90 - Sachsens Glanz und Miguelustens Gloria

[Zocker99]

I take 2.)

[Papa Bear]

I'll go with 1.) I like shrines

[klops]

Hmm... well...

5?


(Would be helpful to see more of the surrounding world and possible future settlements )

[Miguelito]

Ich möchte an der Stelle obligatorisch meinen Hass dem werten Herrn Sid gegenüber ausdrücken.

We may have won a coinflip there



So with regards to tech, if even Rusten supports the shrine plan, in addition to then that's what we're going to do. The question then is how much we prioritize that galley, or maybe even delay it for afterwards (ie, axe whip OF into galley or already the temple). Need to math this out a bit yet.
Fun fact: In all the 5 games I've played (including this one) I've always founded my own religion (PB59 is a bit ambiguous ), but never managed to build a shrine. So another great reason to do it here.


This isn't lovely, but necessary. No good way to save more forests for the capital either. Next turn we can swap the ugly plains for a coast, and the turn after with the deer back we come out at 40 hammers.


I'm chopping the wrong forest . Kneejerk move: Before uncovering the inland it made sense to do so, in order to plant a grassland cottage afterwards. But with more grassland available it would've been better to keep the 2/1/0 standing.
I think it's best to send the worker to chop and cottage the riverside grassland immmediately afterwards, since with Fin the riverside cottage is just so much better, even if it means we work bare grassland for 4 additional turns.
My idea is to have an axe at at least 5h so it's whippable, but at size 4 whip out a lighthouse, which is probably better than a worker short/mid term? Or go straight for a settler?


klops asked for exploration results, so here is what we've found on the Leipzig continent:

Corn is nice, but they were really stingy with the seafood . Debating dots a and b. Always wise to place coastal cities on hills, in particular when there's an opposing coast 3 tiles away which near certainly will not be ours*. On the other hand, a has 4 more juicy Fin coast tiles while losing... an ice tiles, and 3 shared green tiles. The latter is actually quite relevant, and what tiltes the scales towards b for me (also, we would probably not control all of a's BFC coast tiles).
There's jungle over the channel, but no borders visible. Ice to the south. I suspect that the southern coast of this landmass is the equivalent to the coast that we see to the north of our starting island.

*or maybe I'm wrong. This map is big. Nearly 150 tiles per player, on top of all that water. Maybe this is some PB59 style jungled midpoint island?


In foreign news, more reason for concern:

Not only has Plemo three cities and oracled CoL, he's also leading the whip counter, by a margin of 2 pop. Which means that he has the food base for it, and I can't imagine that he has granaries already (maybe the latest whips are those however). That's on top of his fast chops! We were late to the party, and by turn 61 will increase our count by 5. But who should be ahead here with starts tailored for leaders is someone like Cyrus or Genghis Khan or Brennus, not Asoka .

Continuing with city names, at much lower effort (because Dresden was where I happen to live, so evidently I had more to say about it):

Meißen used to be the center of the region during medieval times. It had the first bishop in the area, propagating the christianization of the locals (so... somewhat fitting that we have it as our holy city? Although we're trying to get people to venerate as many gods as possible). It then lost relevance when Dresden became capital, and today it's a nice little town half an hour downstream from Dresden, which was the main reason to name the in game city after it.
Also it's famous for being the first place in Europe to produce porcelain, and the manufactury till this day produces prestigeous and sillily expensive cups.

Lovely sight, and actually for the first century and half they placed the manufactury inside the castle.

Übrigens, wir können hier gerne deutsch reden. Ich bin eh zu faul, die Diskussion zurück zu spiegeln. Rusten versteht uns sogar auch

[Miguelito]

Eine Woche hier nicht geschrieben, und dabei ist viel passiert. Runde 60:

If going for a shrine I would recommend having some good hammer tiles in the shrine city. You do want a market, grocer and bank in there plus Wall Street later

Uh... have you seen Meißen? It's not like we have much choice there. I mean, we could leave two or three tiles uncottaged and build farms or workshops there, but else there's not much we could do. Well, Moai... it's a decidedly subpar destination, but we haven't seen anything much better yet (Dresden is, but not stellar either). The prophet point would be helpful I suppose. But I'm not seriously considering it yet.

PBS last night had Rick Steve in Saxony and they showed Augustus's ABSURD porcelain collection.

