[Spoilers] PBEM 62 - Ichabod's Thread, feat. Mardoc and retep

[Ichabod]

Sorry about the lack of reporting lately. Let me try to compensate showing the last few turns.

First of all, we met Pindicator.




First, it was his scout, but later, it became a bit more obvious why THH's land seems so much better than mine. First, this is what I mean by "so much better than mine":







Of course, this is a case of neighbour's grass being greener, because take a look at this:







THH and Pindi are really close to each other. The cities you see are their Capitals, so they are almost touching each other... Pretty interesting.

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On domestic news, we finished AH and it showed that our third city is actually better than we hoped for. Score!




That's the only horse we revealed on the map so far, by the way.

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Our East is disappointingly barren, though I'm almost sure there's a respurce in one of the red circles. So, settling a city on the red squares is probably something to do. Pindicator is pretty close in that direction, but his scout placement shows he hasn't explored much in that direction, so there's probably not much interest land for him in that direction either. But, oh, well, we can't have our Capital being a border city... I need to explore in that direction, so we'll use a chariot if the scout can't circumnvent in that direction.




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Third city will be settle on turn 31, later than my opponents, I think, but I'm still happy about it. It'll overflow into a 1t worker. 2nd city will 2-pop whip a settler. It'll finish a warrior with 1 overflow and work 12fh in 2 turns for 25/65 and whip it. I'll have 2 workers to improve that city, which is decent. EG will do basically the same thing it did now, growing to size and being whipped. It'll stop some turns to build the settler waiting for the unhappiness to expire.

Mysticism is 2 turn research, Poly is 3 turns. My C&D tells me one of Pindi or THH has Myst. THH just revolted to Slavery, so I don't think he's competing for Poly... He wouldn't lose a turn like that, I think, if he was. So, likely Pindi has it and he'll beat me to Poly. That's not so bad, since I'm thinking of going to Mono and I don't think someone will head that so early. If we time Judaism to be founded on the third city, that'd be even better.

Anyway, that's basically it. Sorry for being an incompetent simmer and for the relapse reporting, but I don't think I'll ever be able to really fine tune a plan. But that doesn't mean I can't play a good game... Hope you guys keep helping me, even if I can't really test everything that is suggested.

[retep]

Is to early to get down for something silly as simming
Sorry if I'm naggin to much but is just to keep your focus in the game.

Also you forgot to mention that Pindicator has only 1 city(his capital) What is the deal with that? War with THH?
That is something to be happy about!

What are you thinking for the third city? Grow to size 2 and whip the granary? Choping the granary at size1?

Where is the settler from the second city going?

Edit: Forgot to check espionage window. I would said to put all your EP in THH first.

[Ichabod]

Is to early to get down for something silly as simming
Sorry if I'm naggin to much but is just to keep your focus in the game.

Also you forgot to mention that Pindicator has only 1 city. What is the deal with that? War with THH?
That is something to be happy about!

What are you thinking for the third city? Grow to size 2 and whip the granary? Choping the granary at size1?

Where is the settler from the second city going?

Pindicator has only 1 city!!

Holy Guacamole! I didn't realize it... I thought everyone was at 2 cities. Pindi is at war with Commodore, the relation screen "bug" shows me this. I thought it was just a scout passing through declaration. He must have lost a settler to an animal or captured by Commodore. But then Commodore would have to be pretty near Pindi too and that's hard to believe.

This is pretty meaningful when we consider politics... Something must have happened, there's simply no way that Pindi didn't build a settler until now. No one built Stonehenge yet... This is very good news, Pindicator doesn't have any problem with us and I think he's the type of guy to keep a bit of a grudge, so he'll want revenge. Nice!

For third city I'm thinking: 1t cottage, 1t a 2/1 tile, 2 turns on the 5/1 pig + a chop. It finishes the granary 40/40 when the city reaches 14/14, so we avoid growth and when we grow we have 10/16. Hopefully we have the horse already improved when this happens.

