TheHumanHydra Falls Behind [Spoilers]

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I've got time on all the days that PB18's turn doesn't roll .

Sounds like you have a lot of time!

Heh.

Looking forward to some good reporting. Don't hand the game to anyone just yet. Who knows what will happen? Even if it was a mack or Seven as your neighbor, you can prevent someone from winning by your actions. No telling what anyone will do, so get out there and crush someone.

Locker room pep talk concluded.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks Boldly, and you're right of course.

[TheHumanHydra]

Okay, time for some actual reporting. I moved the scout 1S-1SE to reveal the greatest number of tiles, with an eye to moving 1SE to settle if I spotted land food:




More deer. Now thankfully Old Harry was chatting through the turn with me, because if it had just been me, I'd have eyeballed it and settled 1SE for the two deer, but on OH's prompting we each simmed through it and found settling in place was much faster. So now we have a micro plan (we each independently produced results which were essentially the same):

eot7 Finish worker
t8 Camp 1t; work boat 5/20
t9 Camp 2t; work boat 10/20
t10 Finish camp; food 5/14; work boat 12/20
t11 Move worker to grass hill; food 10/14; work boat 14/20
t12 Mine 1t; food 15/14, grow to size 2; work boat 16/20
t13 Mine 2t; food 5/16; work boat 20/20
t14 Finish mine; move work boat; food 10/16; warrior 3/10
t15 Finish fishing boats; move worker to grass forest; food 18/16, grow to size 3; warrior 5/10
t16 Move worker to grass forest hill (?); food 3/17; warrior 10/10
t17 Chop 1t; settler 8 + 7 = 35
t18 Chop 2t; settler 16 + 14 = 50
t19 Finish chop; settler 24 + 41 = 65

So the settler should finish eot19 with a warrior escort, one worker, and the capital at size 3 with three improved tiles. Tech order is Hunting - Fishing - Bronze Working. We were both quite pleased with this result; thanks to Old Harry for making and helping me work through it.

If either OH or Fintourist wants to do additional C&D, or anyone is curious, here are the t0 demographics:




From this OH and I were persuaded starts are not mirrored, because if they were the highest Mfg. should be 5, Ichabod's, as he produces a 7t worker off the plains hill and Exp-bonus - plus the land-areas are different, though people could have moved. OH asked - I don't intend to do any serious C&D for this game, as I don't really know how and am not interested in spending the time to learn or do it (I don't expect my poor dedlurkers to do any either, for the record). I do keep an eye on the demographics and graphs generally, of course.

I have played two more turns since then. I am sorry I didn't have opportunity to post here to ask for opinions about scouting moves. In the absence thereof, I made the decision to move 1S-1SW to uncover what I believed would be an impassable block or 'shoulder,' then circle anti-clockwise to reveal the land around the capital. In the event, this is what the scout and settlement/border pop revealed:







Feel free to post if you do have any suggestions about the scouting path. For now I'm thinking of keeping it tight and going 1E-1NE to the forested grass hill, but a wider arc through one of those other hills is also possible.

That's all for the actual turns. OH asked if I was going to do an opponent analysis. I did post my vague thoughts on the picks above, but I don't intend to do a formal opponent analysis, for the simple reason that I've never played against any of these opponents before, nor read hardly any of their threads, with the exception of Commodore and a little of Pindicator. All I know is they're all supposed to be better than me (this mostly due to Gaspar and Noble's tier list, which contrary to most people it seems I do actually view as a useful resource), Pindicator above Commodore above dazed and Ichabod; Commodore is good at war. (OH charitably said he thought I was better than Ichabod, though that remains to be seen. )

I believe that is all, with the exception of this exchange from our chat I found amusing:

Me: I named it [the capital] Tall Poppy.

OH: Because you want your head lopped off?

Me: Yes - that way I'll get two more. It's a snowball effect.

QFT.

[Old Harry]

Mmmmmmm. Bacon... and which wonders do you want to build?

E-NE sounds good to me. With barbs on its best to scout the essentials fast.

It looks like you can have a really tight dotmap (so far), which would be great for the torroid maintenance except that you're playing on noble. Ah well, it'll still be good for defense and cottage growth...

[TheHumanHydra]

I went E-NE, uncovered cows and some coast. Should I take a shot every turn or is that tedious?

Yeah, the pigs are tempting for city no. 2. As for wonders, I think it's really too early to say ... both stone and marble are visible ... I've always liked the Colossus if I have any number of coast and/or lake tiles?

I like tight dotmaps, for defence like you said. Actually I'm kind of OCD and like to have all cities three tiles from their neighbours ideally - that allows you to shift garrisons directly between them with Engineering. But I won't sacrifice a city's productive capacity to that end.

[Old Harry]

I like the scouting phase so pictures are great...

[TheHumanHydra]

Okay! Well here you are:




(That's salt water at the bottom.)

[Old Harry]

Still winning!

NE-NE or NE-NW next? And is the scout named S for a reason?

[TheHumanHydra]

I don't know; I actually meant to ask you that. Note the contour of the water barely visible there. I think NE, then if 2N of there is a hill as it looks like it might be, E, then NW-N the next turn. If not, then I guess NW so as not to take a massive detour around the water if it ends up being large.

I don't really know why 'S' comes up when I use the sign tool, but it always does. Some weird bug.

[Old Harry]

Sounds like a good scouting plan to me.

I guess your screen is just missing the "ign mode" from "sign mode"...