Lionised and Vilified

[pigswill]

It looks like I'm up. If we're going for pyramids one option is simply to devote workers to chopping it asap while other cities slow build chariots. Need to think about library at some point, probably not in capital to avoid GP contamination, maybe even another settler but a couple more chariots to start.

 

[Cam_H]

Hi - I've been unavailable for a few days and haven't had a chance to contribute.

Pigswill ... Chariots, Workers, Settlers, and part-chopped Pyramids all sound good to me. Are you going to do a PPP or is #41 your plan? Grabbing that northern Marble somehow before it goes looks even a little more attractive now in light of AI encroachment to our north.

 

[pigswill]

I've been hoping for some hints from the stronger players in the team. I assume we're heading straight for aesthetics, I also assume pyramid building is the priority for the capital and chopping into it is the priority for our workforce.

 

[vranasm]

north city is weak until we get IW, so I think you can build there workers and settlers at size 2.

Next turn you get there worker, he can chop some forests and build settler.

I agree with you chopping some trees into Mids. We should think about library somewhere because without library the mids have no reason (if we don't go with Oracle->CoL which I don't think we can do).

I would farm the 1-2 FP's in 1st ring in stone city and build there probably the library after another chariot.

You should stop after building settler in north latest imo. We should decide exact position of 4th city. There is a lot of possibilites and honestly the jungle to north doesn't interest me when we have south strong food cities. But I agree that Marble with Rep and TGL is strong combination (maybe too strong to not abuse).

Right now I don't know if it's right time for aesth.

Btw as driver you should make PPP and we consult ;-)

edit:
rechecked save... we don't have myst yet. If we plan Marble i think we could sneak in Myst+Poly before Aesth and if we're quick enough some of our cities should start building ToA with fail gold.

But I would like at least 5 cities before starting the fail gold.

IMPORTANT! Don't change civics until we have Mids, we will do Rep+Slavery revolt. We don't have food for whips yet and none of first 4 cities (if we place the 4th 1NE of grass cow and 1 SW marble) has enough food for whipping to be good.

 

[pigswill]

Techwise myst for monuments then aesthetics. I'm not convinced by failure gold because by the time we've built pyramids, got marble city, got marble hooked up and can think about failure gold aesthetics would be finished in which case we look for alphabet and back filling and/or ToA will have been built.

If we're not going for slavery before pyramids then we ain't whipping in the next few turns. In that case:

Hamburg grow in 8, chariot in 8. Worker chops forest in Berlin. Pop 3 works horse, silk and spice, start settler, worker returns to chop out settler (Hamburg only has 2 forests).

Berlin finishes chariot then starts Pyramids, worker completes FP farm then chops.

Munich worker mines grassland hill then chops a forest. Munich completes chariot using unimproved FP and mine then builds monument aided by chop (alternatively swops to monument when myst is in then completes chariot). Munich could then think about building library, worker starts farming FP.

North east barb city should spawnbust for us, north west warrior heads towards marble site, east warrior heads south east to horsefish site.

 

[pigswill]

Having waited overnight I'll interpret the lack of response as tacit approval and start my set.

 

[pigswill]

And finished it. 16 turns taking us up to 975bc.

Pretty much as per plan.

Hamburg built its chariot, with a couple of chops we get a settler next turn.

Munich built chariot and monument, now pop 3 and working on library.

Berlin has just completed Pyramids (the reason I played an extra turn).

Couple of chariots busting down south. Warrior busting fog at horsefish. Warrior busting fog at marble.

Our workers are farmers.

We're mystical and are researching binary aesthetics.

Few things not according to plan:

Two barb archers SW of Berlin (marked bandits), Berlin has warrior and 2 chariots, I've withdrawn SW chariot to help out.

Opened borders with Vicky and Sully (no worst enemies at the time). Cat's decided that Vicky's her worst enemy and demanded we stop trading with Vicky, I declined so Cat's less cautious than previously.

Religion wise Cat's Hindu, Vicky founded Judaism and she and Sully have adopted it, someone else is Buddhist. Rag's borders have appeared west of Sully.

Vicky's built Gwall.

And of course Sully's founded Bursa right on our doorstep (though marble site is currently unclaimed).

 

[vranasm]

I am happy we got mids.

I am not happy we didn't got 4th city up, especially in advance of growing into silk in north city (which is very weak tile unimproved), should really stayed at size 2.

And am not happy seeing stone city building library, do we really have so many hammers for investment into buildings and not units/workers/settlers?

There is so much nice land around that we should crush our economy to 0% and use rep with 2x scientist in capital to get us out.

 

[Cam_H]

(Apol's again for lack of comment ... will aim to do so soon).

lymond's up
cabert's not responded, so I'll drop him from the roster
I'm on-deck.

 

[pigswill]

@ vranasm: Its easy to criticise with hindsight. "Btw as driver you should make PPP and we consult", I posted PPP and waited 12+ hours without a consult so I went ahead and played. If I'd gone for pop2 settler and chopped into it and we missed pyramids by one turn I'd have been criticised for not prioritising pyramids. If a barb spear had emerged from where Munich's chariot was spawnbusting I'd have been criticised for poor spawn busting.

Re library in Munich/stone city. At pop 5 with library Munich can work 2FP farms, goldmine and run 2 scientists. Berlin has no hammers into library afaik so can switch to settler without loss. There's no particular benefit to running scientists in Berlin even with bureaucracy so I fail to see the problem.

