[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

042

When I was thinking of players in this game I was most likely to become sworn enemies with, Cornflakes was not at the top of that list:




My scout had been stuck behind his borders and I decided to push through the narrow gap. I did not bother any of his resources. But he killed him all the same. The scout will be avenged!

Two settlers currently in route to their destinations. I really wanted to start another settler for the whale island this turn, but instead I've gone with another worker. I also started the Oracle at the capital. The fail-gold will be nice.

[pindicator]

043

It ended up being Cornflakes who helped my "Wealth Builds" at the capital, as he finished Oracle at the end of his last turn. If I had known it only to be 1 turn and 9g I may not have bothered - I was hoping to get a little bit more out than that. But I'll take what I can get. Science went off this turn, and now I have a decision to make next: Writing to push towards Currency; Masonry and Monotheism to take advantage of being SPI; or perhaps I push straight to Horchers with how tight this map is? For example:




I was right to want to push northward quickly, but I will only get 1 more city up here I fear. Lots of settlers are needed and I'm now lagging behind in city count. 2 more cities next turn and I've started a settler for city #8.

Do I make a late play for Great Lighthouse? Two people have grabbed Metal Casting now - probably Cornflakes and TBS. Colossus is a great wonder for this map.

[pindicator]

044

Introducing Flex the Falcon, mascot of Bentley University, near Boston, Massachusetts.




Flex Falcon is City #6 and is settled as a bulwark in the north:





I had a couple big choices and a big "d'oh!" moment this turn.  My mistake:  I forgot RtR changed Sacrificial Altars to be at Monotheism.  So the Buddhist diversion was almost entirely a mistake - although I do like the culture it gained me.  This also helps decide my tech path, as I was debating mightily between Writing (heading towards Code of Laws), Monotheism (for Org Rel), and Horseback Riding.  Now i can cross Writing off the list.

But Horseback Riding!  Let me sing its praises here a little.  This seems like the perfect time to go for a strike against a neighbor.  Borders are close but land is not yet filled up to the point where everybody is thinking of defense.  And TBS appears to be the perfect meta target:  picking a combination that spends its hammers on lots of buildings and not units, and in addition he has jumped ahead to 8 cities so I know his military is weak.  (Everybody's military is weak, honestly.)  Even now I wonder if I am making a huge mistake by not gearing up for war here and now.

But my shiny toys are too shiny to ignore:  Sacrificial Altars at 45h and only a few techs away, which also come with enabling religion spread, 25% bonus towards buildings, a building which will let me whip to my heart's content and give me cheaper maintenance.  Yes, I cannot ignore that.  Maybe after we will whip out horchers in double time, but I fear it will be too late by then.  So I went for the shiny: i went for the Masonry > Poly > Mono path.

In the north I decided to start a temple at Dooley Skeleton.  An axe was tempting, but I want to get that great prophet started.  Not sure which religion I will shrine as I think I have good odds of landing Judaism now too, and Buddhism has still yet to spread anywhere.  I feel most of my conflict will be in the north, however, so I will need to get units there first.




In the south we are preparing for cities 7 & 8.  First, I rerouted the settler that was going to claim an earlier elephant - instead I've let the barracks finish at Cecil because 10 turns from now will be fine for that happiness to be connected.  Instead we are going to settle the high-food spot to the east first.  Our warrior has won against the lion and now the path to settle this spot is clear.  An axe awaits in the capital but I need to shuffle some MP around first before it can be used anywhere else.  Archery would be nice for that purpose, or perhaps I bring back my warrior from the east.  But I believe the warriors will all be used as forward scouts this game.

My chop finished at Ace Purple and next turn we whip the galley.  Or perhaps not; there is no point to have the galley without the settler, and the settler at Cecil is 2 turns away from being able to be 3-pop whipped.  This settler I will want quickly too, as it will double my trade route income and be practically free.

The problem right now is not having enough work force.  Benny will start a worker after its chariot finishes.  Other cities will work to fit them in as possible.  But especially for City 7 in the east, things will not be optimal for improving resources and getting it up to speed.

Demos after ending turn:




I am looking very strong.  Surprisingly strong.  Maybe I should micro and plan out less if this is going to be the result!   Are other players having a big tech crunch right now?  That would explain the rush to Metal Casting - presumably a race to Colossus.  Another race to TGL is undoubtably underway right now.

[pindicator]

045

City #7, is Grizz the Logger, mascot of University of Puget Sound in my neighboring Washington state.



Workers are unfortunately a bit scarce, as I mentioned last turn. We'll start improving the rice next turn with 1 worker. The capital started a second at end of turn, after the chariot finished.

I'm moving out a bit and find that Cornflakes is picketing my borders:




I'm hoping this is just normal behavior from him, but this combined with the scout killing earlier has me feeling a bit uneasy towards my southeastern neighbor. Fairly certain he has triremes so I'll need to make sure that direction is well defended.

There is also barbarian trouble. There were only 2 tiles possible for that barbarian to spawn, but of course it did. This means the chariot from the capital will have to come west to help defend Ace Purple. I'm not sure if there's any good way to prevent the sheep from being shorn, so I'll keep my worker around the area here instead of pulling it east to help with Grizz. Could use a cottage here anyway.

