[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Ginger()]

   
Tentative dot map, probably settling Red > Black > Yellow but this depends on copper pop. I've swapped techs to Hunting because I think improving the Deer and growing to size 3 makes more sense than straight to chop at size 2.
Between Mjmd and I, unless he rushed to forward settle me, whoever gets the cow in the west will probably give up the floodplains/coast in the east. However If I were to settle that coastline in the east, I would block the entirety of his southern reach, and give him no way out south but through me, so my reasoning is that if I get the cow and cede that land to him, I won't prevent him from making a second neighbor. So far we are both putting EP into each other.

The priority to setting the border so that we can live with it is to get to the yellow city site before he plants something very aggressive. If he does plant silver/cow it's straight to IW and not going to be a very fun game.

[Ginger()]

Okay so I painstakingly built the map as I have found it in worldbuilder and ran a sim of double worker (Lazteuq I can PM you the map I built if you want it). Provided we go straight to AH to give them things to improve, this is a much better opening. The second settler finished turn 36, by which point the red dot wheat city is on size2 (it borrowed Fish until Wheat farm finished), growing on a warrior while working wheat and lake. I even wasted a turn at size 3 finishing the second scout (or warrior, if you think this is necessary lurkers please let me know, I need you guys to tell me when I need to get more military). However with a little clever micro, the turn before the scout is done, I can swap fish for plainshill, this loses 5 food from the food bar, but it puts an extra 3H overflow into the next worker, which then trickles into the Settler, that allows the settler to finish after two chops from each worker on turn 29. 
so the result of this opening is
turn 20 size 3 (after this swap fish for 3H tile), camp completes
turn 21 scout/warrior done 
turn 24 1st chop finishes
turn 25 worker pops out and both start chopping again,
turn 29 settler pops out 100/100, starts work on second settler. One worker heads to wheat, the other keeps up the deforestation
turn 31 second city founded 
turn 36 2nd settler done after 2 chops, worker can move onto pig hill to improve as AH unlocks, and capital starts work on third worker, or grows on a warrior to size 4 if the defense is needed at this point (3 turn worker, 3 turn growth, 4 turn warrior build*), I think the 3 turn worker is too good to pass up, frees up worker turns to set down mines in the capital. Can grow to size 4 before making the next settler and then whip it or something.

*didn't check for tile swapping shenanigans, they might fix it to synchronize. 

The result looks something like this
   

The tech should be wheel not archery, misclicked, will probably rerun last couple turns it to fix it for future simming. The worker currently in the capital should instead be improving the pig pasture north of the capital, it was moving south but I realized the bottom city can delay its pigs by stealing the deer from the capital. Alternatively I can move this second settler to the yellow city site to secure it for sure. (I really don't want Mjmd to do something stupid like settle on the midpoint taking the silver and Cows, so I'm thinking to lock the doors in order to keep the neighbors honest). Depends what neighbors I find to the west/south and when what remains of black dot's BFC is unfogged.

[Miguelito]

I'm curious why you prefer that red dot to the obvious 1E.
Also dotmapping and simming is fun, but be aware that you'll do it over again once you see copper.

[Ginger()]

I'm curious why you prefer that red dot to the obvious 1E.
Also dotmapping and simming is fun,  but be aware that you'll do it  over again once you see copper.

It's a couple factors, I want the Antium to have a mine available, even a high food city utilizing whipping overflow needs a small productions source to help finish things, and if I settle the plains hill the only mine is a 3 production grassland hill. Moving it to the west opens up the grassland hill to become either a cottage for the capital or a second mine. 
It's also functionally no more distant, as after the worker finishes the plains hill mine, it roads, and because of the river, unit move time is the same between the cities.
Additionally I'd like Antium to be my future Moai* city (which again wants a mine), moving it to the west spot overlaps less with the tile-hungry academy capital and grabs some more coast tiles.

Do you think those are valid reasons or am I clowning for giving up a plains hill settle?

