[SPOILERS] naufragar, Charriu, and Zalson's Threepenny Opera

[Krill]

That's Commodore.

[Charriu]

Mh, I would have said that this is Commodore, but most definitly not Superdeath. This also leaves the question, if you should establish contact? It might be better to leave whoever this is in the dark of your presence. Otherwise they might be tempted to settle in your direction. The KTB for later is no problem. First there needs to be a player in the classic era and second I expect contact shortly after you settled your oversea city.

Another great detail of those oversea cities is that both have a mountain in their BFC for additional vision towards your new neighbor.

[naufragar]

Thanks Krill. Thanks Charriu.

(I had pulled up my PB38 thread to compare with the colors of Adrien's Mali, and was coming around to it, but I'm so bad with colors. )

I've got to run, but obviously all my opponent analysis has to change. And, yeah, Charriu, there's definitely a case for turning the work boat around. Commodore is Cre, so that could be a recent city. In which case, it would be nice to know if this is his back yard or a very distant zone. But I'm leaning to turning boat around. Will post more later.

[Zalson]

Why wouldn't we make contact? Are we planning on boating commodore at some point in the near future or something?

[Charriu]

That was my idea here are my reasons:

1. Leaving Commodore in the dark might convince him to delay settling his NE and the peninsula we want to settle.
   
2. It also directs more of his attention towards Superdeath
   
3. Commodore might see settling the peninsula as an aggressive act. By not establishing contact he might assume that we didn't know about him, therefore it does not look like an aggressive act from his perspective.
   
4. It's easier for Commodore to attack this peninsula then it is to support it for us at least in the beginning
   
5. KTB should not be a problem. By the time we have settled the peninsula it's possible that somebody entered the classical age. With those two cities we propably establish contact shortly and securing any KTBs in the process.
   
6. I suspect that there is no way around his culture. So exploration might stop there anyway.
   

[naufragar]

Are we planning on boating commodore at some point in the near future or something?

Oooh. I like where your head’s at.

Joking a little. I don’t have an immediate plan to boat Commodore. If, after we settle those two overseas cities, we think our presence is still undetected, there might be an argument for it, but I don’t think we’d gain much.

Right now our goal is founding more cities and getting a functioning economy up and running. So, the question is “does contacting Commodore facilitate that?” I don’t think it does, whereas it could very easily have a detrimental effect but making him take some sort of action against us settling on his landmass. Basically, we can contact him whenever we want, we don’t gain anything from contact now, let’s not contact.

If that were Rusten, I would make contact. The different calculus would be that a city with expanded borders is likely to be Rusten’s cap, so getting eyes on that area means getting vision of Rusten’s heartland. There’s no guarantee that we’ll see anything useful by moving into the area, since that Commodore city could be a nothing expansion.

Might as well use this time to talk about how I feel about Commodore as a neighbor. Superdeath is not long for this world, methinks. Rival worst pop was 6k which is one two-pop city. That is probably very easy for Protective skirmishers to choke to death. The capitols were balanced, which means they’re nicer than the surrounding land, so likely Commodore gets better than average land this way. (What is it with me starting next to players that eat their neighbors early?) The window of opportunity for aggressive skirmisher use is just about over, I hope. They don’t attack well into archers in cities, although they’re a pain to dislodge in the open field. Neither chariots nor axes are an efficient hammer trade. That said, they don’t worry me overmuch.

I said way back that Gilgamesh of Mali was basically a straight upgrade of Sury of Babylon. I want to walk that back a little bit. Mali > Babylon, sure. But Gilgamesh and Sury are a bit closer than I thought. Those granaries, on this happiness starved map (I assume/hope Commodore doesn’t have more than one early lux), will be a touch late and hopefully not super useful. (I tell myself this to justify putting off our own granaries. We’ll get them eventually!)

I’m not thrilled to neighbor Pindicore, but I’ll deal. I think we can settle and hold those two western cities. We’re going to need a gigantic navy on this map anyway.

[naufragar]

Ninja'd again!

Charriu's reasoning is more direct than mine.

(Although I will say, I care very little about offending people with work boat trespassing.)

[Charriu]

Ninja'd again!

Charriu's reasoning is more direct than mine.

(Although I will say, I care very little about offending people with work boat trespassing.)

I can't hide it. I'm a developer, I love bullet points.

