. Worker1 finish PigMine. Worker2 start chop. Switch working Oasis to PigMine.
    
28. Worker1 move to forest. 
    
29. Worker2 finish chop. Worker1 start chop.
    
30. Worker2 road to (future) City2. 
    
31. Worker1 finish chop. Worker2 finish road. 
    
32. Finish Settler, start Worker3. Settler move to City2 (flex.). Worker1 move to forest. Worker2 road to (future) City2. Convert to Slavery. Converting to Slavery while the settler is moving is best if feasible, because we don't lost a turn getting it out, and City2 also doesn't have any anarchy. 
    
33. Worker1 start chop. Worker2 finish road. 
    
34. Worker2 flex. Worker2 probably chops City2 granary out, possibly 1 more road first. 
    
35. Finish Pottery, start Flex. Worker1 finish chop. Probably research Animal Husbandry, or maybe Hunting or Mysticism.
    
36. Finish Worker3, start Granary. Worker1 flex. Worker3 flex. Overflow from Worker1's chop finishes most of the granary this turn. Worker1 probably chops another Istanbul forest for the settler, Worker3 probably helps City2.
    
37. N/A
    
38. Finish Granary, start Warrior. 
    
39. N/A. 
    
40. Istanbul (finally) grow to Size4. Work Bananas. Finish warrior, start Settler. We have the full granary bonus upon growth here, and can start our proper whip cycle. 
    

It's worth noting the early turns are not one of my strengths, but I feel like this start looks pretty good.

[JR4]

Okay, let's see. That sim looks like a solid start. We should concentrate on the strengths of Exp and build a lot of early Granaries. But we also need to balance that with expansion. Could it be an idea to slot in a second Settler before the Granary?

How do you feel about going for a religion like Monotheism? In principle, I like going for Stonehenge as that would solve one of the biggest problems. It could be built very early by someone else, though.

Our second city should steal one of the food sources of the capital to get it up to speed. We'll need more information before making a dot map, of course. I quite like sending the Scout south, to find a city spot asap. Having 12+ tiles to the closest neighbour should buy us some time. Fwiw, I'm hoping for a watery map and not some FFA pangea battleground like PB 62.

[Amicalola]

Oh, I don't know if I mentioned this other than in the dense micro itself, but I'm pretty much assuming the 2nd city will share the wheat farm. The food numbers work out perfectly for a granary at half food, doing that. As you say it's perfect for chopping a granary then growing and being productive asap.

I like the granary before the 2nd settler mostly because it's the perfect time to build one on a micro level (workers free chopping/city2, half-full foodbox, unlock whipping early), and I guess we also probably want to grow to 4 then anyway. But on a macro level you may be right. We probably need to see the surrounding land to be certain.

[Amicalola]

Oh, I missed the religion part. You're definitely right that stonehenge is perfect but unlikely. So I guess the question is whether we can afford another tech or even two for Monotheism. It would certainly be nice. I wonder if we could get away with delaying AH until even after that.

Monotheism I find especially interesting because OrgRel has carried several of my games. I'm a big fan, if it's feasible.

[Fabled]

Turn 0

We're off! The password is edited into my initial post.



I've done some of my own simming, but I haven't gotten anything that looks better than Amicalola's plan so we're rolling with that for the moment. I do wonder why we only grow to 3 before starting in on workers and settlers instead of growing to 4 just a couple of turns later and working all of the good tiles (fish, banana, wheat, and pigs). Even so, this plan results in a faster 3rd worker without committing our first 4 -> 2 whip, so it's clearly better. I'll just have to spend more time sorting out how to replicate those sorts of results on my own.

Scouting E-SE seemed best to get vision around the wheat, which looks like the best 2nd city spot at the moment. Now that we see gold (!) and deer, it will take something remarkable to put the 2nd city somewhere other than east on the wheat. I've marked a couple of prospective city sites.

Every Realms Beyond team needs a theme, and I got knocked out of PB62 before I got tired of capitol cities from Wheel of Time, so let's roll with that theme again. I see nothing from scouting to change my mind about settling in place, so I've settled Caemlyn. In hindsight, this was hasty and I should have posted a scouting screenshot to confirm with the dedlurkers. I'm sorry, it won't happen again!

We also have a 2-tile island with stone. I don't think it's a high priority settle, but at some point grabbing that to share the fish and get those juicy +2 domestic trade routes will be a good plan. I'm not sure if settling on desert to kill a dead tile or settling on stone to hook the resource would be the better plan, but we have time to sort that out.

It sounds like the consensus was to scout counterclockwise from here, so I've marked a potential move (SW-SW) for next turn.

I'm planning on researching fishing first, but I'm not going to commit to a tech right away just in case I luck into some known tech bonuses. I think this map will be too large for that - especially with a close in scout route like we're planning - but it costs nothing and maybe we get some free beakers.