The Distance of a Handkerchief: THH duels Q

[TheHumanHydra]

This is my reporting-thread for my duel against Qgqqqqq. The title is taken from the setup thread, http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=6552 (in the first post).

The rest of this thread is going to have a rather different theme, however. Enter obligatory filler-picture:

[TheHumanHydra]

My picks:




The settings:




Banned are air units, corporations, spies, and war elephants. Great Spies must stay within your borders. Q picked Suryavarman of Mali.

The start:




I stared at it for a bit. Now, Q (who went first) said in his email SIP was "a really incredible site," but I didn't need that to tell me moving would probably take me away from (some of) my food, especially given I wanted to keep that gold in the cross. I scouted SE to see if there was adequate food for either of my t0 moves, just in case:




The oasis was tempting, but I didn't fancy eating the flood-plains and abandoning whatever resource was 2W of the starting spot to get it. Also I was thinking of sharing the gold with the second city, and moving would invalidate several potential locations. I SIPed:




And that's t0. This is a lush location.

Demos, for my future reference:




As expected.

How much reporting do people like for duel games? As much as we can give you, as usual, or just check in once every so often?

[Fintourist]

How much reporting do people like for duel games? As much as we can give you, as usual, or just check in once every so often?

As much as you like! I would say an update every 5/10 turns and also if something interesting happens would be appreaciated by your opponent and also allows e.g. this lurker to follow along. But I repeat, no idea what others like, report as it pleases you!

[TheHumanHydra]

Welcome aboard, Fintourist! And just for you, I have a second turn already:




Debating scouting south first for a pigs-sharing second site or east for a gold-sharing. Didn't have time to do a sim already but picked AH based on obvious prevalence of animals around the cap (mmm, yummy dragon food). Also Q's Mining, Wheel so this is something I can do and he can't. Don't know if the timings are right for it to actually make a difference for his micro, though (ie. if he goes Agriculture - AH like he probably will).

[BRickAstley]

Well, if you feel like you want to practice your reporting as well, report lots and often. If you're fine there, just are concerned with the actual in game practice, then don't worry about super often, just give updates.

[TheHumanHydra]

Hmm, it might in the end be determined by how seriously I want to report on my micro in the early stages. Anyway, I do have a shot (or two) for t2, but not t3 since I just revealed one peak:




All the water tiles are coast, not lake.




Not totally sure what this means (don't know how or normally like to do C&D); looks like he's working the plains hill for the Exp bonus on the worker while researching a tech with no prereqs - Agriculture.

Also, welcome, BRick!

[SevenSpirits]

Rarely will you see someone complain about too much reporting except the person doing that reporting.

My suggestion is to talk about all the non-trivial decisions you make.

"Continued researching AH" -> don't need it
"Did a sim with the following conclusions, including that AH is best" -> sounds interesting
"Moved the warrior... again" -> don't need it
"Have to make a major development decision on tX, so I'm trying to reveal as much pertinent info by then as possible, so I moved the warrior this way instead of that way" -> interesting

I've noticed that people tend to report duel games less - probably in large part because the turns tend to be faster, and maybe in part because there's more pressure on you to not screw up since it's not some fluffy free-for-all. And that's fine. But I'm sure that however much reporting you do will be appreciated by the lurkers.

[TheHumanHydra]

Hey Seven; good advice (as always ). I just played t4; I'll wait a turn or two for another scouting shot, when I can actually talk about city #2 maybe (I went south). Turns out I don't have time to sim this start since Q and I are blitzing now; maybe tonight after our session's done - but for now I'm running on gut and I actually hope we don't get too far into the opening micro for that reason.

Curiously, I actually feel far less pressure about screwing up in this game; I don't know, seems like the more players, the higher the stakes to me (not to say I'm not playing this game very seriously). Which, knowing me, is a very good thing.

[TheHumanHydra]

Ok, this is a good turn to report on.




My gut says this is a double-worker start, given all the resource-tiles to be improved and the difficulty doing so due to all the forests. But I don't know if that's suicide in a duel with warrior-starts. I also really wish I had some more map knowledge - if there's any food by the horses, and any seafood by the gold. I may grow on a warrior and then do a second worker. In retrospect, I probably should have hit that grassland forest hill 1E of the sheep before circling around south.

As you can see I started on Mining - Bronze Working. I don't need Pottery for the flood plain or granaries yet, I'll need Mining for the gold at some point, and BW will let me see copper and chop/slave if the micro works out that way. I'm sure I'll be able to get Pottery before it's needed, so might as well do it this way so I have resource knowledge/options. I didn't consider Mysticism - Meditation/Polytheism; there's a chance I could divert to that to pop borders via religion in my second city depending on where I settle - but I shouldn't need to do that.

An interesting note is that Q apparently accidentally set this up as a 20x20, as opposed to the script-default 40x40, map, because that's what he normally plays on (I had wanted a bit more breathing-room). He chivalrously offered to restart, but I declined since we've already started and I think the start's interesting. Also he pointed out I have War Chariots to keep me safe. Anyway, this again pushes me toward at least part-hammers into a warrior second in case he walks into my capital/worker. It also makes me think I should maybe try to disrupt him with early War Chariots, but I'm timid ... we'll see what happens.

[Sullla]

THH, I resized your picture in the first post using the "screenshot" tag on these forums. I apologize, but it was ridiculously large for anyone not on a massive monitor. Good luck in your game.