Gaspar, Lewwyn, et al go full Sartre

[Lewwyn]

TBS moved south.



I finished those moves and then rolled turn.

New turn whipped the spear in atlantis and made the worker moves we'd discussed. Gems connected. DO we want Cock to work a lake for the commerce until the PHmine is finished?

Oxy left. I haven't moved the chariot out of Cock, but I think we probably should start fog busting NE now.

Axe is resting, 1t heal. Maybe let it finish healing. Shangri-La's borders popped so we have mighty vision.

Haven't moved the settler or the worker both chariots are full health.

Eden is working two scis now.

[Gaspar]

Sorry I missed cleaning up the EOT - fell asleep on the couch and woke up 5 hours later.

[NobleHelium]

Screenshots or it didn't happen.

[Gaspar]

Just a quick report now - I'll try and get something more comprehensive on the state of the game done tomorrow.




TBS backed off so we went ahead and put everything in motion to found Quivira at the gold next turn. Atlantis whipped the spear which will head over to the area to cover the workers while they improve tiles and will overflow to a work boat for the crab and then finish its granary. Quivira will work the FP cottage until the crab is hooked, so its not the end of the world.




Since Noble asked, here's where we saw Commodore's scout. He was facing NW, so I assume he came up from the south. We're going to need to get that land parcel south of the cap settled soon because letting anyone else have that kind of access to our capital by short boat ride is pretty suicidal. Ys is prepping for Unit/Worker whip cycles, though it will whip a spear first just to have some ammo in the area. Valhalla finishes its Library in 2 after which we'll go ahead and bang out Sailing. We should be able to tech Math shortly after that. Right now our entire economy is basically cottages at Valhalla, 2 scientists at Eden and the Gold and Gems tiles. In a couple turns we add another Gold to that and the city in the NE we're preparing to settle is going to be another cottage site. So hopefully we can balance a little bit of commerce with our production.

We have trading access with dtay now. He settled a city last turn, presumably on a body of water we also have a city on. Either that or Shangri-La's border pop. I don't really understand these things. Nonetheless, he doesn't have horses (or much of anything really) so that's something to consider. If he doesn't get horse, he's a lot less scary.

[NobleHelium]

Dtay is probably aggressively settling economic cities, that's his style.

[Gaspar]

Logged in and played about half of turn 77. Couple interesting things...

First off, settled the second gold city - Quivira. This puts us on 8 cities, even with TBS and ahead of everyone else we've met so far. I'm sure Thoth is on more than that but the game is just more fun if I pretend Thoth doesn't exist at this point.




Its working the FP cottage from Atlantis for the moment. Atlantis completes a WB at EOT which will hook the crabs on t80. Not our best micro work but the decision on where to settle the site was made last minute. Nonetheless, at least for the moment all the good tiles are being worked.

In the NE, our sentry chariot ended up fully healed so I was able to move forward to discover the rest of the terrain about a "stretch" city we wanted to settle and well, everything got a whole lot juicier.




I suspect this whole area is closer to Oxyphenbutazone, who I'm guessing is our neighbor in the north, but if we could grab it that's a really nice city site. More excitingly, that's silver there in the tundra which would complete our metal collection and make MC a fantastic tech. Like I said, I highly doubt we can actually get our grubby Ottoman paws on the area but if we could... yum.

A couple shots of stuff around the empire because I haven't in a bit. Here's a look at Valhalla:




It finishes the Library at EOT. That will allow us to one turn Sailing. We're actually just 2t shy of gold saving enough to do Math right after, which is currently 5t at full burn. Once we get the second gold hooked and worked, our GNP will be in a pretty solid place for the early game. I don't love our long term prospects relying on a cottaged cap and some lux mines but in the short term its pretty good. Hopefully we can get enough commerce cities settled that will fuel us through to the midgame where we start to have more options.

The king of production is Cockaigne. Its throwing 20 hpt into settlers and workers right now we're working on the PHM north of the city as well. In the short term, its basically just going to do settler after settler. Later on, it will probably bang our first wonder and then transition to pumping units.




And here's the first gold city, El Dorado. It has a Library to give us beakers off the gold mine but otherwise will be the primary unit pump until Cockaigne is ready to take over. The long term destiny is size 8 working the PHM and 3 lighthoused lakes. Its never going to be a powerhouse, but should provide a lot of the late-early game military until stalling out as a mediocre hybrid city.




I really don't like how much power TBS has. Our cohorts are really running light on military since we're 3rd with what I'd consider a pretty skeleton-type crew. Obviously the early Iron Working inflates the number a bit but still. If that TBS power number is an early HBR I really hope he sends those Keshiks elsewhere.




Here's demos:




@Lewwyn: I left some of the worker movements even though we discussed them last turn just in case you had some new ideas. I also didn't move the military units around Atlantis though I think its pretty obvious we move the warrior back and the spear out while covering each worker with a chariot. The chariots group and explore out a bit once the workers are together and covered by a spear. Anyway, feel free to finish the turn up.

[Gaspar]

Since I have a little bit of time I figured I'd do a bit of a state of the game type post. I don't really have an established format for these, at least since I stopped trying to entertain you with quality content and settled for baiting you with bullshit.

Without further ado...

