[SPOILERS] The Rise and Fall of Whositania (all glory to Whositania!)

[Whosit]

Opponent Analysis: dtay as Mao Zedong of Ethiopia

Traits: EXP/PRO
Techs: Hunting/Mining
Unique Unit: Oromo Warrior (Musketman)
Unique Building: Stele (Monument)

Like I surmised earlier, a quick double-check confirms that dtay is a seasoned veteran. He is perhaps not ranked as highly as Krill, but is still at least a class above me, so it hardly matters. Man, I'd have loved for my neighbors to be, like, Jowy, Bacchus, and Nakor. I don't mean to imply that I think I could steamroll them, but from what I can tell they at least seem closer in skill level to me. Well, actually, I am not sure about Nakor nowadays. Point is, it makes me sad to see such dangerous opponents as my neighbors.

So, dtay has EXP and PRO. As I've said before, I regard Expansive as the strongest trait in the mod. Protective was sort of nerfed/buffed, but this combo means dtay gets the powerful Expansive with the fast Granary back, so I think that might make up for Protective's other shortcomings. However, if used well, these traits would allow dtay to quickly plant new cities and defend them with cheap units, making him a prickly target.

The Oromo Warrior is strong with first strikes, immunity to first strikes, and I believe some collateral resistance due to the Drill II promotion. At least it's not Aggressive (though it will have the CG bonus from protective, so cities stuffed with these are going to be scary to crack). Will have to watch for signs of aggression when he hits Gunpowder.

The Stele seems rather useless, at least by itself, and by the time that +25% culture might be useful, it would become obsoleted. However, chances are dtay will build them because he doesn't have any other way to produce culture quickly (though he could go for the more expensive Barracks).

Threat Rating: High

[Whosit]

Turn 23 report:

Scout survived the battle with 66 HP. 4 turns to heal, but I'll probably heal for 2-3. Moved into nearby forest to heal. If Krill wasn't Creative, I might poke around his borders more, but as his borders will expand soon, I'll just scout in a south-ish direction. I want to find the Zulu (their capital is size 3, by the way).

I decided to snap a picture of the demos:

I'm not so crazy to try and C&D nonsense, and if I was I'd have had to start much earlier, but there are a few things I can infer from this.

I am not sure if the Production is skewed by the lurker civ, but I'll assume yes, since I'm not sure how one could have 8 production at this point. Well, while maintaining 7 food. The 14 food could easily be one of the size 3 cities. Someone is still size 1. I wonder who, and why. Did someone go double worker? Pure speculation, though perhaps someone is in Slavery already? Anyone starting with mining could have gone right for BW. Anyway, the Expansive players are probably in the lead with city size and food production, but at least I don't feel like my opening has been awful. My Warrior is just a few turns from completing, so I'm going to have to start sandboxing again with my updated information to see if I need to change my gameplan. Or, really, remind myself of it. I never really wrote it down. Ha ha....

[Whosit]

Woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep, so I played my turn (nothing exciting happened, but I remembered to rename my Worker Alexander), and then I spent 2 hours working in my Sandbox! I played two variations out to Turn 70, and the second run is better documented with better results. I'm just going to post the whole thing here. I have it all in notepad, but it might remind me, and just in case any lurkers want to read and decipher my game plan:

T24 - played
T25 - Name Worker Alexander, farm Wheat.
T26 - Willow Lake size 3; Work plains hill.
T27 - Warrior complete; start Settler; Work Dye; Warrior move towards city 2 location.
T29 - Farm completes EoT; City work farm.
T30 - Adam puts turn into plains farm.
T30 - Adam moves onto forest.
T31 - BW completes; begin Wheel; Alexander chops.
T35 - Settler completes; revolt Slavery; Willow Lake set to Warrior.
T36 - Settle Overland Park: Barracks; Alexander farms Corn.
T37 - Willow Lake completes Warrior > Warrior; Send Warrior south.
T40 - Wheel > Pottery.
T41 - Willow Lake: Warrior > Worker; switch from plains hill to dye; Alexander moves to Ivory.
T42 - Whip Barracks in Overland Park; Alexander camps.
T43 - Overland Park: Barracks > Warrior; Whip Worker in Willow Lake.
T44 - Willow Lake: Worker > Settler; New Worker named Benjamin; Benjamin moves 1SE (plains hill).
T45 - Benjamin chops.
T46 - Pottery > Archery; Alexander roads.
T48 - Overland Park: Warrior > Worker; Benjamin mines; Alexander moves 1S of OP; New Warriors moves 1S.
T49 - Archery > Mysticism (> Masonry)?; Alexander chops; Warrior waits.
T50 - Willow Lake: Settler > Granary; Settler to South.
T51 - Move Warriors to guard Settler/Worker paths south; plains mine finishes; swap Willow Lake to Worker; swap tile to plains mine.
T52 - Warrior/Settler move south; Warrior/Worker move to gems hill; Benjamin roads.
T53 - Overland Park: Worker > Granary; New Worker Clay; Alexander builds mine; Clay moves towards south (NOTE: This build did not prepare city location 3.)
T58 - Plano is connected. 4 turn delay.

