[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[scooter]

Alright here's an update of my cities, since the number is about to increase by one. First, the capital:



Just finishing a library here, I'm thinking a chariot might be best so that it can grow one more size, then we want to assign two scientists until we get a Great Scientist. Probably a worker after that.



Okay here's Blur, my second city - also the city where I built the Great Wall. I really wouldn't mind even going settler after this granary to pop out another city. Next turn I will be founding a third city right here:



I like it a lot - copper, pigs, floodplain, lots of grassland river tiles...

Strike, any thoughts on the builds I mentioned?

[Strike700]

The builds look good, how many great spy points are in blur?

[scooter]

Not sure, I'll check later today... Adelaide will be size 6 in one turn, so once it hits 6 we'll hire two scientists and we should be good to go. Not sure the exact number in Blur, but there's no way there's too many for Adelaide to catch up I would think.

Edit: We still need a Granary in Adelaide so that can build soon/next

[Strike700]

You're expansive right? Should go quickly.

How many GPP points are required on quick?

[scooter]

Nope, Cre/Org, but not a big deal. I think its 67 (2/3rds of 100), but I'm going to check that ingame as well when the turn gets around tomorrow.

[T-hawk]

67 GPP for a GP, yes. Note that it's not two-thirds, it's exactly 0.67. This becomes an issue for the third GP, which is 300 * 0.67 = 201, not 200.

[scooter]

Well I've been meaning to do a "big picture overview," and since it's turn 50 it's the perfect time to do it. I also finally gave in and lowered my in-game resolution so that I didn't have to waste time resizing pictures, which is probably 80% of what keeps me from posting pictures more often. I'll give an overview of my cities to start... First, the capital:



This just hit size 6 so I hired two scientists, giving me a Great Scientist for an Academy in 11 turns. The spy from the Great Wall in Blur isn't due for 23 turns, so thankfully I will beat that pretty easily. Early Academy seems moderately overrated normally, but on a flat map with Noble maintenance, I can REX and still maintain a fairly high slider, at least high enough for it to be worth it I believe. Time will tell if it's a bad decision or not... I plan on basically cottage spamming the capital, it has a cool surplus of 8 food, which is exactly how much I need to support mining all the hills, so I think that's the rough plan... I'm terrible at city planning like this, so I may change my mind (or Strike may talk some sense into me).



My Great Wall + horse city. I'm churning out another settler here - the Great Wall is allowing me to run pretty much a straight farmer's gambit. I'm even more convinced that Great Wall was good value because of two things: 1- I was able to build it in my second city and NOT my capital (so I don't deal with an early Great Spy from my capital), and 2- I had stone and forests to chop so it was a short build.



My newly founded city - I already pastured the pigs, one worker is cottaging the Floodplains right now, two other workers will begin mining the copper next turn. I intend to use the big food surplus to whip a couple times early on, and then grow onto cottages (whipping fairly often as this city will grow quickly). Game Mechanics Question: Can someone explain (or point me to a link that explains) when the optimal time to whip a granary is? I can never remember...

My western scout died while it was healing a few turns back, so all I have is my northern warrior unfortunately. He's been slowed down considerably by a fun little ridge line (I love Highlands for stuff like this), leading to this route:



Basically I got all the way up to the red dot before realizing north was the long way and I just wanted to get west ASAP. The north was a dead end, so I looped back down to the south along the red line, before hitting another dead end. So I've taken the yellow route now, and my warrior is on the tile that has the arrow, so hopefully I will be through that ridge line shortly.

Here's my demographics screen:



This looked fairly pathetic at first, as I'm lagging behind in food + production, then I realized this is skewed slightly by the two hired scientists. It doesn't make a huge difference, but that did make me feel a tiny bit better. I was happy that I'm first in land with another settler on the way, as well as a close second in population. Overall I'm probably in about 3rd place (2nd if I'm optimistic) if someone were to do a rankings, but that's hard to know with the knowledge I have. I managed to leap into 1st place in score, which means pretty much nothing but at least it looks cool .

