RB20 - Miller Time

[Iustus]

1430 (0)

A settler is almost done, so I change Boston to make a longbowman for the new city, it had queued a missionary, but had not started on it at all yet.

I change research to 20%, so we are no longer deficit spending, we may need a cash cushion to cover our new cities. Guilds in 9 turns.

Mansa will trade Civil Service, but the only thing we have to trade is Astronomy. When we get guilds, that may be perfect to trade with him.

IBT: Barbarians attack and die

1436 (1)

Settler finishes at Atlanta, start another.

Fredrick makes peace with Peter and adopts Serfdom,Vassalage, and Hereditary Rule, guess Fredrick got some nice techs for peace.

1442 (2)

Theatre finish in Philadelphia, start on Longbowman.

Theatre finish in Chicago, start on Settler.

Longbowman finish in Boston, start on War Elephant.

1448 (3)

Elizabeth asks for a gift of Philosophy. I guess we have to agree to keep her as a friend, so I do it. She still will not trade civil service.

Alexander makes peace with Peter.

Barracks finished in Seattle, start on Longbowman.

1454 (4)

Killing some barbarians.

1460 (5)

War elephant done at Boston, start on longbowman.

IBT: Barbarians suicide

1466 (6)

Census determines we are the 2nd largest civ.

Aqueduct finishes in New York. Were we trying to build the Hanging Gardens? We could in 37 turns. With all the new cities, it might be a nice boost. For now, I queue up an Observatory (over a Market because New York is making 10 beakers and only 7 gold).

1472 (7)

Longbowman finished in Boston, start longbowman.

Theatre finished in Los Angeles, start forge.

Alexander converts to Confucism

1478 (8)

Longbowman finishes in Philadelphia, start on Market

Settler finishes in Atlanta, start settler.

Longbowman finishes in Seattle, start Market.

Portland founded at orange dot, one turn after Peter founds a new city to the south. We now share borders with Peter.

1484 (9)

Guilds finished, start on Banking (38)

Longbowman finished at Boston, start on war elephant.

Peter converts to Hindu.

Genghis khan adopts serfdom and vassalage.

Descartes is born, he would lightbulb engineering.

Mansa will trade Civil Service + Engineering + 270 gold for Astronomy. Or Civil Service + 400 gold (+ Monotheism if we want it) for Guilds. I suppose we should keep the Astronomy monopoly for now. I am going to get civil service, so we can lightbulb paper on the way to replaceable parts. The 400 gold will let us defict research some, and still have some extra cash.

1490 (10)

I go ahead and lightbulb Paper, we can trade some maps around then.

Mansa will pay us 10 gold plus his map for our map. Since he already has an explorer in our lands anyway, I do this trade.

Cyrus would even give us Monotheism for our map. I do the trade, but do not take Monotheism.

Those two trades revealed both sides of the map, we can now see almost everything. Here is our mini-map prior to the trades:

And here is what we can now see:

No one else will trade world maps currently. Our map is most likely better than anyone elses, so is currently valuable, if anyone wants to trade.

1496 (11)

God. Ok, Mansa asks for 210 gold back, as a gift. With our economy, I do not see how this can work. We have a -3 penalty already for religion with Mansa, We may just have to write him off, he is down to cautious before I decide about this. Well, I suppose 210 gold is cheep compared to a tech if it brings our relations up. I do it, we go from cautious to pleased.

Hmm, he will give us 240 gold + his world map for our world map (ie what we got from Cyrus). Even at 20% research, we are at -17/turn economy, I think this might be worth doing. Waiting will only mean Mansa has less money to give us. I am going to go ahead and do it.

War elephant finished in Boston, I start a market, then we will probably have to do some more military builds.

It is 134 gold to upgrade our guerilla archer by Chicago to a Longbowman. With all the activity in the area, it seems like a good deal to me, so I do it.

I build a road closer to Vladivostok, as soon as Peter builds a road on his side, we will be connected.

We could connect right now, if we want to put a road on copper for Peter, but I am not feeling that generous.

