[SPOILERS] scooter's thread

[scooter]

So on T27, my settler was in production:



Delhi is a nice city. Mack beat me to city2:



This means he just went 1 worker and 1 settler. Not a terrible choice. Will be interesting to see who comes out ahead as I have a bonus (fast) worker. T29 I moved and settled the city:



And then I realized Mack beat me to Poly:



Sigh. So I swapped to Meditation. He's probably rushing for Oracle.

[scooter]

I'm enjoying this game and reporting. I really like the map too!

Me too. This map is pretty close to exactly how I would've drawn it up had I had my choice. Fun game and good pace.

[scooter]

Quick look at T34 layout:



I covered my fast worker 1SE of Bombay because it's possible Mack is on the fogged tile SE-SE with an Impi. I'm chopping both of these border forests ASAP just so I don' thave to deal with Impi on a forest. Also, that'll get me the granary.

Delhi just whipped a granary. It's at the happy cap with whip + empty city, so I'm timing it to hit size 4 with an axe finishing. It can also quickly get a warrior after that for MP, so I can move the axe up. After that I'll try to crank a couple of settlers and get a land advantage. I see that mass of forests up north - tempting to settle up there and chop out Pyramids. We'll see. Pyramids with FIN seems odd - but this capital really is equipped to run a hybrid. Plus, denying it to Mackoti would be HUGE. Still thinking about that. Been watching the demos and he has not built a second Impi, so I can safely assume it's just one coming after me. It's possible he sends it the southern route around the bottom of the lake, but that would be MUCH easier to deal with honestly because he wouldn't interfere with any tiles. So I doubt he does that.

[scooter]

I'm betting Mack is actually going for Oracle -> Metal Casting to open up Colossus. This would make a lot of sense as it would let him "tie" me on the water tiles, negating a big advantage of mine. I'm planning a site that I can chop out a wonder easily, but what I'm still torn about is if I challenge him for Oracle or if I go for Pyramids instead. Thankfully, I don't really need to decide quite yet. He also beat me to 3 cities. Not too concerned about that - my cities are better developed so it's kind of a wash.

[scooter]

Okay, few pictures from the last half dozen turns. NExt turn after I left off, I got the forests chopped in peace:



Mack eventually brought his Impi forward (Shock promoted. Oops. Shouldn't have let him kill my warrior after all), but then ran away when he saw my axe - and then I got a second border pop from holy city culture. Fast forward to T37 - I have horse:



Very nice. At that point, Mack got his 3rd:



But had clearly whipped himself to do so. Demos at that point:



Then on T40, got sailing:



Lighthouses will be useful for me. Then it was my turn to do some whipping:



So here I am at T40 dumping whip overflow into Lighthouses here while growing after whipping settler + worker. Both cities have granaries. City settled next turn, so I'll be 3 cities and 3 workers. That site there has 6 forests to chop, grass sheep, and 3 FIN coasts. Also can probably use the corn later. So it's quite strong. I'll chop a wonder here.

[scooter]

Yeah so the save has been with Mack for 3 days. Commodore sort of semi-poked me about this game, so I figured I'd update to let you know it hasn't been moving, but give you a better idea of what may be happening soon. I'm anxious to get going on this game again. Basically, here's what Mack is planning:

1) Oracle Metal Casting
2) Build Forge, run engineer for a few to pop a GE (he is Phi/Agg)
3) Engineer rush Pyramids
4) Build Colossus whenever he gets to it (copper)

(I obviously don't know for sure, but I think it's very highly likely)

If he succeeds at #1, he likely would also succeed at #2-4. That would be enough for him to win probably. Not sure how far away he is from Oracle, but I've got one advantage in that I have Fast Workers. Because I have Marble, I need 3 forests chops (13 * 3 * 2 => 76h) and then 22h worth of normal production which is 4T while working a forest hill. Or I could chop a 4th forest, but I'm not sure that's feasible for me at the moment. So we'll see how quickly I can get it. His Impi is sort of feinting towards the city too, so that'll be boatloads of fun. Oddly enough, I think this game will come down to whoever lands Oracle. Kinda lame actually, but that's the way it works. Tend to think he probably has the lead on Oracle (got Hindu first for instance) which is a bit annoying.

[scooter]

We played our first turns in almost 2 weeks today. Unfortunately, Mack used his Impi perfectly which ended up resulting in me choosing between saving a city and saving 2 workers. I gave up the workers (he deleted). So my situation is pretty bad right now. It's frustrating when you know you are fine as long as he makes 7 of his 8 possible moves but he makes the one exact choice you can't afford.

Because he got shock (REALLY regret not deleting that warrior way back) I can't get odds on him with an axe. If he's on a forest hill, even two axes is only a coin flip situation. Honestly though, my situation is so bad that I'll probably take that risk here next turn or the turn after, depending on if he gives me an opening with two units. If I lose because of it, oh well.

[waterbat]

It's like chess - you have to expect him to make the best move possible and plan for it. Frustrating, indeed.

[scooter]

Probably going to concede here soon. Mack stole those workers as I mentioned, and then as a result beat me to Oracle by 1 turn, leaving me in a pretty significant hole. And honestly, my enthusiasm for this was already pretty significantly dampened by two or three long gaps of 5-6 days where I never got a turn back from Mackoti, so I'm kind of on autopilot.

[scooter]

FYI - I have conceded to Mackoti. Him winning Oracle by 1T was nail in the coffin. Me winning that was my only chance to keep up after losing those workers. He Oracle'd Monarchy, which means he'll have a virtually unlimited happy cap while I look around the map and have no real happy sources nearby. That's game.