novice has moved his archer to have a look around, and now he knows there is a gold tile here. He might have known before, but TBH I think that he would probably have settled for it before now if he had known that. I expect novice to move his archer underneath my chariot, and then onto the gold to have another look around. There isn’t really anything I can do to stop him.

I am going to move a chariot down to this area from around AC, plus the axe from RYD and one of the warriors that are lying about. The archer that was fog busting will also move over to sit on the City 8 sign. The warrior will fog bust the City 7 area, the chariot will move into the City 8 tile beforehand to backup the archer before the city is founded, and then loiter back on the road network to provide zone coverage and the axe will join the chariot once it is built. I kinda want a second archer to sit in the front city, in the city 8 location, as 2 archers in that city is just a bitch to deal with short of a proper stack, and Pindicator is still dealing with Serdoa. I’d actually leave the archer between SBA and hte city 8 location to provide zone coverage. I like zone coverage. Means I don’t need to build as many military units and can respond to new plans quickly.

The southern archer will scout out a few fogged tiles prior to moving onto the hill; I’m aware there may be a barb axe about, which is why the archer will move 177 onto the windmill hill.

Thoth is focusing on getting happiness and fixing his ailing GNP in one fell swoop. Borders popped for Phlub. He actually needs more units than that axe/spear pair to threaten the city 5 location and defend Phlat, otherwise I may have an opening to raze a city or two. If he tried to be aggressive, well, that would definitely be an opening without additional units. We’ll see how he plays it out. Though TBH, I think forcing him to focus on building units would actually favour me slightly provided I didn’t take too many losses…if I do plan to attack him in 30 turns, making him weaker for said attack could be useful.

Simply plans, next turn move 9 provided no barbs are around, T79 move either 9 or 3 to make contact depending on if there is a city settled for that wet wheat. Then go find some more stuff to pillage for gold until a barb kills the warrior, and offer a map trade to scooter.

Either build something for 5 turns to grow to size 8 whilst working the farm rather than the lumber mill, or build a 6 turn worker, and steal the pig afterwards to grow quickly to size 6. Either is legit IMO. That would mean I’d finish either a barracks, not that useful, or an unpromoted spear or axe, or an archer to fog bust with. I do need a worker to finish that final cottage, which means that I have to look at the rest of my worker MM (and growth patterns in RYD for the pig) before making this decision. I’m leaning towards the worker TBH, even though it’s not perfect MM (make 11 production per turn in current set up). If I went with the archer though, I’d have to finagle the pig with RYD to grow one turn sooner to size 8 and then build a worker.

Slave next turn, then either finish the axe with a good chunk of overflow, or go straight for hte granary. If I go for hte granary, I am fairly sure I’ll lose some hammers already invested into the axe due to decay. Could be really aggressive and slave the granary as well…because GtR needs a mine if it builds an archer, as it grows to size 8 a bit quicker, the hill helps finish the worker built at size 8 (GtR grows before unhappiness wears off so needs to build a worker to not lose food). Need to figure how to improve that sugar without losing workers to chariot snipes as well…

RYD can grow every 2 turns to size 7, by which time the whip unhappy has worn off. Howwever, if it gives the pig up to GtR, it would have to give the pig up no later than T81. This is a link to a rough spreadsheet showing the food and hammers produced by RYD under two growth scenarios, where GtR is given the pig on T81. The Hammers produced, which I think is the best measurement for comparing the scenarios, shows that fast growth is better, but that doesn’t consider that the high hammers scenario allows AC to work several tiles for long, which would actually make up that deficit. So I’m going with the higher hammers option, which involves stagnating growth for a single turn, and also front loads the majority of the hammers.

Measuring the food produced doesn’t really help comparing scenarios, it’s better to compare the output of a city than the input, which could be hammers produced over a given time frame (the growth period), the time taken to produce a GP (ie what turn it finishes) or other results orientated measures.

axe finishes eot T78, then finishes up to 96 hammers worth of units by eot T85. That’s basically 3 archers over 6 turns, or 2 spears/axes and then stagnation and can built workers or settlers as well. Settlers require a bit of tile swapping to be efficient, and also need 4 hammers of overflow for 3 turns builds. Depending on if the overflow is an odd or even number I also micro the ivory tile between AC and RYD so that the multiplier on the settler hammers isn’t wasted. Sitting at size 7 does mean that the sugar tile isn’t worked, although I’ll want to pick that up to feed the plains hill, because I have to rely on lower yield tiles to feed the mines it’s less productive on a per pop basis. So I could decide to just grow to size 10 rather than size 9 to use two grassland tiles to feed that plains hill…and settle a northern city to split that sugar tile off to for a bit longer. Provided I don’t whip such a city, that sugar would be plenty to make it useful to me. Thoughts for the future.

Also, smart people will realize I adjusted the city set up for this turn, form a grass mine onto a grass farm; that’s because saving an additional 2 food in the granary on growth effectively makes the grass farm a 4 yield tile for the next 2 turns.

Work the plains cottage next turn for no overflow form the settler for efficiency. After that, probably going for a worker as I do need to improve tiles for AC; RYD will steal the ivory and one mine on T85. It’s not quite a 4 turn worker, but I’d overflow out 11 hammers. So plus that forest chop that’s a possible library double whip, as I said several turns ago, and nothing has really occurred to change that plan. I can whip a library on T85, the turn I have to give up the tiles to RYD anyway, that would mean I could overflow out at least 18 hammers. If I could steal the sheep for a turn, I could then 1 pop slave out another worker eot T87 to leave AC at size 2 with no less than 4 improved tiles (2 of them cottages).

No change to the plan here, I MUST get an Academy in GtR, so this city has to get it whist GtR focuses on growing the cottages. Library slaved T81, I could give the sheep up on T82 and work 1 scientist and still grow to size 3 to then work a second scientist, but that doesn’t actually help the GS eta. it’s just as good to use the sheep on T82 and give it up T83, that gives an eta of eot T99. Growing to size 4 would give an eta of eot T100 though. I think, anyway. I have a knack for screwing up GP timings.

Working 2 scientists on T83 at size means it takes 4 turns to grow to size 4, so growing to size 4 first means I delay the GS by 1 turn (and hence the Academy by 1 turn) but SBA isn’t totally crippled for growth. Delaying the GS by 1 turn doesn’t really matter for tech purposes, as I can save gold for a turn longer and get the same beaker output, just delayed slightly, but it does matter if it affects my ability to build units such as HA to go kill people. This is linked to my current research ability and gold banked. I can get Calendar finished eot 86, maybe eot T85, with less than 50 gold saved, and probably closer to 15g saved. That means I’d probably have to either save gold until T103 when I could restart research, or I saved enough gold for about 4 turns of deficit, 100% research. Which with me settling a bunch of new cities is going to jump from about 26gpt to at least 40gpt IMO. That would take me until around about T92-ish, maybe T94 to be pessimistic.

So really, growing SBA to size 4 or not doesn’t really affect the HBR research date decision; if I get Calendar, either suck it up and get HBR earlier without the Academy, or I wait around 12 turns to get it with the Academy. I’m…still going to get Calendar first, so I suppose I’ll have to wait about 15 turns to make that decision then.

Everyone still hates me.