Ok, I still want to try to convert Mansa, so I undertake perhaps a dubious move. Napoleon is hopelessly backward, he does not appear to be anyone’s worst enemy, so I see what I can do to get open borders. I trade him our map for 160 gold. Still nope. I gift him Monarchy. No go. I gift him Compass. He will now give us open borders. That lets our chariot/missionary that have been trapped forever finially out!

I change Boston to queue up a missionary first, this is intended to go to Mansa’s city that is right next to us (he jumped over Elizabeth). We really need to build a monastery somewhere else, so we do not have to tie up Boston with missionary builds, perhaps Chicago or Seattle.

1502 (12)

Mansa offers to trade Music for Paper + 180 gold. I decline. I think we would prefer Engineering over Music, but I am going to leave any further tech trades to the next person.

Turned the governor on at San Fransisco. I wish I had done this sooner, the theater was building very slowly and we ran into unhappy. 3 turns until Theatre and then we should start growing again. Neither of our high food tiles is currently being worked, so look at this city when the theater completes, it may need some manual adjustments. With all the food here, I would consider building a settler here for the incense city.

1508 (13)

Settler finished at Chicago. I could start a monastery here, but in its current configuration (with 1 merchant specialist) we are making 15g/turn here. So, I start a grocer. I turn on the governer and prefer commerce, this moves us down to 12g/turn, but gets us the grocer in 15 turns instead of 22. We could make the grocer as soon as 11 turns but it would cut commerce to nearly nothing. I think this is a good balance. With all the lake tiles, this is a nice commerce city, I would reconfigure to run merchants here as soon as the Grocer is done, then build a bank here when banking comes in.

Building a monastery at Portland would be a good idea, after the granary and theatre. We could use the culture there, since we are too close to Peter’s city. And the shields should be plenty for it.

I am going to be a bit bold with this new settler, and head to a new spot, east of Los Angeles. I queue up a settler for yellow dot from Boston.

1514 (14)

Settler finished at Atlanta, queue up another! Sirian wants a land grab, we will give him a land grab! (The next person may want to change this build to a market or a worker).


1520 (15)

Observatory finished at Washington, started Market (next person can change if they like).

Theatre finished at San Fransisco, Settler started (next person may want to change, we were 2 turns from growth).

Ok, the status by San Fransisco:

There is a swordsman approaching that needs to be dealt with. It is important to move our fogbusting warrior to safety. You can move our war elephant toward the swordsman, which will also protect the worker that is headed to road that hill.

Speaking of the workers, one was headed toward white dot, making some roads. The northern one was headed to road to the forest, in preparation of lumbermills. The third is headed down to washington, to finish the road to tourqoise dot.

And here we have some dot map action, with some additions and contemplations:

There is a settler close to tourquise dot, but I think we want to seriously consider moving this location west one, to get the corn (see the next picture).

Yellow dot can be settled by the settler coming from Boston, hopefully that should be soon enough.

Blue dot is our old friend, which I think we can still wait on backfilling.

Purple dot and lime green dot are new.

Purple dot will get us the cows, and a bunch of grassland hills we can windmill, plus some forests to the south that will work great for lumbermills eventually.

Lime green dot will get wine, horses and corn, but it is not on a hill, so will be a bit harder to defend.

An alternative is the new orange dot, which gets us only one city rather than two in the area, but gets both the cows and the corn in the same city.

Red dot is our old friend. I think we want to consider moving this south, to get the corn, if we still want this site.

We have a settler near purple dot if we want it (or it can head to orange dot).

We have a settler just north of Seattle which can either head to lime green dot or red dot (or some variation in that direction that nets the corn).

And here is our northwest:

We see yellow dot again, with the settler for it being built.

And here you see that if we move tourquise dot west, we can add the corn. I am not sure if this was in the fog when we picked the spot before, or if there is some other reason not to move it. Either way, we must decide soon, as the settler is on site.

And we see our old forgotten white dot to the north. It is too bad we cannot get both incense, but I do not see a way to do it and still feed ourselves, so this is probably the best spot. A settler for this spot is being built in San Fransisco.

And finally, our long forgotten missionary is ready to spread the word. It may be best to pick one of the larger cities, even though they already know Christianity in almost all of them. (Victoria has been busy, half these cities had no religion when I queued up the missionary a few turns ago).