 

[Sengir]

I agree that we should be settling like madmen at this point. We need some additional workers as well. The library in Munich can be put on hold for now.

About Hamburg staying at size 2: we'll revolt into slavery and it'll be at size 2 in no time

 

[vranasm]

About Hamburg staying at size 2: we'll revolt into slavery and it'll be at size 2 in no time

that's the spirit!

 

[lymond]

Good job, pig. Building the Mids often precludes expansion. We can focus on that now.

We really need to find a good GP farm, but I'm not seeing anything that stands out. We do have a 2fish/FP site in the east. Probably ideal to split the fish into two good cities, but there is really nothing else that screams GP farm that I see.

I think the marble site is out. Settling up there will just get us caught up. The land to the far south is marginal but if we can continue to expand east and cutoff HR, I think there is some good land.

I'd say get out 2 settlers asap. 1 for the Wheat/Gold side which I actually like right smack in between them where our warrior was parked - not sure what happened to him. And then hopefully nab that barb city later. That should seal the land from the north. Next settler takes 2 fish/fp site to block from that direction and set up our first GP farm. There are enough water tiles there for a LH which is good.

i'm going to take a look at the save and get back with a more detail plan.

 

[vranasm]

L
I think you neglect the lake corn in the south which is pretty neat for GP (that corn is 6F), can't find good SS (and can't look into save), but from what I remember there is another food in 2nd ring.

But it can obviously wait a bit (the gold and fish are very good candidates for 4+5), I am a bit sad we won't get the marble though. I understand the concern of close borders though.

So I would think we should settle the corn as 6 and run 1st GS from cap, the next ones in south?

maybe we could go 3 settlers now, with worker size 2 in north.
capital could stagnate on workers and scientists after finishing library?

edit:

seems a little bit confusing on 2nd read... what I meant...
build in stone city 2 settlers one after another.
north finishes settler and starts on worker.
capital still finishes library, then switch scientists in and build worker.

 

[pigswill]

Goldwheat warrior moved to fish. Chariot was there but got withdrawn when I saw barb archers approaching capital.
Berlin can swop to settler straight away. Munich goes to pop 4 in 4 turns (3 if we swop from mine to FP) and can swop to settler for chop and double whip.

 

[lymond]

Yep, corn is okay (other food is weak sheep) but Fishy is much better for GP and it is a strategic location. But yeah, we want as many food places as possible if we are running Rep.

Should we switch to Rep/Slavery now? We could use slavery. I could whip worker into Lib in Berlin and we need culture bad in Hamburg. (Note: Rep is good but we have two HR lovers, especially good all Rag. However, no one has Monarchy yet)

here is a dotmap for where I think we need to settle

Spoiler :

HRE has settled just north of the Wheat/Gold, but if we settle right next to wheat then we should have no problems, other than diplo, of course.

City C could be exchanged for the corn/sheep/fur city since Fish city will block off all our land anyway.

So:

1) Hamburg finish Settler and whips a Monument, then builds a worker and more units

2) Berlin 2pops a worker and complete the library

3) We run binary for a while

4) I agree V that Munich can just focus on Settlers/Workers for now.

5) I will take care of the archers by pulling the chariots in Berlin out. 1 onto the hill and 1 on the forest. This will draw the Archers to open ground so that I can pick them off. We need more spawnbusting down south.

6) Switch to Rep/Slavery.

7) Settle Wheat/Gold, then 2Fish, then Horse/Cow or Corn/Sheep depending on what the team thinks - if I even get that far.

Question: Are we going to cottage or Farm Berlin?

 

[vranasm]

I wouldn't whip capital.
If we switch into Rep (and we should!) there we will have something like 9 happy cap in capital. If anything I will use the slow build of library to grow a bit.

And I think we should put at least 1 grass farm.

We are not creative and 29 hammers of OF is just 29 hammers and not 58... I would be very surprised if you would outmatch the basic production of 2 citizens on GH's with the slower regrowth (didn't do math).

Could you 1 pop whip the settler in north city? the monument would be instant and we should get some OF into worker. better then 1 pop whip monument imo. (edit: grrr of course no OF into worker probably, the monument costs 30 hammers and not 15 as I foolishly thought)

 

[lymond]

V - I agree. I'll get a worker to chop the Library instead and a worker. It will be good to have the citizens immediately to start running specs. The 1 pop settler whip is a good idea.

We have a couple of real nasties in this game and Sully and Charlie can be real pains if not on their good side. We will need to play diplo real close.

 

[pigswill]

I'm no doubt missing something but why the interest in growing Berlin? Until bureaucracy its basically just another city (tho library might get a beaker or two from palace). Given that CS is more than a few turns away why not whip it now coz it'll have time to regrow and build library before bureaucracy. If we were wanting to work cottages in the capital then I could see an argument for working cottages as long as possible but does this outweigh the benefits of getting another settler in the next set? I can also see the argument for early library to run specialists for early GS but why does it have to be in Berlin?

 

[lymond]

Berlin is a very poor food cap but it's the best developed and we want to keep it that way. I would whip if we had more food and a granary, but I usually let the cap grow early, get a library asap and run 2 scientists first thing to get an academy asap. Bureau or no, your cap is generally your primary source of research and production, so you don't want to whip that all away unless it's high food/low prod/commerce in which case you might get up a granary asap and whip like a banshee to get your empire up.

Honestly, I'm not sure Berlin is a good bureau cap. Munich might be a better option. Might be better to use Berlin as a production city and just farm it up.

We might consider place corn/sheep to get the gold instead and use the sheep for another city.