[PB59] Charriu welcomes all the townfolk

[Charriu]

6000 soldiers could be due to someone starting with Wheel (4000 pts) + one of Mining/Hunting (2000).

I've thought it over and I believe that we should 3-city Oracle rush (AH, then Myst->Poly->Priest, delay Wheel) settling city2 4 of wheat and city3 774 of Clock Town (as the Oracle site), even almost regardless of what the east will reveal. Here's my rationale:

- CtH SPI/IND in a game where only one other player is IND (and a stronger GLH candidate) was made for Oracled Monarchy, making us a near-lock for the unique advantage to switch between Serfdom and Slavery at will from T55-60 onward; this also solves our problems with our traits not supporting early worker/settler development, especially since BtS EXP or equivalent does not exist for anyone
- our early workforce will be somewhat constrained, settling a triangle gives stronger worker micro in the short term (especially with delayed Wheel) and eases the stress on the capital as the sole viable worker pump for gold city in the east-west line scenario
- pig/wheat city is really not as marginal as I'd said -- short-term it will pump workers/settlers, then it can just whip military in Hereditary Rule forever, occasionally stealing pigs for regrowth; also a decent naval yard, or a city to produce a GP in early-mid game
- city #3 is so absurdly good once borders pop (and Oracle is our best way to do that) that we want this to happen very early, given that we missed the chance to pull a Krill, shun seafood, intuit mapmaker decisions, and wander along the river for some turns to settle a better capital than anyone else
- the plan is flexible: missing Oracle (somehow) will leave us with chopped failgold + gold mine for Metal Casting and go for Colossus; besides, while we're not in that good a position to grab Hindu/Buddhism, working the gold (and seafood) early might get us to Judaism first
- early gold mine alleviates the need for early cottages, and Serfdom allows us to catch up faster, then HR lets us work as many cottages (or watermills) as we want
- Oracle is a good way for us to make efficient use of all these forests early, and it looks like we're not exactly going to be short on them post-Maths on this map either
- (only a minor point) confirmed early access to marble makes Myst slightly more attractive for prereq bonus on Masonry

The city layout would be extremely forkable, but if the north-western jungle is a land chokepoint as you guess and since coastal cities are "always kind of forkable", I think it won't matter compared to the advantages. I'd roughly estimate that we'd need to get 2 settlers, 4 workers by ~T45-50. Aslo hopefully the 4th settler and 5th worker are out roughly by the time Oracle completes.

What do you think?

Ah yes, you are most likely right about the soldier points.

I like your plan and had similar ideas. My idea so far was to:

- Tech towards Priesthood and built the Oracle to take up Metal Casting
- With that build the Colossus
- Maybe get a religion on the way
- With Mysticism build Stonehenge in the capital while growing back, which could earn us some extra fail fold.

But I like your plan so far. Still I do not want to commit to anything until I explored the east and we don't have to commit at this point in time.

[Charriu]

Mackoti names tracker:

1. u
   
2. kan
   
3. KuN
   
4. KeN
   
5. KiN
   
6. Kon
   

[Kaiser]

What are you going to use them for? Worker names?

[Charriu]

No, I find them to hard to differentiate. I'm just tracking it so that I may solve that riddle at some point. Do the lurkers know, why he does that?

[Charriu]

T8:

---

More of the north-east revealed. As the sign already says the wine tiles are an island. The water N of the lion is coast, so I expect that N of the scout is a land bridge leading to another player. I want to move the scout to one of the forests east next. The lion will be no problem thanks to us starting with Hunting and therefore extra combat modifieres against animals. On a forest it will be 3.5 strength vs 2 for me. Should be a safe win and some XP.
The water N of the pig turned out to be lakes, wish is great for any coast cities. Have I mentioned that Colossus is getting more interesting with every turn? Also we got gems! I also see with pleasure that our dear mapmaker made sure that the jungle can't grow to neighboring tiles.

Lastly with all those rivers going in and out of lakes it should be very easy to connect cities with trade routes and thanks to the river from our capitol to the wine island both those seas are connected.

[Coeurva]

edit: cross-posted!

I'll propose a few reasons to pick Monarchy over Metal Casting as the Oracle target:

- Faster cottages might end up paying more than a Colossus bid, especially on a map that will sooner or later punish delayed Astro (I've forgotten the specifics, but it might be that in CtH the only counter to Astro is Astro)
- Oracled Monarchy gives us a firm foot in the door towards CoL, if you still want self-founded religion (and keeping in mind the dirty GPP pool option by running our Engineer in the Oracle city, getting our economic asset either via Confu shrine or Colossus depending on the type)
- IND Forges and Colossus have slight conflict with each other: the strength of forges comes mainly from whips (in BtS at least, not sure of CtH), but you don't want to whip off Colossus coast
- Novelty. IND is more likely to find you again than the opportunity to test this strategy.

But MC is not a choice I'd complain about, either.

[Charriu]

About astronomy. The relevant change here is that galleons also require paper therefore just bulbing astronomy won't give you immediate access to galleons. At the same time privateers are available at gunpowder instead of chemistry giving you the best counter to galleons earlier.

But yes in the end both require astronomy

[Coeurva]

Scout 98 imo. 78888 of capital looks good as a city. Curse the jungle on gems.

I smiled at the "it's an island" sign. Can't decide whether to read it matter-of-factly, or like "congratulations, it's a boy!"

[Charriu]

My gut feeling says that there might be another land bridge east of me, so I will rather move the scout E E or E NE, because there is more flatland behind the forest for quicker movement.

The problem with 78888 is the lack of first ring resources.

Maybe I keep "It's an island" as a city name. But then again it gives too much information.

[Coeurva]

78888 wasn't meant as city #2 or #3, more to point out a future reason not to settle the plains hill 1W of gold. Mostly sharing old resources, but bringing in the fish and likely being our first port on the northern shore.

I like scout 98 because there looks to be some island bleeding through the fog (it's an island!) and 1N of corn is a potential city site (later; about #5-6) that I'd like to know more about. Also, the north might be a contested zone where we could scout deep / meet a neighbor, I think the east coast will not be much further from the start than the west and not take much more time to explore. (Now watch there be 20 tiles to our east.)

Five bucks says the lion moves 7 anyway, lol animals

edit: 997 of Clock Town is a real city that would conflict with 78888, though. We'll see, of course.