The next person should add at least 3 more cities, if not 5 more. We will be out of expansion space soon.

-Iustus

 

[Iustus]

One more thing, if we want to be very bold, we could try to have the settler destined for yellow dot, skip it, and instead try to claim that site with both pigs and corn on the border of Cyrus.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

Yellow Dot can safely wait a little longer, I'm sure. If we can reach farther west to a good site over there, let's do it. We might also consider reaching eastward to another city that will form a border (not a tight border!) with Mansa's city. Not sure whether that should be to his west, north, or NW. If this can't be done on Mike's round, at least queue another settler for me to make the move.

As for the rest... Lot of choices, and probably several valid ways to go. I'll see what Mike decides after the game passes to me.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

We might also consider reaching eastward to another city that will form a border (not a tight border!) with Mansa's city.

I would recommend this city claim the corn to his north, but I am not sure on the exact placement.

That said, I think purple dot and lime green dot are the highest priority, as Peter is right there and the biggest threat to take city spots.

If we can reach farther west to a good site over there, let's do it.

You can see the site I mean, there is a corn and a pig tile only 2 distance apart, right by a river, to the NW of yellow dot, right on the border of Cyrus' cities. I am not sure the best spot to put the city, it might depend on what Cyrus does, Cyrus is expanding fast, he still has more land area than we do (but he is the only one that does).

There is a lot of military in the area of Yellow dot, fogbusting, I think some could be spared (probably the guerilla longbow) to head toward this new location, to scout ahead for the settler. We might even want to start building a road to speed the settler on its way.

One more warning, our economy is seriously in the red, which is probably alright if we manage to carve out a big space of land and then avoid any costly wars while developing it.

-Iustus

 

[mike p]

Looks like I've got lots of choices to make. I'll play Monday night after dinner. In the mean time, here's what I'm thinking about settler placements.

Looking at the settler on light blue dot, I think I'd rather play it safe and settle in place. That will still get us pigs, puts us on a plains hill and has fresh water from the lake. We'll be in a natural choke point and have a shorter distance to Washington by road. The other option would be to stretch west to grab the corn too, but leaves us with fog on all sides.

I'm also not in a hurry to stretch towards Cyrus's creative cities.

San Francisco's next border expansion will bring in the incense anyway. All that jungle means any city built up there won't be very productive. This might be an area where we want to reach instead of playing it safe. I'm thinking about skipping white dot entirely and instead putting a city here:



Everything within the line I drew should be out of the fog after our first border expansion.

The drawback is that we won't be able to work the dyes. On the plus side we'll be able to bust a lot more fog and probably keep the AI from sneaking a city in the jungle in our backyard. My thinking is we should cover the jungle with as few cities as possible so we should push white dot NW.

Yellow dot I'll probably move 1 tile west, which will give us three more windmills. With no rivers here, windmills and the lake are the only tiles that will give this city any commerce.

Dark Blue can wait for a while and be backfilled.

Purple Dot will probably go 1SW of the cows instead, which gives us more unforested hills to build windmills on. I'm starting to think I might have some sort of windmill fetish. I'm in full agreement on Lime Green.

I don't like red dot because it feels very exposed. I'll probably think about Mike's dot for expansion to the East, or possible a site to the Southeast of that, but any other cities to the east are going to lengthen our attackable borders considerable and I'd like to keep things more compact. I may use the first settler from San Fran somewhere over here and leave a decision on White Dot for Sirian's turn - since wherever we decide for White Dot, the city won't grow that big, so I'd rather get a larger growing city built sooner.

Incidently, letting San Francisco grow would mean that the settler would be produced more slowly. The most productive unused tile is 1f 1h 3c and we'd lose the food to unhealthiness.

 

[Iustus]

Looking at the settler on light blue dot, I think I'd rather play it safe and settle in place. That will still get us pigs, puts us on a plains hill and has fresh water from the lake. We'll be in a natural choke point and have a shorter distance to Washington by road. The other option would be to stretch west to grab the corn too, but leaves us with fog on all sides.

