Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[SevenSpirits]

Well, end of turn is when we gained 11 culture. And culture is part of the rankings.

[SevenSpirits]

Someone played... do we get a turn report? Did we switch research to pottery or something else?

[Ranamar]

Sorry... yeah, I played the turn, and then had a busy morning ahead of me, so I skipped the report.

Unless I missed something, I thought the consensus was to keep going for polytheism, but I did remember to turn research up to 100%. It's coming in in 3 turns. (... and we have 2 commerce more than we had due to working the fish.)

Switching to the fish in Minas Tirith and getting the sheep back in Barad-Dur got us an extra 2 commerce and sped up the settler by one turn, not that it'll matter because the chop will come in the turn before.
Minas Tirith finished a warrior EOT (neglected to name him: Boromir? Faramir? Denethor?) and started on a workboat with 1 hammer of overflow. Perhaps I should have switched to the workboat given the growth rate. We'll probably whip this one too while we wait for the gems to come online.
Frodo moved a tile and built half a road. Next turn he moves onto the gem hill, and the turn after that he starts roading it. Sam continued to chop. If we want to delay the chop for later, this is the turn to decide that.

Moved warriors; new scouting:

Retrospectively, I should have moved SW instead of W. Next turn, I'm moving SW to unfog a maximal number of tiles.

demographics:

In foreign news, Mr. Nice Guy whipped off 12 points, which means he either whipped both his cities or hit his capital for 2 population. Also, the top 5 cities are sized, in order: 5, 5, 4, 3, 2... it was probably a 2-pop whip, possibly from 4, then.
Oh, and we're first in GNP, food, and mfg, which is entertaining to see, even if it doesn't mean a whole lot at the moment.

[SevenSpirits]

Heh. Hinduism was founded last turn. So I suggest we not go for polytheism.

[Ranamar]

Heh. Hinduism was founded last turn. So I suggest we not go for polytheism.

I always forget to check the event log. (... because singleplayer sends the notifications out in obvious ways.)

Any guesses on who got it? Also, because I forgot to check the event log, did we observe anyone adopted Buddhism?

So, it looks like the new plan is pottery, then probably go for sailing and TGLH. The alternative of slow-teching MC after all doesn't seem very good, because it's bloody expensive.

Notes to self for next turn:
check event log
check scores, especially Yuris's, to see if anything has changed

[SevenSpirits]

It's not terrible since we'll want Polytheism anyway, but yeah, good to check the log, definitely. I forget sometimes too.

Most likely Commodore took Hinduism, since GES isn't due for another few turns, we think Yuris has Buddhism, and MNG is creative so shouldn't be prioritizing it as much. But it's all guessing at this point.

[Ranamar]

Played turn... finally finished waffling over whether to actually switch to pottery. Did so; I figure that, if we've lost the Oracle race, we've lost the oracle race. If we haven't, the extra commerce from starting to get cottages down won't hurt, and it'll give our workers something to do.

Sam finished chopping; Frodo moved to the hill; settler finished EOT. Moved warriors farther along land bridges but stayed in forest because there was a lion. (78% odds to attack it straight up, but there's also a wounded bear... if it ignores us, I'm inclined to whack the bear if it wanders too close)

Scouting:


Me thinking too hard about C&D without determining much... also playing around with images which aren't merely cropped...

Here are the last 3 turns of the cities page, with score and turn pasted into the cropped image:




MNG plays right before us. T28, he whipped his capital down to size 2 from size 4 (15pts). This turn, he gained 13 pts and didn't grow his capital. Do you think that's settling a city and getting a tech? (Guesses on tech?) Our six population are worth 46 points, so I could believe that population points are 7.5 or so per pop.
Yuris got 6 points. I'm pretty sure that means it's a tech. The above analysis says it's not a population, and besides, I'm pretty sure his capital is the one at size 3. It's almost certainly priesthood. (And, if it isn't, well, I'm tempted to say we finish poly after pottery and then wonder if we should try to get the Oracle after all, if they're taking too long.)
Everyone else is pretty static... except for Com of Modor, who got 22 points... not sure what that would be... pop growth, second city city (or growth), tech? That seems like it should come out as 21... maybe land? No, that would imply a second city on T9. Probably 2 pop and a tech and some rounding.

I agonized a whole bunch over swapping polytheism to pottery before doing this analysis. Assuming they're planning to just chop out the Oracle, it seems that was the right choice.

I'm thinking our next move after pottery should probably be sailing for The Great Lighthouse, because, either they'll get MC and be waaay ahead of us on anything from that, or they won't, in which case, well, we'd still be better off getting the extra trade routes before going after it. Sure, the commerce (and heavy-handed open-borders demands) were grounds for backstabbing in PBEM17, but we're all on one landmass here, so it won't be nearly as ridiculous and effective at painting a target on us.

The question that remains is, where do we put our next city? If we go for the copper and fish, we actually have good production on the shore. On the other hand, there's the pigs, which can share the cow and have several hills around.. Taking the cow would give Barad-Dur a chance to work on some cottages, though. TGL requires a coastal city with notable production, forests to chop, or production and populace to whip, which feels like an argument for the copper site and its four forests. We'll probably have to expend one on a workboat, though, to get the city to grow in a reasonable amount of time.

[Ranamar]

Notes for next turn:

Move Denethor to/through cap; be ready to move cap garrison if he will go farther than Denethor on that turn. Eventual destination? Coast near pigs.
Samwise goes SW and starts half-roading to the new city. (He will eventually go improve the copper.)
New city goes 1E of copper in a turn or two. Name choice: Osgiliath
Next build in Barad-Dur is a worker (2t).
Don't whip Minas Tirith workboat until almost size 4... city reaches size 3 the turn the gems come online.

(anything I missed?)

[SevenSpirits]

A slightly different plan.

1) Give the sheep to Minas Tirith (for quite a while). This lets it grow in just two turns. Barad-dur has to make due with a 3t worker. And then a 2t worker.

2) Samwise (just finished the forest chop) moves onto the grass hill E of Barad-dur. Mines it then helps New Worker with the flood plains cottage for 1 turn then finishes the road 1s of it. Meanwhile Frodo will finish the other connecting road on the same turn. Then they start roading towards Osgiliath and then improve the copper there.

3) Osgiliath works Corn constantly. Whips WB at size 2; keeps corn. Copper will be improved by the time it's size 3.

Basically this plan sacrifices less than 1t in the capital (by not being able to work corn + sheep while building workers) to give both satellite cities maximum assistance.

[Ranamar]

Played turn...

Samwise went to the hill to start mining. Frodo put a turn into a road. (Ideally, we'll remember to cancel the road so we can start mining next turn, as Minas Tirith's borders expanded EOT. I'm wishing I'd skipped the last half-road to get on the hill a turn earlier, because of hill movement costs.)
Minas Tirith took back the sheep. Barad-Dur is working a plains forest, because grassland doesn't get us tech faster, so I figured the hammer is probably worth more right now.

The settler moved to get into position to found Osgiliath.
Denethor moved N to start heading towards Barad-Dur.

Gandalf and Strider moved west. Scouting:

Gandalf beat the lion about the had and shoulders. :D
Next turn, he's moving on to the hill, but he'll probably be thwarted by forests in the direction he's going anyway. If we end up next to an animal, we can give him a promotion to help survive it.

Strider moved out on the copper bridge:

This picture is from the perspective of the settler because I thought that was interesting. It's probably the city-placement AI being weedy again, but I'm really wondering what it sees in that spot. Hopefully, Strider can shed some light on it when he moves there next turn, not that I expect it to matter. (Maybe there's another fish, though?)