T70 - Demos: 45 GNP, 20 MFG, 46 Crop, 193000 pop.

Alternate plan to prep city 3:
Road must begin by Turn 49

Play same up to Turn 45.
T46 - Alexander moves S of OP; move Warrior to cover.
T47 - Move Alexander/Warrior to gems.
T48 - Overland Park: Warrior > Worker; Benjamin mines; Alexander roads; swap promoted w/ unpromoted warriors.
T49 - Archery > Mysticism.
T50 - Willow Lake: Settler > Granary; Settler to south.
T51 - Swapp Willow Lake to Worker.
T52 - Benjamin moves 1SE (forest). Alexander keeps roading; shuffle warriors.
T53 - Mysticism > Masonry; Benjamin chops; Found Plano: Workboat.
T54 - Alexander farms Corn.
T55 - Overland Park: Worker (Clay) > Granary; Ben chop finishes; Clay 1SE (forest)
T56 - Willow Lake: Worker (D) > Granary; Benjamin roads; Clay 1E (pasture pigs); D* 1S-1SE.
T57 - D* chop (to Willow Lake)
T58 - Masonry > Writing; Benjamin 1SW-1S (S of OP).
T59 - Benjamin move to gems; Alexander move to Stone; D* finish chop.
T60 - Willow Lake: Granary > Settler; Whip Granary Overland Park; Benjamin Mine gems; Alexander quarry stone; D move 1NW, 1t road; Clay move 1SW-1NW (forest).
T61 - Overland Park: Granary > Archer; Clay chop; D* move 1NW, road.
T62 -
T63 - (Note: Barb archer appear in test game.) 2pop Whip Settler in Willow Lake; Move WL Warrior to west; D* move 1NW; Clay completes chop (swap OP to Worker/Settler to take chop); gem mine finishes.
T64 - Willow Lake: Settler > Warrior; Swap OP back to Archer; Whip Plano (workboat, will regrow to 2 next turn); D* roads; Settler to Horses; Clay cottage; Benjamin move 1NE, cottage.
T65 - Writing > Mathematics; Willow Lake: Warrior > Barracks; Plano: Work boat > Granary; D* finish road; Settle Avendale (work boat); Avendale steals wheat; work boat nets clams; cottage complete at Overland Park.
T66 - Overland Park: Archer > Worker*; Ben/Clay, road; Alexander road stone; D*, chop into work boat.
T67 - Ben/Clay move 2N, road.
T68 - Overland Park: Worker (E)* > Archer; Ben/Clay move 1N, cottage; D* chop complete; Willow Lake take wheat back; Alexander 2E (hill); E* 1SE (forest).
T69 - Avendale: Work Boat > Granary; Work boat net crabs; Overland Park unhappy size 6 (1 turn); Alexander mine; E* chop; D* 1S (hill); cottage complete.
T70 - Overland Park whip Archer into Settler (avoid growth); D* mine; Willow Lake work cottage size 5; Benjamin 1NW (forest); Clay 1W (plains hill).
Demos: GNP 48, MFG 20, Crop 53, Pop 202000

The second plan where I remember to prep roads for towns ends up better. Overland Park's development gets slowed slightly because I have to pull Alexander away, but then Plano doesn't need 2 Workers because it grows sort of slowly. I was slow-building the Granary because every time I could whip it, the city was going to grow into the next improvement. I might do another test run to see if it's just better to whip the Granary ASAP. Hopefully I can find some other tweaks. I might not loan out Willow Lake's Wheat at all because I can shop Avendale's Work Boat.