Fortune favors the bold. We are in a land grab phase. Settling in place gains us almost no ground. At a minimum go to the old light blue spot, but I think west to get both is better. You will have an elephant and a longbowman in the area. Longbowmen in cities make mincemeat of the barbarians. Protecting all the improvements will be a slight challenge, but thats what war elephants are for!

I'm also not in a hurry to stretch towards Cyrus's creative cities.

Creative is less than a cheap theatre. Once again, I think Sirian is right, we should push out and try to get as much territory as possible. If you act quickly, you can get that city by the pigs and corn, but if you want to be conservative, grab the yellow dot and queue up another settler on that side for sirian to make a land grab.

San Francisco's next border expansion will bring in the incense anyway. All that jungle means any city built up there won't be very productive. This might be an area where we want to reach instead of playing it safe. I'm thinking about skipping white dot entirely and instead putting a city here:

8 jungle tiles in that city that we can never improve, but it does have a lot of lake which is nice (or is that inland sea?) The reason I wanted the incense is that it is a lot of gold, not just to trade it with other civs. I have not looked, but is there a spot a bit further that still leaves white dot for later? Your spot will take the rice, so white dot can never be settled.

Everything within the line I drew should be out of the fog after our first border expansion.

The barbarians are really not much of a problem with longbowmen at this time. And soon there will be no more barbarians because we will meet the other civs on all sides. That is why we are in a rush to land grab. We are already against Peter in the south.

The drawback is that we won't be able to work the dyes. On the plus side we'll be able to bust a lot more fog and probably keep the AI from sneaking a city in the jungle in our backyard. My thinking is we should cover the jungle with as few cities as possible so we should push white dot NW.

The dye tile is a lot of commerce. I prefer white dot city, but if you can move even further, and leave white dot city open to to place a city later, that seems ok to me. My thoughts was that we have more room on that side, so I would rather expand toward cyrus, peter and mansa, where we have less room, and fill in the north more slowly. I would rather have the AIs put cities up in the jungle than for us to waste too many up there where we cannot get much. A city with incense, dye and rice to work them will be a decent amount of commerce, even if small.

Either way is alright, but I am much less concerned with busting fog than getting as much productive land as possible. A 2 food resource city (pigs/corn) will be great for us.

Yellow dot I'll probably move 1 tile west, which will give us three more windmills. With no rivers here, windmills and the lake are the only tiles that will give this city any commerce.

Sounds fine. Not all cities have to have commerce, some can be production, but this seems like a smart change.

Purple Dot will probably go 1SW of the cows instead, which gives us more unforested hills to build windmills on. I'm starting to think I might have some sort of windmill fetish. I'm in full agreement on Lime Green.

That makes sense. I was of two minds about that one. I picked that spot for the extra hammer for being on a plains hill, but either way is alright. Remember we will want some lumbermills as well, those plains hills make nice lumbermill spots if we have the food to do it.

I don't like red dot because it feels very exposed. I'll probably think about Mike's dot for expansion to the East, or possible a site to the Southeast of that, but any other cities to the east are going to lengthen our attackable borders considerable and I'd like to keep things more compact. I may use the first settler from San Fran somewhere over here and leave a decision on White Dot for Sirian's turn - since wherever we decide for White Dot, the city won't grow that big, so I'd rather get a larger growing city built sooner.

There is also a settler building at Atlanta, which I did not mention directly. I was thinking that one would most likely go to red dot or some variation in that direction (like perhaps just northish of Mansa's city and grabbing the Corn.)

Incidently, letting San Francisco grow would mean that the settler would be produced more slowly. The most productive unused tile is 1f 1h 3c and we'd lose the food to unhealthiness.

Building a market or a courthouse at San Francisco would be useful though. Personally, I like white dot because it is close and you can get it up and running quickly, with the dyes and incense, it will be paying its way in no time. There are even workers that will be right in place. If you are not going to use the settler up there, I would suggest canceling and building something else (no hammers have gone into settler yet). It does not build settlers nearly as fast as some other cities do.

-Iustus

 

[mike p]

OK. I've got lots of notes for this round, I just hope they're legible.

