[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[dazedroyalty]

Couple of quick notes. WB finished in SoF so I started a warrior. I can't remember if we wanted to go straight to another WB or warrior but I figured warrior was the safer bet. Plus since we finished the first WB I switched off the Quarry so we're not really investing many hammers anyways.

In Scarlet I switched back to the pigs instead of the crab. We lose 2 gold that way but we grow as soon as the Mids finish (switch to Rep) which means we'll be able to work more tiles sooner so I figure that's worth the immediate loss in gold. We're 4 turns from the Mids with one more chop coming in (in two turns). So the net effect is 3 turns from the Mids.

[scooter]

The Pyramids still stand, so we will get them unless we lose a coinflip. Pretty cool.

I logged in to take a look around. I decided not to play the turn since you've been playing them. If you want me to play any of them this week, just let me know. Anyways, I'll throw up some screenshots from this last turn for the curious lurkers.

[scooter]

Alright, last turn was T52 and I took a few shots. First, our land looks WAY different without all our precious trees:



Also, yes it says Pyramids in 3T, but it will finish next turn (now that the turn just rolled, end of this turn). That's because the chop completes THIS turn, which means:



Ok we're getting 10 base hpt, which works out to 25h from tiles alone after multipliers. So that's 450/500. Then we get one chop. Chops with stone + IND = 50h, so we will finish this turn with precisely 500h. Dazed - we probably want to sink 1T into a barracks or something at max-food to get to size 4 before swapping back to settler. Also, as soon as the chop completes on that forest hill, we'll want to mine it as well. Not particularly crucial that it gets a road, though we may have excess worker turns to do so. Anyways, the western warrior:



Let's use this thing to defog the tiles near the crabs and see if Brick missed any huts here, but then get back to the chokepoint rather quickly. If Brick sends another unit at us, that would be annoying to have to rush out a warrior to cover for us. Ideally once we defog a half dozen tiles down here, we'll head back to the chokepoint and sentry right on the grass forest with the "city?" sign on it. Agree?

[scooter]

Also, I've got a few random map noodlings that I'd like to do soon. Any interest in such a thing? Usually map-cracking is one of my hobbies, but I haven't been able to much in this game because logging in is usually not possible. Anyways, playoff hockey starts tonight, so my enthusiasm in updates and life in general may briefly die if the Red Wings get bounced in the first round like I'm starting to fear.

[scooter]

So some map stuff that I'm puzzling over. Here's the thing. On Big & Small, usually even the "normal islands" setting never produce islands big enough for two civilizations to spawn on. This seems to suggest that Brick and us are on the mainland. Thing is... where? We know it's a dead end to our north and between us and Brick, so here's what else we have to look at:



So... That sure looks like ther'es no land to his north. There's three tracts of land here that could possibly have a connection. First, the stuff NE of the pigs. That sure is shaped like a dead end though, so I'm guessing that's a dead end. ALso, directly north of the capital. Again, the shape here looks like it ends, but if you look REALLY closely, you can see north of the corn what looks like TWO shores. Check the tile one N-N-NE of the corn. It looks like there's a double coast here, which means it's likely this is a 1 tile water passageway between two land sections. This could hint at a possible land bridge. Also, NW of the capital there's a strip of land with a peak and a desert. That could also be a plausible land bridge to the rest of the main continent. It would be somewhat of a weird jut if it ended in water, but would be pretty typical if it connects to the bigger continent. Next:



North of the pigs, RIGHT where we died. That tile 2N of the pigs is pretty clearly NOT the last land tile here. That's because it doesn't round off like it does typically. So there's at least a couple tiles north of the pigs, maybe more. Finally, south of the pigs there's clearly a lot of land. It's awfully close to the south pole so there can't be a lot of land further south, but there could be a southwest bridge that loops back up to the mainland.

So I predict one of these fogged sections will connect to the main continent, as I don't believe we are on an island. I tend to think the stuff directly north of Brick is the most likely, followed by the stuff to his southwest.

Anyways, the one funny about this is it's possible the "islands" to our north could be part of the same main continent . This would mean no IC routes which would be a bummer. Unfortunately, we just can't know for sure until we get a WB in action scouting. Shouldn't be too much longer before we can do that though. Regardless though, if Brick holds the keys to contact with everyone else, he may have to die eventually. Hopefully we can tech way past him first though. Lots of interesting things to think about here.

