Okay, let's start with the T17 demos: Literally nothing changed since T16. This is pretty much as expected. GJ indeed picked up Agriculture. That was easy! T18 should be a lot more exciting.
More map speculation: I'm clinging to the hope that there's some kind of bridge connecting each player's east to another player's west - even if it's quite narrow and slopes to connect due east with southwest, or if the exact positioning varies from civ to civ.
Speaking of which, we should probably start putting together an actual dot map, even though it'll be subject to modification as our metals and horses get revealed (and other players mess with things).
As for the foreign drama, all the Expansive civs grew to size 2, which means that either CML/Tectomoc misclicked a few turns ago, delaying their pasture, or Gav is doing something crazy, presumably because of being choked. (CML couldn't have grown this soon while being choked since he'd have to have worked a low-food tile to get out a warrior ASAP. Gav, since he had Agri since the game started, did get out a Warrior, but if he was being choked and had to work forests to finish it when he did, he could have still grown on a rice farm after producing it.)
Also, the turn rolled on Ventessel yet again. GermanJoey's question in the tech thread is a good one. I have no idea what's going on with him. [EDIT: Also not sure what the etiquette is here. Do we play as if he didn't miss yet another turn? Wait until the question can be resolved, either by Ventessel or by the group agreeing to seek a replacement and that person coming on board? I guess if there were a reload, it would be to dtay's logout save, but I'm not sure what's going on at this point....]
I agree that having more neighbour interaction is better. Speaking of - do we want our scout to turn around to rule out (or confirm) if there is a landbridge to the south of its current position? I have a slight preference of going north, to find out who else is bordering dtay.
I`m a bit disappointed that Ventessel hasn`t been able to play his turn in a timely fashion until now. Maybe a replacement is the best solution for all parties. We really should be averaging 1.5-2 turns a day now imo. Moving a scout and doing a tiny bit of micro doesn`t eat up much time. I`m just gonna wait playing the turn until a) Ventessel says go on, or b) Someone else plays.
I don't think there's likely to be a land bridge to the scout's immediate south; if anything, there might be one to its north right now. (To land potentially contested between dtay and a civ due east of him - not to anyone very close to us.) My only concerns with moving north would be that - if we're planting the NE Muqa site (toward dtay) it would be helpful to have the Scout back in that area to look out for barbs (and later potentially for incoming Zulu units) in the not-too-distant future.
Ok, how about this for a compromise: The scout continues NE for a couple of turns to see if there really is a landbridge that way, and then turns around in order to act as a sentry to dtay`s south. I think this information is very important for us, as we`ll get to know if we have(at least a very high probability of) a safe backline to the E of Borte.
Sure; makes sense to me! Note also we'll get a warrior out T20. If we do want that NE Muqa site at that point, the warrior can scout briefly to our actual east before swinging north to cover/play-lookout-for our Worker and Settler. If information about dtay's neighborhood and/or other neighbor(s) is deemed more important than one extra spawnbuster/sentry, the scout can always continue....
We'll start farming the rice this turn too, right? Slowly but surely, things are starting to come together!
Dark Savant played his turn, so I went ahead and played as well. Something tells me that we should check out the corresponding area to the east of Borte. The city site where the scout currently stands is certainly not the worst spot I`ve seen. A little light on production, but has a plethora of food sources as well as dyes and gems. There is still a possibility of the land stretching further east, though I doubt it.
Borte grew to size 2, now working the clams as well as the cow. Our worker started the rice farm. 4 turns to go.
Yup - it's looking increasingly like the whole map is (in broad strokes) just a long, SSW-NNE strip of land next to a long, parallel strip of ocean (which ends up on both sides because of toroidal wrap). Nothing we can do about the map though except play it as best we can! It's nice to see the plan coming together, and I'm glad you decided to scout further northeast. I think we'll definitely want one of our warriors-to-be to have a quick look to our own east pretty soon.
From the demos:
- Dark Savant grew a size and completed a Warrior as expected. I believe he is now building a second worker, working his pasture and forest hill. His initial worker is presumably chopping (or mine-chopping the forest hill). For the record, I think Dark Savant's opening is kind of terrible. I love his commitment to a fast turn pace though, and I'd be thrilled to see him prove me wrong about the opening: Always more to learn!
- No one else completed a warrior! This means that Dark Savant currently owns two thirds of the warriors in the entire world, with the other belonging to Gavagai. Speaking of whom...
- I believe the GNP numbers mean Gavagai is teching one of AH or Pottery. (The governor would have assigned his new citizen to the clams, boosting his GNP into the lead thanks to the tech bonus he gets with two prereqs.) It's still a little too soon to tell for sure if he was being choked (one warrior on T15 is enough to break a choke for nearly all intents and purposes given his presumed trch path). If not (and maybe even if so) I'd expect the rival best GNP number should drop after he plays this turn.
- What I know about CML is kind of inextricably linked with what I know about Gavagai, so it'll have to wait for now. Obviously he's size 2 and he's had a pasture for a few turns. It might be a little while though before we know many "a few" is.
- I have no idea what Ventessel is doing at this point. Hopefully he queued his worker moves when he first produced his worker, I guess? And if his first move was to farm his rice, hopefully he has his governor turned on? He's completely missed fully a third of his turns since producing his Worker. Given his tech path so far, I'm not a fan of his opening plan even if executed perfectly, but I don't know just how bad his situation is, because I don't know how badly his missed turns have hurt his civ.