The settle for the second city I want to place 3W of LS. It gets first ring corn and needs an expansion for the 2 lakes and bananas. 4W is another option. It's probably better for the city near the marble, since we'd have the pigs avaiable to work with a border pop from this 4th city, so the marble city could grow faster (otherwise they'd have to share the corn, initially). What do you think? If we plan a missionary for the marble city, we don't need to worry too much.

Please, keep making lots of comments. It keeps my focus and helps a lot. Sometimes I don't have time to test some of your ideas (and I feel bad about this), but I appreciate all of them. The comic strip was just a joke, because I sign up for a daily Calvin strip and yesterday that was the one, so I thought it was a bit fitting with the game and decided to post it.

[Ichabod]

I think there's a real chance that Commodore and Pindicator are really fighting. That would take perhaps our two main opponents out of the game... Well, not out of the game, but early war and grudges are rarely a good thing.

It may seem stupid, but since Gaspar and NH are helping Pindi, that increases the chance of war against Commodore... Interesting...

[retep]

Well first I will need to know:
Will the marble city be the 5 city? and where exactly do you plan to put it? If you plan 4W of LS(I like this option more than 3W) the marble city would be 1S or 1E of the marble?

Also is the marble really that important? To be honest that looks pretty far away, are you sure you can defend it?

Hey I like Calvin! I though it was funny. I wanted to respond with one from Mafalda but my scanner is broken and I had a good one!

[Ichabod]

Well first I will need to know:
Will the marble city be the 5 city? and where exactly do you plan to put it? If you plan 4W of LS(I like this option more than 3W) the marble city would be 1S or 1E of the marble?

Also is the marble really that important? To be honest that looks pretty far away, are you sure you can defend it?

Hey I like Calvin! I though it was funny. I wanted to respond with one from Mafalda but my scanner is broken and I had a good one!

Marble city is just a way of calling it, but I'm mostly interested in the big river and the food resources for another strong cottage city. The plan was to settle it 2E of the marble. THH could very well settle the marble first ring and steal it from us, but I don't think he will. And it's not a big deal, anyway, we would likely be able to get a free loan as an apology, to build our epics.

So the "marble" is more conservative than the ones you thought about. I'm not sure when it'll be settled, likely between 5th and 7th city. I want to explore E of EG and NW of the 3rd city before deciding. 5th City is likely to go NW of the third city, because there's decent food there and riverside grassland too. It's closer and more defensible than the Marble one and the settler will come from EG, so it's less travel time. The settler for the Marble city would be better from LS or the 4th city.

Regarding the third city, we could stagnate it at size 3 with pig, horse and a mine and build 3t workers. 8 prod (=10) + 4 food = 14 hfpt, which gives 3t workers.

[Ichabod]

Thinking about Pindi's opening some more, I see three things:

1. Current QotM

2. The post and view numbers of his thread

3. The title of his thread, which refers to "Twitch plays...", a series of games being played by "random" inputs

I really hope Pindi is not trolling the game. I don't think this sort of behaviour suits him, but it'd be annoying to play a game where someone is trolling. My best guess is still that he lost his first settler somehow (perhaps doing some C&D could have revealed that he lost a city, but that's too much work), or perhaps I'm not seeing how delaying a second city this long could be a valid strategy.

Again, I hope he's not just messing around...

[spacetyrantxenu]

He isn't trolling.

[Mardoc]

Then it's yet another example of Pindicator's swingy play. It seems like he's either awesome or terrible, depending on the game.

[retep]

So I check the latest save (is it weird I pay more attetion to this game than my own games? ) You are settling the city next turn right? Will that delay Poly?

To be honest if you think you can't win Hindu then maybe is a good idea to switch to masonry now and take the knowtech bonus(from poly) for a couple of beakers later.

Regarding Pindicator. You said He is at war with Commodore, I think that explains all.
If they are close then Commodore will do what Commodore does, chocke Pindicator like there is no tommorow. A swarm of warriors and archers are probably chocking Pindicator. Then Commodre will try to outexpand him, Pindicator will get frustrated first, depresed later and then eventually fade away. (Gaspar/Noble being over there will speed this process)

Anyway this is all good for you, Pindicator was probably the best player in the game. Your chances of winning have increased!

You could grow the third city to four, so you can work a cottage while making 3t workers!