[spoilers] - Pindicator makes America great again!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Sometimes the bear gets you, sometimes the bear gets you.

[pindicator]

Turn 35

We will send wave after wave of warriors at the bear menace until it is eradicated forever from this planet.




Hey look, size 3! Let's celebrate with another settler. I switched the capital to the newly mined hills and gave the cow to Clinton.

[pindicator]

Turn 037

With the mines finished, the workers moved south to the tiles between Trump and Clinton. We'll chop until Wheel comes in, and then finally connect the cities and get the 2 commerce from linking those two cities together.




REM settled his 2nd city this turn. Mackoti settled his last turn. There's been a huge range in 2nd city settling dates this game - remember that Old Harry settled his 11 turns ago! And OT4E still hasn't settled a second city yet.

[scooter]

You know it's a weird/unbalanced map when the first city settle times vary so wildly in a veteran field. It's not like Mackoti went Monument first or anything.

So... In the absence of lots of interesting things to discuss, I've been reading old games that I missed during my extended Civ break, and PB19 was on my list. First, my condolences. That looked crappy. Second, it gets worse. I found this post of yours in the lurker thread there:

Shameless self quote:

After looking at this I firmly believe that after the bans and after seeing the start, Joao of Mongolia is the best combination to be had. Maybe you can make a case for Zulu instead. But Hunting and Pottery are both needed techs here, and Joao can get a ridiculously fast 2nd city down along with a pasture and connecting roads. And it was really tempting to put that as my top pick, but I really would like to play with Numids, so I think I have to go with Carthage. Fun over function, that's the motto here.

I was wrong about the formula, though. Function > Fun for winning games

Wasn't the sales pitch for taking Murica to go with Fun > Function?

Anyway, I'm bringing this up to warn you that Impis are almost certainly about to enter your borders. I'm just assuming someone took Zulu. I don't actually remember, but I see a couple players have yellow civs. So... yeah hurry up and settle that copper.

[pindicator]

Well, we're pretty much following the same script as PB19, but just a bit slower:

Event	PB19	PB31
Get initial scout killed by a panther	t9	t26
Get initial warrior killed by a bear	t24	t33
Settle 2nd city opposite direction of copper	t29	t32
Meet Zulu neighbor	t42	???
Get Impi rushed	t55	???

I think America is a bit of fun and function wrapped into one. We're going to have fun with the theme, and PRO/IMP is a very functional combination -- though PRO minutemen may be more on the fun side. We just need to avoid the inevitable Zulu impi rush...

[pindicator]

You know it's a weird/unbalanced map when the first city settle times vary so wildly in a veteran field. It's not like Mackoti went Monument first or anything.

I think it's more unusual than unbalanced right now. Consider all the different ways we thought of playing our start. And if other starts are similar then it is possible that other people came to different conclusions about what the best way to start was.

Just played Turn 038 and OT4E did settle his 2nd city, so now everybody has done so. And just to compare here is the list of dates for settling:

Old Harry - 26
TBS - 30
Commodore - 30
pindicator - 32
2metraninja - 35
mackoti - 36
REM - 37
OT4E - 38

Actually, that doesn't even do a good job of showing just how varied the starts have been. Better is:

	Turn	Settled t0?	Grew To
Old Harry	26	Yes	1
TBS	30	No	2
Commodore	30	Yes	3
pindicator	32	No	2
2metraninja	35	No	3
mackoti	36	Yes	3
REM	37	Yes	4
OT4E	38	No	4

So half the field moved their capital and half settled on t0. About half (5/8) grew to size 3+ before starting a settler* and half started a quick settler for a 2nd city, to split the categories again.

I think the lurkers are probably getting a pretty interesting show to see all this varied openings and trying to pick who had it best. Assuming everything is reasonably balanced between starts, of course. To wit: everybody has 4 or 5 total population right now. It's still early, but nobody is clearly blowing away the field yet.

*this is best guess based on population growth and 2nd city plant turn in case that isn't clear

[pindicator]

Turns 039 & 040

Eventful stuff is transpiring!




REM landed Buddhism on turn 39. It got a little tricky to be sure because 3 other people got techs that turn, but he was the one to get land area increase on t40, so it has to be him. (I know it was him that got the land area increase because he was Rival Worst up to that point.) Makes since with his Mysticism start and the fact that he had to think he was potentially competing with OT4E over landing the first wonder. I've thought about the implications of him getting Meditation and in the end I think this is a very good thing for us. I am getting to the point where it's harder to discern exactly which techs people are going for, but I'm also pretty reasonably sure that OT4E went Wheel -> Pottery with his last 2 (makes since with him being Inca) and just nabbed Pottery on t39. Old Harry (t39) and Mackoti (t40) I am clueless on. I think it was something like Animal Husbandry or Sailing for them, considering it took longer to research and also that each was likely a tech that gave soldier points.

