[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Krill]

Well wherever copper is we are probably going to need the tech Wheel for roads to hook it. In that respect if copper does pop at the capital site it will take a while to hook due to everyone building one worker before settler, but with us going double worker we should be able to react better than most.

[Krill]

Also I have no idea really when Ventessel gets copper. Hunting>Fishing>BW>Wheel? Then hooking copper? That is like T40 at the earliest he can hook copper unless it is under the capital or on the river.

If everyone planted on copper but us, I have to laugh, if only because with Hunting first everyone is stuck building axes and can't build warriors and we've played into Ventessel hands if he lucked out by rushing to BW first. He'd geodetically be able to get an axe built by t19 (BW first, worker first, revolt slavery after BW but before farm completes t17, grow eot18 whip t19) and there would be nothing we could do about it. That makes no sense though as Zulu could run riot against anyone that was slow to BW simply due to bad start techs.

[darrelljs]

That is a sick site. I have a suspicion the entire "I hate mirrored maps" discussion was because you know this would happen.

Darrell

[Krill]

You know me too well Darrell

I've always been a mapmaker that has pushed new map design, and as such I'm also the person that has made too many mistakes with them. I've just tried to learn from them.

When I made the PB29 map I made the mistake of choke points, splitting land into easily defensible chunks. These decisions are still made today, look at PB36. Choke points are a common theme on maps designed as a single tract of land, as they are easy to make. Lazy, even.

I also set up the design parameters: all city locations within 4 tiles of the start tile have to be worse than the start location. Mardoc did the rest, making a bad capital and to stick within the setup parameters had to then make the surrounding landscape bad. What follows is that outside the capital 9x9 area the map has to either be just as bad, worse, or better. RB maps are generally lush though, and to meet the expectations ted lushness Mardoc had to the increase the general quality of the land. To not do so pushes us back into the realms of PB1 map quality, which I don't see him doing, so I was expecting at least a good double food location 3 tiles from the start whichever direction I ran the settler, and to also have similar quality locations for the second city, instead of the bad second cities the other players are going to be stuck with.

All this happened because of Mardocs decision to go with a mirrored map, and the decision to create a bad capital location (minimum forests, below minimum hills, high tech requirements). I didn't say any explicitly because why should I give up the advantage of my game, map design and metagame knowledge when it is likely going to just lead to me getting screwed over. But yes. I fucking hate mirror starts when we know they are mirrors. If we didn't know this was mirrored, then I wouldn't have played it this way.

And before anyone asks, the start should have had no seafood, no lakes, a longer river, couple more hills and forests and then either grass hill pig plus none river sheep at opposite ends of the fatcross, or wet wheat and wet rice adjacent to the capital tile on a plains hill start. Identical output, identical finish times for worker improvements, but without the players all fighting over the same civs in the snake pick, and no parties if you didn't get a civ that started with the required food tech. And if really in doubt just throw a metal happy in there, preferably on grassland...

[greenline]

planning for an early religion seems a bit head in the cloudsish if you have to nad a bunch of worker techs while also being a few turns behind in research.

[Thoth]

hunting, mining and bronze isn't a very high bar to clear. and we'll have oodles of beakers once we hit size 5 and 6 and start working the silvers.
And if someone beats us there, silver gets us to horchers in good time.

[Thoth]

t5 played.  Got sight of Ventessel's capital:




4--1 to the plainshill next turn?

[Krill]

Agreed.

[Thoth]

t6 done.

Ventessel and dtay went Fishing first.

[Krill]

If he went Fishing then he has to go Hunting next...except that won't be finished in the to pasture the cows? So the worker will go to the rice but he can't build a work boat in time?

Fuck maybe Quechua first was right? He ran the scout away so wouldn't have seen it coming, then again couldn't have stolen the worker if it had moved to the rice...

Maybe he intends to go BW next, and the Whip the WB? But BW takes 14 turns, so it's too slow, but he would build a warrior eot15 at the earliest, more likely be finished it after growing to size 2 unless he does go for that slow WB? Or he could try to chop the WB?

I think I the scout needs to return, potentially after confirming the area south of the bananas is just a corner and doesn't lead anywhere.