I've half played the turn. I'd prefer not to go further without input. I need to leave around 1000 GMT to go to work and will not be back by 2200, so I need to have played it by then, or I need someone to log in and play the turn for me.
There is no path south of the big lake. I only see three options for scouting this turn, and two strategies for using this scout:
I'm leaning towards heading back around the lake, as that frees up the scouting warrior a bit, but I am aware that another barb animal spawning in the wrong place could stop the scout getting any useful information, and moving west this turn is not the riskiest move available given the scout should have odds on a lion. I still think we should play safe though, keeping the scout alive could allow us to get the entire first ring explored by T25-ish, and it is an extra unit to scout for barbs as we move the settler and workers around the dry corn/flood plains city; if we send it scouting deep we will not have it return.
There is no path south of the big lake. I only see three options for scouting this turn, and two strategies for using this scout:
- Move the scout S or SE, and delay other scouting by a single turn, just to peek over water. I don't think this has any relevance to us, doesn't give useful information unless we get "lucky" and meet someone we can start putting EP into. So I'll reject this out of hand.
- Move W. We know there is a lion in this area, we saw it on T11. We do not know precisely where it is. We end up checking if this area is backlines, and does not lead anywhere, or if it connects to another chunk of land. If the scout lives, and if the lion attacks the scout whilst on a forest we have a 3/4 chance of living.
- Move the scout back around the lake, hugging the coastline (NE this turn, then NW-N, NE-W). Potentially could meet a barb unit on the tile NW of the plains cow next turn, which we would be unable to retreat from without getting stuck in the corner for a bit, and we have limited turns until barb warriors start spawning. Best case scenario, the scout starts exploring south of the capital on T17; we have a warrior heading down here and will be on the dry corn on T20
I'm leaning towards heading back around the lake, as that frees up the scouting warrior a bit, but I am aware that another barb animal spawning in the wrong place could stop the scout getting any useful information, and moving west this turn is not the riskiest move available given the scout should have odds on a lion. I still think we should play safe though, keeping the scout alive could allow us to get the entire first ring explored by T25-ish, and it is an extra unit to scout for barbs as we move the settler and workers around the dry corn/flood plains city; if we send it scouting deep we will not have it return.