The Distance of a Handkerchief: THH duels Q

[TheHumanHydra]

Oh, sorry; thanks for doing that. Thanks for the wishes.

Edit: Might as well just put this in the same post. Q finished his worker as expected and is growing. I'm pretty sure he went Agriculture first but could be going either AH or BW second.

[TheHumanHydra]

I realized Q can't walk into my capital without me be able to build a warrior first, so I went with my gut and started on a second worker. I believe it will finish with exact hammers eot16 (I just finished t10).

I intend to write a "big-picture" post about this game at some point (you know, leaders and civs and general thoughts), but haven't been able to with the turn-pace. Tonight or tomorrow some time.

[Commodore]

Whoa, so Hannibal vs. Sury? I see you opted to seek additional challenges in the true RB spirit!

[TheHumanHydra]

I picked first, so ... wasn't my fault.

[slowcheetah]

I picked first, so ... wasn't my fault.

At least your capital is Fintastic

[TheHumanHydra]

@slow: Yes, the capital is nice and rivery, though I have to confess all the forests make worker movement a bit difficult. Well, I'm trying to apply some things I learned from Seven's micro contest, so we'll see how it goes.

Speaking of Seven, Q proposed using his rule from his own duel found in the challenge thread where "wimpy" units (anything with <3 base strength) can't attack or enter borders till someone's >3 strength unit does so - further rewarding my double-worker, no-warrior start.

And speaking of that, I finished my second worker just now, and had to decide what to do with him!




After long moments (for a duel) of staring at the screen and scribbling on some paper, I had him move to the plains forest hill in preparation to chop. This is probably questionable, so I'll explain my reasoning and micro "plan," such as it is, so you don't have to wonder what I was thinking.

But first, I want to give you a zoomed-out shot so you can see my surroundings and the context for one of the dilemmas I'm facing. Drawn in is my scouting-path thus far:




(Note Q's warrior next to mine; we made contact my t16.)

I'm trying to decide if I made a major mistake here or not. As you can see I circled around clockwise southeast-to-west, ran into that little lake, and headed south to uncover more terrain instead of retreading ground. Now, I couldn't have known I'd be completely blocked from continuing the circle around my capital, but still, this leaves the whole northeastern shoreline unscouted - where lie my gold and horses, ideal to share/grab with the second city. I will have reasonably good knowledge of the area once my borders pop again in eight turns (slightly before the settler's ready), but still, this keeps me from planning my worker-micro ideally because I don't know yet where I want to plant that second city! I could just say to heck with it and plan to plant east to share the sheep and gold or south to share the pigs, but settling for the horses early is really tempting me ... remember how I said this is an abnormally-small map? (I actually mis-spoke; it's 20x20 each, as opposed to the default 40x40) Note how there's no copper visible yet? I know he has skirmishers, but he'd have to tech Archery, and even so, my chariots would win in the open - I could probably choke him. But I'm starting to digress. The point is, my scouting hasn't revealed as much of my surroundings as necessary for me to feel comfortable about setting a second-city site, and that's starting to lead to some confusion regarding micro.

So we come back to said micro. This is what I've done so far:

t0-9 - 10t worker
t10 - 4/40 worker - worker A moves
t11 - 8/40 - worker A pastures 1t
t12 - 12/40 - worker A pastures 2t
t13 - 19/40 - worker A finishes pasture
t14 - 26/40 - worker A moves
t15 - 33/40 - worker A farms 1t
t16 - 40/40 worker - worker A farms 2t
t17 (this turn) - 6/14 growth | 1/10 warrior - worker A farms 3t, worker B moves

So I'll hit size two with both six-yield tiles in the cross improved, then I plan to switch to a settler and double-chop it out - I don't need another improved tile just yet, and worker A has to waste a worker-turn moving through forest anyway. Worker B is in position to - after chopping - either move 1S and road to speed the settler toward the grassland forest hill (gets the oasis and rice first-ring) or road the plains hill and 1S - and possibly the horses - to speed the settler toward a plant for the horses. Of course, I could also settler for the pigs and possibly fish, in which case worker A would be the one roading. The point is, I don't have much better to do than chop and road since I'll be working only two tiles for several more turns, and the precise tile I had the second worker move to chop is intended to give me maximum flexibility in terms of what second-city site I go for and road toward. Hopefully that made sense. Hopefully it wasn't full of , but you never know. Hopefully it was at least vaguely interesting - as interesting as early turns can be.

Oh, and I picked Mysticism after Bronze Working. This is again a flexibility thing; my only other real choice is Pottery, and I don't need it yet; this lets me tech Meditation or Polytheism next in case I choose to pop borders in my second city that way, and I'm going to need it for my UB eventually anyway. (If I don't choose to do that I'll just tech Pottery next, or Fishing - Pottery if I see seafood.)