[scooter]

We can only lose it via coinflip:



T53 on normal speed. That's the new record, right? I actually mis-spoke last turn - we have 25h to spare. I'm thinking dump the overflow into a settler, then 1T into a barracks to grow to size 4, then settler -> Oracle. Sound good, Dazed? Overview:



I love when plans work perfectly. We'll net the clams next turn and grow onto them at EOT. This'll help SoF pick up the pace. Demos are a bit deceiving since we essentially have "improved" and not yet worked crabs and clams



Krill has a size 7 city:



Kinda weird actually as triple-whipping is a not so great choice. But with his high happy cap and his late settling, it has to be him. Anyway, one matter that isn't TOO pressing but still significant:



Well this isn't the pressing part. No seafood that I can see, but we may need to send him back to the chokepoint because:



Brick has had 5 power bumps since our warrior died to a bear. Two of those are techs, but the other 3 are still notable. Dazed suggest 3 warriors and I agreed with him, but I'm actually not so sure now. Two of them match warrior, but the other three do not. Maybe one is a barracks? Still, considering we have exactly one warrior right now, we should probably loop ours back. With shock on a forest, that warrior will own any Sumerian warriors, but if he sends, say, an archer it could be a tad dicier. We'll see.

[dazedroyalty]

Since our workers haven't got much to do, I think it makes most sense to have the worker on the Plains Hill road instead of mine. Then NEXT turn send two more workers onto the hill to speed along the mine.

Let's pick where we want to settle next. I want to have a road network to it to maximize our settler's speed. Since our workers don't have much else to do right now...

Also, I'd like to talk about when to revolt to Rep. We do need the happy but we lose time on the settler (and oracle). I don't think we can wait till after oracle to revolt but we could theoretically wait till after the settler though that means we won't be able to grow again without an unhappy face. We'd probably need to do the math to see if the growth speeds us up more than 1T. If growing speeds the settler by 1T then it's a wash. If growing doesn't actually speed the settler, then revolting is not worth it till the settler is moving.

[scooter]

So guess what we got:



Whoooo! :2dance:

However, one thing of note, Henge landed at the same time! I wasn't sure who this was at first, but comparing to last turn's screenshots, regoarrar had a score increase of 18, so it must have been him. The funny side-effect here is that from a points perspective, there's no difference between Oracle and Stonehenge. That means most people won't even know who built which one. I kind of like that. It may be possible to find out this way:



If someone is doing C&D that detailed that they could match the capital size with the wonder, but most people don't do that, so most people won't even know which of us built which. Kinda nice. Brick knows, but that's it.

[scooter]

Ok Dazed, I took your advice on worker actions - I think your idea was a sound one. I also gave some thought about revolting, and I'll walk through what I did as I think it made sense. First, worker actions:



On the left side, I'm roading both of those tiles. They'll finish roading next turn, and the following turn they'll mine. It's not a huge rush, as that mine will NOT be used for the settler (we're at size 3 and 4 other tiles are improved to be used), so it'd really only be useful at size 5 building Oracle. Also, when to revolt? Quick look inside Scarlet to walk through that:



So we get 10h of overflow. We want that to go into the settler, but we also want to grow. That means 1T into the settler, then swap to barracks for 1T to grow to size 4, then back to settler. The thing is, swapping to crabs is best. While building a settler, 4F = 4H, so we get +2 commerce this way. That meant we just barely finish Pottery this turn, which means our workers would have an extra thing to do sooner and would waste less time which is wonderful great and happy. Revolting next turn and then growing seems to make sense. Basically, settler will get 14h base right now (factoring in food). There will be 76/100h remaining after this turn. That would be 6 turns. Add 4h by growing and we get to 18h base. That's 4.2T, which means 5T and some extra overflow. Revolting adds 1T to it so it breaks even in terms of Oracle finish date, but it means the city will be a bigger size and working better tiles, so we'll be in better shape post-Oracle. So no downside to growing and revolting - it breaks even on Oracle finish date and is better post-Oracle.

ALSO. I'm thinking about chopping that extra forest for Oracle. Back to the last screenshot:



That forest will not be in the BFC of any city due to awkward city placements to our west. So yes, the forest won't be the full 20h, but it would still speed Oracle by a turn or so I think. Plus, since we're IND it'd be the only way to make it full value. So after we get the mining done and such, we should probably have a worker go onto it, road, and then the workers can chop into Oracle. Sound good?

[scooter]

Oh, one last thing I forgot to mention:



Hadn't heard what you wanted to do here, so I decided to take a peek at what seafood there might be here. There is some, but not usable by our city there. I think we need to head back to the chokepoint now.

Finally, we probably need to have a chat sometime today/tonight about our next city. Our two options is basically the sheep/crabs/copper spot or the northern Moai spot. Really depends on our priority here - if we're wanting to push north to the island or west towards Brick, so our next city placement is more a question of long-term strategy.