[Spoilers] REM and AdrienIer's thread of football, spamming and blaming it on the mod

[AdrienIer]

No we're definitely 2nd in turn order, I only moved the scout back and forth before they played. At least that's how I understand things and how I intend to play this. The lake is of course 3/0/2 not 2/0/3, I still went for the cottage, we can work the lake next turn and in 3 turns the cottage goes to CN and EA works the mine. I'd rather go with cottage now because it's a 1 turn growth either way and we don't want to grow too much because the happy cap is still low.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Ah sorry that makes sense - the way you worded it it didn't sound like they had played inbetween your posts. I get that now. And I agree if we grow either way no big deal. I know we only grew last turn (1 food short from the turn before) so didn't think we would be due growth again so soon. Might be worth giving the corn to CN for quick growth soon actually next turn.

[AdrienIer]

GJ declared war and killed the scout with his axeman, taking 1 hit. Actually the archer will be there just in time to meet the axe.

The most likely outcome is that seeing that he'll never be able to crack the city he'll walk away with his free 1xp. Even with Cover his axe will have ridiculous odds against an archer in MCG.

Our boat is still scouting, except for this one pig-clam spot the coast is pretty bare. The island is definitely a big continent, my bet is that if it's not the same continent we started on we'll be competing with at least Gavagai for this it.

Gavagai sent his warrior out of his land, maybe to scare us off, maybe to scout in our direction. Anyway I retreated and found this nice tile on the other side of the channel :

I decided to give the corn to CN instead of the fish (else we'd have been 1 food off of growing), and EA is working lake/cottage/mine/crab. It's not optimal but EA's at the happy cap due to too much whipping (still 9 turns of 2 unhappy) so we don't lose commerce doing that.

And now my first analysis on the land, with the now possible comparison to GJ's lot. (I had originally forgotten to put resource bubbles on, sorry about that, all screenshots from now on will have them)

Here's our land :

Here's GJ's land :

GJ has a good capital, comparable to what we had originally. But look at his strategic resource's position, copper in a solid second city, horse up north in a secure location, and a good close-by choke point with his western enemy, us. He did exactly what he had to do, taking copper then occupying the choke point, then the 3rd settler going for the horse location (I'm betting 1N of horse which is a decent city whose only flaw is that it relies on FP for food). Also note that the horse is now hooked so we should build a spear or two when we get copper. Last but not least he has what seems to be an island just NE of his capital.

Now take a close look at his backup land, Gavagai is too far from it to really compete and I don't think there's a close enemy in the one corner northeast of there that we haven't scouted. Not a lot of food due to deserts but using the FPs there are 4-5 good cities there, plus maybe one filler.

Now here's our central land. I know we were supposed to SIP but still, our copper is in a tundra in the west (when our opponents are east) in either a PH that has no first ring food or a tundra city that forbids the settling of CN. CN is our one asset in this game, early on the silver is helping us immensely and the second one will also be hooked up as soon as we get culture in there. Our horse is up north in a seafood only site. Both are sites that we would never have prioritized if not for the resource itself, while GJ's sites were no brainers even without the resources.

Then we have this land in between GJ and us, it's reasonably good but how are we supposed to settle it (on flatland) when it's actually closer to GJ than us ? There's a horse up there but it's no good till we can actually defend a city east of it. Also notice that we have lots of plains in addition to the tundra and ice that compose half our territory. Not too food happy, with lots of food resources in the tundra for half useful ice cities.

We also have an island up north, even though it looks a bit barren it makes us even with GJ on that point.

I understand that our move SE took us further away from the northern horse, which would have been in our third ring if we had SIP. Still a city up there would have been awkward. Also I really want to say that the map in general is super nice, there's food pretty much everywhere with interesting geography, chokepoints between civs and all. I'm just pissed that we're basically cut off from the rest of the world except if GJ gives us permission due to the chokepoint between our civs being so close to him. I hope we get to have some good island cities to expand beyond this cold peninsula, else we'll really be able to complain about the map.

BTW here's the demos, our soldier count will get better next turn along with food and stuff.

