[spoilers] - Pindicator makes America great again!

[pindicator]

Turn 054

Mackoti put down his third city last turn, making him the last to 3 cities. I really like mack's approach to this start, and if I would have known the land was so sparse I probably would have done the same thing: he grew his capital before expanding and now he has a size 6 capital to pump out settlers with. Then again, I'm IMP, so I don't think I would have changed all that much... Also, Old Harry laid down his 4th city, and we shouldn't be too far behind him in that regard. Although we're running into some issues that will slow us down. We are near the bottom in total population, due to all the recent whipping, but the granaries we're laying down should bring us back rather quickly.

By the way, turns out it really is a peninsula.




I think I'll have the warrior scout the coastline and then just stay down there to fog bust. It'll be nice having backlines here, at least in the short term.

Up north though...




Yeah, great timing Mr. Barbarian. The settler was going to finish this turn anyway, but I whipped it this turn. Originally the idea was to put all the overflow into a granary and then grow to size 5 before pumping out settlers myself. But depending on what that barb warrior does I may be forced to put the overflow into an archer instead, which would seriously slow me down. I moved my warrior nearby in hopes to draw the barbarian to attack, and hopefully he'll suicide himself against my warrior while not dealing too much damage. Because TBS's warrior is still up there and likely heading right to where I want to settle, so I will need to have a defender in place for him.

I'm teching Sailing next, ahead of AH, because I want to get that gold hooked up ASAP. If I can convince myself that I don't need the happiness right away I will probably switch back to AH next turn.

[pindicator]

Turn 055

With all my difficulties, I'm becoming rather jealous of mackoti's strategic choices for this game. Staying compact and growing upwards at the beginning let him spend more hammers to explore outwards, I'm guessing. And then, he targeted probably the best wonder there was to target (for him at least; I still think Stonehenge is more important to us):




That's mackoti, per the score increase. He's sitting on a size 6 capital that has the great lighthouse. Meanwhile, my idea of growing wide is hitting many snags, in the forms of barbarians and nosy neighbors.




We won, although the barbarian did damage us down to 68 hp - enough that moving to the forested hill would mean TBS has better than a coinflip of winning if he chose to attack. He likely wouldn't make that attack, but I decided to heal in place anyway. I also moved the settler up like I was originally planning. I expect his warrior to continue to hug the coast, in which case I will be pulling back my settler and waiting for him to move by. I decided that I will build the granary at the capital because the amount of food (and subsequently the number of turns it takes to grow the capital) would be considerably delayed, but I am also changing my workers up so that one will chop out an archer from the capital. Likely the settler will just sit out of sight and wait for TBS' warrior to move on by but I'd rather delay the 4th city by several turns than the capital in this case. (This also delays hooking up copper ... so perhaps it is not wise, but i don't see any clearcut answers here.)

Meanwhile, REM laid down his 4th city shortly after he laid his 3rd two turns back.

Oh, and the south is getting more interesting:




Pretty clearly an island there.

[pindicator]

Turn 056

Another wonder falls as this turn OT4E nabs The Oracle. REM must be disappointed seeing both of the early Priest-GP wonders fall. Will he gamble on Temple of Artemis or just build a regular temple now?

Hooked up the gold this turn, which is a nice boost to GNP.

And then we have the situation up north, where TBS double-turned my settler to move to threaten it.




Now granted, the double-move probably worked out in my favor this case as I'm going to just wait for him to play and take the second spot until I get my city planted/his warrior is far enough away. I retreated my worker/settler from last turn, and also pulled my warrior back to the jungle hill. At 78hp, it should be a bit worse than a coin flip for him to attack here, and while he may take it just because he has far more to gain than lose if he wins the battle, if that were to happen I'd be able to build the archer in 3 turns regardless of the chopping that I am setting up down there.

I also netted the clams at Clinton this turn, another needed GNP boost. I'm going to grow Clinton to 4 and then 2-pop whip a worker out.

[Ichabod]

I can't see the pictures in this thread anymore. Drumpf is boycotting me because I'm latin american.

[DaveV]

I can't see the pictures in this thread anymore. Drumpf is boycotting me because I'm latin american.

Fixed. It's crazy that people in second-rate countries like Cuba or Canada can claim to be American just because of the name of their continent, when everyone knows the only real Americans are the ones born in the USA. To Western European parents. Who aren't immigrants. In fact, we should change the names of the continents to avoid confusion: how about Donald for the northern continent and Trump for the southern one? Those are great names, you'll love them, it will be great for our business and people will be fighting each other to live there.

[pindicator]

I can't see the pictures in this thread anymore. Drumpf is boycotting me because I'm latin american.

Maybe a Dropbox issue? They're showing for me in thread, hopefully it's back up for you.

[Ichabod]

I can't see the pictures in this thread anymore. Drumpf is boycotting me because I'm latin american.

Maybe a Dropbox issue? They're showing for me in thread, hopefully it's back up for you.

It is now working. America is great again!

[pindicator]

Turn 059

Well, TBS continues to be a dick. Don't worry TBS, keep this up and I'll make sure neither of us win.




He's kept his warrior right where I want to plant (probably because it's the only spot worth a city in the whole north ), and brought up a second warrior, this one shock promoted. Thankfully I have my first archer out and a second coming in 2 turns. A third one will be completed in Bush in 3 turns, so unless he really wants to go all in on the early game harass, I'm just going to bypass his warriors and try to move north with some archers to repay the favor. I'll have plenty of archers, enough to keep him from actually doing anything with those warriors. Notice that I'm also trying to chop the flatland forests to create a line that his warriors can't move south from without going out of cover. As long as I keep my archers on the roaded hills I should be able to do just that.




I made the decision to just send my settler south. It will settle where the southern warrior is fortified on t62. I figured I probably wouldn't actually lose any turns in moving it because TBS was obviously trying to be a dick instead of just passing by for scouting. Perhaps this is where his double-move cost me: if he hadn't seen my settler would he have just continued on? Regardless, I'll have my 4th city in 3 turns and my fifth city shortly after: a pair of workers will have it chopped out in 3 turns. And I'll have enough units to cover everything unless TBS decides he has to go all in.

I hate this map already. Bravo.

[scooter]

Yikes. He's obviously being pretty intentional about it. I agree with returning the favor. TBS is a pretty calculating player - I don't think he'd be doing this if he didn't have a reason. I wonder what exactly he knows that we don't.

[pindicator]

Well, my first guess would be that we're alone together on a single landmass - except he has a lot less EP against us than we do against him, so obviously he's met other people.

The second warrior arriving so close makes me think that we're relatively close together and he is trying to win the lands between us.

HOWEVER, the EP suggests that we're far apart and he's met other people. Obviously he's been exploring with that one warrior long enough that it's gained a promotion (or I suppose he could have built it after a barracks in a nearby city). But my gut says that we're on the end of a snaky landmass with multiple people, and the reason he's being a dick with his warriors instead of exploring is that he has already explored everything else and we're just the last end so there's no reason other than keep his warriors around our borders. In that case, he wouldn't necessarily be nearby ... just luckier than us with his barbarian rolls.