[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[yuris125]

T13

Ranamar has grown to size 3
Till found some pigs on the coast, looks forward to threatening them with his club next turn
The second Warrior named Alex Kapranos and sent NE for explorations. Building the 2nd Worker now, due in 5 turns, should be reduced to 4 when wheat is farmed
Not much new map info, but I'll post a screen anyway

[yuris125]

T14. Nice speed this evening!

GES and MNG have also grown to size 3. Are we the only ones building a Worker at size 2?

Demos didn't change much, apart from the pop growth. The map, however, presents some interesting questions



Till found what looks like another landbridge. Should he go through and try to get some contacts, or should he resist the temptation and explore south-east, as planned? My inclination is not to cross the landbridge for now, we really need to know what's in the east before we build the Settler. So move E-NE-NE around the peak. Looks like there is water south of the peak

Alex has another dilemma. As you can see, there is a lion standing on the hill looking mean. I intended to move Alex NE onto the newly found forested ivory. Do we go with it and risk Alex's life? The lion shouldn't get good odds against a Warrior in a forest, but it might get lucky...

[Maestro]

Are we the only ones building a Worker at size 2?

I actually kinda hope so; we'll be roading, improving, and chopping ahead of the others if that's the case. It is a bummer being last in crop yield, but we intentionally chose sheep over wheat for the commerce, so I can't really complain.

Regarding Alex, I think NE is the correct decision. Forest defensive bonus is really the best we can reasonably wait for (can't exactly explore by only walking on forested hills). We'd have to be very unlucky to lose that battle, and it'll get us 1 xp closer to Woodsman. Even if we lose, the lion won't enter our borders.

As far as the landbridge goes... I'm torn. Once Till moves east, we'll know if there's land south of that peak. If there isn't, I'm inclined to head down the bridge and let Alex explore the eastern are. Actually, as I think about it, the bigger issue will be Alex's health. If he has to spend 5 turns healing up, then Till should help explore. If he only needs 1 or 2, I'd vote for leaving it to him.

[yuris125]

T15

Commodore is also at size 3 now. He also discovered a tech. His power rating increased by 6000 this turn, looks like The Wheel + another Warrior. Will confirm tomorrow

Alex defeated the lion without getting a scratch!
Till found another plains cows. The tile S of the peak is definitely water





OK, you convinced me, crossing the landbridge would be the right move. Doesn't look like there's much land in the east. BW is due in 2 turns; if we don't see any copper, and Alex needs help exploring the east, Till won't be too far and will be able to return

[Maestro]

I got the save at what I think is 6:30am your time, so I played it. First, the scouting. I marked the fish 'cause they're hard to see. There are also whales E-E of Alex:



And the demos. Honestly, I haven't looked at these very closely. I did see that we're up to 11 Crop Yield, which is still good for last place since we're the only team still size 2:



And, in case the population demos weren't clear enough:



The farm is done, so our worker can start chopping, if I recall correctly and settler is our next build. That means we'll need to make a serious dotmap as soon as BW pops.

[yuris125]

Chopping, yes, and a Settler, yes. I got questions on worker management for you

My understanding is, there are 2 immediate tasks for our Workers:
* Chop a forest
* Pasture the cows

I'm convinced we should chop the forest SW of the capital, and build a mine there. Grassland hill riverside, looks like the best place for the first mine

In my test games, I was doing the following: the new Worker moved SW and started chopping next turn, Philipp roaded the wheat (just because he had time), then moved to one of the tiles south of the capital, ready to pasture the cows next turn. Does this sound like a plan, or is there an elaborate micro I'm missing?

[yuris125]

T17

BW in! We do have copper, and it's easily accessible. Figuring out the optimal city site will be the a bigger problem Will play around with a dotmap later today

Someone lost a Warrior this turn, unfortunately no way to figure out who, with everyone having the same power rating last turn. Maybe later, with other rating changes

Till discovered that the landbridge leads to tundra - there is ice terrain showing. Do we want to continue that way?

Alex found marble not too far away, but we definitely won't grab it with the second city, which will be somewhere around copper. Maybe with the third. Will be too late for the Oracle anyway, we won't research Masonry in time. But a definite possibility for future wonders, if there is food around

[Maestro]

My first serious attempt at a dotmap. I don't think that dotmapping is my strongest point, so comments / suggestions / complete reworks are welcome!



Thoughts:

1. I'd settle red first, which grabs copper + clams in the first ring.
   
2. After red I'd go green, which has cows + pigs and could grow onto riverside cottages immediately.
   
3. I'd give purple Moai, but we could consider red as well.
   
4. Teal and Orange mostly exist to seal off our landbridges for easy defense, but at least they both have food for growth.
   
5. White dot can shift left one spot if we want to claim the unused river plains.
   
6. There's lots of coastal cities, so Great Lighthouse would be worth pursuing.
   

[yuris125]

First, I love this map! The game just started, and it already presented quite a few interesting questions

Here's what I came up with



Magenta - The best production location I could find on the map. It gets 5 hills + copper, pigs + banana for food (banana in the distant future, but it won't be able to work all 6 production tiles any time soon either). The problem: no good resources in the first ring. Solution: if we found this as the second city, it will almost certainly be a holy city -> no culture problems

Blue - pigs + cows + potentially another cows from the capital -> GP farm?

Red - Moai

Orange - picks up crabs, in the future wines/dyes/sugar -> commerce

Green - commerce with decent production, those elephants are 2/3/1 when improved, assuming we don't chop the forests. Can borrow wheat for growth

White - filler, can work capital's cottages at the start, but mostly picks up the missed wine + some cottageable land. A much better location would be on that peak, can I found a city there? Please?

I think we should recall Till, exploring tundra definitely isn't a priority. He should go back to the area of the second city and fogbust there, I don't want our Settler to be eaten by a wolf

[yuris125]

Nice crosspost! It was funny to see how few sites we actually agreed on

Anyway, we talked it through, and we're going with my magenta dot as the second city. Settler next in the capital, Till should be able to return to the hill 1S2W of the sheep just in time to protect him. Next research - Mysticism, then towards Priesthood. From the looks of it, nobody except Commodore has Mysticism, and nobody is researching it right now, so we should comfortably grab a religion along the way