*Usually I wouldn't pay too much attention to setting up Moai, except that I am already planning on Sailing-Masonry to hook up the stone for Mids, and I am PHI for early-mid game golden ages, and it's a powerful spot for it.

[Miguelito]

I'm a bit wary about overstepping my limitations as a global lurker, but this doesn't involve spoiler info, so...

I'm not quite sure that Antium is actually a good Moai spot. Your red dot has 14 coast tiles and PH has 12, which is good well into the midgame but not super awesome. Either way it will not get up very quick. Lazteuq has already mentioned that you build Moai mostly on whip overflow, and here you have next to nothing else to support that, no chops, and maybe 2 mines (which slow down your whipping meanwhile). And before you even start you need the granary and the lighthouse up. Anyways, non-Fin/Colossus Moai coast is not that awesome after all so not a huge priority to get it up.
(Side note: In PB59 we built a similar early Moai with I think it 12 coast spots, but it had more hills, copper, and some chops to get it up quick, we were Colossal Fin so we wanted to work coast anyways, and we wanted to get it done before the first GA which had to come early for civic changes. At this point this isn't a spoiler, as everybody who cares can see the city ingame).

What the spot does offer is an incredible amount of food - +12 at size 3, 16 at 7, and 18 at 9 if you farm the two western grasslands, although that's for later probably (numbers are for PH plant). And you're Ghandi! Imagine the caste cycles. You would have to look hard on the map to find a better NE spot. 6 specialists stable at size 9, 8 at 15, 9 at 18 - but because you do caste cycles you go in starvation bursts, and this city has the food to recover from that in the blink of an eye. Or as a variant, with Globe you can draft a musket 14/15 of turns, or a rifle every other (and with Spi of course you can probably just draft every turn of a Nat cycle). I don't like Globe much because it's so much investment to set up, but again, hard to imagine a better suited city.
On top of that, the city shares many tiles with the capital and the stone island city, and that also makes it good as a specialist city or drafting post once cities start competing for tiles.

If you find no better spot, Moai can get built slowly in the stone island city (on whip OF, assuming there is some seafood to the south). For that city it is a significant upgrade, it has lots and lots of coast and also you don't want to start without stone anyways

Why the PH plant: For the PH mine to pay off you have to work it 1 in every 4 turns during the significant time range. That alone is not quite likely, but every one of those turns is paid with 2 food, and the opportunity cost of not working a LH lake or a capital cottage or at least a coast. With a granary and at low sizes the whip converts 2f into 4h easily if not more, so that doesn't look like a good bargain. This ignores whip unhappiness, but there are ways to deal with that especially if you want a religion anyways.
The PH plant also shares 1-3 capital cottages, the pig, and of course it gets another of those sweet LH lakes. And it is 1 tile closer for maintenance purposes and worker and unit logistics, if not for the settler. And you save 6 worker turns for not roading and mining the PH.

Anyways, wait for copper

[Lazteuq]

Sorry about my little absence, I'm back now and should have lots of free time for the next month.

I logged in to look around. I'm really starting to think the map is not mirrored, considering the demographics as well as the terrain.
Yeah, there are quite a few AH resources. I guess we can't realistically neglect it for very long.

Your thoughts about establishing the border make sense to me. Settling for the silver+cow would be a real crazy PB62-style move for Mjmd. I don't think it's worth settling yellow first to block him though.
I'm worried about him invalidating your green dot later on, and forcing our northern cities to be far apart with a lake in between.
What do you think of moving the yellow and green dots both 1 tile east? If yellow is on the lake, it's easier to defend (or surprise attack) from with boats.
I really think we should avoid causing early tension that leads us toward feeling like we "need" IW. I don't think that coastal cow is worth disrupting our tech plans for. If we end up having to focus on early military, we may lose the mids race and/or lose a chance at religion.

Your microplan sounds solid, and I would appreciate the savefile. I think we can indulge with a second scout instead of a warrior.

