Molach destroys Willem and the Celts[SPOILERS!]

[Molach]

?


Still dominating in land size...

but how the xxxx does someone have a CY of 7 now?
If they had grown a size building scout, maybe. But they didn't, all are at size 1.

So...did someone settle for 3F, and is now working a floodplain/corn or something? Couldn't be Yggdrasil.

[Molach]

Scout report in.

This is AdrienIer of India.

First victim?
Also in screenshot: Flood plain Ice. Same as desert, except even longer to build improvements (+50%)

Here is result of a map I got from a hut:

Nice lands. I want to found a city near the gold, even if IW is a bit in the future...corn + cow and share capital sheep is a good city. Other hut gave 32 gold, which will come in handy enough to keep science up.

City:

Next turn worker, mining, and the choice: Quick warrior from ivory tile, or max grow from the 3F tile.
(Growth is always better I'd guess. But I will keep growing into unimproved tiles. The 1/3 tile is half-improved, so maybe not that bad)

[GermanJoey]

Ice flood plains is only 1 additional worker turn for any improvement compared to a desert floodplain. Not too bad.

[Molach]

No pictures, but in about 5 turns I will have a pretty good idea of the lay of the land to my south and west. Will send scout north of my lands after and see who is there.

Interesting call - I let my scout bait a bear. For one, it was in my way. But otherwise, my scout is in a forest across a river. Bear is now 1 str, should fall easy to a scout. Bears having +100% against melee units, I wouldn't want the bear to possibly threaten my warrior sentries in the area later. Was this smart? I dunno. But I do think my scout will take minimal damage only, and that I will soon cross back into my lands prior to heading north for quicker healing.

If scout dies I'll probably build another in my cap. So I think this is a good change in the mod, scouts have some uses and a bit longer life now.

[Molach]

Bear had 0.0 % odds. Still landed 2 hits, but each only took 10 health. Scout finished his job down south, will head north after 1 turn healing in my lands. Also, warrior finished and climbed a hill; revealing some terrain. Here is a wide shot of my settling options.


Have tentatively marked some city locations here. This is 4-space settling, could tighten up and go for 3.

Adrien is south-by-southwest. His capital is 14 tiles from mine, so I can expect to expand 7 tiles in this direction. I have no other contacts, but Adrien has met someone, judging from EP spending. He has still spent most on me.

So: City by Wheat, Cow and Gold is important to secure my southern flank. It can't share any food from capital, which is bad. However it will have 1st ring wet wheat and cow for quick growth, then probably use gold and plains hill for production/commerce. It will be slow to start, though. It would want 2-worker support upon founding, and still work unimproved tiles for 2 turns. Also, any cities settled further towards Adrien this way would technically be on our mutual border.
This city can move 1NW for more defensible location, but still be slow at start.

City due west is quicker to start off. It will borrow sheep from capital, grow while cow gets improved, after 10 turns there is pig and wheat. A very very strong city, both in food and commerce. Gold will not be online for a while, though.

City southeast by fish is another option. share corn from capital, improve rice, after 10 turns fish and another wet wheat opens up. Possibility for naval scouting as well with a workboat. It is backfill-wards...but perhaps this isn't a big deal for a second city.

Location of copper might change settling priorities around. Also, if no easy copper I'll go directly to AH. If I do have copper I might take pottery right away, chop/whip a quick granary in second city.

Decicions, decicions.

[Molach]

Also, scouting north might reveal a good spot with shared wheat and cow, 3N from capital on jungle. Or even something NE-wards.

[Molach]

Not that I am keeping a list*, but a few people are ALWAYS playing last every turn. Well, almost last, if they are last they generally can double turn. But yeah.

Soon won't matter because wars and timesplits will happen and we will need to pause every turn anyway, but I'm pretty sad about the turnpace these first auto-play 20 turns.

From memory, the list seems to be Borche, Bacchus, REM, the Wannabe, CH. So if any of those border me in the north, they will be much more preferred target than Adrien, who plays in a timely manner.

Lurkerz, about this observation mode, can you 'see' the whole map, unfogged? Or do you sort of enter the 'skin' of a player and see what he sees? I'd want to observatory-lurk a game one of these days...


* I lied here

[GermanJoey]

We're not actually running the observer mode because it was bogging down Caledorn's server. Also, a bunch of lurkers requested that we keep the map hidden so that they can enjoy seeing the players explore the world, so only a few people have seen the full map!

[Molach]

Too bad about observer mode. At least I still have a chance to be a part of the cery first spectator crew, if and when it gets sorted. I'd love to help but clueless about these kinds of things.

I've got 19 fpt. Leading the demographic! From here it will only go downhill.
I've also got biggest army, as I grew to size 4 before building second worker. Getting a sentry/scouting net out this game.




Naming scheme is "reasons I lost/will lose this game"*. Capital is named "settler move". It might seem like I made a clever move back then, but we all know it's ultimately gonna cost me the game. Next city will be "bad micro". And after that, "competent neighbours" (or some shorter form). I met Ichabod/retep to my north a few turns ago. "3 Early warriors" down the line too.

Here is my second city location:



City 2??? is the spot. 6 resources, but 1 shared with capital. I'll have 2 workers down here when city is founded, I'll improve wheat first, then copper in time for growth to size 2. One worker will then move on to city 3, wherever that will be, while the other guy keeps working here, cow and gold while I whip in the granary. Or maybe a chop, but this location is not forest-heavy, 10 turns till I get forest in my borders.

Ignore city 3 sign, it was just a "how to settle aggressively towards Adrien"-excercise. Now that I have contact to the north as well, I'll get out cities in a ringwise fashion after all. Make a circle of defense while I still have time, before the darkness engulfs me.*

Here is my north:


Marked spot could be my 3rd city. Steal sheep from capital if I whip capital down to 3 for something. With one worker in support, I'd only need to improve the cow in time for growth to 2, whip granary, then borders will have expanded and I can grow onto second-ring tiles.

Capital build is worker - warrior x3 to size 4 - worker - settler. Then 90% sure it's another settler for city 3 directly. Then probably a granary, keep it around size 3-4-5 and whip, spend my fur/gold happiness on quick hammers.


* It may appear that I am fatalistic and negative here, but this is mainly for humorous effect, I am having fun and will enjoy this game. But in all honesty, with the player skill and skilled player-hours going into this game, I will not win this, so technically all the * will ultimately turn out true.

[GermanJoey]

Early warriors are good IMHO, as long as you don't need to actually kill stuff with them. Every 15 hammers on a spawnbuster warrior now is 20 hammers saved on a spear/axe garrison later on, and maybe even more than that if it means you have to build less axe/spears overall due to less barbs to deal with because of your earlier spawnbusting. Not a bad deal at all.