The history as related on Wikipedia is also quite wild: Apparently there was an alchemist going around proclaiming that he had managed to turn clay to gold - and Augustus proceeded by promptly locking him into a castle tower until he would do just that. When that didn't quite wokr, they assigned him to a mathematician who was trying to make porcelain - and a week after the latter died, the alchemist, having been handed the recipe had figured out how to run the process and successfully produced porcelain.


Wrt the game, lighthouse in Leipzig after the terrace? We could even 1pop whip it after chopping the riverside grassland, but that might be a bit harsh on the happy cap, 6 turns after the terrace whip.
Also yes, we're working a bare grassland there. I think it's better than a plains forest, although if we want to slowbuild the lighthouse I might be mistaken. Hm yeah actually I think we slowbuild the lighthouse, which should take less than ten turns after the terrace.
Or should we really rather queue an axe and just whip the lighthouse for 2? Sorry for stream of conciousness.

For now I'll swap to plains forest, as it would enable an earlier slowbuilt lighthouse. The damage should be minimal.


Später dann noch:

Quick plan for Leipzig: slowbuild lighthouse, whip a settler on t77 for 3 pop. Meanwhile the city rakes in tons of coastal commerce. The 17 turns gap between two whips seems suboptimal of course, but we don't really have a good 2pop whip target. Whipping the settler for 2 pop is 2 turns faster, but loses out on commerce. Possibly still better?

The island will be busy between the temple and a worker for the north (and one for itself eventually?), so it can't provide much support to expansion in the SW, but maybe an axe.

[Miguelito]

Turn 62 - we're not alone!
It's late and I'm reasonably drunk, but this is too interesting, after spending 61 turns in quarantine:

north:

Pretty sure this is naufragar's Ottomen. Doesn't look like Aztec green to me. No easy snack for sure, and he has a tendency to engage in game long vendettas, so don't give him a reason until we're well aheead. I think contacting him with the galley makes sense. Probably better without him seeing it, although the ICTR would also be delicious. But there is some chance that he'll want to destroy our settlement on this landmass before it's established, so it will be better to avoid him for the while being. Might need to worry about chariots.

south:

Oh dear . This is Plemo, god of civ incarnate, with CoL powered Asoka. Obviously the silverdeer hill has top priority, and assuming we get it that then pretty much settles the border. We'll settle another city by the corn (all 3 very tight, but what can you do), and the rest beyond the ice is his. Interestingly, the northern landmass doesn't seem to have a clear natural separation of spheres of influence like we see here.
Anyways, with the corn city we can look towards the jungle coast.
If we're unlucky he got Confucianism with that city (he's at 4 as of this turn *, and I don't know if he got Buddhism as well), in which case it would get 3rd ring borders shortly. We can also plan for a chariot rush from the fog?

* actually I think what we see is the one that he just founded. The quechua was on the forest 1W last turn, and would have noticed the borders touching the ice hill.

Both landmasses will need armies, but that was unavoidable, and I don't think that ceding one to concentrate on the other is a viable approach.

Decisions:

1. make contact with naufragar?
2. offer him OB (in case he has Writing)?
3. hide the galley for him, or move forward in order to see more of his land?
4. Make contact with Plemo?
5. Chariot rush him?

my tendency is 1 yes, 2 yes although, why would he accept, so no, 3 no, 4 no, 5 no because I'm a chicken.

Sandboxing's over, finally!

[Miguelito]

Nachbesprechung:

I don't think we have the setup for a chariot rush, we're already a little behind in development after favouring economy.

1) Yes, probably. Good to get EP on him.
2) Yes.
3) Trade routes will make a big difference. He's incentivised to accept as he'll also get better routes (I'm assuming everyone starts on islands).
4) No.
5) No.

I agree with settling silver deer ASAP. Packing the cities tight is ok with FIN coast.

We don't even have horses, do we?

We don't even have AH yet , so no way to tell. No animals in sight either, so we'd throw a bunch of commerce into a gamble just to know

[Miguelito]

Runde 63

Plemo made the decision for us, and found us with an axe (he cannot have seen our borders, but it doesn't take a genius, which he is, anyways)

So he offered OB. There can't be a trade connection yet, but I would not mind being friendly with him.

The problem however is that we don't have an axe on that landmass yet (positions are after moving, although the Quechua on the hill can move yet, but I really think he should stay put). If he advances the axe it will mess with our micro very much, and we'll have to whip

1. either the axe in Leipzig (can be ready t66)
2. and/or galley -> axe instead of the temple in Meißen (can unload t67)
3. actually we can also upgrade a Quechua, one of which might be promotable to shock next turn

I'm leaning towards 1., as it's faster and it doesn't mess with the precious sandcastle. It does however delay the settler further, and that sounds very wrong. Maybe 3 is best, as we'd invest commerce (a lot of it, but it's not immediately needed) over foodhammers which we are terribly starved for (see below), and we'd also get a promoted unit.

