Ministry of Silly Walks 2: Walk Sillier/Harder

[WarriorKnight]

Hey dudes, I had been pretty busy lately which is why I haven't been following this thread much. That and even the week-long trip I took made it very difficult to follow what had happened.

I'll read through the thread again and check the turn when possible, could someone just give a cliffnotes version of where you guys are and what you're planning?

It's T50. Just got the GE and will finish Masonry/rush Mids next turn if everything goes according to plan. 4H got a Prophet but that's not really a concern at all. Maths is almost complete and should be finished t52. After that we haven't really decided what to do next since I'm pretty much the only one here atm, aside from deciding currency is our likely next tech.

As I said before, not doing a t50 overview, more likely to do t51.

[WarriorKnight]

We've got a problem:



Evidently building no military eventually caught up to us. Ocean itself is in no danger, I can still GE Mids this turn and build a spear the turn after with overflow easily (damn good thing I connected copper in HC land). I have a worker settler pair 2SE of Ocean enroute to my 4th city but they too can retreat into the city which only delays it at worst. Tshirt launcher is a slight issue, I'm going to have to put some hammers into a spear this turn so I can whip it if that darn chariot moves W. Could also face some pillaging. Don't think it'll be a huge problem overall but certainly a much needed wake up call.

Don't think this is big enough to delay Mids at all, but man I'd love to pay HAK a visit in return at some point, especially since they've annoyed us the most so far. Will play later in case someone picks up a mistake. Note to self: don't forget to send Gandhi copper this turn.

And Smack got Currency, which means we still have a shot at MoM if we want to go for it.

[WarriorKnight]

[WarriorKnight]

So, early game plans complete, what next? Well, let's take a look at last turns graphs:



Darius has quite the lead, which is a concern but sort of unsurprising considering that Joao has given at least 3 cities to him. We're not too far behind Smack, and we're more or less tied with 4H.



Not much to say with all the ups and downs. HC is one of the top contenders here and will probably be 1st once the forges go up. Both LAM civs have good production as well.



Seven has done very well here to lead. HC and Darius are tied for 2nd place. Gandhi, once he sets up his SE, will probably jump up to around HC/Darius level, and that will possibly let us overtake Smack. Vicky of 4H really needs to start working those cottages, they don't really have many other ways of catching up to the other teams in GNP. Joao and mack are being pulled along by teammates and will probably stick to funding.



Obviously we're behind the ball here, but really it's not important once we get it up and running. Once I deal with that chariot and get some sentries out for both civs, I doubt there'll be any more problems here.


Mids will probably translate into a decent tech lead with time. Best way to abuse it? I'd say beeline Knights and smash someone, probably 4H if they don't get their economy up to scratch since the alternative is Smack. Rep/Merc at Banking will keep our techrate up while fighting, and conquest will give us much needed land lost via not having expansion traits. Only problem is possibly totem poled LBows, but we can probably get Guilds pretty quickly anyway with MC already and could consider bulbing Machinery if we get another GE. TBH this is probably the best chance we have at getting more land that's not over East.

What else could we do? REX the land over East perhaps, but everyone should have that on their mind anyway, and REXing isn't our strength. Might be better then the first option if Knights are obsolete before the land gets filled up, but that doesn't seem very likely. We can't ignore the land over there, but it shouldn't be our main plan.

What to tech? Need Currency/CoL ASAP obviously. Probably want IW/Calendar not long after that. We could go Mono for OR, Lit for GL/Epics, Construction for Ball Courts/Cats if we need them, maybe even CS but I don't think we need anything else before Guilds. Colossus should be built at some point, Glib if we tech Lit otherwise I don't know if we want any other wonders.

Short term though, we need to get some resemblance of a military, then be REXing hard. Once we get currency/CoL there won't be many downsides of doing so, we could probably get away with starting it once the military is up. HC works his cottages while Gandhi works some Scientists, otherwise standard expansion strategy. HC has the better production to build settlers while Gandhi has more land to fill, so we should gift some settlers around.

[Ceiliazul]

You're a pretty juicy target right now with the mids and all. You should probably figure there's another couple chariots inbound already.

[WarriorKnight]

You're a pretty juicy target right now with the mids and all. You should probably figure there's another couple chariots inbound already.

You can't be serious. Are 4H really going to throw their game away on that? OK, they caught us with no military, but they didn't catch us with no copper and they can't stop me from making more spears. If there were more incoming, why did they warn us by revealing the 1st chariot anyway?

At least HC isn't affected by this choke, but even HC isn't doing that great in food either sadly enough, so we pretty much have to go conquering at some stage. I fail to see what good this did for 4H exactly. They might have slowed us down a bit but it didn't affect the other 2 teams at all, which are bigger threats at this stage. And did they honestly think they could walk a chariot into my cap and keep Mids?

[Shoot the Moon]

Posting this from my phone so I'll have to be brief, but honestly I suspect the most likely scenario is just that they were doing some scouting with a chariot and happened to be nearby and said something like "hey let's poke our heads in just to see what's defending the city and if there's something in there we can simply move away". I wouldn't read too much into it--certainly not that they're invading us but also not that they're trying to annoy us or anything.

[Ceiliazul]

I was thinking more like 1ish chariots from each other team.

[WarriorKnight]

Posting this from my phone so I'll have to be brief, but honestly I suspect the most likely scenario is just that they were doing some scouting with a chariot and happened to be nearby and said something like "hey let's poke our heads in just to see what's defending the city and if there's something in there we can simply move away". I wouldn't read too much into it--certainly not that they're invading us but also not that they're trying to annoy us or anything.

Probably, although they didn't exactly move completely away when they saw the spear. Had to surprise them with a WC, managed to kill them with it this turn.

Nice to see your back Shoot, when are you able to play turns again? There's quite a bit you need to catch up on.

[WarriorKnight]

Mid-turn, HAK built the HG and mack built the Great Lighthouse. Looking at each one individually.

Firstly 4H. I won't deny HG gets beefed up in a team game, more pop = more benefit from the wonder. I myself have built it twice in RB games (PB3 & PB6). But both times following I/my team was in bad financial shape almost immediately after building it, and I think something similar will repeat here. 4H do not appear to have made any significant gains in commerce yet compared to the other 3 teams, maybe they'll surprise me but that's what the graphs seem to suggest. I think perhaps that because HG gives you vertical growth, you focus almost exclusively on the benefits of growth and neglect commerce in the process, which can have dire consequences and can be somewhat of a trap if your not prepared for it. Will have to wait and see.

As for the Great Lighthouse, ugh. With that giant ocean and cheap Ziggurats, mack can very easily spam cities along his coastline. He's already planted one on the other side of the ocean and very likely in the process of planting a 2nd. I definitely need to figure out a plan for settling in the east soon, or else mack will be in a great position to gobble it all up. I knew it would be bad, but this is worse then that. We should definitely build Colossus some time soon for the last member of the economic trio, I'd hate to lose that as well if someone calls us out for delaying it (curse 4H for making me give copper to Gandhi). As for eastern settling, that's something we need to figure out in chat ASAP Shoot.

On another note, I'm not sure when to bite the bullet and switch HC to rep. I would like to avoid the single civic swap, but really the only civic swap in the near future is OR, which is too far away to really wait for. Probably should just go ahead and do it, although if I do then I made a silly play this turn by whipping HC's cap.