1520AD I agonize for a while over San Francisco - forge or settler? Eventually go with Forge. We could really use an engineer here.

I see Cyrus is still giving us 5gpt for nothing, so I see if anyone else will up the ante. Liz gives us 6gpt for the asking. I'm a real whore with our friendship.

1523AD St. Louis founded near purple dot, 1SW of cows as mentioned above. I start a forge. There's also no way we're going to convert Mansa Musa, since his five largest cities I saw were all Christian, so I send the missionary to France.

1526AD Our beer fueled workers continue to improve our terrain.

1529AD Still not much going on.

1532AD Mansa founds Islam. Good call Sirian. Miami is founded north of the corn by light blue dot. I didn't stretch all the way to Persia, but did go part way. I left the pigs outside the BFC for another city like so:



I figure we can use the pigs for reddot and farm the grassland so that blue dot can have some bonus food as well. That will give us two reasonable, but not stellar sites.

I also asked Mansa for 9gpt, but he refused.

1535AD Boston completes a settler. I start a catapult since it's the Heroic Epic city and I wanted to leave us stronger than I found us this turnset.

Buffalo is founded on Lime Green, with a missionary close behind to get the borders popped.

I also send our workers near Portland to build a road to the river to the south so that we can hook up trade routes with Russia.

1538AD At 0% science we'd run a deficit, so I order up courthouses in Seattle and Atlanta. Our missionary spreads Buddhism in Paris which also lowers our upkeep some. I'm going to use the Chariot escort to map out more of France and England.

1541AD Boston starts a courthouse after the catapult completes. I drop science to zero to preserve our treasury. The only Civ with any cash on hand to speak of is Mansa and I really want to avoid trading more techs with him if possible.

1544AD New York finishes an Observatory and starts a Market. I also pull a couple of fog busters back home to reduce upkeep.

1547AD Philly builds a market and starts a courthouse.

1550AD Detroit founded on White Dot. Iustus, I wasn't seeing the oasis there, I thought it belonged to SF. I agree it's a much better spot than my suggestion. However, we're probably better off not working the incense (6 commerce) We'll be better off eventually working 2 desert windmills for the same net food cost. (3 commerce and 2 hammers each ultimately).

New Orleans is founded one west of yellow dot to get us more windmills for commerce.

1553AD Boston finishes a courthouse. Sirian will want at least one settler to play with for his turns, so I queue one up. The road to the Volga is complete.

1556AD Check it:


Thanks to foreign trade routes and few courthouses we've jumped to +10gpt at 0% science. Too bad Liz and Mansa have gone to Mercantilism.

I also trade corn to Peter for 3 gpt, Pigs to Fred for 6 gpt and Dye to Toku for 5 gpt. We're back to 20% science and a small deficit. If we can just pop a great prophet our economy will be, let's see, not humming, maybe limping along?

1559AD Nope, it's a great scientist. He'll provide 2794 beakers for education which is probably what we'll use him for, but I leave him alone for now.

1562AD Since San Fran has health issues I trade cows to Fred for deer. The governor in San Fran keeps hiring artists, but I fire them and hire citizens, since we're above the health cap and at the happiness cap.

1565AD There's a hindu missionary about to enter Miami. If he gets in it will only be a matter of time until Cyrus asks us to convert. We don't have trade routes with Cyrus yet so you may want to cancel our open borders.

As far as a destination for our next settler, I was thinking My Red Dot, then Mike's (Green) Dot north of NY, then My Blue Dot. Our old dot map is pretty well filled.

Again, I held off trading with Mansa because I'd like to keep paper to ourselves long enough to get Liberalism - if that's possible.

I also didn't get a chance to build roads towards the city Mansa took from the barbs east of Houston - I doubt it's hooked up to his central cities anyway. Suggest using the chariot in England to find the shortest route to connect with us and get trade possibilities open with the eastern AIs.

Time for a cold one.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Miller_AD-1565.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Liquidated]

rofl sirian wanted a land grab, and lo!!!! a land grab he got.