I also finished Wheel on t39 and went for Mysticism. Yes we are going for the Stonehenge plan. Now that REM has religion in his 2nd city, we're the only civ that doesn't have a way to pop borders in city #2. And I'm hoping that REM won't go for both Stonehenge and a quick religion since that might put a bit behind in development. But perhaps he's counting on Stonehenge to get a shrine, which while possible ... ugh well I'm still going to try for it. Even if it fails Mysticism will be needed for the copper city.

You can also see I chopped out the settler for our third city. That is heading south -- next turn we'll finish the road connecting Trump with Clinton -- and the settler will arrive at the gold/clam site in 4 turns. Which is exactly the same amount of time it will take to finish the work boat in Clinton and move it to the clams.

Also, the world's first barbarian city has spawned. That means barbarians can't be too far behind. Thankfully we haven't had any sightings yet.

[scooter]

REM landed Buddhism on turn 39. It got a little tricky to be sure because 3 other people got techs that turn, but he was the one to get land area increase on t40, so it has to be him. (I know it was him that got the land area increase because he was Rival Worst up to that point.) Makes since with his Mysticism start and the fact that he had to think he was potentially competing with OT4E over landing the first wonder. I've thought about the implications of him getting Meditation and in the end I think this is a very good thing for us.
<snip>
I also finished Wheel on t39 and went for Mysticism. Yes we are going for the Stonehenge plan. Now that REM has religion in his 2nd city, we're the only civ that doesn't have a way to pop borders in city #2. And I'm hoping that REM won't go for both Stonehenge and a quick religion since that might put a bit behind in development. But perhaps he's counting on Stonehenge to get a shrine, which while possible ... ugh well I'm still going to try for it. Even if it fails Mysticism will be needed for the copper city.

I agree that REM landing Buddhism is great news. I think you're almost certainly the civ that cares the most about Henge now. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong, but I think your odds are high now.

I was thinking a little about some metagaming. It's a vet field, so I'd expect the whole field to piece together that GLH and Colossus are uber here. Colossus typically goes to Oracle winner, so I expect Oracle to be hotly contested. So in REM's case, I'd bet a yuuuuge Trump $3 bill that REM wants Oracle to 1) get him a shrine and 2) get him MC. The latter will be true for literally half the field, but the former reason makes it even less likely to me that he goes for Henge.

So... fingers crossed that I'm right? And also that none of the Agg civs are dissatisfied with barracks for border pops.

[pindicator]

I agree that REM landing Buddhism is great news. I think you're almost certainly the civ that cares the most about Henge now. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong, but I think your odds are high now.

There's no guarantee, but this is what I'm hoping will take place. My eta for Stonehenge is end of turn 49, which is only 8 turns away actually.

Guess what? The bear disappeared from the map. I should have just hid my warrior a few more turns and I wouldn't have lost him!

[pindicator]

Turn 042

Do you think we actually win this one?




(Wait, what happened to my wounded bear? He just disappears and a lion comes up? What, are they just tagging in at this point like a bad WWE match? Where's my easy kill!?)

Oh yeah, there's a settler inbound so we better win this one. It's my best odds to date, something like 89%. But with how we know these things go, I thought about pulling the warrior back to cover the settler on the forested plains hill. But what if the lion comes up and we just lose a battle with slightly less odds next turn and also lose the settler? So we make our stand here: and if we do lose (some may say when), the lion will be too out of position to catch the settler before I can plant east of the gold on t44.

Also the work boat finished out of Clinton, and will reach the clams right in time to be hooked up when the new city is settled. At this point I think I'm looking pretty good to be the first civ to 3 cities. Old Harry will be planting his 3rd pretty soon though; he just 2-pop whipped last turn. Kind of nutty on a map this food poor to be whipping as much as he is, but maybe it's warranted with his stuff. Considering he built his first settler with his capital at size 1, i wonder if it was the capital or the 2nd city that's doing the whipping...

Nobody else has whipped this game, by the way. No wait, that's wrong. REM did whip a single pop a while back. But nobody has whipped nearly as much as Old Harry.

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