Sidenote : Perhaps this is a case of the land being always greener elsewhere, I'd have some arguments to throw at myself along this line like our silver being very close and GJ having a huge line of desert between his core and the backup land I showed. Still I think that if I could have chosen our starting spot I'd have chosen GJ's over ours.

Edit : I won't be available tomorrow till late, and I'll be pretty exhausted.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Quick glance, all the above seems pretty solid. Nothing to really say, I probably would have played around with the tiles for growth in CN this turn too. FYI I think it should be whipped at half bar 3-2 for the gran, and overflow into a workboat for the crabs.

Btw Just wrote my car off the day after moving house so I am gonna be stretched for turn time, although less stretched for reading thread time.

I like the review - I will comment on it when I have a chance on non turn urgent things.

[AdrienIer]

Ah bad luck with the car... I'll try to hold things up with the game and report as much as possible so you won't miss a thing.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

It happens. Just gonna be waiting around a fair bit now until I get a vehicle so will have less ability to log in and play turns. I should be able to get a view on what is happening here at some point this turn though.

[AdrienIer]

I've just played the turn, Gavagai offered a map trade which I decided to refuse till I heard from you. IMO we should accept it because 1) it's a show of good intentions (I'd like a trading partner in our general area once we get to alphabet) and 2) I want to know how the land is shaped to his SW, if the island to our north is connected to him I'd like to know and if not I'd like to know if he has access to that landmass. He has ivory FWIW.

I forgot that we were before maths so the chop is only 16h not 24 (it's probably the stupidest oversight I've made so far), GJ can kill our promoted warrior next turn but we'll whip the archer with precisely 25 overflow then. I think that's the most you can make of an archer whip so I'm pretty happy with that. I also put 100% research on writing because a library in the cap and CN would be a nice boost right now.

I delayed the cap growth as most as I could, and put the corn in CN again. It'll lose it's one whip anger in 3 turns and grow in 4 this way. The cap will stagnate for a few turns, build a WB then probably an axe and then the library. Here are some screenshots of our cities, I'm working some... unusual tiles to say the least. If you think we should work the lake instead of the river plains I'll change it, but we'll lose a turn on the WB and will get unhappiness in EA for a bunch of turns.

Our espionage with GJ is now 89/198 but I can't find a way to know what he can see of us, if he can't see our graphs it's probably a good idea to not put too much EP on Gavagai (once we get his graphs, it's 12/14 now) to keep it that way.

[AdrienIer]

There are only 2 players left to play other than us, I'd like to avoid slowing the turn pace again so if you think we should trade map with Gavagai and/or change the tiles in EA just log in, do what you think is best and press enter. Worse case scenario, you can't access the game and I'll send the map trade/end turn tomorrow morning.
Now it's time to rest after a tiring week :yawn:

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Sorry. Happy to trade maps - show him he needs to compete with GJ for the land down there. I think that at size 4 with ea we should move to stagnate and slow build a settler using the better tiles there. We can complete the workboat for the horse city after the settler is done. This all depends on how serious GJ is on attacking, whether it is opportunistic or a planned assault.

I do not know when people can and cannot have graphs on us, so I cannot be too much of a help there. No point in letting them see the graphs I suppose as they won't stop the attack until the axe is gone I think.

Did the midterms go ok? I'm with you on the rest front. Aching all over from the bracing... Just wish I had a bed ATM. Moving house into a shell from furnished renting is a nightmare.

Edit - did this and rolled the turn, hope the settler change you were ok with.

[AdrienIer]

No pb about the settler, I just thought that with one being constructed in MCG the cap could do other things. I suppose you changed the tiles accordingly ?
My midterms were strange, for the first time in my life I have no idea how good I did. When you'll get yourself a bed and a functioning kitchen things will get better, the rest is not as important.

GJ whipped 3 times in the past 2 turns, if he's whipping military it'll be highly annoying, else I think we can compete with his development.

Edit : turn played, the axeman killed Webb but with only 1.9/5 left. The archer is whipped so the attack is stopped. Did I mention that the GLH had been built a few turns ago ? I sent the two eastern workers north of EA (probably with a bad worker micro) to chop the forest we'll be settling on, that way we don't lose the production.