[SPOILERS]Acrid Pinot and other Pindicator anagrams

[NobleHelium]

Oracle built by Ichabod...let's swap EPs back to rego?

[pindicator]

Turn 62

This was the turn we started finding our neighbors. In the north we moved the work boat and found Ruff, then offered Open Borders:




Looks like Ruff has gems to our gold, and his horses must not be in an awkward spot

Then in the south we decided to load up the warrior on our galley just in case we got an opportunistic city snipe.




Maybe we will get that chance...

You can see Ichabod & Ruff both have their fourth city up. Ichabod did indeed have the Oracle and he took Metal Casting with it -- so Colossus incoming, I'm sure. But that also means triremes, so even if we get a chance at something it should still be weighed against the possibility of defending against triremes...

[pindicator]

I like how the turns are played pretty reliably on the weekdays but come to a screeching halt on weekends :-/

Anyhow, using some of this time to plan out through turn 75. I've probably only planned half the cities and haven't done any revisions, but here are some thoughts so far:

1. Right now I have our settlers coming out on turns 72 (R U Ok) and 76 (On Acid Trip, after we finish the library). I've tried to keep a balance of improving tiles, working improved tiles, and expanding to new cities, but I'm still not thrilled with us waiting 10 turns before the next settler is ready.
2. We currently have 4 workers for 5 cities, although we're working on 2 more. What's crazy is that I'm running into problems of finding things for our workers to do! I'm taking this as a reason to be less worried about point #1 -- meaning, we need to grow our cities and work all these improved tiles.
3. The best city spot available to us is that sheep/crab spot on the northern island. But getting there is the problem. Our lone galley can get back to the north coast on t72 if it turns back on turn 64. This would get us a city N of the sheep on t75. We can move the galley SW-NE next turn and then be back to pick up the settler on t71. This gets us a city N of the sheep on t74. Have not figured how best to get a work boat up there, but it likely is going to be chopped out or built out of NHL. Building it out of NHL would only finish the work boat on t74, and be able to hook up on t81. Oh wait, we do have a work boat in the area... the scouting one. Hmmm....
4. Alternative city spots I could grab: 2S of the corn (quickest hook up and a worker is already in the area); 4N of the capital (only becomes useful with a border pop, so I think this best left until after we get into OR and have a missionary ready; 1S of the spice (that work boat out of NHL could hook up the fish on t76, which is about the same turn that our first settler would be ready to settle there).

5. Research Options: (Assuming we finish Math t64 and Hunting t65)
5a) Masonry (68) -> Monotheism (71) -> Monarchy (75) will cost us 10 turns to research. Considering how hammer starved this map is (i.e. whips being a greater percentage of our production), I think I'm in favor of going this route and revolting to HR/OR on t76 then to Hinduism on t77. Or are 2 turns too much to swallow? We could just revolt to HR/OR and make missionaries to our hearts content (but not get the +1 or the 25% production bonus to buildings). This is a bit more "big picture" than I've been thinking
5b) Iron Working (71) will take 6 turns to research. This is a bit of a gamble on there being Iron nearby (and not already covered by a city), and an attempt to get more production.
5c) Calendar (74 or 75) will take 9 or 10 turns to research. (It's really close to 9 and I haven't worked out all the cities' commerce yet.)
5d) Currency (75) will take 10 turns to research, maybe 11 with a new city planted. If we went Currency then I think we would absolutely want to have our next city settled by the sheep/crab city on the north island.

I really need to think about which tech we want next, but I think the rewards lay out as being Commerce (Calendar, Currency), Production (Iron Working, Monotheism/Monarchy), Happiness (Calendar, Mono/Monarchy), and Wonder (Calendar). Consider hammers seem to be the limiting factor on this map, I think I want to head towards Monotheism/Monarchy.

But, it's hard to ignore that Currency is going to be a net increase of 12c (approximately a 17% jump in commerce), especially since we can time a north island city to go along with getting that tech. I need to think on this.

Good thing that turn is taking forever to get to us

[pindicator]

Turn 63

After doing the C&D (Ichabod grew a pop, Rego grew 2, Ruff grew 2, Scooter grew 2 and got his 4th city), it was time to see if it paid off to bring a warrior with this initial galley.



And of course this was the point where I decided to get cold feet. Do we really want to go to war with the guy who just got Metal Casting and can build triremes? We aren't exactly strong ourselves, what with our 4 warriors and 1 galley military. And what about the meta situation: Ichabod is a fine player but I would not quite put him up with scooter and rego; maybe I want a stronger Ichabod to balance those two out?

Then again, how many times do you get the chance to boat someone on first contact out of the fog?

Plus his city is named Mom. There's literally a million jokes I could come up with if we had a banter thread for this game. 99% of them would be Your Mom jokes. For example, I just pillaged your mom. (Credit to Noble, he came up with that in gchat.)

So yeah, I just razed and pillaged your Mom, Ichabod. Noble might even say we were doing him a favor:



After that the big discussion was where to settle next. Pretty much every possible city site got thrown out there, but the northern island is just the call, IMO - double food in the first ring, I don't have any other locations like that. This means our galley has to turn around next turn, and our scouting work boat can't do so much scouting before he nets the crabs. But we'll be able to put those together and then likely settle another island east of us a few turns later.



Considering how the demos look, and what we just did to Ichabod, I am feeling pretty good about our situation in this game:

[pindicator]

Note to Self:

Whip OAT next turn!

Also - comparing demos at beginning and end of the turn, and Ichabod was rival best in GNP and rival worst in Crop. He went from 64 to 60 (guess it could be lower if someone else is 60) in GNP, and in Crops went from 37 to 34.

[NobleHelium]

Come on, we raze a city on t63 normal speed and get no comments? Boo, hiss.

[pindicator]

Turn came in late last night, but turned out pretty uneventful. We are still at war with Ichabod and moved our warrior to a hill and spotted that Suzie Derkins is also empty. This is confirming my C&D which has Ichabod's total military at two warriors.

Now i'm wondering what a quick vulture could do...

[pindicator]

Some musings from the office...

Tech path is probably going to look like: Hunting (65), Currency (74), Masonry (76), Monotheism (79). Turn #s are end of turn.
We can get Currency in 9t with a little help: either not whipping the granary in Hem Cover and working the fur those extra turns, or by working coast tiles at a few spots t73 and/or t74 (havent really figured that alternative yet). I did look at what not whipping the granary costs us, and t85 seemed an apt comparison point: HC will gain an additional 1f and 19c between now and t85 - but it will be at the cost of 29h. A tough trade considering how hammer poor the map is.

[NobleHelium]

Not sold on whipping the granary. Remember we want to stay at size 2 so we can whip a vulture if needed too, no?

[pindicator]

Not sold on whipping the granary. Remember we want to stay at size 2 so we can whip a vulture if needed too, no?

True. There would be three turns at size one where an emergency whip would not be possible.

I'm not sold on the idea either, particularly because it may be more painful aat other cities.