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ POWER RANKINGS ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ


1. Thoth (Pregame prediction: 6th). Goes without saying this was one of the two big misses in the pregame poll. Thoth has played aggressively from the start. He was the first out to both his second and third cities. Then he noticeably built heavy military which he used to take out Pindicator. We don't know where Thoth is but the early betting is that he's got the south to himself. Hopefully the middle civs will expand in that direction to curb the advantage having two civilizations worth of land provides. Still, he's been the obvious winner of the early game by taking out a potentially strong competitor and carving out plenty of lebensraum. His still scary power number and Ikhanda's will conspire to keep him safe and help fuel continued rapid expansion. As the only opponent we haven't met, I can't tell you much about his current game state but it is pretty clear the game is his to lose at this point.

2. The Black Sword (Pregame prediction: 4th) TBS has pretty much played to our worst nightmare scenario so far. The combination of Dtay and Commodore dicking around and Xenu's decision to not place stone/marble let Joao land Stonehenge, which pretty much makes him Joao of Inca with Keshiks and Gers. Of the three wonders landed so far, it was clearly the strongest play. He's added to that by expanding well and building up a scary power number. If you were to tell me that TBS wins this game in the long run I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. He's certainly the player in this game most likely to make tier 3 or better in a future Tier List and his play thus far has shown us that day might be upon us already. I think there's a fairly solid chance that we eventually end up at war with him seriously and its certainly a scenario I don't look forward to. We'll see if he can keep the focus through the Medieval-early Ren Eras, which are the area where I think its easiest to lose focus chasing too many rabbits. If so, he's got the best chance of winning this thing if Thoth slips up. I believe he landed circumnavigation and certainly with creative canal usage, that can be a huge military edge in the later game.

3. Gaspar/Lewwyn (Pregame prediction: 1st) I think the demos from last post are pretty accurate, honestly. We're 3rd in just about everything. We're right there in production, a good ways off the leaders in food, competitive but not top tier in GNP, better military situation than those below us but still a lot less scary than the fellows above us. I think we've expanded pretty well, constantly pushing the boundaries of our capability. No question that Cre, the brain-dead trait, helps with that. We've made some mistakes, most notably not recalibrating plans fully enough when something new changes our objective. We've also been hampered by poor scouting - in fairness two fairly unfortunate combat rolls, losing the scout at good odds to a lion and the ridiculous chariot battle are the main culprits there. I do think we've done a good job in identifying priority settles and finding ways to make them happen and we're hopeful grabbing three mining luxes pays off if the others haven't been able to do the same, as seems likely. If we're able to keep up the expansion train and then land one of the two big midgame wonders I like our chances to remain relevant to the point in the game where the wheat gets sorted from the chaff. I suspect we'll eventually end up at war with both TBS and dtay, so it behooves us to try and make friends with Commodore and Oxy.

4. Oxyphenbutazone (Pregame prediction: 7th) I think Oxy has basically played the LITE version of our game. He's expanded just a bit slower and built a little less military, etc. The Maya pick is naturally a slower starter than the Ottomans, though, so its entirely possible that cheap Ball Courts play to his advantage over the next 50t if they mean he can avoid "happiness" techs and push towards either a major economic or military first-to advantage. In my mind at least, that's what he should be pushing for. He seems to have managed to have the best relationship with his neighbors of the players we've met, which bodes well. If I'm correct and he's our latitudinal neighbor, how well he does in the horizontal landgrab vis-a-vis us will have a big impact as well. He's certainly played better than I originally gave him credit for and is certainly in the conversation in this game - the gap between 2&3 is probably 3x the size of the one between 3&4.

5. Commodore (Pregame prediction: 3rd) Thus far, I just haven't been impressed with Commodore's game. Going for an early Oracle might have been necessary, and if his expansion is this slow because of correctly ascertaining that Colossus is the wonder on this map (certainly the one I'd ban in retrospect) then maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Still, he's on 5 cities to our 8 and if my choices are Oracle or 3 settlers, I know which wonder I'd prefer. One would assume IW is either in the short-term pipeline or already there and Praetorians could be a great equalizer. Particularly if he has the ability to take a poke at dtay, who I think is eminently pokeable. We know that Commodore knows how to play this high-tech rate/ low build queue game well - I've seen it from him several times. I think he'll be in good enough of a position to make an impact later on but he's pretty obviously behind. Note: if he somehow doesn't land Colossus, flip him and dtay.

6. dtay (Pregame prediciton: 5th) Dtay's game has been quite a mystery to me. He managed to snag two copper but still his mfg hasn't been anything special. He went ahead with the Roosevelt GLH plan, landing it relatively early despite the fact that this pretty clearly isn't a strong GLH map. He's also the player who has appeared least engaged in the game, which is usually a harbinger of early trouble. Personally, I'm hoping he builds Pyramids since he's the player we're most likely to engage in a war of conquest against later on. That's not an option right now, regardless of his wafer-thin military but it sure might be with an early push for Knights. He's still a solid player but right now he's got some serious catching up to do. Commodore rates ahead of him primarily based on me having greater faith that his variance is lower and my rating Oracle/Colossus higher than GLH.

I'll try and do this every 25 turns.

[WilliamLP]

at least since I stopped trying to entertain you with quality content and settled for baiting you with bullshit.

You got me hook, line, and sinker!

[Ichabod]

Since I have a little bit of time I figured I'd do a bit of a state of the game type post. I don't really have an established format for these, at least since I stopped trying to entertain you with quality content and settled for baiting you with bullshit.

I didn't really notice the difference...

[NobleHelium]

You need more baity titles. Like YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHO'S RANKED SECOND IN THIS POWER RANKING. IT WILL SHOCK YOU.