I also realized I missed some minor optimization earlier in the game. The turn I was building the Worker before I netted the fish, should have worked the Dyes for 1 turn instead of staying on the plains hill forest. Loss of 1 commerce isn't major, I'm sure, but something to keep in mind.

At any rate, the final results are similar except my crop yield and population are larger (larger cities, I think). The higher crop yield is pretty significant. Probably like a 10 place difference. I dunno. However, things will change once I find Copper in the real game, and I may change settling plans based on new scouting info. I can probably leave 1 Warrior at Plano once the Work Boat has built, because I can always emergency whip a unit at that point. Maybe leave it with 1 defender earlier if I'm feeling safe, but it might be better to play it cautious with a Zulu lurking around.

[Whosit]

Oh, I was teching Mysticism because it's a prereq for Masonry, and I thought I'd get Mysticism anyway to open up the path to Monarchy. However, at T70 I was 4 turns from Maths, so maybe getting Mysticism early isn't worth the small prereq bonus to Masonry I gain.

[Whosit]

So Krill switched to Slavery last turn, and another Great Spy was born this turn (lurker civ, probably). Scout needs one more turn to heal, then I'll feel safe moving on. Grumble, grumble, so many turns healing.

Krill started with Agriculture, and his Worker was just beginning to work some wheat. Maybe he had a second Agri resource. I could have gone Mining > Bronze Working and have slavery by now, myself, but I thought getting Agriculture too would be worth it. I wonder what the right choice would have been.

[Whosit]

Played turn. Dtay's scout found my capital. My warrior is done and moved a space out. If Dtay's scout wanders in range, I wonder if I should consider whacking it? Probably not.... Probably not a good idea to attack every scout that gets close.

I moved my own scout, but didn't find anything particularly notable, except some sheep and deer that Krill will eventually have.

[Whosit]

So, out of curiosity, I quickly did a sandbox from turn 1 where I go Mining > BW. With a couple of chops and a 1pop whip, Settler gets produced EoT 31 instead of EoT 34. I don't have improved Wheat, though, and I went through 2 forests already instead of 1. I think Agri would have finished in time to improve city 2's corn. Not sure if this would have been a better result or not, though. Something to consider, I suppose.

[Whosit]

Good news: Copper is nearby!

Bad news: It's nowhere near where I wanted to put a city!

City 2 is going to the same place as before, but I'll have to change plans for city 3, I think. More updates (with pictures) later, I promise!

[Whosit]

OK, here's that update, later than I intended, but whatever. I have some pictures from a few turns ago, too.

Where I chose not to start a dumb war for terrible odds:

Look at all this nice land Krill/Novice are gonna get:

So far, Dtay is the only neighbor I know of who has a second city.

Everyone has slavery:

I wonder if my scout will survive nabbing this hut?

And copper....

Well... I guess city 3 is going to go 1W of the Copper on the plains hill. It can borrow Wheat from the capital and someday get some farms. I've made good towns out of worse in SP. I was about to show a picture, but I hit some button and it got shunted to some file folder that I don't know where. Oh well.

The upshot is that this will be a closer city 3 than I was originally planning, which has some benefits, but it won't secure me much territory, which is a downside. I'll have to sim this out tomorrow to see what this will mean for the long term. For the short term, before Civil Service, I might just grow it to size 4 and stagnate it on Cow, Copper, and 2 grassland hills. City 4 will probably be that southern location because that will make a much nicer production site.

I'm going to have to figure out where else I can get some commerce, though. There doesn't seem to be a ton of cottageable spaces here, and most of my towns are going to run into the problem of being cramped without much food (Horse town will compete with Cap and Copper town for that Wheat). Ugh.

[Whosit]

So, this turn, a Wolf appeared between my scout and the hut, so I have to wait a turn to pop it, and hope the wolf doesn't deal any damage to my scout, because that hut is on flat ground and a lion was prowling around.

I also did a few tries in my sandbox, and by turn 70, my demos just aren't quite as good as in my original plan. I do have 1 Axeman, of course, but that's it. I wonder if it would be too risky to leave the Copper city for 4th? I would just defend with Archers for longer. I guess I'll do some more test plays to see how that compares, but if my demos end up much stronger, it might be worth it to take that risk. I'll just have to hope that the Zulu haven't rushed for Impi and come for me.