[SPOILERS] Nakor and Jester..Second time's a charm :)

[Nakor]

Gold and Silver! Forge time it is...

Two warriors, maybe three before a settler or worker, or gamble and go for an early settler at size 2...
We need contact! We need to know who is there....

[CFCJesterFool]

T14 was uneventful so we skip ahead to T15...


We have horses in an awkward spot. Sacagawea earned a promotion after surviving a ninja attack by a barb animal (wolf iirc). Since there was no damage taken, we'll save the promotion for healing purposes later on. The plan is to head to the PH 1 SW of the sheep (hopefully revealing more food). Right now I lean towards settling the wheat + gold site first then settle a city to grab horses followed quickly by Mid city and the desert hill cottage site. I truly hope we have copper and it is located in a better spot.

[Nakor]

Hmm... We need more info to seen if we can make that a good horse city....
Weird place for horses...

[CFCJesterFool]

We finally make first contact...


Depending on Gavagai's scouting pattern, he is either somewhat close or relatively far away. If I had to guess, it would be the latter.

[Nakor]

He comes from the south then.
What do we know of him?

[CFCJesterFool]

He comes from the south then.
What do we know of him?

Can't say I've ever read one of his games so not sure what to expect. Locating copper is going to be pretty critical imo. Without copper we'll be forced to tech Archery. We need to secure the desert hill spot before him (hill archers decent enough defense if lacking copper). Otherwise, we'll fall too far behind in tech since he is FIN/PHI and the desert hill site would be a powerhouse research center with FIN cottages. It is also the only site we can see that has good commerce potential.

I think we want to be aggressive (although not necessarily rush) but do so in a manner, if possible, that doesn't appear like we are plotting war (i.e. no pillage choking). Still thinking of possible ways to play the start but pretty sure we want to ignore the horses for now, tech Archery if we have to so we can grab desert hill, and build the Mids (Rep for teching and Police State for the war). Probably best to grab metal first and then bee-line construction (Math bulb with first GS). War chariots + axes/swords + catapults should do the trick I think. Glad we won't be doing a farmer's gambit this game.

[CFCJesterFool]

Decided to avoid the lion for now...


Judging by the timing, looks like someone started Mysticism->Meditation. Doesn't seem like a good idea but maybe they are isolated. Anyhoo, T17 demos...

[Nakor]

Took a look ingame.
We could settle the hill 1E of the wheat to grab Horses, Stone, Wheat and Sheep. It does grab water tiles, but settling there makes a lot of things possible in the future.
Can we scout a bit more around the horsies to see if there is more food? At least if you don't think my possible city is a good one.

Gavagai has not build a worker yet, so he should have only warriors. He must build a worker/settler soon, so that makes him a very likely target for our fast war chariots. (Yes, I'll keep bringing them up).
If taking him out will secure the fertile Southern region, that would help us a lot!
If we want to pursue that venue, we need to scout south to see where his capital is.

BTW, Gavagai declared war to scout our capital.

[CFCJesterFool]

Took a look ingame.
We could settle the hill 1E of the wheat to grab Horses, Stone, Wheat and Sheep. It does grab water tiles, but settling there makes a lot of things possible in the future.
Can we scout a bit more around the horsies to see if there is more food? At least if you don't think my possible city is a good one.

Gavagai has not build a worker yet, so he should have only warriors. He must build a worker/settler soon, so that makes him a very likely target for our fast war chariots. (Yes, I'll keep bringing them up).
If taking him out will secure the fertile Southern region, that would help us a lot!
If we want to pursue that venue, we need to scout south to see where his capital is.

BTW, Gavagai declared war to scout our capital.

I thought about settling the hill by the wheat and it isn't a good long term city (not enough hammers). I'd rather settle 1W of the stone (great production potential) and grab the horses with a city further west (either 1 NE or 2 N of the lake). The priority for Sacagawea is indeed to scout near the horses.

However, our first two cities need to be *towards* Gavagai. Settling away from him to grab horses isn't the best strategic choice (since spears shut down War chariots). Without commerce, any rush would be ill advised so the priority should be the wheat + gold site and the desert hill site (good defensive staging point). We'll get out some warriors to scout southwards before making any decisions on where to settle though.

One point I want to bring up is that we do not want to attack before we are ready (i.e. have a good economy base). Also, as long as we don't delay unnecessarily, we gain more by capturing cottages and improved tiles than by capturing undeveloped cities. Another reason to not attack quite so early is that with PHI you would usually go for a quick GS (for an Academy). High probability that we capture his Academy city (capitol?) if we time it right.

[CFCJesterFool]

Fake war FTW...


Checked espionage points and Gavagai met someone last turn (10/12 ratio). As of right now I think our settling order should be wheat + gold first, wheat + horse + silver second then either Mid city or desert hill.