I'll drink to that!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Sirian]

IT 1565AD: Our empire appears to be secure. A little danger near the capital, but should be fine barring catastrophic dice. Our eastern flank has been spread too thin, militarily, and we would suffer a disaster if struck by the AI on a sneak attack from that direction. I'll try to beef that up a little, but won't be able to get us where we need to be over there. On this round, everybody will want to be mindful of this and either make us stronger over there, or at least not thin us out any farther.

I change most of our cities over to high food configurations, as we have room to grow and good tiles waiting to be worked. New York in particular sees all its specialists fired. ... I know, I know. Tough call to be making, slowing one of our next two great leaders. Let's call it a temporary investment. The city is not that far short of maxing out.

Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Portland, Los Angeles... all set to high food. Philly is the lone exception. I'm going to reconfigure it for no growth, as it is almost nearly maxed already, and use it as a worker/settler pump.


Early turns: not much activity. Waiting on Boston to produce a settler. Waiting on infra or pop growth at most cities. Boston trains its settler about three or four turns in, then sets to work on churning units.


1580AD: Persia arrives to claim the Corn/Pigs region.

We could have gotten the site (I would have settled one plot NE of there) on Mike's turn, with an ambitious grab. Too late now, nothing I could do. The settler from Boston was en route, with workers building roads to save a turn or two, but there was just no way.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Persia might have either settled past us, or on top of us, and either could have gone wrong. In any case, none of the runners up in the immediate area satisfy me, so that settler will be diverted to a new plan.


1586AD: A bold barbarian axeman slays one of our 10XP jumbos. Statistics will catch up with you here and there, eventually. I follow up next turn with our MEDICAL JUMBO to finish off the redlined unit:

I had a three-unit party heading northwest toward the site of future Baltimore, and a whole stream of barbs got in the way. Took out an enemy longbow, warrior, now this axe, and another axe will crash the party before it's over. More on that later.

Mike's Red Dot is a good site, but it's not bold enough. We can lose the game in the next round or so by being too timid. (Remember, by variant rule, we cannot simply "take out" a civ who poaches a spot we wanted. We'll have to get there first, plant our flag first, and make it stick, to get enough land to win this thing on points without being able to attack anybody!)

Strauss did a great job getting Los Angeles up just before we'd have lost the region. So far, that was the most compelling thing we've done to move us toward victory. ... I'm glad that spot caught my eye and I queued up that settler in Atlanta, and built the road through the mountains. Just barely made it in time!


1589AD: The settler that was going to make the bold grab toward Persia instead makes a push toward Russia. A river site with good food, irragable farmlands, and lots of commerce around was too good to pass up.

Fortified location on a hill over the river bend? Fort Benedict Arnold it shall be! (In this alternate history, General Arnold did not get screwed over by the governor of Pennsylvania and turn to the dark side, partly because there was no war, and partly because we made sure NOT TO station him in Philly! )


1592AD: Detroit, which has Taoism, pops its borders solely on the back of GOODNESS!

We also get a freebie spread to St. Louis.

Note the white arrows. I guess I'm the de facto "road engineer" for our empire. Heh. Not going to be able to complete this highway on my round, but it should be operational (and running right through Dark Blue Dot) on Strauss's round.


IBT 1592: The first barbarian horse archer (that I've heard of) discovers that elephants are, in fact, bigger and stronger than horses. Heh.

]

That yellow dot peeking in from the left is Baltimore... in a few more turns.

Thank god we got some ivory. I'd hate to think how nasty this variant would have been without it!

 

[Sirian]

1595AD: We lose the one piece of farmland we had available at Philly:

That will peel two sizes off the top of that city! Arrrgh.


1598AD: Diplomatic overture from Genghis Khan? ... Wow.

We started to reject out of hand, then paused and realized what exactly he was asking for.

Philosophy?!?

"SIT RIGHT DOWN, FRIEND. Let us begin to tell you of our PHILOSOPHY. We call it GOODNESS. Here, have a sip of this cold one."

Several -WEEKS- later, we are done blabbering at the poor man, who walks (er... stumbles) away from the negotiating table a very happy drunkard.

We have spread GOODNESS to a willing neighbor. GENGHIS IS NOW OUR PAL. (Got it?)