Here's a fun idea - in the lurker thread, would you guys mind doing a "Power Rankings" of everyone after you see their T50 overviews? Might be fun to look at after the game is over. Okay here's an overhead shot of my young empire:



Here's a question for Strike, as I doubt any of the rest of you would be able to answer it. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with my eastern city sites, but the iron is sort of in an awkward spot. These two circles are my best guesses for how to work it, but there's some wasted tiles to the east... Any ideas on how to best reconcile it? Not a huge priority as I want to claim western land first before back filling, but I need to solve this little riddle:




One last thing - any requests from lurkers on anything else to screenshot? I think I covered the bulk of it all, but I'm not sure if there's something else good for an overview post like this. Oh yeah - Maths came in this turn, and I plan to tech Currency next, which should take about 6 turns.

[scooter]

One More Thing - Any questions at all? Requests don't have to be limited to screenshots.

[scooter]

Turn 51 is played, here's some city planning:



I'm thinking the sign marked "next city" is the best spot to plant next... I want to push west with my settlers, and this is a nice site with 2 food. I've got to decide how quickly I want to push for that far west spot, I do definitely want to claim that before Timmy (and it is closer to me I think), but I don't want to be too aggressive. It's definitely a high priority.



This is a nice spot to my direct northwest, but I'm going to hold off for just a bit longer for two reasons. One, it's just an okay site, and it'll still easily be mine in 25+ turns. Plus, I told SleepingMoogle I would settle west (or east) rather than north, so I'm going to keep to that as best as I can.



This is the two sites I was talking about yesterday - still trying to figure out how to manage these as to not waste tons of tiles.

I started teching Currency, which'll take 6-7 turns. Once that's in, I'm going to turn research off for 5 or so turns while I'm waiting for my Great Scientist, then I can burn through 100% research for awhile with the Academy.

[scooter]

Slow turn today, so some diplo:

Greetings,

It has been a while since we last contacted each other. Celtic forces have been quite busy repelling incursions from uncivilized warbands as of late, which has been taking up a lot of time and attention. Certainly your construction project will greatly aid the Etheopians with this matter!

In any case, I would like to share with you that our scouts have finally located our western neighbour, a people calling themselves Germans governed by Chancellor Twinkletoes. In a stroke of luck, another people's scouts, Egyptians on a similar mission of exploration under Pharaoh Sandover, contacted us soon after. They appear to be located to the west of German lands, as such our cartographers have updated our theorized map:

Sandover ----------Twinkletoes ---- SleepingMoogle
- Egypt ------------- Germany --------------- Celts -----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------- Sea ---------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bobchillingworth -- Timmy ------------- Scooter ----
---- Rome ------------ Khmer ------------- Etheopia ---

Currently I am in early negotiations with both nations. I have made Chancellor Twinkletoes aware of your lands, and if they are interested in contacting you, the Celts would be happy to act as intermediaries. Diplomacy with the Egyptian leadership is still in an early stage, but we will share your general location with them as well if you desire to.

-SleepingMoogle

Short version: he met TT and Sandover in the last couple turns and is informing me in accordance to our deal. It was a little unclear if I'm free to contact the two of them, or if I'm waiting for TT & Sandover's approval first... I wrote this back:

SleepingMoogle,

Yes it has been awhile, great to hear from you! I hope the barbarians aren't giving you too much trouble! I'm guessing you finally broke through those peaks up to the west of your capital huh? I had to backtrack two different times because I kept hitting dead ends, but I think I finally found the passageway (in the middle of the ridge line)...

Thank you for informing me of meeting new neighbors! Hopefully that means I can catch up on EP's now . Ethiopia would definitely like to be able to establish contact with both of these two civilizations, so you can let either/both of them know that they can contact me.

Thank you for the updated map! Is TT directly north of Timmy or is it offset? I ask because I know where Timmy is located (sent a scout that way awhile back), and if TT is directly north of him then I have a ways to go before I reach his cities.

Just so you know, I am still following our agreement regarding founding cities, my third city went to my southwest, and my fourth city will also be to the west. I have one city planned just to my northwest (I'll screenshot it sometime) but it's going to wait for a bit still. If you're about ready to expand south, just let me know (if that's alright) and we'll make sure we don't have any border issues . Thanks!

scooter