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

[Thoth]

Original cap location has good growth potential, furs can wait a bit. Cha plus silver gives lots of early happy roo2m to play with. If you want quick and easy commerce plant north west to grab the sheep and silver. 1 of the sheep can work river sheep +2 silvers at size 3. Growth and hammers will suck but it will fund expansion while you get the original cap site cottaged up.

Settling bananas has nice food but does need a workbook and lighthouse early + iron working to clear out the jungle.

2 workers, settler for old cap, settler for copper, settler for silver/ sheep. Plus some military. And more workers.

[Krill]

If the original capital location becomes a holy city furs will drop into borders at 100 culture, about 20 turns after founding, better than spending an extra settler to grab them when we don't need the extra happy right away.

Not sure how I feel about cottaging AF. There are only 8 cottageable tlies available plus the two silver. I'm rereading the PB5 thread to remember what I did then, pretty sure this game will unfold in a similar manner.

[Thoth]

I meant the original starting capital spot for the cotts. Not much point in cottaging AF if you're planning on turning it into a unit pump.

[Krill]

I gotta say I'm liking the Silver/sheep city as third city, but figuring out the worker micro is interesting. Definitely think dropping religion into second city is best plan, but if roads are needed to hook copper then that is an agonizing decision to make, risk it or not...

[Krill]

Picture dump now, explanations later.




That's a plains hill location with triple land food resources and no seafood, 3 turns from starting location. Better that starting location. I like 4W of AF for a city location, it also grabs a silver.





Fishing then a second row tech, probably BW for Ventessel? Other option is AH but that makes no sense for him with that start.





MFG isn't varied, so he is going worker first (or has just finished this eot11), but then building the work boat at 2hpt? He should be working the cow from this turn...except he doesn't have Hunting so can't pasture it and must have sent the worker to farm the rice. Not worried about an early warrior then.





As you can see, working a 3 food tile.





Still no warrior, no BW, I think with his bpt ([8+1+2+1]*1.2 = 14 bpt, 14 turns to research, he should finish BW around eoT19). That's when I'm looking to see a large spike in power.





Score increase from tech, not pop.





Obviously these suck, after re-reading PB5, I'm not going to take much notice of these before T50. Definitely suggest lurkers go and reread my PB5 thread as this game is going to draw heavily on what happened there.





One player has grown to size 2m whom I believe to be Couer and Bacchus due to the 3 point score difference. Everyone else has gone worker first.





Worker micro for improving the first 4 tiles, finish the corn T34. I have delayed finishing Hunting until now, as this is how long it would take to research AH to try and screw with anyone doing C&D, then back to Mining and BW, due around T33. Second worker would be due eoT33 as well, leaving a quechua in the build queue unfinished. Still considering when to build that second worker and the settler, what with barbs, copper unknown and Ventessel over there.

Hopefully more later, don't have much on this weekend.

[Krill]

Thoughts regarding Ventessel:

Right now, I have to consider two ways in which he can annoy me. Axe rush and chariot rush. Normally I'd also be concerned about him settling towards me, but given there are no food resources between us, the only thing worth settling for is the sheep to the NW and it's not really a problem if he wants that, I can easily settle the starting area I was allocated and not just settle his until I'm ready to try and take over his entire empire.

Axe rush: There are 4 scenarios for an axe rush:

1. Copper underneath capital.
   
2. Copper river adjacent at capital.
   
3. Copper needs road at capital.
   
4. No copper at capital.

These contrast with the same situation I have, if I settled on copper, if it is river adjacent, needs a road, or it isn't at my capital. I'll start with scenario one and work from there.

If copper is underneath the capital, on the starting tile, then assuming Ventessel finishes BW eoT19, then the quickest he can get an axe out is to revolt on T20, produce 5 hammers T21, whip the axe T22, and then move it south from T23. It would be able to attack Animal Farm on T30. I would know that he has done this by observing a score decrease in civstats on T22 and a power increase in the graphs on T24. My reply is that I can either change tech to Archery, or try to just swarm the axe with quechua, the thousand warrior defense (which only stops the axe from capturing the city). Neither of these defenses work because the axe could be attacked by 5 quechua and still live, and I wouldn't have time to build the 3 archers I need to reliably beat the axe, starting from T24 (can't just read a whip as an axe build, as whipping a work boat can also make sense!)

