T37 the warrior uncovered a grassland lumber mill. Good tile? Not that great, 2/1/2, decent if you need a bit of commerce but not worth settling a third city for, or even popping borders for.So on T38 I need to move the warrior 3 onto the grass hill to see what a city for hte rice could grab. frankly, if copper were there, Id have no problem settling such a city. horse? Eh….maybe. beyond that, I’m not oging to list an exhaustive list of what I’d settle for.

T37 slaved the worker. One of hte advantages of slaving hte worker is that I don’t actually have to build a settler next turn…I can still 1 turn a fourth worker, use 1 worker to improve the horse, and 2 workers to chop the two northern forests for the third settlers, if I have to delay a bit to get the warrior back into position.

That’s what I thought at the time. It’s actually total bollocks. Slaving that worker was a stupid move. So was sending off one of my only 2 warriors.

This is the turn where I realize that the previous 4 turns have been misplayed horribly, and whilst I’d love to blame real life, that’s not an acceptable excuse at all. The mistake was somewhat fundamental and I’ve actually explained it in an earlier turn report.

Because can’t regrow GtR to size 3 prior to the chop arriving, the best way to delay the settler and not lose productivity was to not slave this turn. I could continue to grow GtR, because if I didn’t grow the city prior to the slave I wouldn’t pay the extra food to gain that additional pop point (growing from size 3>4 costs 28 food. I could fill the food box to 27/28, then slave, and I’d still only pay 26 food for the new pop point). I’d also gain the productivity from working a 4 yield tile for several more turns, speeding up the warriors which I lack and need. I could have overflowed 8 hammers out of the worker T37, taken the chop without the slave to get the settler to 60/100 and competed with a 1 pop slave at a moments notice. GtR can grow for 3 turns without making a new pop point, 18 hammers total produced in that time for a new warrior. And if I did grow GtR to size 4, I only needed 1 chop and the normal production to get the settler. This is just better than getting a fourth worker now, because that delays the third settler significantly unless I spend almost every remaining forest (and a further 1 pop! so still have a size 2 capital!) to get it T44. And I’d still get no additional warriors in that time frame. It’s horrible MM. The right move here was definitely to not slave. I fucked this up, and frankly it’s been damage control ever since.

As an aside, I’m fairly sure a lot of people wouldn’t view this as quite so dramatic, but when you chase perfection…those “small” mistakes are what you have to eradicate to improve. Maybe I can rectify it…

I dumped the overflow from the barracks into a warrior. Obviously I don’t really want a scout, not with barb warriors around, and barb animals being replaced by said warriors, and I will not be able to complete a worker or settler for a long time yet. That I need warriors is just a happy coincidence (or perhaps it’s part of why I thought the early slave wasn’t so bad, who knows).

Bumpkiss.