[no players] Warsighs of the Newb: An Experiment in Lurking.

[Krill]

Warriors have city defence bonus. The archers will not have odds. I think he can hold the city for long enough to make both sides lose.

I think azza got screwed on T0. There are no other reasonable plants. He went BW first, probably the best choice as China and with a grain, and got no copper. Before someone says he has it on an island, trying to hook it up basically means azza gives up control of the continent and long term I'd expect him to lose the game with that strategy. So he goes AH second hoping to finding a horse, and it is 5 tiles from his neighbours capital. If he rushes to Archery he will not know where to plant and I think he would end up not being able to even settle for the horse because he'd be too late. So he goes with warriors and an IMP settler as fast as he can, without getting a second worker, and it turns out he runs into someone that did a blind archery rush?

What could he have done differently? I'd have sent the first worker to immediately hook the horse and forget about the wasted worker turns, maybe do it so that move 1 tile a turn and road/cancel. Grow to size 4 before the settler, it delays the settler by 2 turns, build the settler on plains hill forests and a grass mine. That gives 2 less turns for Kurubandit to respond, but as they are already doing the blind Archery rush it will not make much difference. Then double whip the second worker to finish the road to the horse city?

Whichever way I look at that, I think most people would have made enough mistakes on that start to lose the game. I'm not sure there is even a correct way to play that start out, so I'm fairly interested in what Commodore thinks should have happened with that start. I'd comment more about the copper but people seem to be getting whinier around here and we don't want people getting caught in the crossfire, do we.

[Commodore]

I should have placed a big neon sign saying "hey guys, scout west a couple tiles too!"

[Commodore]

That being said, Azza probably edges out Wetrumi and Kuro for worst start.

[Jowy]

There was another horses resource two tiles west of his borders.

[Gavagai]

Before someone says he has it on an island, trying to hook it up basically means azza gives up control of the continent and long term I'd expect him to lose the game with that strategy.

With copper online he would be able to push back the borders of his rivals, as none of them has copper easily available. Of course, he couldn't know this but he could gamble on it, relying on the fact that the map was promised to be balanced. Actually, his horse city would be impossible to hold if Persia had copper nearby, so it is a losing option either way.

I'd have sent the first worker to immediately hook the horse and forget about the wasted worker turns, maybe do it so that move 1 tile a turn and road/cancel. Grow to size 4 before the settler, it delays the settler by 2 turns, build the settler on plains hill forests and a grass mine. That gives 2 less turns for Kurubandit to respond, but as they are already doing the blind Archery rush it will not make much difference. Then double whip the second worker to finish the road to the horse city?

Observe, that he still had a few turns left to research the Wheel when his city was founded. And if he delayed it until after the Wheel, he would risk that Persia would be the first to this spot.

Of course, all of the above applies, if we disregard the fact that he had an another source of horses right next to his capital.

[Lewwyn]

Successful archer rush is successful.

Azza should not have suicided his warrior outside the city into the archer. He couldn't have razed the city anyway because it was his... Now he only has 1 warrior (2 EOT), needs a new settler.

It really is just amazing.

[Sullla]

I completely disagree that Azza had no other choices on where to settle. There are always better options than planting a city right next to your neighbor's capital in an exposed position.



How about the desert tile south of the oasis? It's not great, but it does have the oasis, two floodplains, a bunch of riverside grassland tiles, and wet wheat after borders pop. It pushes borders forward, can share cottages with the capital, and is extremely defensible.

Alternately, a city could go in a backlines location four south of the capital. That's probably not a good choice because it gives up so much control in the center of the continent, but it's still better than the place that Azza chose.

Finally, if he insisted on planting that city, it could have gone one tile west on the grassland hill. It still gets the horses and would have been completely immune to archer attack up there, at the cost of trading first-ring wheat for first-ring cows. All of those would have been better choices.

I can't feel sorry for Azza. He keep getting attacked early because he keeps putting cities in overly aggressive, indefensible positions.

[Sullla]

Also this:



A thousand Civ butterflies lost their wings and fell to earth when that city was planted.

[Bigger]

lmao. they don't even have any close neighbors, why does he think copper is sucha dire emergency.

[Serdoa]

Honestly, if you look where he planted his second city and his third city, there is not much need to talk anymore.

As for Azza: I agree with Sullla. He did have better places to settle, even though he sure was unlucky to get archer-rushed, lets be honest. I don't think anyone of us would have expected that either. Still, at least settle on the hill if you settle a city like that, that really should be a no-brainer. That's actually the only thing I really see him doing wrong here, everything else can be seen as (debatable) necessary moves to secure the middle of the continent.