[spoilers] Commodore Milks Nostalsia as Pete of Mede

[shallow_thought]

You're on the right path, here's the other puzzle piece: I'd call a plains hill copper mine *definitely* an improved tile.

Any mine, actually, counts as an improved tile.

So - mining before pottery. This is nicely snug right up until the second city is founded, then leaves me struggling to balance building workers (with the following question of what to _do_ with them) and growing (nothing much but warriors to grow on, and the question of what to grow onto, other than the wheat).

Some of this will probably solve itself once the real terrain around the second city is revealed / horses appear. One question - when is it worth thinking of building a cottage at the capital?

If nothing else, this has convinced me that simming can be fun, which is probably a big step forward. I'll pick it up tomorrow...

[Commodore]

Hah, I did consider that, but you're right that growing on warriors >>> growing on granaries, particularly if we can get immortals rolling shortly (no clue where horses will be, of course). I instead was cheating a bit. Building granaries, working that forested plains hill=0/6/0 tile, and building the next worker after on the forested grass hill makes that tile a 1/3/0. So basically, I'm cheating. But as a micro rubric, I always like to look at the doubled buildings and worker/settler boosts for considering if I'm getting the right yields out of my terrain.

The right time for a capital cottage is once we're at a point with both granaries and slavery; early on cottage growth is an intensive dance between the capital and its helpers while whipping up a storm. No sign of any ancient luxuries yet, though, so how many cottages we can sustain early is still an open question.

[shallow_thought]

That forested hill 1W of the capital is grassland, isn't it?

My sim had it as plains... . So much time possibly wasted...

[shallow_thought]

Well that makes a small, annoying difference around turn 39. But that's on the far side of horses (hopefully) and barbarians (not so hopefully) appearing, so I'll just let it go...

Anyway, a micro plan for constructive and / or amusing criticism if anyone has any.

1/4000: SIP, Research - AH, Cap - Worker, Working FGH (Forested Grassland Hill)
5/3800: Border pop; keep working FGH
10/3600: Worker completes, start warrior. Work corn. Worker starts farming corn.
11/3650: AH completes, start Wheel
14/3440: Corn farm completes, keep working it
15/3400: Move worker to sheep
16/3360: Pop 2, start pasture , with new pop work FPH (Forested Plains Hill 2E1S of cap)
17/3320: Warrior complete, start settler, keep working FGH and corn
19/3240: Wheel complete, start pottery; finish pasture. Switch to work sheep + corn
20/3200: Start roading pasture (en route to wheat city site)
22/3120: Start roading tile NW of sheep (Plan for city 1N of wheat) [May be about to build too many roads?]
24/3040: Move worker to PH NW of city. Plan is to road it and still be able to start on wheat at first opportunity.
25/3000: Start roading PH
27/2920:
- Finish settler, Start warrior [Alternative is to go worker?]. Keep working sheep + corn.
- Finish road. Move settler to 1N of wheat, worker to wheat and put 1t of road on it.
28/2880:
- Finish Pottery, start Mining, but immediately go 0% science
- New city 1N of wheat. Works sheep. Start granary.
- Switch cap to granary; this comes in in six turns so we don't lose hammers on warrior.
- Capital works corn and FPH
- Worker starts farming wheat
29/2840: Back to 100% science
31/2760: Pop 3 in cap, work FGH + FPH + corn
32/2720: Finish wheat farm; 2nd city switches to wheat, cap works sheep / corn / FPH.
33/2680: 2nd city pop2 - grabs FGH near cap; worker finishes road on wheat
34/2640:
- Mining -> BW; 0% science
- Worker on wheat moves to PH and starts mine
- Cap finishes granary
35/2600: Cap grows, getting benefit of granary. Finish warrior. Start worker.
> 11 turns to BW (1 at 0%, 10 at 100%)
> 3 turns to mine
> 2nd city has four turns to growth, so mine will be ready
> 2nd city has four turns to granary so will not? get benefit on growth [This is where having the shared, forested hill as plains made a difference]
Little short on workers and turns to hook horses if there are any...

[Commodore]

Well, it's been a pretty heavily forested map thus far, but a decently lush one. This gold is the first ancient era luxury we've seen.

Popping borders reveals...plenty of tiles, none interesting.

Fishing is the key "actually feeding the people" tech early on.

Like the sim so far. Will tackle it with my own post weekend.

[shallow_thought]

More importantly, what's your naming theme? Formic implies, acids, arthropods or aliens...

[Commodore]

RIVAL SPOTTED:




TARGET ACQUIRED. IPECAC. INVADERS HOMING IN.

[shallow_thought]

Hopefully will get a nice view of his territory from that hill.

I guess nothing much is stopping you from wandering into his borders anyway. I can't imagine he would delay a worker just to chase away a scout, so you have a few turns grace. How annoyed would he be going forward?

[Commodore]

Hopefully will get a nice view of his territory from that hill.

I guess nothing much is stopping you from wandering into his borders anyway. I can't imagine he would delay a worker just to chase away a scout, so you have a few turns grace. How annoyed would he be going forward?

I actually kept on, veering north; I don't value his graphs as worth giving him my graphs and location and him knowing I know where he is. Pestering him with the scout would be highly annoying but I don't think it would delay him all that much. I'm assuming he has at least (remember, he moved t0) two separate food sources.

The theme I'm going with at the moment is Alien Invaders.

[Commodore]

RUFF (weird, offbeat) as 
AUGUSTUS (Industrious, Imperialistic) of
FRANCE (Agriculture, Wheel)

Ruff is a man of middling age and strange tastes; he is responsible for all of the weirdest maps Realms Beyond has experienced in BtS multiplayer. I don't know how long he's been a member of the community, but he was there playing in PBEM 1; now here we are the better part of a decade later and the Ruffman keeps on truckin'. He's won, rarely, when things break his way...as you would hope, he's competent in the basic machinery of Civilization 4. But this is a creative and innovative man, you don't shackle a guy like Ruff to the wheel of ceaseless micro toil and careful planning. Basically, I get the impression that Ruff is one of those players who plays each turn as it comes to him. He's exactly as good as that allows.
Very solid combination here; I'd call it subpar if it weren't for El Grillo deciding to wipe out all stone and marble. As it is, that's a very real boost to Augustus' industrious, so I'll let the combo skate. France is good in the usual generic "good techs and a UU that might be useful and a UB that's imaginably valuable if you squint". I'm less impressed; musketeers are nice but knights are better and earlier. Still this is solid.
Player Rating: 
Combo Rating:
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