Somebody remember to send him a case or two of the High Life before he figures out how to brew his own.

 

[Sirian]

After that spectacular summit with the Mongols, the people in the capital shower me with flowers and affection!

They love the Despot? Oh yeah. Now those are my kind of people.


1601AD: Arrrrrrgh!

The people may love the despot, but the vegetation PRNG gods surely do not. Geeze-o-man.

That one not only wiped out a farm plot, but took the irrigation for two more along with it!


1607AD: Fortune favors the bold. (Cross your fingers!)

ETA: 1670AD


Our scouting chariot scouts out a barbarian stronghold.

That was the last thing he ever saw, but so it goes.

Let's a drink in a toast in their honor.

(Any excuse for a toast, right?)


1610AD: Heh.

OK, some ideas are too bold for fortune's favor.

Sending that lone missionary halfway across the planet... Good plan for smaller map, maybe.


OK, so that's it. I grew some of our best cities two sizes, or nearly. I got Buddhist Missionary up in Chicago. Got Taoist up in Seattle. Got a couple more Buddhist Missionaries in the works. Got West Point and Baltimore settled in bold locations. I trained two new workers. Got most of the "Southeast Expressway" built. Another settler is almost ready and two more got queued up. Made friends with Khan. Discovered Banking and almost all of Monotheism. Beefed our military slightly.

Now time for the DotMap(TM)-ing.

 

[Sirian]

"Sirian? what are all these new colored markings on your maps?"

"Those represent DotMap(TM) technology version 3.01a."

"Um... yeah. Whatever that means."

OK, so here we go.

At the top of the map we have the Gray Dots.

Light Gray, on the left, has one high food tile (circled in pink), four "break even" plots (circled in green), and four "one food" plots, circled in yellow. This site can max out at size 10 with one specialist, if all plots are improved.

Dark Gray, on the right, lacks high food plots. It will be a painfully slow grower and MUST do Granary first. (Actually, I forgot to mention that I pretty much vetoed whatever Mike and Iustus had new cities doing if it wasn't a Granary First. Although St. Louis was too far along to switch). Dark Gray has NINE water plots, one green hill, and three 1-food plots (when it can support only two max!). The yellow dot is a forest that can be swapped in instead of a windmill when the city is urgently trying to complete something, like a granary or courthouse.


Here we have the new White and Light Blue dots.

These are backfill, and at the moment probably neither is urgent.

New Light Blue is Mike's Red. Assuming forests don't overgrow the farmlands, it has four plots that can ultimate provide surplus food. This site could max out at about size 14, I think.

New White is a subpar site. Like Old White, it's not got the best potential, but the Oasis and the one farmland can feed three windmills, while the city center tile can feed two more. Plus there are five flatland forests. So this city could max out at about size 12? Eventually?


So far, none of these four sites is urgent. Just throwing them out there, if you should happen to have a settler to spare in this direction.


Now to the front line in the west:

New Green Dot is surely the most endangered dot on my maps. Only the one high food site with the pigs. That can feed three 1-food plots, though. LOTS of green circles in that city radius: open hills, flat forests, dry-farm plains.

Dark Green is a sad little site, but thanks to clearing the forest we settle ON, we can chain irrigation to the iron clearing and support four extra 1-food tiles, eventually. This site is more about improving our score than anything else. However, it's got to be grabbed soon or not at all, as the Persian Corn City will be throwing its cultural weight around before much longer.

 

[Sirian]

Now for the most important dot on the map. (You know what color it will be, right? ... Right?)

If we can get to New Pink Dot(TM) and hold it...
...I think we can carve out that entire region for ourselves if we hustle.

If Peter gets to it first, HE will be the one carving off a whole region...
...cutting us from anything to the south or west of that site.

If you aren't going to go for the Green Dots, then for sure make a beeline to Pink.
In either case, we should have Pink settled by the end of Tatran's round...
...if we want to make a bold statement about who's going to win this game.


East of NPD, there is a choice to be made (or to be made for us).
I've drawn up Indigo Dot (really reaching deep here to come up with more colors!) in the best single location.
If Greece is threatening to settle in that area, or already cities down there that mess with my dots...
...or if we have no hope of getting two settlers down there, Indigo is what to grab.