Which brings me back to whether to accept OB or not - accepting signals friendship, but it also invites him to move his axe towards us, which I don't want him to do. But honestly, he most likely will move up anyways, unless he needs that axe for barb screening.

We want to work that riverside forest tile. We can cover it with both quechuas, and finish a road by t66 (would have been better to move on it this turn, and finish the other road later). Delaying the chop doesn't matter much. If he moves his axe onto that tile he can't do teleporting shenanigans by house rules:

Das Beamen von Einheiten ist erlaubt, aber wer das Beamen auslöst (Grenzen schließt, Krieg erklärt) darf seine gebeamten Einheiten in dieser Runde nicht mehr bewegen. Einheiten, die von anderen Spielern gebeamt werden, behalten ihre Bewegungspunkte.

-> the person who triggers teleporting by closing borders or declaring war is not allowed to move their teleported units in the same turn.

Mechanics question: If he's on the riverside forest together with our units, and he then declares war by moving into our territory, can he do so or will he get teleported first? Fwiw we're player ID 8 and he has 9, so in neutral land I think he should get teleported?

If the above triggers a teleport, then his most dangerous move would be onto the forest 2SW of Leipzig, where the Quechua currently is. But we'd have the axe whippable in time, as long as we play second. I guess the lighthouse in Leipzig gets postponed for the time being . The border pop comes eot 66 fwiw.

We also made contact in the other direction:

The screenshot should show everything. We'll have a calm border for the time being, with both cities getting their full 2nd rings. He has been around for a while, with 2 ressources improved; apparently it's his 3rd city. The liberate sign also indicates that the city is closer to us than him, right? Well there's nothing that we could do about it atm. Hopefully we get the other silver.

I offered OB and advanced the galley; my plan is to establish the trade connection and then turn so he doesn't feel threatened. It would also be nice to find more people behind him, but I think a workboat later on will be better for that purpose, can't really spare the galley right now.

I also checked KTB, but at max commerce I can only see when both have the same tech. Besides Writing this is the case for AH. So actually we have to watch out for chariots .


bad bad bad. It's going to improve next turn with city #4 and its immediate fish, but still. A lot of 4th cities have been founded recently, btw, including Hagen/civac founding two in one turn .


So, decisions:

1. Reoffer OB to Plemo?
2. Postpone the temple for a galley/axe, or let Leipzig defend itself?
3. We could also send the worker to chop somewhere safer, like 2N. I wanted to place a cottage on that river, but maybe that should not be a priority rn.
4. Queue a spear somewhere? Don't think so tbh.

[Papa Bear]

If your and his unit are on the same tile and he declares on you, his unit will be teleported away.

[Miguelito]

If your and his unit are on the same tile and he declares on you, his unit will be teleported away.

Gilt das auch, wenn die Kriegserklärung durch Rechtsklick in unser Gebiet erfolgt (und er das Feld mit unseren Einheiten dadurch verlassen würde)?
Egal, die Lage hat sich eh verändert:


This stings.
On the upside, Plemo pulled his axe back. Either he isn't attacking for now, or he's calling in the chariots.


We founded the next city!
Turn 64, 4 cities, 1 worker, 3 granaries/terraces... that has to be a record of some sort?
The worker for poor Chemnitz will take some time yet to be whippable, although I think he will chop before maths (or will he? Possibly we just whip the terrace at size 3 or so ).
The barbarian city could be keepable, if we don't want to make Chemnitz into something as silly as a double food city. Razing would also enable a cape city 2SW of it. I feel like probably a free settler trumps that, unless maybe if we orphan seafood? Anyways, I don't feel like risking our single axe right now, considering that naufragar will already be seeing our borders bleed in from the fog, so it will take some time.

Speaking of:

Ankara is in pretty great shape already, with a granary and both these improved tiles (why did he not connect the silver?). It being on this side of the ice also confirms that it's a mild pink dot. Nothing we can or rather should do about that atm, or within the next 30 turns.
Naufragar hasn't played yet. Hopefully he sees the great business that our trade routes will give him and accepts OB instead of engaging in fruitless warring.
PB 64 spoiler:

Achtung Spoiler:

He recently did a very reasonable move splitting land with Commodore towards his own slight disadvantage, and only tilted when he felt he was getting boxed in. But here it's him doing the inboxing, so I actually don't expect early aggression. Mid game it's likely, as I can imagine him feeling at a long term disadvantage against Fin, and he may want to strike while Imp and some bulbs have him ahead. It's gonna be tough.

