[SPOILERS - El Grillo PB54] Staying home and stargazing

[El Grillo]

T30:




The grass sure is greener on the other side of this strait I'm fairly confident at this point that this is a continent given how wide the shoreline is. That said, the local terrain on my continent quickly gets bad enough pre-Iron Working that I'd be pretty open to sending some expeditionary Settlers backed up by PRO Archers.

This turn we founded our second city, North Star. I can't say I'm too pleased to settle this city in the face of conventional wisdom (hey if you squint, I'm securing a food and sharing a food, and if you squint harder, I'm securing copper), but after several attempts to open with cities elsewhere, this is the one that feels the least bad  

Thankfully, everything is consistent with our sandbox and we have trade routes for a much-needed boost in commerce. With one turn's worth of gold savings, we'll be able to 2t Fishing more-or-less just in time for the Workboats, then tech all of Sailing and Masonry. I was wrong about the KTB though, I'm not currently getting a beaker, which I think makes sense with my understanding of how that system works. I'd need 2 players knowing it to see a difference.




No news from abroad. It looks like all of the size-4 cities on the Top 5 screen are still size 4, but of course most of those players aren't IMP.

[NobleHelium]

What's the "conventional wisdom" in this case?

[El Grillo]

Something like what Lewwyn mentioned earlier, into the contested land to the south instead of this guaranteed-to-be-mine location.

[Lewwyn]

Something like what Lewwyn mentioned earlier, into the contested land to the south instead of this guaranteed-to-be-mine location.

Yes.

[El Grillo]

T31:




So someone built Stonehenge after all. Not having a score tracker hurts here because I would absolutely love for this to be naufragar claiming his one obligatory early wonder. If so, he'll feel obliged to build some Settlers to take advantage of those free Monuments, clearing the way for my Great Lighthouse attempt. If it wasn't IND naufragar, I think you'd need BFC stone to build Stonehenge this quickly, and I can't think of a RB map where that's been allowed.




Our Workboat reveals more goodies to the west, and you can see just how tight commerce is in this opening. We're using the free beaker plus the +5c from the second city to finish Fishing with no overflow (you can see us needing 32 beakers and making 15 bpt with no prereqs), and then the +4c from the clams will get us on the right track to no longer being Worker tech constrained. This is what I mean about the other second city openings really struggling with commerce, and how after opening with AH, BW->Fishing was the only remotely feasible tech path from a Worker and development perspective.

[El Grillo]

T32:




Very interesting update on the shape of the land to the west. For one, we definitely have some islands to the north, which might well be foodless but are certainly worth settling for routes at some point. For another, this could be enough of a peninsula that we could realistically grab some cities here and defend them from a single point further to the south.

Demos look weird but I don't feel like doing much analysis. Rival worst food is 4 and rival worst MFG is 2, which implies some extremely weird tiles being worked.

[El Grillo]

T33:



This is our first payoff turn as we finish Fishing, net the two clams, and have 4 pop working improved tiles, plus the PRO trade routes. It's also time to decide if we commit to the Great Lighthouse plan, and my gut says yes.



And we found Ruff's capital to the west, a lot closer than I was expecting. Now I'm going back to thinking that this rich landmass actually is an island set up for us to fight over. How slick would it be if we stole a march on Ruff and settled in a way to make him think that this was actually part of our mainland? The Workboat will head south to confirm the state of affairs, though I'm sad to delay circumnavigation even by a handful of turns. It's worth the same as the Great Lighthouse after all (excluding the culture and GM points, sure).

[El Grillo]

T34:




So Ruff has a coastal capital and could reach for this land as well (still not certain if it's an island or my Workboat is in a bay of some sort). I could conceivably opt out of the Great Lighthouse and instead just rush over some Settlers and Archers... It's a tough tradeoff, since he could also decide to expand westward and delay sending out an exploring Workboat. Need to decide soon though, before we build up the overflow cascade into the 1t Lighthouse build.

On an unrelated note, is it a coincidence or are superdeath and Mjmd in a turnsplit? Mjmd was second last to play, superdeath played immediately after to roll the turn and logged out, and Mjmd played again. Looking back a few turns, superdeath has been playing after Mjmd, though not as obviously. The evidence against is that it's still too early for copper or horse-based units, and for all the memes I don't see FIN/ORG HRE superdeath straight-up Warrior rushing.

EDIT: I forgot to check the Tech Advisor after meeting Ruff, which reveals:




Unless it's a wild coincidence and someone else finished it between turns, Ruff already researched Sailing (must be nice to have FIN fish). That is alarming on multiple levels. Is he rushing for the Great Lighthouse too? If so, he has a significant lead on it just based on techs, to the extent that I think he wins it even with less production. I guess we just do a routine check for Masonry KTBs and hope for the best. If he isn't looking to build the wonder, then that means he can easily beat us to the island if he chooses to build Galleys and Settlers instead. I suppose I could live with us splitting the island and demilitarizing that border for now, but I dunno how comfortable that arrangement could be...

[NobleHelium]

You can see how many known people have Masonry on that screen just as you can see how many known people have Sailing.

[civac2]

Since you mentioned settling the continent/island to the west would you get 3 yield internal trade routes from cities there?