Cecil will whip its settler next turn, and I've been holding the whip at Ace for the same reason - no point in the galley before the settler is out anyway.

Up north I whipped the temple at Dooley - the city is working so many unimproved tiles that it seems correct.

And then at the end of turn, it finally happened:



Of course after I had committed to building a barracks first, but it is still welcome. Now I'll have to start a work boat. First we'll whip the barracks, then finish the spear in queue, and then the work boat.

Still tops in food but the GNP is down to 3rd now. Probably because other people have selected techs. In any case, my breakeven is still at 50%, so I think I'll have room for 2 more settlers before its time to pump the brakes.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm surprised that a certain terrapin hasn't made an appearance recently.

[pindicator]

I have been going in alphabetical order, but now I think I'll deviate for requests. WebstUR the Richmond Spider and Tetsudo the Maryland Terrapin will be my next two now

[pindicator]

049

Sparing a large update, because I want to go more in depth for the turn 50 report, but there is one notable thing that we should go in depth on now:




TBS recently built the Great Lighthouse and looks like he wants to claim this land in my north.  I've had a warrior staking out ground and this turn I see two warriors of his coming south.  The only reason to do this is to challenge my warrior and come in with a settler.  I do not want to allow him this as I started my own settler for this spot on this turn in Dooley (poor Dooley: that city has so much food and will be whipped so often once we get Courthouses in).  I finished an axe out of that city at the end of last turn, but it had to deal with a barbarian spear that came down from the northwest.  And so I brought my spear out of Flex Falcon and moved it southeast.  It's a move he should be able to see and understand.  I'm moving a chariot up from the south (I misclicked last turn and so it is 2 turns slower than it would be - Noble always did tell me to use the 'G' key for moving units and this is exactly why.)

Settled WebstUR Spider on the one-tile island.  You'll get a picture next turn.  The city gained 5gpt just for being founded.  I wonder if I should have held off on it, as there are still a couple of contended locations that i'm not sure I will get.  For instance, this could have been our settler up north against TBS.  Or in the south I'd like to put a forward city as a spearhead against Cornflakes and OH.  Regardless, I'm still at 50% breakeven for having 8 cities and I think that is why I'm still in this game despite my awful tech choices.  Still in this game - I might be leading it!  That makes no sense to me, but I think ORG ended up being very much the right choice.

[pindicator]

050

I don't understand how I am in the lead, but I am.




That's not entirely true. I understand that I picked ORG and nobody else did and so my GNP is going to be pretty good for it. But I've still played badly - or rather, I have not played well. I have wasted time teching 2 techs that I should not have been touching (Meditation & Priesthood). I'm about to finish Monotheism in 2 turns, hopefully 1.

How am I out-growing everybody else? That is a question. Did everybody take the island city and been stuck trying to figure out what to do with all that slow growth? Why am I beating out FIN and EXP civs in GNP and Crop Yield? It is a mystery, but a happy mystery. Doubly so because i've done zero planning this game. I'm playing about as casually as I can play and still pay attention. My long term plans are nebulous and my mid term plans consist of "that worker should head north because I think they will be light on worker support soon". No micro plans. No spreadsheets. I'm barely remembering to hit F6 to see how many other people have teched ahead of me (2 have Metal Casting).

So here are my cities. I won't bother to do a write up for each one telling you what the plans are for them because there really aren't any. If it has a lot of food and is near the happy cap its going to be building settlers and workers. Pretty soon everyone is going to whip Sacrificial Altars.

Okay, I didn't properly introduce WebstUR. That unfortunate capitalization is intentional and the product of the Richmond Spiders of Virginia.

Isn't he a cutie?


Currently 2 settlers in production and I really could go for another one. There's a good chunk of nice land to my east that Gav has not pushed for and I could see myself trying to snatch up.

I waited until after ending turn to snap pictures of graphs and demos:

Capital is the largest city in the world, and it hasn't even gotten Buddhism spread to it yet:




So it isn't entirely honest to say I have no plans. I have a general idea of where I want to go. After I get the overly-delayed Courthouses, I'm going to go for Horseback Riding. No, we don't want Writing and Libraries - they cost too much. I want horchers. And I'm going to send those horchers at the person who responds the worst to my power rising. I'd put money on that being Gavagai right now, but really if all else is equal then I'm going after TBS.

Hopefully we get enough war gold to get to Currency and go from there.

This is fun. How am I doing so well again?

[pindicator]

051

Squeezed out Monotheism at end of turn, and it ends up down where I wanted Buddhism to begin with.




Now suddenly I have lots of things I want to build: missionaries, courthouses. Do I switch religions? Or go to no religion? Sacrificial Altars feel like the highest priority; after that then we'll probably want to get missionaries going.

In the east a barbarian city popped up in a bad spot on the isthmus. I have a couple axes I'll move that way, but I may keep a captured city just because its 'free'. And then in the west my work boat finished at Ace Purple and I'll have whales connected next turn. Might have double digit happy cap soon.

Oh, that reminds me: TBS offered me Silver for Gems. A peace offering, I'm sure, but I declined it anyway. I think I'd like to see him put some hammers into units instead of wonders, so no reason to make him feel secure.

[vanrober]

What its the advantage of going no religion when you have already one?