RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

My ear is messed up still from the trip over the mountains. It happens to me sometimes, but usually resolves faster than this. I'm basically in a permanent version of lala land till this resolves unfortunately. Being that's the case, I'm inclined to just go with your Plan 2 unless you hear otherwise from me.

[RefSteel]

My ear is messed up still from the trip over the mountains. It happens to me sometimes, but usually resolves faster than this. I'm basically in a permanent version of lala land till this resolves unfortunately. Being that's the case, I'm inclined to just go with your Plan 2 unless you hear otherwise from me.

The first several turns of nearly all the plans I came up with start nearly the same way anyway - the big decision will be taking AH over BW next turn ... errrr, by which I mean this turn. Looks like it just rolled. If no one else can get it in the next 3-4 hours, I'll do so after that UNLESS we'd like more time to discuss and be sure we want AH first. (Looks like that's the plan to me thus far.)

Cull: It looks to me like a consensus in the e-mail thread for being understanding, and of course we know perfectly well that you didn't actually spoil yourself, so thoughts, plans, or turnplaying would be welcome as far as I'm concerned!

[Maniac Marshall]

Too late, I've already logged in. (My gf woke me up yelling at Dominoes for screwing up her order lol and I happened to see the turn roll.) AFAIK we decided to go with AH, so that's what I selected. If there are second thoughts, we have a few hours to log in and change our research.

I moved SE onto the jungle since there seemed to be no dissent about this.

We learned very little of excitement:


I'm going to assume NE is our next move?

[Cull]

Now that there is a consensus in the IT thread, I'm back!

So far the land around our capital is good. I might get a dot map up if I can log in and get a couple screenies if I have time.

Where to move the warrior next turn? I favor NE, but moving E or even SE into flat land is okay.

Diplo stuff sounds great to me!

[Maniac Marshall]

E is acceptable, SE is right out. IMO it's between NE and E, and I'd favor NE

[RefSteel]

All right, whatever we think of the alternatives, it looks like we favor 1NE unanimously. I obviously agree with leaving tech on AH too.

Cull, welcome back! Seems like it's been ages! 80 years, practically! (Note: It would probably be best to post something in the IT thread to thank folks for understanding and to let them know you'll play on then, with your new understanding of how to handle the subforum, just so everyone knows what's what. I prefer over-communication to under- ... as you've probably noticed by now!)

I'll probably log into the game later this evening to grab some screenies; I'd like an overview map, mainly, but also some random data: We might want to check around our borders for barbs, the turn log for whatever it says (usually nothing) and the diplo screen for under-the-radar contact, every turn at this point, just to keep our intel up to date.

[RefSteel]

Seems like forever since we've had a tactical dotmap up. This one's a bit heavy on the dots, but that's kind of the point (that and making sure everyone's aware of where everything standes in our game so far).



Notice the map is rotated 45 degrees - and I still couldn't fit in everything we've discovered. (This is mainly because of my screen's limited dimensions though.) The three green dots forming a triangle near the bottom middle of the screen are the leading edge of the original "Black Dots" and the "topmost" (northwesternmost) of those is the one tile in the immediate vicinity that we might not defog on Yalara's current intended path. It looks like a grass forest, so there shouldn't be any surprises there regardless. Now for the dots.

Blue tiles are hills at the edge of our current cultural borders. These are Good Things. They not only extend our range of vision, in directions with unforested flatland they prevent other teams from spotting us without being observed. That's the whole idea behind this tactical map: A reminder that we can still be seen without seeing that it's happened ourselves.

The red dots are hill tiles just OUTSIDE of our cultural borders. These block our view of the tiles around us while extending the range at which we can be found. In large part Because of them, but also thanks to the rest of the terrain around us, if I'm reading things correctly, a unit standing on a green dot (the question mark depends on whether it's a hill) can see the edge of our cultural borders without being seen by us, and without establishing contact in-game: They can see the edge of our borders via tile bleeding and therefore that they WOULD make contact with us if they moved in the proper way, but can choose not to do so if they so desire. (One of Byzantium's lesser advantages - it has plenty of bigger ones, and there are a couple other civs like this too, as I recall - is that it's almost impossible to see their borders under any circumstances. I hate that color.)

Well, so what? Who cares? Sane teams WANT to make contact, right?

Yes, they do. But a team planning an early rush - or a team insecure enough to say, "Aggressive civ! They'll be aggressive! Even though what they've actually got is one of the best early DEFENSIVE civ/leader combos!!!" (we didn't - quite - do that on purpose, by the way) - might want to figure out where our capital stands and then stay out of touch until they're ready to come in with a serious choke or attack force. Do I expect this? Are you kidding me? That would be paranoid in the extreme. Maybe Egypt if they're dead-set on a WC rush, but I wouldn't expect Egypt to target Aggressive Maya if they could help it even if they weren't played by Krill. Also, notice just how many green dots are out there. There's really nothing at all we can do about them until we have the resources (and desire) to start posting sentries.

So, what's the point of this pic then? Just to show that we're thinking about these things, really. (Well, one of us is at least.) And of course to post a nice overview of our surroundings, since the last one was back on page 6.

[RefSteel]

There's good news and bad news from civstats.

Good news: It is no longer possible for us to end up with a last-place finish.

Bad news: Just give that a minute to sink in.

I'm not going to take a screenie of civstats since everyone's probably already seen the elimination. I'd like to write an obit for Peter of Korea at some point when I have time. As far as I can tell from my limited C&D, he did everything right - he just got unlucky.

How does it affect us? Well, we're a little safer than before: Neither Krill nor (of course) Lobo.Thibron can get a warrior to our city before we can get our second warrior out, no matter where on the map they are. But it got me thinking, and we might want Yalara farther away from our city, which might mean moving 1E (might not matter though, depending on hills/flatland). We'll have plenty of warriors for scouting our local area (if we go with Option 2) anyway. The point is, we don't want someone to have a warrior BETWEEN Yalara and our City to see Yalara unless the warrior in question will be at least 5 tiles away from our city center at end of turn (and we see them there before the turn rolls). We can ignore this if you want and just keep rolling the dice - it's certainly not worth the risk of getting eaten on flatland by barbarians - but it's something to consider.

[Maniac Marshall]

OK, that original post was clear as mud. Thats what happens when I try to make a lightning cell phone post from work I guess.

What I meant to say was that the ability to chop/whip to save yourself is one of the arguments for going Bronze first, although, it's entirely possible he wouldn't even have had time to research the tech before he was killed.

We chose to take the risk for long term benefits. Lets hope we live to not regret it.

Leme think about what to do with Yalara when I get home.

[RefSteel]

No chance for him to get BW. It's T12, and the cost is 180 beakers with this map size and difficulty. The only ways to defend against a warrior attack on t12 are to go Warrior First or do minimal scouting and fortify your starting warrior in your city (or key tile in the first ring) around T8-9.

I think in the end it's best to move Yalara NE as planned in spite of my misgivings (my apologies). The chances of it mattering are very small, and traveling far enough away to avoid being seen by a warrior too near our capital would open up the chance of being seen from cultural borders (especially if they have a hill at the edge and flatland around it) when very far away, which would be worse. Our window of vulnerability is narrowing anyway, Krill's lone warrior (C&D says he's going Worker First - and therefore very vulnerable, incidentally) is at another civ's capital, and that other civ no longer has a warrior. Plus, a handful of teams started with Hunting. The chances of danger of the type I described are tiny.

Also note: I'm not on a civ computer right now, but I can get to one soon if necessary.