The Distance of a Handkerchief: THH duels Q

[Commodore]

It's Mirrorland, right? ICS grid all the way, always.

[TheHumanHydra]

Yes, Mirrorland. Thanks for the advice. It is indeed a lush script. I felt so depressed last time I started a single-player game on Terra.

Actually I do have a really tight grid I could do in mind, all cities three tiles from their neighbours. Unfortunately I trashed the clean copy of the screenshot I used above with the arrows, and I didn't take any new shots this turn, so I can't show it to you just now - I guess I'll just write it out: between the pigs and fish, 3E of there, 3E of the cap, and somewhere three tiles from there for the horses/seafood.

By the way I'm encouraged by all the interest in my thread so far! Just wanted to say that.

[Old Harry]

If you point at your score it'll tell you how many land tiles there are in total.. Oh and pigs & fish is just a gut feel - I normally need to test these things a lot to get them 'right'.

How long do you normally expect a duel to last Commodore?

Didn't stay up late enough for god save the queen. I'm a fraud.

[Commodore]

How long do you normally expect a duel to last Commodore?

100-150 turns is about right, although it certainly can go longer. Sury vs. Hannibal, I'm going with 50.

[Fintourist]

How long do you normally expect a duel to last Commodore?

100-150 turns is about right, although it certainly can go longer. Sury vs. Hannibal, I'm going with 50.

Yeah, you get my full respect if you win this. Sury vs Hannibal in a duel is a tough pairing and you need to do right things to survive those 50 turns. That said, it's definitely doable and I'll be rooting for you.

[TheHumanHydra]

Dang, am I really that screwed? Well, forewarned is forearmed, I guess ...

Thanks for the frank appraisals, and for the moral support, Fintourist.

[TheHumanHydra]

Ok, time for an update.

I just played t25. Eot24 Skuldafn's borders popped and I discovered Pottery; t25 I founded - oh frak, I forgot to rename it:




Old Harry will be pleased with this location. I want to settle the tile adjacent to the gold, fish, and dyes next, then build a couple war chariots.

The southern worker is chopping into the workboat in [second city]; I want to improve the sheep with the northern worker but I may have him chop first to avoid wasting the worker-turn.

About worker-turns: so far I've wasted one I didn't have to, by chopping the plains forest hill N-NE of Skuldafn and then having to move the worker back down through the capital to help road the route to the second city-site. However, it all feels very sloppy to me - I think it's because I abandoned my intention to make a detailed micro-plan, so I feel like I'm flailing about aimlessly, and the nature of the terrain has meant I've had to waste innumerable worker-turns just moving the dang things about - which I have since BW always opted to redeem by chopping first, before moving on, even though I know chopping is inefficient on Quick speed. So I'm not sure the micro actually has been sloppy - save that one mistake - but it certainly feels that way.

Predictably, Q's demos have been better than mine for several turns (and this shot is after founding - I think he must have started working the gold this turn):




However, I think this means I was first to a second city:




Can someone confirm if this is correct?

I have some more thoughts which I will put in a subsequent post because I have to go eat lunch.

[Fintourist]

However, I think this means I was first to a second city:

..

Can someone confirm if this is correct?

Confirmed.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank-you, Fintourist. Seems odd; isn't he supposed to be the fast-expander? I built two workers and grew to size two before starting on the settler; what can he have been doing all this time? Maybe he's about to settle ...

Anyway, those other thoughts ... As is probably typical in duels, Q and I chatter as we exchange emails. I happened to mention how everyone thinks I'm screwed because of picks, to which he surprised me by disagreeing vociferously. Now, to be clear, what I'm about to repeat I do so not because I necessarily agree with all of it, but because I think it's interesting - on the same token, though, I don't want to discount what he's saying because I do find some of it justifiable, or a justifiable perspective. Anyway, he said he thought I "will win it easily," contrasting my skill with his inexperience (I argued over this), noting the benefits of a spoiler-thread, and finally offering a detailed comparison of our picks. He rated Fin over Exp, Egypt over Mali due to UU and techs, and Cre over Cha, but only barely, saying he thinks this balances the combos out. He said he thought the duel environment boosted Cha in comparison with Cre as against a normal game because here luxuries are more scarce, I'm a lock for Stonehenge because he has no reason to go for it (I hadn't considered this ...), it's easy to land religions in new cities for initial culture, and the military is more important. So he made picks he thought were fair based on my precedent, and whatever you may think of his conclusions in the end, I think you have to agree they were well-reasoned.

In subsequent emails we argued about our relative skill and experience, and he mentioned he also considered Bismarck, Mehmed, and Ramesses, but found them wanting. I explained my pick-rationale (tit-for-tat), which I'll quote here since I've neglected to talk about it:

I actually picked Hannibal of Egypt pretty hurriedly the other morning when I realized I had promised to pick in a couple hours the night before and forgot. I picked it 'cause I thought it was a combination that was fun and strong, but not too strong. Fin just makes my mouth water; I will always pick it if it's available, even if I have to take Wang Kon. I like Cha for the military boost, and better than Agg because it applies to all units, and gives you an economic boost to boot. Having decided on Hannibal, I quickly ran through the list of Agriculture-civs, safest since I couldn't see the start, and landed on Egypt when I saw they had a strong UU to power up with Cha (well, that actually probably won't matter that much), and a UB synergistic with Cha. Though to be honest I'm not quite sure what to do with those priests; I'll have to look at a Prophet bulb-list! Or shrine ... Anyway, despite picking hurriedly, I was actually pretty pleased with this combination for fulfilling my goals of being interesting and strong without being overpowering. And I'm enjoying playing it so far.

That probably seems like a lot of information to give away to your opponent, but Q had/has been remarkably free with information out-of-the-blue, so I felt it was only fair to reciprocate. (I told him what you had said about the map size, Seven, so we were on the same page.) I asked him why he picked Cre, given how much he had harped on it in his previous email. He said he didn't want to compete for Stonehenge after I picked Cha (and Egypt), and felt that or Cre was the best way to pop borders consistently. He went on to say he wanted more practise with Exp, and he thought any combo he might have wanted to pick with Fin would have been overpowering. He said he considered Shaka of Inca too, which I honestly think would have been pretty fun. Though I would have picked Lincoln if I were going to do that (I'm going to save that for a no-Fin duel).

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty interesting conversation that will probably give you some insight into the picks from both sides of the table. In the end, we both picked something we thought was moderately strong, so as not to overpower the other, and I'm happy with that, regardless of the outcome. I disagree with Q's glowing praise of my skill - if I have any advantage in skill over him, which I'm not assuming, I hope it's just enough to make up for any disparity in our leaders' traits, and that we'll have a nice even match (ending in my victory ). So far, first to second city, with adequate workers, is promising, but nothing to bank on. His demos are still frightening, and I'm sure that second city's coming ...

[SevenSpirits]

Thank-you, Fintourist. Seems odd; isn't he supposed to be the fast-expander? I built two workers and grew to size two before starting on the settler; what can he have been doing all this time? Maybe he's about to settle ...

I realize I'm stating the obvious, but according to your screenshot he grew to size 5.

It certainly doesn't seem bad to be working all those capital resources.