Okay, Krill did not get Animal Husbandry back on turn 16, which really is a relief. He was just sandbagging like Coeurva, swapping at least once with the tech he got/will-get on T19 (Coeurva, who's teching BW right now, will take somewhat longer to get his next tech, of course). By T19 then, Krill will have Agri + Myst (his starting techs) + Mining + either Hunting or The Wheel; the demos should probably indicate which when next we see them. Ventessel probably got/will-get Bronze Working EoT18, and will hopefully be able to actually play some turns in the future so he can use it. Even if he's our non-dtay neighbor, I wouldn't want to see him lose a bunch of ground just because of technical and communication issues. His start is tough enough without that, I think.
(I'm assuming we're going to get a reload to Krill's last logout, which should hopefully at least give Ventessel - and dtay??? - a chance to play T18....)
Also, for reference and/or ease of dotmapping, I stitched together a picture of the known world (up to about five tiles south of dtay's capital) in spoilers. Some of this map is taken from older screenshots, so it's possible some further forest or jungle has grown. Also, this was built in a sandbox, so I may have made some transcription errors. I think it's right though....
(May 18th, 2017, 05:22)RefSteel Wrote: (I'm assuming we're going to get a reload to Krill's last logout, which should hopefully at least give Ventessel - and dtay??? - a chance to play T18....)
Also, for reference and/or ease of dotmapping, I stitched together a picture of the known world (up to about five tiles south of dtay's capital) in spoilers. Some of this map is taken from older screenshots, so it's possible some further forest or jungle has grown. Also, this was built in a sandbox, so I may have made some transcription errors. I think it's right though....
I`ll just wait playing the turn until further notice. We probably should reload as two players missed their turns.
Next time i`m in game I`ll check if there has been any forest/jungle growths nearby. It`s soon time to make a dotmap. I`m waiting for information on our east/southeast in order to make an informed decision. You know what - right now I`m leaning against planting that aggressive settlement to our NE as our second city as we`ve got other very good city sites nearby. We`re likely to have a strong city SE of Borte by correspondence of dtay`s SE. And of course we can still build that clams-sharing city. So the question is: Will we beat dtay to city 4? Assuming he settles for copper with city 2, it would be a stretch for him to settle up on us with his third city. Not impossible, but risky.
Yeah, any dotmap we might create now would definitely have to adapt as we discover more tiles, and later when copper and then horses (and I guess eventually iron) are revealed. On the question of whether we can beat dtay to city 4...
Short answer: Sure, if we want to and commit to it enough. It isn't just a race to plant our flag though. I think I've been looking at that location all wrong, honestly: He's not going to stunt his development just to get an Impi out ASAP in response to a city nine tiles away from his capital. The difficulty is with its long-term defensibility, and that would be enhanced by planting it early. Doesn't mean we necessarily should make that our next city though. Lengthy discussion spoilered below:
The real defensive problem with that city is that it's on flatland and won't pop cultural borders until T49 even with the help of both Workers and a whip - even if we do plant it as city 2. (Borders pop turn 51 in the more realistic case where the second Worker is on other business.)
That's potentially a pretty vulnerable city, but that's nothing to what it would look like if we don't even found it until something around T50! I think if we want a city on that tile at all, we should probably found it early. It isn't really an aggressive plant for any normal definition of that term, except for being further out from out capital than most second cities tend to be; the issue is just that if we wait until city 4 to plant it, it'll be an even longer time before it gets helpful things like cultural defenses, whippable pop, and a whip-boosting granary.
Note planting on the desert hill up there would be an aggressive city (for either of us) - and one dtay could get away with as Aggressive Zulu if that were what he wanted. He may not plant it soon though; dtay's scout didn't scout deep our way, and consider our own south: The desert hill is the equivalent of the shrouded tile directly south of our far southern river corn, and the "forward" plant we're actually contemplating is the equivalent of yet two more tiles south of that.
If we want to plant our fourth city in the northeast instead of our second, we might consider the plains hill (forest) NW of the sheep instead: It gives up several good tiles, but it should be much easier to defend and does get the 2h plant to start up quickly. I definitely wouldn't plant on that tile with our second city though, because there are three possible copper locations where it would make us ~incapable of starting a mine until about T50....
Realistically though, by the time we plant our 4th city, we should hopefully have a much better sense for our neighborhood, and our dotmapping plan might have changed drastically. We might well have discovered AH and therefore horses by then, depending on our tech and build order, and of course there's no telling where they'll be right now.
So, one more look at our two candidate spots: The Northeast site by the corn, sheep, and silver, or the Northwest site by the corn and pigs. My assessment:
Northeast site: Claims territory, a metal luxury, and a port on the eastern sea; amazing long-term site if we can hold it that also prevents dtay from settling against us too aggressively short of actual war. Counts as riverside too, for what it's worth. If we plant this city next, it's because we want it for the long term, and we want to start establishing it here ASAP.
Northwest site: Starts one turn sooner, shares food tiles and two future grassland cottages with Borte and can therefore grow an additional turn sooner, costs 1 less gold in maintenace, can grow bigger sooner and/or produce units instead of a Barracks since there's no urgency to giving it culture, and requires basically no protection beyond a military-police Warrior. If we plant this city next, it's because we want a place that will selflessly produce stuff to support other cities (including eventually/potentially additional Settlers to create them) instead of being valued for itself.
I can absolutely see arguments for either of the two. Having put all that into words, I'm mainly just glad it's ultimately your call! Whichever direction you take us in, I'll ... keep spamming the thread with overplanning like this and lots of silly stories, as always!
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