[SPOILERS]PB83: Krill was here first: Washington of Native America

[Magic Science]

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Thoth proposed Open Borders, which I accidentally rejected. He has a Scout in Cornflakes' territory by Milkshake, so you could send Open Borders back before his next turn to let it escape.
And speaking of Scouts, is there any chance to explore through that gap SE of Milkshake during the enforced peace?

Bagel Seasoning is a crazy 4th city. What situation is Cornflakes in that he would do this, then declare war on Thoth?

[Krill]

Thanks MS. I've reoffered OB to Thoth.

Bagel Seasoning is a crazy 4th city. What situation is Cornflakes in that he would do this, then declare war on Thoth?

The plan to settle BS says enough by itself to infer quite a lot.

Short version: Cornflakes starting area had no backwards settling location, and he has reached for the mountain pass to try and ensure he has a route to settle land. For this reason I'm not bothering to scout south: There is nothing to contest and I'd rather keep the archers at 25% fortification.

Unfortunately, this is a stupidly tight map and I doubt there are any lands available for settling like on the PB80 Totestra map. I think Thoth is right on the other side of that mountain chain.

BS isn't a great city location. Maybe I could have made better us of the land by sharing the corn, but that only worked if I settled SO adjacent to the rice. I have a bastardized dot map, and so does Cornflakes.

[Krill]

T40 handover, PB83 - Krill

I've started this update after playing T39. The micro is no better than rough, and is intended as a guide: Feel free to amend it as you see fit if you think there is a better option as teh situation changes.

I'll start with the strategy: Short term focus on economy, to get to the point it's possible to whip and field an army to take out Cornflakes in one hard push, which is the medium term goal. That means maintaining a suitable defensive posture and not neglecting military, however there is a priority in relation to building barracks and a stables or two. whilst also building the couple of defensive axes and a few more archers. As SO and Aurochs lack any food until I can take the rice from Cornflakes, this is achieved by: maximising cultural output at SO and Aurochs (already done, the rice should flip by T43, maybe sooner), settling cities to take the food tiles from Hellbender and BR (done, no more cities can be shared, but we need to get the granary into Tapanuli and then get it double and triple whipping)

Tech wise, Maths is just within reach of eot43, but it requires no whipping (I'm working every cottage tile going, and the lake). It should leave enough gold to one turn HBR, but it would be better to save gold after Maths and review options. HBR should be kept in researve, one turn from completion until there is the ability to build HA or stables.

After Maths, the options are interesting:

Calendar: +2 happy (sugar, two dyes), plus a banana, going to be critical, but I need to put culture into Tapanuli early to access the dyes
Monarchy: +1 happy from wines, and +1 happy from HR alleviates short term whip anger issues, plus a bit of commerce.
Construction: War elephants and cats, and no river movement penalties on defence.

Essentially, the focus on the economy is to allow me to get one economy tech (Calendar or Monarchy) before Construction. Calendar is preferred but more expensive, and time is against us as we do not want to leave open a 2v1 opportunity.

Scouting is awkward. The tracker and archer are in position to barb bust the east, the south is already managed due to close borders, but I can't get units north just yet. There is a tracker completing in Hellbender which will replace the barb busting archer, then that archer can move west, scouting out the coast. I would hope that I would only need one more unit to be full barb busted (that said, we need a tracker for a totem pole in Tapanuli to clear most of the terrain). I'll leave it to you to figure out how to get a unit directly north of Black Rhino.





Black Rhino




Plan: Build settler T40 to T42 to get the settler to 39/100. T43 swap to archer and complete. T44 (after Maths is completed) triple whip the settler and immediately regrow to size 4 (to hell with the food inefficiency, we are happy not food limited in BR). The archer has to be done last because overflow drops the settler into a double whip. This gives 44 hammer overflow, which can be used for either a library or barracks. I am unsure which will be better given the paucity of production here, but the library is greedy (and this only gets it to 59/90, so more overflow is needed, but the barracks could be completed just from general production). The alternative would be to work the remaining forest for 6 base production (8 adjusted) which would just about finish the library in a repsectable time frame.

The settler can be used for either Whiteclaw Cray at the cow location, or Pea Crab. Pea Crab is far safer and higher yield but has to build it's own work boat, but Whiteclaw can get the easy granary chop yet needs defensive units (but with the granary that opens up the lighthouse whip at size 4 for extra food.


Hellbender




The plan here is straight forward: slow grow to size 5, to match the whip unhappy wearing off, and finish the archer. Use the archer as MP so the axe can move and fortify in Aurochs.

The workers are in position to cottage and chop the two river grass forests. They need to be micro'ed the land the chops on the same turn in certain circumstances (ie a library chop), but in others it doesn't matter if they land separately (barracks, stables etc).

I don't really want to whip Hellbender, but I suspect that it will be necessary to keep the growth manageable. It may be that the barracks is chopped, and the stables are whipped on a 6>4, plus the plains hill is mined and we use Hellbender as a bad military pump. Longer term, plan to lumber mill the remaining forest but I have no idea when I can get MC. There is limited production available here, so I don't want to clear cut everything.