In this case, I will simply accept defeat and let him walk into the capital and view it as the vagary of the map

If copper spawns river adjacent, then this could take between 4-6 turns to hook up because of worker location. OTOH, it is wiser IMO to assume only 4 turns to hook up, as it makes sense to position the worker 9 of the capital so it can hook up copper on any of those tiles immediately: any other tile that spawns copper would need a road, and mining the copper is not the turn limiting step. With BW eoT19, that means revolt to Slavery T20, mining the copper T23, 5 hammers into an axe T24, whip T25, be able to attack Animal Farm on T34. These 4 turns make a fair bit of difference, I finish BW T33 which means the thousand warrior defense can by me a turn or two and on defense to then get Archery and whip out a few archers. That this so easily reaches a stalemate that I can subsequently break suggests that it's not a wise move and I doubt a good player would go with such an attack. OTOH, Ventessel is new so I can't rely on him having this knowledge. If I settled on copper though, I can just whip out two axes and I'll win the fight swiftly, otherwise copper location is irrelevant for me.

If copper spawns at the original capital but requires a road, then the delay is researching Wheel. Wheel is 96 beakers, so takes something like 8 turns to research and overflow from BW might just speed it up a turn, so assume 7 turns. That means the copper can be mined whilst researching, then need additional 2 or 4 turns roading which means BW eoT19, The Wheel eoT26, copper hooked T28-T30, build an axe T28-T30, whip T29-T31, can attack AF T37-T39. By this point I can just about have hooked copper myself if it is river adjacent, use quechua to cover the
copper whilst I get an axe into position and then chase him off. BW>Archery can also work well in this scenario, as I can revolt and stack one pop whips easily enough.

If copper isn't at the capital, then Ventessel will need to settle second city for it, road there and hook it, and I'm not looking at dealing with an axe before T50, which is no worry really.

So the tl;dr is that if Ventessel settled on copper it's game over, copper is river adjacent then axe rush is mutual damage, copper needs a road I'll have a more constrained tech path bu no major concerns.

The next set of scenarios involve the chariot rush. This basically just devolves into where my copper is, because Ventessel needs to tech BW>Hunting>AH>The Wheel, which means that the limiting factors are tech and then roading to hook the horse (Chariot still needs The Wheel, even if roads are unnecessary). Hunting and The Wheel take 15 turns combined, AH takes 161 beakers at 1.4 multiplier, which is something like a further 8-10 turns at breakeven, so a chariot couldn't be completed before T45, T42 at an amazing push. Then a further 4 turns travel time? That means I just need to hook copper and build a spear by T45 and I'm safe. So I get BW T33, that means if I settled on copper or have it on a river, I have it hooked by T38 and a spear is easy to whip and chop with forests behind the capital. If copper needs a road, then I can get The Wheel by T40 and with 2 workers get copper hooked by T42 as the workers can be positioned beforehand, eating wasted turns if needed. If copper is within 5 tiles of the capital, then I can get a settler by T38, settled T40 and then it's about the roads. But if I need commerce to speed up tech, then I can improve silver tiles and work them! And due to the northern topography I can put a quechua on the grass hill between us and get a definite 3 turns notice. The only attack vector is straight through the one tile wide connection. It has to hit the capital unless I settle NW for the sheep (major consideration in settling the sheep/silver is the spears to defend it).

So realistically, a chariot rush shouldn't be a threat unless I ignore it completely. Simply being in slavery, having a spear in the capital and another spear with 5 hammers invested is enough to kill any chariot rush dead.

so final tl;dr I feel comfortable with defense of the capital location in terms of tech times and the actual mechanics, except in the catastrophic case of starting tile containing copper in which case I'm already dead.

[Krill]

I decided I didn't give a shit about the lion being there. The scout is on a forest hill and has 80% odds of survival, no free win against barbs on monarch. I'll take those odds at this point. I'll probably have to retreat the scout and use it as a sentry against Ventessel around T25 if it lives, but until then I want to know what's in that FoW.

[Krill]

If Ventessel doesn't hurry up I might just have to start considering a PYFT war to make him play.

[Commodore]

If Ventessel doesn't hurry up I might just have to start considering a PYFT war to make him play.

Is there any point in the whole history of RB where a PYFT war sped things up?

Untethered newbies will sometimes flake out, it's a fact of life.

[Mardoc]

If Ventessel doesn't hurry up I might just have to start considering a PYFT war to make him play.

I *thought* you were overlooking a third way here

Right now, I have to consider two ways in which he can annoy me.

Here's hoping he's a college kid going through finals and will have all the time in the world next week.