[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed in variants, so I'm going to try and simplify the process. Here is what I want to do:

1. Work best food tiles first
2. Capital grows to 4 ASAP and then works Silver Mine. (Could possibly go to 3 if we give the eastern Sheep to city #3)
3. Cities 2 & 3 start on workers while capital grows / while their bonus tiles are improved

And all this led me to wonder why if I was willing to spend 25g on a border pop for a 4f clam tile then why wasn't I looking at spending 25g for popping borders to get a 5f1h pig tile online faster?

Sure enough, it speeds up the settler by a turn. And I really regret that being my capital now as it would have been better to give the culture to a city that might want that more. Yet we've planted the city and its done and done and now I just need to go with what is best from here on out. So I'm still working through scenarios but this is one i should have caught earlier.

[pindicator]

Looks like OH and Cornflakes both planted 4 cities down at the start. This makes sense for OH as he has Exp and can still put in 2 workers. But Cornflakes is only getting 1 worker and will be lagging behind.

[pindicator]

000

In the end I decided against any fancy plays - no border pops or settling on sugar - and went with 3 cities, 3 workers, and a scout.




Joining us are:



Benny the Beaver, mascot of my univerisity, Oregon State University



Ace Purple from University of Evansville



Cecil the Sagehen, who represents both Pomona College and Pitzer College.  Looks like they combine for their athletics teams.


Got a little miffed again at seeing how I had missed a superior site again by 1 tile just because a food was just outside of the fog.  Ace Purple would be a far better defensive city if it had been on top of the grass hill and would have had 4 food resources (if you count the sugar).  But because I could not see the crabs until after I founded I have a suboptimal spot.

Basic plan here will be to grow the capital to size 3 (maybe 4, but I think 3) then have it pump out a few settlers until we get Pottery and BW.  The 2 workers at the capital are to help get it going quick.  First settler should be done end of t18.  The remaining worker is going to improve the sheep at Ace Purple and then run over to farm the corn at Cecil Sagehen.  Then we'll connect the cities with roads, mine the silver, and at that point it will be time for the first wave of settlers.  Capital at t18 and Ace Purple will whip their settler once BW is done, sometime around t20.  Expenses are higher here than I accounted for, so I must suck at making sand boxes.

[pindicator]

002

Workers have pastured the cow at Benny Beaver, and the 3rd worker is halfway through the sheep at Ace Purple.

Demos tell me I've already screwed up




But honestly, after I saw that silver and started to redo all my planning ... halfway through I just said "fuck it, I don't want to do this again" and just played. So thanks for that.

[pindicator]

004

Met OH




Interesting that he is at 3 cities and his capital is size 2 - it appears that instead of 4 cities like I suspected he actually opted for a 2nd population point. It's also possible that bought an improvement and grew since he did gain 8 points last turn.

It's also possible that this map is in no way balanced.

[pindicator]

007

Well, at this point I've picked my opening strategy. Have to see it through at hopefully it isn't too awful compared to everyone else:




Capital grew to size 2 and is working Pigs and Sheep. The workers are now heading south to connect cities. In my sims I found it better to delay mining the silver until the capital had hit size 3 first, otherwise we run into growth issues.

Ace Purple hit 2 last turn and we're still growing this upward until size 4 where it will whip out a settler. It's going to need that work boat eventually so that seems like a good dump for its hammers. Though I am concerned about warriors coming from that land bridge and stumbling across a free city. Which is why I'm sending my own first warrior out and about rather than keeping him near.

My last worker started the Corn farm this turn, for Cecil Sagehen. That will finish right as the worker is built from that city.

Somewhere I made a mistake in calculating beakers and I may end up not getting Mining in time now. I think right now I have it as getting it on the nose at 51/51 with 0 gold in the bank. So closer than I would like. But I still want Wheel first to get roads and trade routes between cities.

OH and I have equal EP into each other. So probably no other contacts for him yet.

[pindicator]

011

With the Sheep and Corn finishing this turn I've briefly gained #1 in Crop Yield. GNP and MFG are still dirt poor, however.




Considered growing to 4 because now I have the corn for Cecil to grow on and we might be more efficient to get to size 4 in the capital now. But I also want to get more cities out sooner, and that desire won out.

Workers that pastured the sheep moved West one tile this turn and built a road. Next turn they'll go NW and complete the road, while the worker at the Corn plus the new worker out of Cecil will go north and complete the connection between Benny and Cecil. The two workers at Benny will then finish the connection to Ace and either farm the sugar there or mine a hill. The two workers at the capital will mine the Silver after their road work is done. Then they move to road towards city #4.

Still deciding where City #4 goes... I don't have as easy a choice as OH, who gets a double Pig + wet Wheat spot right by his capital....

[pindicator]

013

Gavagai finished up turn 12 and then did not play 13, so it seems like we have our first conflict of the game. I'm very lucky it's not in my direction: I have 2 warriors to my name and they are both abroad. Especially vulnerable right now is Ace Purple as there is nothing warning me from the fog in the west and I have nothing close enough to reinforce it should a warrior stumble from the west. I thought about delaying the settler out of the capital by a turn so that it can finish the warrior at 10/15 in its queue ... but then I realized that i'm already put off by this game so lets go ahead and play a little risky. If I get burned then nothing really lost.

So we continue on the settler and explore where we might settle next:




I would like to settle northwest to get towards the fur and good food tiles I'm starting to uncover in that direction. But finding the corn/rice/clam in the east has to be the single best spot so far. So unless I find a good in the northwest I probably will go to the east just for all that food. Plus it will be nice to have a single point defense in the east and then I can push northwest into what I'm finding that direction.

The south is looking difficult to dotmap so far, and my scout is coming back from OH to scope that out better. But there doesn't seem to be a good defensive point that I can use to border against OH - even if I want to reach past the bottleneck some. Hopefully I find something to change my mind.

Demos have largely stayed the same these last few turns. People must be building settlers:




Still encouraged by that food total.

[pindicator]

016

Silver mine is finished and with Cecil growing to size 2 we are now tops in GNP and Crop Yield, albeit temporarily as everybody is pushing out settlers here.  OH is running even more of a farmer gambit than I am, as my Soldiers are 4th and his power is 0.6 of mine.  However there still is only one way into my territory that I don't have accounted for and I'll have my 3rd warrior done at end of turn.

The North has overtaken the East for my settling priority:




Right now I'm thinking next settler goes 1N of the Rice, which is a little bit of a reach.  But then the settler after goes for the desert hill and then this area will be solid.

[pindicator]

017

So things changed a little after my last, as Cornflakes has 2p whipped and I assume that means he will be the first to settle his 2nd (er, 4th?) city. I'm guessing next turn or the turn after. Our settler is now 2t out, and BW 4t out. As soon as BW is finished we'll whip Ace Purple for another settler and nab the two spots up north that I mentioned in the last update. Then I think we head east to pick up that crazy-high-food spot and turn that into either some kind of whipping pump or a great person factory. Probably both.

Demos:




Got passed on crop yield this turn but I'm okay with demos on the whole. Right now all my cities are stagnating on civilian builds.