RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[ManiaMuse]

Played the turn. Moved Jenkins onto the hill but didn't reveal anything of note. However at the start of the turn there was a panther spotted on the grass hill W SW. If it moves on to the forested hill then we might have to alter our scouting route.

Also I was slightly confused as the worker wasn't farming the rice at the very start of the turn. Was this intentional? I set it to farm the rice which said 3 turns when I did so but I'm just wondering if something went wrong and our micro may now be screwed up?

[SleepingMoogle]

We'll have to wait and see where the panther goes interturn. But if it doesn't end up on the forested hill, I propose moving Jenkins there to lure it into attacking. With +75% defense, we should win it without problems.

I left the Worker unautomated because it will allow us to react to sudden change. If a warrior were to appear on the hills to the south out of the fog, having Anoleis automated means he'll spend his turn farming the rice instead of moving out of range, and that would just be inviting Worker steals.
It's a bit tedious having to select his actions and then cancelling the automation each turn, but it's safe too.

[ManiaMuse]

Worker automation does wake workers if they are in danger with the exception of route-to which is bugged and will begin to build a road even if threatened. I see your point about worker steals though, AI in SP doesn't do things like that

[SleepingMoogle]

Aye.. maybe I was wrong there, but I doubt the script would kick in unless the opposing side were to declare war. And depending on the turn order it might already be too late by then.
I removed the automation again for now. Hopefully that won't be an issue, but the extra safety doesn't cost us anything.

Also of note is that Sunrise & Co and Dantski/Mukha finally increased their score to 34 this turn. That means everyone has learned at least one tech now.

Our capital should be safe as well now. Next turn we'll have 8 hammers invested in the second warrior, and we can rush the build to completion in 2 turns from there on if needed.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 18 has lasted less than 6 hours.

I moved Jenkins SW onto the forested hill. Right now there's a wolf on the hill SW of him. Are you certain the unit you saw was a panther Mania? If so we might end up defending twice. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Cyneheard and Pegasus's teams score went up to 36. That probably means they're up to size 2 now. I'm curious as to what their build order has been so far.

The farm will be finished next turn. At that point we'll switch to working it over the sheep tile, and grow to size 2 asap.

[ManiaMuse]

Erm I thought it was a panther but maybe I was wrong, forgot to take a screenshot. Anyway wolves are lower strength than panthers so not the end of the world if I was wrong.

[Bobchillingworth]

Nice to see a few happiness resources. Given the resources we've already revealed, I think that the northwest looks very attractive for production, which we will be better positioned to exploit when our first settler arrives than the more commerce-oriented southern location. Obviously we will give priority to any spot with horses, tho.

I apologize if this was already mentioned, but what are we doing with our warrior after he finishes scouting the immediate area and no longer needs to play mobile defense? Is he going to be a 2nd city gaurd, or is he free to more thoroughly scout some of our potential city spots? I'd like to check out that desert hill 2N of the wines.

I assume we're going for the woodsman route with our scouting units?

[SleepingMoogle]

Much as we'd like to explore further away from the Citadel and maybe establish contact with another Civ or two, Mania and I both want to keep exploring the immediate area. scouting currently ends on the desert hill at T24, and I proposed having a quick look at the South at that point, then making a U-turn and circle back to explore the NW. Now that I think of it though, it might actually be faster recalling Jenkins to defend the Citadel for a while, and have the second warrior have their turn with scouting instead.

[SleepingMoogle]

I have thought about scouting a bit more, and might have an idea on how to best maximize our available units. One problem I was hoping to solve is the turn our Worker is skipping under our current plan (turn 30). While he can always spend the turn roading the hill tile, there's not much use to doing so unless we have plans to put a city east of the Citadel in the near future. And even then, I'd rather chop the forest NE of the city and put the road there, so that no movement points are lost by going over hills.

Anyway, my proposal is to spend that one turn roading the plains tile SE of the rice. This tile is outside our city border, but we can ensure it's a safe action. To illustrate:



The red dot is the tile to road for one turn. It seems likely at this point that our second city will be planted south of the Citadel, and the tile seems the most convenient place to road towards it. Under the proposed plan, Anoleis would move to this tile and start building a road on turn 29, then move onto the grassland hill tile on turn 30. What we would need then is for Jenkins to cover the Worker on turn 29.
Our current scouting plan places Jenkins on the desert hill tile marked with a blue dot on turn 24, so we will have 5 turns to move to the red tile. The proposed path is marked by the blue arrows. Unless scouting reveals a better path, it seems like the best way to go here.

What this will do is gain us a turn in which our Worker is doing something we want him to be doing anyway. He'll be covered by a Warrior, who is close enough to the capital to get back on defense. In the meantime, we can send the second Warrior NW and uncover some more of the tiles there, which would be much faster than sending Jenkins around.

Obviously, this proposal depends on some variables, like whether or not we have contact with another Civ, or Jenkins needing time to regain health from his possible skirmish with the wolf. But assuming no surprised, it seems like the best use of our Worker.

This might also be a good time to discuss what else we want to do with the Worker once he finishes Mining that hill. There is another grassland hill north of the Citadel that seems like the natural choice to mine while waiting for the settler and Bronze Working to finish. We can also start roading tiles, like the Silver tile, for later use.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome of course.

[ManiaMuse]

Sounds like a plan though just wondering, are we going to save the forest chops in the capital for something particular or mostly for workers/settlers?

The plan would have to be revised if Jenkins ends up getting killed, we are going to be very light on military so if he does get killed I think we will definitely have to sacrifice growth for building a few more warriors instead. I've mostly been playing immortal recently but emperor barbs can be a pain as well and the last thing we want is to start getting choked by barbs for another opportunistic civ to find us and decide to take advantage of that.

Finding horses in a different direction might change things up as well.