RBP7 [SPOILERS] - The Chronicles of Nyania

[nabaxo]

Well, grant him passage once. If he comes back the same way, kill it.

[Lord Parkin]

That's the thing though, he's unlikely to be coming back regardless. It definitely seems the land continues beyond ASM (since we've met Catwalk there), so why would he ever return through the passage? Even if he does head back at some point, he's far more likely to be killed by a barbarian - or someone else's unit - before he encounters us again. From that perspective, it's only a matter of time until the Scout is lost, so we're just making sure that we get the XP rather than a barbarian or another civ.

Still a bit mean though I guess. Hmm...

[Lord Parkin]

New turn played. Decided not to engage HitAnyKey's Scout, at least not at the moment... partly because I'm afraid of the RNG screwing us over. We simply can't afford to lose that Warrior to a relatively unimportant battle - too much is riding on it at the moment with our Settler on the way.



I moved so as to force the Scout onto the bare hill if he wants to move further into our lands. If he moves there, next turn we can potentially hit him with ~99% odds, which is much better than 95.6%. Or we can leave him be.

Over to the west, it seems Team Googly's land of abundance continues to provide for them. A nice Fish/Horse/Silk site, with the potential to include Gold if they so desire. Nice for some.



Bronze Working in 2 turns now. Second Worker finished, Settler will be done in 5 turns (due to chops).

[Lord Parkin]

Team Googly's amazing land continues. One fish isn't enough for that Horse spot, of course... got to have another.



Oh, and looks like they've got Silver further up as well. How nice for some.

Note to self: there's a lion 2SE of that Scout this turn.

HitAnyKey moved at the very start of this turn, so we didn't even have a choice as to whether to kill him. Maybe for the best... possibly a good idea to maintain neutral relations with at least one neighbour.



And after 7 worker-turns of sitting around... our Workers can finally start chopping next turn! Woot!

Will be interesting to see where Copper turns up too. Let's cross our fingers it's nearby.

[Lord Parkin]

By the way, Stonehenge was built last turn. The city is in the top 5, so we know it was founded in 3960 BC (turn 1). Checking through Civstats, the only person with a score increase high enough on the right turn was Lewwyn, who did indeed found his capital on turn 1.

Interesting choice for the supposed "Bounty Hunter". Perhaps that whole mercenary persona is a front to try to keep people afraid and away from him and his wonders?

[Lord Parkin]

A thought... we could always go after HitAnyKey's Scout a few turns later with our other Warrior. He's currently at 1/2 XP, so would definitely get a promotion from such a battle - whereas our Shoryuken is currently at 6/10 XP and wouldn't get a promotion from that battle regardless.

One other thing... HitAnyKey and TwinkleToes89 both adopted Slavery recently, so they both definitely have Bronze Working. Good to know. Had been pretty sure already that TT got it on turn 26, but this confirms it. Wonder if the late switch to Slavery signifies that he's just got his first Settler out? At least he'll hopefully be heading away from us, since the land is far more juicy to his south/west than to his east. If his second city was directly towards us that would be just cruel... though great news for ASM I suppose.

[Lord Parkin]

This turn can be summed up in one image:





(Okay, technically that's two images...)

[Lord Parkin]

Right, so what are the implications here? Well firstly, we're pretty screwed. We have no access to Axemen or Spearmen in the forseeable future without taking a gamble on the extremely expensive Iron Working tech. Even then, with the limited number of land tiles in our sphere of influence (~60 tops), I wouldn't be surprised if we're unlucky enough to miss out on Iron too.

Meanwhile, our neighbour has extremely easy access to Copper, and we already know they have Horses as an option too. No way to really compete with that if they play smart, so we just have to hope they slip up somewhere. At least ASM seems dead set on trying to rush them judging by the public thread, so perhaps Googly's attention will be focussed elsewhere... then again, they'll also be much more inclined to spam military if they fear for their safety. So maybe it's just a lose-lose situation for us, which we already suspected many turns ago.

Hmm, escape to some island is actually looking like a more and more attractive option. Maybe we could go Fishing -> Sailing after The Wheel to leave it as a backup plan. At least it looks like the small land mass we can see to the north isn't connected to anything else. At the current rate, that icy crag might be the only option open to us for stubbornly surviving beyond T100.

At least we're unlikely to be the first eliminated: according to the image posted by Azza in the public thread (a huge quantity of Mackoti's Axes), he's going to be out of the game soon. Not exactly a good thing though, since we already know Mackoti is nearby to our south/east, and that sort of army is not the kind of thing we want arriving on our doorstep after blasting through some other civ.

[nabaxo]

I say we go out guns ablazing. Chop out as many chariots as possible and rush Googly anyway. If we make it, glory for us. If we fail, we died trying.

[Lord Parkin]

We've located Spacetyrantxenu's capital borders. It seems he's our closest neighbour to the east. Interesting... don't really know anything about the guy, so will have to wait and see how he plays before judging anything.



He does have Silver and Marble within easy reach. He's probably also close enough give us competition for that land just across the ditch from us, which is a shame.

Back over to the west, we've found another two food resources over in Googly's "resource patch". *Shakes head*



Seriously, if you compare the resource density over there with the resource density around our land, there's a very stark difference indeed. It's a little depressing just how lucky they've got vs how unlucky we've got.

Back home, there's a decision to be made on the Settler which will be produced in 2 turns. We almost certainly can't send him to the Gold to the west any more, since it'd be pretty much suicide with ~10 turns of a mere Warrior defence right next to a neighbour with Bronze Working, Slavery and easy Copper in reach. That site will have to be reserved for a later Settler, if we settle it at all.

However, I think we can fairly safely send this Settler to the Gold to the south. The question is, where do we settle him?



Going for the desert spot has the advantage that it can be founded a turn earlier and the advantage of allowing 2 additional hills in the BFC. (It also creates a canal, but that's not so important... we can do that with a fort anyway.) The disadvantages are that it's a bit vulnerable on flatland, and it'll also require Mysticism + a Monument before we can get any food and even think about growing to pop 2.

On the other hand, going for the hill spot has the advantage of not requiring a border expansion to get the Clam, plus the hill will offer extra defence. However, it has the fairly large disadvantage of being a near-useless city in the long term, with no hills other than the Gold to work for hammers. It'll also take an extra turn before we can found it compared to the desert location.

Thoughts? I think at the moment I'm inclined towards settling on the desert myself, but still not completely sure. If we settle on the desert, our tech path after The Wheel probably needs to go Mysticism -> Fishing -> Sailing.