[SPOILER] Ikhanbod

[BRickAstley]

Wait: You don't meet another nation when you can see into their borders? When do you meet them then?

[Ichabod]

Wait: You don't meet another nation when you can see into their borders? When do you meet them then?

Yeah, that's bizarre. I think you need to get vision on the city tile. Is eitehr that or standing on a tile right next to their borders. Actually, I think it's the second. Never failed before.

That's a city state, but it's the same with other Civs. The difference is that you can meet otehr civs by meeting their units too, I think.

[T-hawk]

I believe contact is made when one party can see the other's unit or city. Seeing an empty tile does not work. And tiles do not see two squares away (unlike units), so the owner of the empty tile can't see your unit.

[Ichabod]

I decided to go to the hill with my northeast scout, trying to see some possible hut locations. Then I saw that Pindicator beat me to the City-State! Well, at least it was a maritime City-State, so I only lost 15 gold. Losing faith would be way worst.

Remember that hut that gave me barb encampments. I thought it was useless, but it's actually a bit helpful here, because I'm sure I can turn this camp into a friendship with Venice. Just gotta wait for them to give me a quest (and get some military).

Found Pindicator's borders. He sure is close. Nice gold near the capital, probably a two luxury one. Maybe I'll composite bow rush him, that could be good. I can start building archers already, due to hut luck. We'll see.

The reason I'm considering a rush even more is that my position got pretty worst with the ltest scouting. I found Serdoa (Maya) and it seems I'm sandwiched between him and Pindicator. That nice silver spot with the fish by the river is in Serdo's sphere of influence and it'd be very hard for me to settle. I was hoping I had a peninsula all by myself there, but it wasn't to be.

I thought about what to do here against Serdoa. I think he might have gone for a quick worker (though he wouldn't want to delay his UB much). I could try to hide and snipe his worker, but what would be the point in antagonizing one of my neighbours while planning on rushing the other? That's not good. So, I'll just meet him and get the benefits of this.

Demographics. Either Pindicator found a Natural Wonder or his capital is still size 1. I wonder why he'd want a size 1 capital still...

[Ichabod]

Serdoa met me by having his culture tile expansion + buying a tile, as far as I can see. There's no other way he could have gotten those two tiles. I wonder why he did it, though. He bought either the cows or the horses (notice the 2/1 tile, that's horse). Maybe he was running of of meaningful tiles to work, like me. But I don't want to waste my gold on something like +3 gold a turn.

Serdoa had a big score jump. That's probably AH + something else. Does the tile expansions give all this? I know he has pottery and AH, no mining or archery (Pindicator has Archery, hut pop too, I guess).

My C&D attempts come from looking at the tech tree and the bizarre known tech bonus. As you can see, I already gained +1 beaker with Serdoa's discovery of AH (AH originally costs 23 beakers). I stopped researching AH and I'm now researching mining, since I don't need Ah for now. Hoping for more free beakers (and I got to check if Serdoa knows any other techs).

[Ichabod]

Just to remember myself of two possible city names: "The Stranger" and "Mordecai" from the movie "High Plains Drifter", that I watched today.

[Ichabod]

Pindicator's land is looking even more tasty with that Marble avaiable! He's gotta go wonder heavy with Egypt + Marble. And I'll be ready to take it all from him. (Not that I know how to do it, mind you - but since I don't know how to anything else to, it's a plan).

Ah, and another ruins! I also met Pindicator's scout, so I guess he also opened with 1 or 2 of these. T-Hawk schooling everyone.

[Ichabod]

I keep getting my lovely discounts on the techs. AH is up to 2 beakers of discount and Mining is up to 1 (I guess Serdoa is the one with both these techs). Coupled with pottery, that's actually a full turn of research I'm getting for free. Not that bad, especially since there's no cost for myself. Keep in mind that the original price of these techs is 23 beakers.

The hut upgraded my scout to an archer. That's a nice result, since a archer with such mobility is pretty nice to have. i'll explore some more and bring him back home, maybe trying gaining some favor with Venice by clearing barbs. I think i'll pledge to protect Venice to make Pindicator understand that he shouldn't mess with it (by mess with it, I mean trying to gain favor with it).

Since the granary only needed 5 production to be complete, I changed the tiles in my capital, working the newly acquired Gems tile. Hopefully my culture gets the other gem tile next.

Meanwhile, warrior that met Serdoa is trying to find a way home through the Mountains.

[T-hawk]

Are you late in the turn order? Funny how that works, that's actually an advantage because you get devaluation discounts introduced by players going before you and researching the same techs on the same turns. (Not a spoiler, I don't remember anyone else's tech choices, just guessing based on how everyone has the same 4-5 beaker production.)

I suppose that happened in Civ 4 as well, though to much less useful magnitude since it would only mean a single turn of devaluation modifier rather than the entire tech.

[Ichabod]

Are you late in the turn order? Funny how that works, that's actually an advantage because you get devaluation discounts introduced by players going before you and researching the same techs on the same turns. (Not a spoiler, I don't remember anyone else's tech choices, just guessing based on how everyone has the same 4-5 beaker production.)

I suppose that happened in Civ 4 as well, though to much less useful magnitude since it would only mean a single turn of devaluation modifier rather than the entire tech.

I'm the last one in the turn order, so it's easy to get the bonuses. I'll try to meet more players before finishing techs, if at all possible. That's a nice compensation, since I have a disadvantage regarding huts, city states and explroation. You can say that I already gained that annoying hut that gives you the tech you are 1 turn away of finishing.

I wonder if all the techs give only a 1 discount per player. I doubt it. I'm guessing the second row of techs gives even more discount. Since pottery opens up three techs that I'll want, Sailing (pearls), Calendar (citrus) and writing (good tech overall), I don't have to worry about running out of targets. Though I may end up needing BW before all this.