[Zalson]

I agree that our goal should be the settling of our initial landmass. We should also confirm that we're not spokes on a wheel (and on the same landmass as commodore). That reduces the value of settling over the water severely.

However, the fact that he has an early enemy in superdeath means that he can choke a neighbor and expand relatively unopposed, right? We should look for the opportunity to oppose but only in so much as it benefits our team (for example, generally delaying an rival does not help our team; specifically delaying a rival by killing an unescorted settler does benefit our team because we get a worker, etc).

A 2-on-1 based on opportunity with reparation available s is a valuable check on an enemy. Or we confirm undying friendship with fish-fish and expand the other way.

If we drop off a spy (thinking way ahead) do we make contact? I think that signals our intention but if the spy remains invisible, then that's an option.

We could also devote resources into contacting him from another direction and then boat his capital (that's a tangible benefit because it cripples a rival/severely inconveniences him/makes a blood enemy). I'm not sure how valuable that is as a strategic consideration.

Anyway: the inanity continues.

[naufragar]

We should also confirm that we're not spokes on a wheel (and on the same landmass as commodore). That reduces the value of settling over the water severely.

We can only hope, I think.  Our own landmass is not terribly exciting. (Pics below.) But I might have a solution.

However, the fact that he has an early enemy in superdeath means that he can choke a neighbor and expand relatively unopposed, right? We should look for the opportunity to oppose but only in so much as it benefits our team (for example, generally delaying an rival does not help our team; specifically delaying a rival by killing an unescorted settler does benefit our team because we get a worker, etc).

It sure would be nice to know how much this war has cost Commodore. I guess I could try C&D scrying again, but chances are we'll just check his stats when we finally meet. One always hopes the neighbors have long drawn out slug matches, but they don't always oblige! I do believe Commodore planned this war very soon after meeting superdeath (tech timings and all), but I wonder if that's because they were very close. In which case, Commodore hasn't gained all that much real estate. I live in hope.

If we drop off a spy (thinking way ahead) do we make contact? I think that signals our intention but if the spy remains invisible, then that's an option.

This is a fascinating question. I haven't really played with spies, so I confess I don't really know how that would work.

I agree wholeheartedly with your principle of only sticking your knife in if you benefit. No psychotic stabbings here!  

I mentioned our landmass being meh.


It's also oddly shaped. Our warrior is on a hill instead of someplace more defensible, but we can't respect this barb too much. He's not a panther after all.    

Oh shoot. I just realized I didn't take the correct screenshot. We found crab 1NE of the barb. A city down here is a good distance away from our core, but with the land being so crappy and probably very close to the south pole, we should be able to grab this.

I mentioned a solution:


That is the best tile outside of the capitol we've seen. Good job Cre. Without Creative it would've taken us forever to find this spot. Additionally, we're separated from that eastern land by ocean, but we can cross it due to our culture. That's really excellent. (We're going to need a gigantic navy.)

Here are the demos, because I want to talk about them for a second.


Our crop yield isn't really that good. I'm working every possible source of food I can, despite what each city may need. For example, our capitol, while building a worker, has given up its two improved food sources (rice & pig) in exchange for working cottages. I justify this as "avoiding hammers lost to overflow reduction." So, basically, our hammers are a bit better than what this page shows and our food is a bit worse.

Keep that in mind for this overview:


I've circled our two cottages in red, and I'd like to talk semi-abstractly about cottaging.    I have a gut instinct that the secret to good cottaging is working them early. "What?" I hear you ask. "Obviously the earlier you work cottages the faster you grow them."    Yes, but I mean that in the early game foodhammers are far more important. There's always another worker or settler to build, or failing that, a pop point to grow in order to whip something fast when your natural production is limited. So what I mean is that the secret is working cottages when it's a little painful. We could be putting a few more foodhammers from the capitol into a worker and then a settler, but the sooner we can tighten our belts, the sooner we can get our economy moving. I'm sure more thorough players than me can work out exactly what the return is at any stage in their game for more workers/settlers vs more cottage turns, but I'm an incurable instinctive civ-er. The trick, I suspect, is not pulling the rip cord to early and halting growth. I don't think I'm doing that. We are going to whip off those cottage tiles when we build the settler anyway, but in the back of my mind I'm going to try and keep the notion "can I squeeze an extra turn working a cottage in somewhere."