RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[haphazard1]

Corn and flood plains - very nice. Placement is a bit tricky -- you could get the corn, sugar, and 1 FP from the hill where Gulliver is currently standing. But it is off the river, and would leave some wasted tiles between it and the capital. Could shift toward London, but would lose the corn. Sugar and farmed FP would make for decent food, perhaps?

For next turn, I like Gulliver SE, then probably SW the following turn. Might get blocked on further SW by that peak tile, though.

We could also do SW-SW if we want to go more directly toward the hill pigs, although this would leave tiles fogged to the east. Maybe S-SW is also an option?

Anyway, we are finding all kinds of nice land to settle. Conspicuously lacking in copper but I think there is some meta-gaming going on with that. Hopefully finishing AH will reveal some horses somewhere we can reach.

[Cyneheard]

New turn.

Our new warrior, The Unready One, is built. He's going to camp a hill for where our settler will be going (marked)

Gulliver moved SE:



Now what? S? There's a break in the cover to our W and S.

Demogs:



Exploit discovered BW, someone built a warrior.

[haphazard1]

No real point to going SW, since the peak will block a second SW. We could go W, then SW, then SW.

Or we could go S, then decide where based on what we see. Probably need a SW and then S of the peak so we get those fogged tiles west and southwest of the peak. We are going to have to cross a flatland tile whatever we do.

I assume that by "someone built a warrior" you mean "someone other than us ALSO built a warrior"? Just to be clear.

[Cyneheard]

Yes, someone other than us. I don't even think about us when running those numbers, except for when calculating our Power Rank to see what I can divine from that. And we stayed flat in rankings because Exploit's Darius passed us with BW.

[antisocialmunky]

Obviously south, there's a hill with a forest 2S,1W which would be nice to get on from there.

[antisocialmunky]

T36: come interesting developments:


A Cow and Water.. and another Lion just because. Do you think we'll get our 95.6% to win this time? Combat 1 here we come!

Demos


Other stuff:
-2 turns until Settler
-Doc finished Chopping
-Unready is on the hill
-Richard is on his way to the forested GH.

I did not end the turn incase I messed something up.

[haphazard1]

Very interesting...cows are always a nice tile. And water...is this just a lake, or are we looking at some actual coastline? I am somewhat surprised we have not met anyone yet with 17 (now 16) teams in the game. Maybe there are some water barriers between starts? But then how would Korea have been eliminated? I guess everyone is keeping their units close to home, like we are. Or losing them to barbs...also as we have.

Let's hope very bad RNG luck does not repeat. Losing one warrior at such favorable odds is more than bad enough.

[Cyneheard]

Yes, we have 95.6% odds to win against this lion. That looks like a water tile with land on all three sides.

If we're going to continue exploring with Gulliver, I think we want Woodsman I, not Combat I. This is less about Woodsman I vs. Combat I, than it is about getting Woodsman II.

Our settler finishes next turn! (Happy's chop comes in).

Demogs:
Gandhi and Joao both founded their second city this turn. (Gandhi's was after you'd logged in).
Elizabeth grew (size 4), Kublai grew (size 3).
Zara discovered BW, and Bismarck learned a tech in 8 turns. I think it's Hunting, but more because nothing else fits (Hunting makes more sense than Fishing). It wasn't a 90-beaker tech (Mining, Myst), because they started with those. There's no way a 2-pop capital should have knocked out a 108-beaker tech in 8 turns (13bpt + overflow; we're getting 12bpt at size 3), also they were researching at minimum pace through BW and Agri.

The soldier count is...confusing.
Last turn, the rival max was 22k. Now, it's 25k.
The likeliest suspects would be either of the teams that discovered a tech.
However:
If India's at 25k power, then they've built 5 warriors + Stonehenge. No way.
With just the starting warrior, Zara would be at 20k. Adding warriors won't get him to 25k.
Population growth didn't take anyone to an odd number of power points this turn, and no one who didn't add a tech could've built 2 warriors. (Theoretically, Willem could have, since they've had 2 cities for a bit, but that would mean that they've built 6 warriors and a settler.)

The only answer I can think of?
A barracks. It's 3k power. Why is someone building a rax this early? I have no idea. But Ockham's Razor wins here.

[antisocialmunky]

Oh cool, wasn't that familiar with the upgrade tree. Woody 1!

[haphazard1]

Agree that we want Woody I promo for Gulliver, if he is going to continue to explore. If we bring him home, then Combat I would be better.

Barracks...hmmm. What do the pop stats look like? Could someone have whipped and dropped 1K power, while building a warrior for 2K? Or whipped while finishing a tech that gives an even amount of power? Either would get to an odd number, and makes as much sense as a barracks this early.

If it was a barracks, then most likely it is one of our AGG civs (Ragnar of Maya or Kublai of Rome) and they are planning a rush. No Zulu in this game to build an Ikhanda for maintenance savings, and too early for that savings to matter anyway.

I am getting more and more nervous. Really hoping AH reveals some horses for us. We need stronger units and fairly soon.