Ok, again, I hope that wasn't too boring or confusing. Let me know if it was and I can try and modify my reporting. Maybe I'll try and get some big-picture thoughts up next.

[SevenSpirits]

I like the reporting!

Btw, it just clicked with me that the numbers you and Q have been talking about are a bit off. Default dimensions for a 2-player game are 20x16 per player, definitely not 40x40 per player! That would be insane! 40x40 total is a fairly spacious map even for 5 players, given that hardly any of the area is taken by awful terrain like tundra/ice, or ocean.

20x16 per player gives 320 tiles per player which is equally spacious.

[TheHumanHydra]

Hmm, not sure what Q meant, then. Basically he said he took the default dimensions per player in your script and halved them (he didn't mean to leave that alteration on for this game). I'll have to try and figure it out and ponder the implications ...

Thanks for the feedback!


For full disclosure (not that this is a bad thing, but just so you know), Old Harry offered me some advice on city-locations in chat. Actually our thoughts paralleled, but he let me know which option he liked best. And he gave me some general advice (expand fast). And then we concluded our chat by each going to listen to God Save the Queen, because awesomeness. Is it sad that I multiple times have wished for a redcoat smiley?

(Now Americans think I'm evil. )

[SevenSpirits]

Hmm, not sure what Q meant, then. Basically he said he took the default dimensions per player in your script and halved them (he didn't mean to leave that alteration on for this game). I'll have to try and figure it out and ponder the implications ...

I'm guessing he misremembered the numbers and you're playing on a default size map after all.

So what is it that you and Old Harry were/are thinking about city locations?

[TheHumanHydra]

Right, city locations ... sorry, didn't have time to talk about that more because I had to leave for a concert. As I see it, I have kinda three broad options, with a couple different tiles available for each. I could settle north for the horses, east to share the gold and sheep and claim the oasis and rice, or south to share the pigs and claim the fish. The last one is the one Old Harry recommended. I'm not sure if I'd rather put it on the tile right between them, or 1E of there (1S of the pigs) to be on the river and claim more of its valley. This site has the advantages of a really strong food tile to share, another strong food tile, access to the sea, many cottageable grassland river tiles, some of which can be shared with the capital, several forests to chop, and possibly fresh water and an immediate trade route. Its disadvantages are the need to build a workboat to improve its own independent food source and the fact it claims no apparent strategic resources (I have both AH and BW).

The eastern city I would put on either the grassland forest hill 1E of the sheep or the clear grassland 1N of there. This would share the gold and sheep and a few cottageable tiles, and claim the oasis and rice, and be on the coast. Its disadvantages are that the food tiles it claims are weaker than the last spot, it again doesn't claim any strategic resources, it has less forests to chop, and it has less long-term commerce potential - though the ability to work the gold might be a significant short-term boon.

The northern city's location would depend entirely on what's revealed when I pop borders again in seven or eight turns (erg). I'm guessing there's probably seafood somewhere in range, and if I'm lucky an animal or grain just outside my vision. I hate the uncertainty about all this. This site has comparatively craptastic commerce potential given the dearth of river tiles, and shares no food tiles, though it might be able to share the gold and is again coastal - though that might again mean it has to build a workboat to hook its food. It has about the same number of forests as the previous site. Most importantly, it claims the horses. Well, these will actually be in my borders in a few turns anyway, but it's kind of inefficient to improve a tile you're not going to work. I would consider going for this site if it turns out to have strong food potential and I decide on a rush/choke (with WCs) strategy. I have no idea whether that's viable, and I wasn't actually considering it when I picked Egypt. (This might seem/be questionable given his skirmisher unique unit, but mine still beats his on open ground, ie. his food tiles.)

So there's a lot of uncertainty about where to put this second city, which I'm annoyed about (see previous post). (And huh, I guess I could actually go west and share both strong food resources, but that's a kinda crappy site otherwise.) Harry's probably right and the pigs/fish site is best, though the gold is alluring ... though tech is going really fast right now; I should probably worry about the best foodhammer site for fast expansion to (try and) keep up with Q's traits. That was Harry's other advice.

So yeah, hopefully that's a bit of an explanation. A bit long-winded. No shiny dotmap, because there's just too much uncertainty. Harry and I didn't actually go into near this much detail in our chat, but we both knew what we were talking about. We also didn't really talk about the gold site, now that I think of it. I did mention that I have no idea what I'm doing, since I've never played a duel and only read one! (Comm vs. Pind, recent). Anyway I'll shut up now. Actually I have another turn to play ...