An alternative is to grow to 6, take the gold from Aurochs so it can take the rice, build a settler whilst in unhappiness and triple whip it at 36/100; the overflow would finish most of a barracks (can even start it after the archer), and the worker chops could be microed to land into a barracks and stables (don't have to be the same turn, after all). TBH I think this is generally better. I think Hellbender can even take back the corn on T42 without affecting Maths (it's really, really tight. With Aurochs swaping gold to the rice, it's esentially a commerce neutral move within the timeframe of the Maths research), but it would essentially be growth@5 eot42, growth@6 eot44 (likely need to take the goldT44 to grow with no spare food, +7 on T43, +5 on T44), whip settler T48 (and Pea Crab settled T50). The advantage of this is that there is also population to whip into a horse archer or two if needed ie Cornflakes gets frisky.


Scimitar Oryx




Here the micro is defined by the rice. Farm it asap. Get roads on the grass and plains hill linking So and Aurochs. Sacrifice growth in SO in favour of Aurochs (it has the better land). The forest 1S is prechopped, wait until after Maths (worker turns are cheap with 7 workers, hammers aren't, so prioritise yields over saving worker turns).

As it already has a barracks and totem pole, just move straight onto units after the granary. Whatever feels appropriate. A stables is unlikely, so I might veer away from a chariot though, especially if you plan for the barracks chop/stables whip at Hellbender). If the roads are in place on the hills, I would consider a mine on the grass hill and potentially pushing SO to size 2 and then stagnating at 8hpt. Given it is about 12 food from size 2, it will be worth considering if the granary can double the food in an incredibly food poor city. PLus the extra population is worth an extra defender behind walls in an emergency.


Aurochs




Ignore the prechopped plains forest at Hellbender, it is going to be better to just chop the southern grassland forest post Maths. There are two turns of chops into it, but the worker is just farming whilst it wait. It may well need to "waste" time with a road as well, especially if it looks like you want to settle Whiteclaw Cray on T47.

Aurochs will get the granary to 30/60 eot42 whilst using the gold. Given the gold must be worked until Maths is completed, and Hellbender cannot work it before T43 anyway, and the rice is unlikely to be within our borders before T42, it's straightfoward to plan for the forest chop on T44 to finish the granary, and to be working the rice from T44. If the rice is in borders at our start of T42, we still can't work it, but either way, looking at growth@2 eot48 to size 2 and a grass farm to help speed along growth, for growth@3 eot50.


Tapanuli




The forest 1SW is prechopped. The hill should be mined, but chop rather than mined IMO to ensure the granary is down ASAP. If Hellbender is taking back the corn on T42, then it should be possible to work the rice and a forest to manage growth (so long as there are two turns of growth after the granary is gown, the food box will be full. Work corn and rice T41, then rice and grass forest hill T42, T43, then rice and grass forest puts the food box at 17/24, so use avoid growth on T45 to get the food box to 24/24 and growth@3 eot46 with the full foodbox and overflow, and growth@4 eot47 26/26. This lines up perfectly with Hellbender growing to size 6, as it wants to give up the corn on T45 when starts a settler.

If Tapanuli double whips a barracks at size 4, then it should not need a tracker for the totem pole (which allows any trackers to be used for Pea Crab and Whiteclaw Cray). This is inredibly easy to set up: dump the overflow from the granary into a unit on T45 (but not an axe, as this leaves open a second double whip later if needed), barracks T46, whip T47.





Pindicator just declared war on Dreylin. Yay to everyone else being in classical era wars. I don't trust any of this, and you shouldn't either, until we start seeing power levels dropping.

[Krill]

Something I failed to say.

Feel free to disregard any and all plans I've written about. The game state will change, please use your own judgement to react when you think there is abetter choice to make.

I'm leaving for Heathrow in 2 hours, so it's unlikely I'll be available until I return. If all goes well I should be back around midnight 10/4/25 (BST) and be able to play from 11/4/25.

[Krill]

Back and ready to take over.

[sunrise089]

Welcome back

[Magic Science]

Welcome back. Everything is still okay here. I will type a report of what happened while you were gone in 3 hours or so, after class.

[Krill]

Thanks MS, no rush, no worries. I'm only just finishing up cleaning and about to log in to have a look around.

Cheers sunrise

[Krill]

Well that's what I get for inattentiveness.

MS, I need to understand the plan re: Hellbender, specifically the growth to size 7. I think I understand everything else but I don't see the plan there (is it a settler? Please tell me it isn't a settler).

[Magic Science]

Well that's what I get for inattentiveness.

MS, I need to understand the plan re: Hellbender, specifically the growth to size 7. I think I understand everything else but I don't see the plan there (is it a settler? Please tell me it isn't a settler).

Yeah, it's a Settler. So is Black Rhino.

Full report in a bit.