I think it's reasonable to assume that we should settle for copper unless it's a really annoying spot. If we do wait until the 3rd city to grab copper, I think it should be hurried by planting on the copper or at least having a team of workers ready with the copper pre-roaded. 12 tile capitol distance isn't absurdly tight, but still scary since people may be looking to knock Rome down early. We probably have two other neighbors, at least one.

Edit: Just saw Miguelito's excellent post. I think it should be totally acceptable for lurkers to post like this. I know it's more the style of civforum.de. I think RB is too shy about lurker interaction, to the point where it makes a lot of our threads dull.

[Miguelito]

Settling for the silver+cow would be a real crazy PB62-style move for Mjmd.

So, in his opinion a perfectly reasonable border split, and everybody else better conform because he's willing to fight a two front war over it ?

[Ginger()]

Settling for the silver+cow would be a real crazy PB62-style move for Mjmd.

So, in his opinion a perfectly reasonable border split, and everybody else better conform because he's willing to fight a two front war over it ?

Yeah OakcrapAshesburningThornintheirside was one hell of a whopper, I don't think the city itself was that bad as much as declaring on Vanrober was, accepting the lost sheep and just focusing Nauf would've been so much better. 
Yeah I might miss out on that western cow plant, we get what we can grab. Part of the reasoning I had for placing yellow dot where it is instead of the tighter-knit 1W is that it allows the settler for green dot to come to a spot one turn faster from the Capital, moving and settling 1S of cow 2 turns after production finishes. 

Okay, alright, you two have successfully cyberbullied me into moving the city to the plains hill, the early production boost is worth it. 
But about it's long term potential, "Which city would make a better National Epic?" I was thinking Rome: Deer, eventually Bananas, Fish, Pigs(the same fish/pigs in the calculation for Antium). Sure, there's no lake and wheat beats Deer but the reason is the Academy. I really don't want to hand away the Fish or the Pigs out of the academy city, and if I build pyramids, I will certainly run the rep scientists there. 
Also being in Rep makes some of the more aggressive whip production strategies less available than they would be in Monarchy, but at least Spi keeps us flexible on that front. 
To clarify, I'm now convinced the right play is to gain the free hammer and probable -1gold maintenance for close settle, and it gives the option of sharing tiles early, but I don't know if we really want to steal the capital's tiles long term. 

I don't think I've ever built Globe as non-Cre, it's something to keep in mind though, always a possibility.  

   

As I was thinking and typing this out, Amicalola finally played for Fabled, so here are the new discoveries (Lazteuq if our turn ever consists of basic preplanned worker or scout moves and I'm the last one till turn rolls, you have standing permission from me to play my turn to preserve the quick pace). Mjmd shadowed my scout the last 2 turns, wondering if I should cut south then east to defog whats left of my capital perimeter or if I should poke east to discover our other neighbor presumably to the East? On a side note I'm a little disappointed there's no jungle, its always nice to see Jungle maps as Rome as you get double value for your tech (assuming other players have to deal with the jungle too).

[Lazteuq]

I think it's in our best interest for Mjmd to know where our capitol is, so at least he can't "accidentally" pinkdot us. If he wants to keep following our scout, that's fine. I think we should keep looping around. Poking east would leave an awkward fogged area to clean up later and I don't see much point.
The southeast with corn and pig looks appetizing, maybe we could settle the bare plains NE of the corn. In a couple turns we should know enough to plot out a good dotmap there.
In only about 6 more turns, our scout should reach the western coast. At that point we'll have seen everything within 6 or so tiles of the capitol, so the scout's most important duty will be done.

The map has been open and wet enough that we gather map knowledge faster than we need it. Maybe we can afford to send a scout exploring out straight in one direction just to meet people and get a feel for the map. Knowing your neighbor's neighbors is important and I've made the mistake of really undervaluing it in the past. We might make some solid early progress to circumnavigation, depending on the map.

I think jungle is a good thing for maps, and Tarkeel's previous creations had it, so I'd be actually kinda surprised if there is none at all. I wonder if there is a equator jungle belt (north of Mjmd). Maybe only on astroland. If there even is astroland.

[Ginger()]