However, the Hot Pink Dot Twins are a stronger play, I think.
If we can get three settlers down there and sweep all three pink dots...
...that may be enough land to put us in the lead.

We would then only have to worry about an AI being swallowed via warfare.
Well, that and being attacked, of course.

 

[Sirian]

In the northeast, I've moved Red Dot to New Red Dot, which grabs both Corn and Cows:

New Orange Dot would grab the Stone!

New Yellow is a commerce poor SOB, but land is land. Points are points. If we get our other eight or ten more urgent sites, we can grab this one, too.


Brickyard-Red Dot and Polka Dot. (Bet you don't see those dot colors every day!)

THANK GOD THE TORTURE IS ALMOST OVER!

Brickyard-Red is behind the cultural curve already, but we can still grab it if we hustle. (Maybe the settler from SanFran, almost finished, should go here?)

If we don't get Brickyard-Red Dot, we'll be cut off from the Red Dot Region, across the mountains from Atlanta, except by mountain road from NYC via Mike's Dot.


Finally, the unsettled interior:

There it is, the old familiar Dark Blue Dot. Some day, we will actually settle there. I swear it!

Oh, and for those familiar with Cuban Isolationists, my "late game" dotmapping efforts would not be complete without a Black Dot. Yes, the sorriest dot on the map, the one to save for dead last. (I mean it. DEAD LAST!)

 

[Sirian]

DotMap(TM) overviews, with Mike's Dot in brown.

Hot Pink Twins configuration:

Indigo Loner configuration:

The West:

The East:

 

[Sirian]

Oh One More Thing(TM)...

I spotted this trade possibility on final review, and went for it:

Our military, such as it is:

I did not use up our scientist.

We might be wise, once Mono is finished, to swap to Education, use the scientist, and push for Liberalism, which we can then use on either Nationalism (growth choice) or Gunpowder (safety/military choice). Probably Nationalism, since that would also enable the draft. We could draft frickin longbows if we had to in a pinch!


OK, I'm off on holiday to Mongolia. Genghis wants to learn even more about philosophy!





- Sirian


EDIT: HAHA! File is too big to be attached. (Silly Rabbit, Trix are for Kids! )

1 sec...

OK, CLICK HERE to download the save.

Leave it to me to break something by coloring outside the lines.


EDIT #2... Er... I said "Buddhist Missionary" where I meant to say Monastary. I built MONASTARIES. (Woops. Blaming that on Drunken Stupor!)

 

[Strauss]

I see it, and will play in the afternoon when I've finally figured out all those colors and lines and circles Sirian drew.

 

[Liquidated]

sigh, that pokadot dot is the stuff of nightmares....

Think I'd better have a pint or 4 before bed.

alternate lurking spam: hot pink(s) looks like the way to go first. wait there cannot be two hot pinks, say the scalding pink and the merely hot pink.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[mike p]

That's quite a dot map. I hope none of us are color blind!

I think the message is starting to sink in. Expansion above all since we won't warmonger. Hard to say what the balance is between too risky and too conservative in city placements.

Since we can't go to Organized Religion, Monotheism will only allow us to trade for Divine Right, which has wonders we can't afford, Theology, which opens up Theocracy which we can't use, and which is one path, if memory serves, for Paper, which we already have. What am I missing here?

IMO, research priorities should be Education (use the GS), Liberalism (assuming we're there first), and then whatever will best get us to Replaceable Parts and Electricity.

Also, just a reminder, New Orange Dot's stone shouldn't be quarried. Not sure if Sirian's was meant as a warning to that effect or not.

It does appear that while we are currently second in score, we have room to expand in nearly all direction still while Mansa is bumping up against France, England, and Mongolia. Let's keep it up.

 

[Sullla]

Oh, and for those familiar with Cuban Isolationists, my "late game" dotmapping efforts would not be complete without a Black Dot. Yes, the sorriest dot on the map, the one to save for dead last. (I mean it. DEAD LAST!)

Woo hoo, the return of Black Dot! But where are Santa Rosa and Saint Bob?