[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time

[El Grillo]

T12:

No need to beat around the bush. We have horses, and in a very convenient place.



I'd be quite satisfied with a second city that could claim two 5-foodhammer tiles in addition to borrowing the pig, grow onto FIN lakes in between whipping cycles (once we research Fishing, anyway), and in general speed up our early expansion and production significantly. Now the bad news is that Amicalola's Scout gets to see everything that we're up to (Ramk does not have visibility on the horses), and if I were in his shoes I'd be scared stiff of incoming War Chariots. Before I continue that train of thought, here's what our Scout revealed in Incan territory.



Unfortunately, another diagonal of the Incan capital is blocked. Amicalola also finished Animal Husbandry this turn (no one else finished a tech) [EDIT: I am blind, Lazteuq was the one who finished a tech!], but we haven't spotted their horses yet. Based on how the coastline wraps, it should be safe to continue forward without fear of wildlife.

So the big question now is how does Amicalola react to the scouting intel that he sees? With the threat of War Chariots on the horizon, he can't presume to defend with just Quechuas or Chariots of his own, so he needs to tech either Hunting->Archery, or Mining->Bronze Working->Hunting+hook Bronze.

Archers are the safer choice by far, since Amicalola is guaranteed to have one done in time to make a quick kill impossible. However, those are two techs that he probably doesn't want to have to get this early, and moreover he needs to commit first, and with multiple Archers against the threat of a War Chariot attack. I would respect his safe play, build some War Chariots anyway to scout and screen northward, and settle to claim the disputed lands between us, perhaps like so:



Now I wouldn't expect Amicalola to be very happy about that, but it should be a while before he can do much about it. Red dot could also be a potential Stonehenge site with five forests, and would be settled around the time where I could consider it if it hasn't been built yet. Not only would we benefit greatly from free CHM Obelisks, the culture would secure that entire floodplains region against a contentious minimum-distance city from the Incans.

On the other hand, if Amicalola opts not for Archers on defense but for Spears instead as a more proactive counter, the game could just be over for him. If we're lucky and there isn't copper conveniently available at the capital, then there would be a significant window where my War Chariots would be in play before he could produce a Spear, especially as Incan Quechuas don't queue-upgrade into Spears. With a rough sim, a non-greedy approach that founds the city as marked has 2 WCs hitting his capital on turn 42, while a greedier one that settles directly on the horse tile has 2 WCs hitting on turn 39, and I'm sure both dates could be improved on. In both scenarios there would be one trailing WC a turn behind, and the adventure would cost 2 whips and a chop. A high price to pay at such an early date, to be sure, but the prospect of removing a PRO Inca player before he becomes a thorn in my side is undeniably attractive.

[Charriu]

I like that city 2 spot between horses and wheat. Looks great. I could also see a city with lighthouse 3E of that working all those nice lake tiles.

Although Ramk might not know about the horse I still think that Amicalola is the best target right now, mainly because we have much better intel on them. I would not go for the greedier plan settling on the horse. It's very likely that Amicalola manages to build up enough defenses, before we can start an attack. In that scenario we would end up with a poorer second city, because we lose one of the better hammer tiles there. The good thing is that even when he manage to react quickly to WC, we may slow him down a bit by securing the area between us and him and by forcing him to focus defense earlier then he may want to do.

Concerning dotmap: I think red dot is fine. 1N on the plains hill might also work. But settling on the desert hill converts the desert hill into a more useful tile and might secure us the silk in the long run, although that might be less likely with Amicalola.
I really don't like the blue dot. I would opt to be greedier and settle 1S on the desert. Advantages here are:

• Converting 1 of those 4 useless deserts into a useful tile
  
• Freeing up a plains tile that can be used otherwise
  
• Securing a crab for this city.
  
• Securing a mountain in the second ring giving great visibility towards Amicalola.
  

[El Grillo]

Thanks for the input. I agree that although there is no guarantee that we’ll be able to make a successful attack on Amicalola, he did say that he’s not very experienced and might not realize the danger he could be in. If we see Hunting in response, then I’m happy to make the safer long term play as well and settle the marked site.

As for blue dot, I recognize all those downsides, but the two tradeoffs are that the lake prevents the city from being attacked from the diagonal, and as I expect Amicalola to found on the plains hill 1S of the peak for wheat and crabs, I think it would be a much less tense border situation. Perhaps I’m overvaluing those considerations, but in the event that I do manage to bully Amicalola into yielding those spots to me, I don’t want him thinking of them as tempting targets.

[Charriu]

Good arguments for blue dot. I don't expect blue dot to be settled before the other spots, so most likely Amicalola will decide this for us.

[El Grillo]

T13:

I was mistaken last turn, I misread Pbspy somehow and thought Amicalola had finished a tech last turn, when he actually finished a tech this turn. As far as I know this means he swapped a few turns ago when meeting us, though I can't be certain until we get graphs. The fact that he was able to finish the tech this quickly after swapping means that it must've been one of the cheap Fishing/Hunting, and of those it would almost certainly be Hunting. If he immediately techs Archery next, then us attacking him is clearly out of the picture, but at the same time I don't think he'd be able to seriously threaten us with a 1-city Archer attack in time when he knows we could settle on horses. Maybe he wants to place an aggressive city plant in the area between us with an Archer to defend it? Risky business considering the city would have to be on flat land.

Amicalola has some decent backline city spots, I suppose the equivalent of our land to our east.

[Charriu]

Hey but we also know now that we are near the south pole.

[El Grillo]

T14:



Yep, unless the map is laid out in a really unexpected way, Amicalola is right at the southeastern-most point of the continent, so there's probably one additional player further north of Ramk on the eastern side of the donut. I'm starting to suspect that the map has much thicker sides than for example the PB2 donut, or else Amicalola has a really tough start backed into a corner like this. Or maybe he's supposed to go for those islands to the east early and not every player has Galley-accessible islands? Also, it looks like the southwest diagonal into Amicalola's capital is also blocked by rough terrain, so hopefully our Scout lives long enough to check the northwest diagonal.

[Charriu]

How much longer until the third border pop? I'm just asking because the current spot is excellent to heal the scout.

[El Grillo]

Good point, Amicalola isn’t CRE so there should be plenty of time before t50 to heal and still move around for a better view. Unless he founds a religion soon, perhaps.

[Commodore]

Nobody builds a granary in their capital early.