[No Players] Lurker thread, to lurk and chirp

[HitAnyKey]

Wait till you read Korea's or HAK's thread and discover the vast swath of territory that still has not been settled. I don't even have a rating on my WTF-dar for that level of incomprehensibility.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I totally screwed myself in that regard.

I originally saw all that jungle to my SE and decided I should wait on that because it would take so long to chop it all and make it useful. And the "open area" to my NW had a lot of annoying desert that I liked even less. That is why I pushed eastward to grab what land I could over there before Gavagai encroached too far. My biggest mistake was when he settled a city would have overlapping fat cross tiles with my far easternmost city. I should have just left it and let the two cities battle culture while I settle stuff north and south of it. Instead I felt I wanted to actually get use out of my War Chariots (the whole reason I chose the civ) before they became obsolete. So I razed the city in an attempt to tell Gavagai not to settle that far west (even though that area was closer to him than it was to me)....and in the end it triggered my demise.

I did have a lot of fun with the game, and I know I made lots of mistakes....I don't do all that crazy micro and calculations that most of the rest of you do. So I just look at the area, decide where to settle, or what to build based on the more immediate thoughts in my head. And not having the game planned out 15-30 turns ahead causes me to make rash or erroneous mistakes.
But I got my fun from the purpose of this go around....lashing out in the "early game" with some War Chariots. First time doing a somewhat early rush, and failing miserably. Maybe next time will be a bit better. Or not. LOL

So are you saying that most of the rest of you would have dove into that jungle much earlier, spending time with crappy cities while you try to chop it all down? I know I went to the NW too late as well, but again...all that desert was just crappy.

[The Black Sword]

Well, you expanded a bit too slowly in general I think. Your land-priorities were probably fine but by the time you had settled your non-jungle, you were already too far behind and had to fend off invasions.

I would have settled elsewhere from the jungle first and try set fair and defensible borders with Gavagai and Mack. Then expand into the jungle in the early mid-game when you can throw a lot of workers at the task(maybe think about serfdom too, actually Feudalism seems like a really useful tech for that position).

[HitAnyKey]

Yeah, I realized pretty early on (though not early enough) that I didn't expand fast enough. That, I think, tends to be one of my weak points. I don't build the settlers as fast as other people (thinking it being best to grow my cities to a good size and then stall for the settler/worker builds) but looking through some of the other threads (only just started) I see some of them were building settlers in Size 1 & 2 cities.
I also seem to always end up not building enough workers. I tried to get out more workers this time, which in turn caused there to be less early cities as the trade-off.

I also kept thinking that the skinny land bridges between me and Mack being such terrible land would be enough of a deterrence from him settling my direction for awhile (ie. giving me plenty of time to backfill that NW section), but I incorrectly guessed that. As he expanded pretty quickly that way and not so much to his SE towards Gavagai as I had hoped.

[Old Harry]

I think your wonder focus hurt you again HAK, you missed out on mom and building the hanging gardens actually cost you hammers (if 1 pop = 30 hammers). Maybe your next game you could try building a settler whenever you get that wonder itch?

[HitAnyKey]

I think your wonder focus hurt you again HAK, you missed out on mom and building the hanging gardens actually cost you hammers (if 1 pop = 30 hammers). Maybe your next game you could try building a settler whenever you get that wonder itch?

Heh, sounds like a plan. LOL

[ipecac]

I'm not sure what to make of Commodore's and Plako's strategy: is it something like 'mass troops and hope the opponent slips up'?

[The Black Sword]

I think Commodore's goal changed from 'win' to 'survive' a while ago, and his strategy makes a bit more sense in that light. From plako's reports it seems like he was just reacting to that build up initially. Lately it seems like he might be trying to take the peninsula back, or at least be ready for an opportunity to do so.

[Krill]

if dtay leaves cats on the column of tiles immediately west of the city he is about to lose he will lose all of them to flanking from the cav on that hill. If he moves them one tile west, then he can't attack the stack if it splits and moves some of the units back into the Port culture.

[Rowain]

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

In the tactics involved yes.

But in this war on general not so much. I had difficulties following commodores logic in regard to his relationship towards plako all game long. Why attacking the one with crap-land all the time while leaving the one with lush land and an aggressive neighbour in peace?

[Zed-F]

Commodore doesn't think he can defend both fronts, and is confident plako will backdoor him if he shifts forces to dtay's front. Rightly or wrongly, sticking with that assumption leaves him only one option defensively: the status quo.