The Distance of a Handkerchief: THH duels Q

[TheHumanHydra]

The highlight of this turn:







But an ominous sign as well:




I saw an axe (in his territory) this turn. I think he's been whipping them, but I can't really tell. Maybe built some for defence and whipped settlers. In any case, chariots queued - I need some to defend my own expansion, too.

[TheHumanHydra]

So something interesting happened this turn ... I wasn't going to bother reporting on last turn since I had spammed the thread enough anyway, but I did fortuitously take this screenshot:




See, I had stationed that chariot where it says "cottaged 2t" deliberately just in case something like this might happen ...




A perfect opportunity. I struck:




Whee, that was fun. Elsewhere, additional axes are chasing my scouting warriors away from his borders. I don't have plans to make a serious offensive at the moment; I feel under time-pressure to settle key locations instead (thanks again for the "only one?" comment above, Harry!).

[Fintourist]

[Fintourist mode] Only one settler? [/Fintourist mode]

Have you THH won yet?

[TheHumanHydra]

No, the last turn I reported is actually the last one I played. Q went away on another trip and hasn't emailed me since he got back, despite my prompting ... I just sent him another one; if he doesn't respond to that one or does so in the negative, I'm going to try and start a new duel with someone.

[TheHumanHydra]

Just got a reply back to this second message ... Q said he was willing to play on, but was kinda burned out of Civ and burdened by other commitments, so I said we should probably just call it quits; it's just a game after all. He said he had been planning to settle in the area I just did, so the loss of the two axemen was an unwelcome turn. <Bwahahah> If he sends me his password, I'll do some comparative screenshots; otherwise, I guess this game is done! (No victor.) It was a good introduction to (early-game) dueling, and I had fun. Thanks, Q, and thanks, lurkers!

[TheHumanHydra]

Finally getting around to posting this ... PB13 is busy. This was Q's empire at the end:




The area we were contesting right at the end:




His techs:




I'll post my stuff too in a bit.

[BaII]

Posting the Demo's would be nice and all.

[Qgqqqqq]

My thoughts on the situation:
I failed to use the faster start to secure the pyrimads, largely because I didn't value them nearly as much and failed to invest instantly on seeing stone. I was instead hoping to use non-FIN cottages and wealth builds to mantain tech whilst securing as much land as possible. This was why your settling there was a really big blow, as I had a very defensible site lined up which would have bottled your expansion up in that area (meaning I could ignore my empires relatively barren north which was not an area that either of us were interested in settling from that direction but I would've well setup to grab some of yours). This would have given me a land advantage versus your tech advantage, which I probably would've lost (I certainly didn't have the advantage in cities and workers I should've grabbed at this point, but I still think I probably had an edge) as I didn't really have a concrete tech plan and you had multiple, but I think I might've been able to contest long enough to keep the game in doubt for the forseeable future.
At least these are vague thoughts made several weeks after opening a save, so take them with a grain of salt. I did enjoy the duel while it lasted, so thanks Hydra.

[TheHumanHydra]

Same, Q; thank you. You did have a cities advantage at the end (I didn't tally workers), which is yet another reminder to me to build MOAR SETTLERS in future. The stone stretch was a deliberate play for those wonders which I didn't think you'd match, and turned out it payed off. Representation was going to be very helpful given the low number of happiness resources available, and combined with Cha Stonehenge was hopefully going to leave my empire much taller than yours - all on Fin cottages. That was the plan at least. As for the city at the end, I too felt it was necessary to secure my in this case southern border. I also wanted to push more settlers through there, perhaps unwisely. Anyway, I thought it was a very interesting map; I enjoyed the possibilities it presented. Thanks for sharing your post-game thoughts!

BaII, I'll be sure to post the demos when I post my stuff (next time I play my Ruff pbem turn, probably). Thanks for your interest!

[TheHumanHydra]

Ok, here's my stuff. From the start of the last turn I played; like with the shots of Q's stuff above, it doesn't reflect any micro or movements to be done that turn (this is the turn I killed Q's axes and settled High Gate, but you won't see that in the screenshots). Oh and I removed my signs for easier viewing:







(He's up Calendar and soon-to-be Code of Laws; I'm up Metal Casting.)

Demos from my view:




From his (ie. after my turn, so even number of turns):




(The rest are all from his view as it's more current.)

Top cities:




Graphs:













So Q had 14 workers to my eight at the end (!)* and seven cities to my six (including freshly-founded High Gate). He also had a settler out, whose site had just been blocked, and we each had one finishing. So Q was passing me in expansion. He was also a tech up, and would have gained another with the Oracle (I was not competing). So Q's position was strong despite the local setback. In all I think it was too early to tell who would have won; he was going to have the edge in cities but my cities were going to be much taller, and my GNP eventually much higher (presumably). A classic case of tall empire vs. wide empire. Would have been interesting. I'm very happy with my picks, by the way - they inadvertently seemed ideal for this matchup.

* Honestly, I underbuilt workers deliberately - despite the low count, I did not feel constrained in terms of worker-labour; they were building improvements in advance of cities' needs. Probably a sign I should have had another city already. MOAR SETTLERS.