In Meißen I went with the plan and whipped the temple over galley/axe. I may come to regret it, but you need to aim high in these games, right?

[Miguelito]

Keeping the barb city sounds like a fantastic pickup, assuming you can get a second axe over there before they start building better defenders. Good call on the temple, you are right about aiming high!

I would recommend capturing barb city unless it is horribly placed. Also the faster you can get it done the better, I would try to get another axe there soon

Thanks, and of course both of you are right. However, I find myself scrambling to just meet basic needs of security and expansion. And things get ever more complicated:

Ari of the Aztecs. Cons: he was at 5 cities before we had even four (and the next wave is a long way to go yet), he's Agg, on Civforum they told me that he used to be an excellent player. Pro: Monty of Aztecs should be manageable if we make it past t150?

KTB tells me that he has AH but no other tech that we don't have ourselves, including Writing - which I turned up research for this turn.

This also makes it likely that on each overseas-split-by-ice-landmasses there are at least 3 adjacent civs.


Meanwhile naufragar reoffered OB (thrice ). He also whipped the city that we theoretically were threatening with the (empty) galley, which I pulled back anyways. If it was a unit, just hope that he doesn't send it our way. At least he has no horses connected yet. What he does have is gems on top of his unconnected but mined silver .

Also something funky's up with the trade routes:

My theory:

Achtung Spoiler:

So we get trade routes in our island cities from nauf's 2 most recently founded cities, while the capital and second city won't give us any, and our two cities founded off the island stay with domestic routes. What does that mean?

1. It means that Leipzig and Chemnitz are on the same landmass, which they'd share with all the naufragarian cities. This would mean that nauf didn't start on an island, but the tech thread and expansion pace as observed on PBspy indicated that everybody did. I would still believe it being so, if not for the fact that we got routes to the most recent cities instead of the older ones.
2. We found a connection to Ankara, and consequently can also trade with Bursa which we can't see yet but might be on the same landmass and connected, but somehow his first 2 cities are not connected to the network, assumedly due to being on another landmass? I can't quite wrap my head around it, because obviously naufragar has his landmasses connected. So what is the rule for trading with cities that haven't been uncovered yet?
3. It's just a fluke of how trade routes were calculated upon me accepting OB, and next turn we'll have all four of them.

Also yes, that's a bare grassland that we're working, and it's still better than a plains forest
In more painful assignments, I recruited the prophet in Meißen from the village (am I overdoing it there? But I already whipped the temple, makes little sense to do so and then not work towards the prophet)

[Miguelito]

Weird thing happened. I did not finish a build in Dresden and two turns ago I had an axe queued, getting to 4/35 as of last turn. This turn I find the queue empty and get a prompt to select a build. The 4h from last turn went poof, apparently. The thing is, I can't think of a way to empty a build queue even accidentally outside of finishing a build without a follow up or losing a resource (and even then it would always default to the resourceless unit and we can't have lost copper even in the weirdest scenario). Anybody got an idea what happened? If it's a bug, of course I would love to get the 4 hammers, although I can see that it's hard for the refs to figure out what's up. Mostly I want to understand how this came about.

I didn't take a shot because I only fully realized what happened after reselecting the axe, and the resulting screen isn't very informative.

Also, anyybody have an opinion regarding the weird trade routes (last post)? Of course you can't give map spoilers, but 3. isout as ofthis turn, and 1. and 2. both seem to have inconsistencies, so am I wrong on some mechanic?

[Lord of the Civ]

Das ist in der Tat sehr komisch.

Was ist denn mit dem angebauten BT hinter der Axt in der Baureihenfolge passiert? Auch weg?

[Leser]

Das mit der Axt ist seltsam.
Evtl. können dir die verschwundenen Hämmer ja reineditiert werden um den Fehler wiedergutzumachen. Auf deinem Screenshot oben von Runde 65 sieht man ja, dass die Axt in Dresden 4 Hämmer intus hat. Sofern diese Runde 65 nicht alzulange her ist könnte das ja als Beleg ausreichen.

[Rob Anybody]

Wenn die Axt insgesamt mehr als 10 Runden zurückgestellt war, ist es normal wenn 4 nach 2 Runden verfallen.