Another double turn for us today. I think that all the other players are North Americans so I often get to roll the turn. After carefully weighing for and against going SE it was decided to go for it.
Still no sign of other players down there. Note that the sea body east of our scout is NOT fresh water. Our Scout turned back N and luckily didn`t find any animals. There is some rough terrain ahead, it looks like we might have to spend a turn on moving a single tile next turn (or we could go 2N).
Fishing is in and we immediately swapped to the best tile of course. Mining will finish in 5 more turns.
The question of where to build our city S of Gower is a good one. I`m not sure. Going for the tile NW of the Corn is tempting but it`s flatland. A city on the hill E of that spot won`t get the Pigs. And building further south requires a flatland city. Waiting for Bronze Working to come in before making the final call seems wise. One thing I just noticed is that a city S2SW of the Rice would be extremely hard to attack for us. It`s something to keep in mind.
(April 17th, 2019, 07:58)BaII Wrote: Would it have been worthwhile to send the scout down South and have our newly built warrior head NE and then circle back?
That could have been an option, yes. It`s hard to tell if it`s better to keep on circling around Gower with the Scout or trying to find our neighbours first. Fwiw I`m a fan of trying to reveal all of our possible second city sites in order to get the best possible city and also start planning ahead for dotmapping purposes.
(April 17th, 2019, 07:01)JR4 Wrote: There is some rough terrain ahead, it looks like we might have to spend a turn on moving a single tile next turn (or we could go 2N).
Definitely take the single tile. Revealing more terrain that our T25 border pop won't uncover by itself is important. So is setting up to move further (insofar as that would reveal more such tiles) the following turn, and likewise for keeping the Scout on good defensive terrain. The number of tiles actually touched by the scout on a given turn should be entirely subordinate to those considerations. After all, the Scout could move the maximum distance each turn just by returning to our territory and repeatedly moving back and forth between Gower and the bare grass hill - and would even be completely safe from animals that way!
(April 18th, 2019, 04:23)RefSteel Wrote: Last post was for turn 7 and 8, right?
Yes, that is correct. I was in a hurry when typing up the turn report and got the numbers wrong.
TURN 9
Our Scout moved NE and found wet Rice plus another calendar resource. That forest hill NE of the Scout will give us good visibility on t10 when Elkad rolls the turn. I`m inclined to play it safe from this point on, only going to regular hills (without forest protection) if there is a really good reason for it.
Two players have cities of size 2 and someone is working both their strongest production tiles.
A Lion showed up on the very tile where we wanted to move. So let`s play it safe. I`m not interested in having a badly wounded Scout (or a dead Scout for that matter) if it can be avoided. If the Lion disappears next turn - do we risk going to the forest hill? The chances of encountering the Lion again should be 1/4 and we`ll have ideal defensive terrain.
The Lion disappeared into the fog so our Scout moved a single tile N and found a forest hill 2NE of its current position. As I mentioned in the last turn report I`d rather go around animals to avoid combat if at all possible.
We are finishing the Warrior this turn. I like having a little bit of extra security/flexibility, though in a perfect world where we`re left alone in our sandbox surely delaying the Warrior would be better. I`m still not sure what the right call is.
Elkad will soon finish Bronze Working. An ultra-early Axe rush could be dangerous as we haven`t started researching BW yet but you can`t defend against every threat, imaginary or real. Donovan`s Impis could be a problem as well. Note that this a distinctly more "Impi-friendly" map than either of the two I`ve played in before as there is plenty of room to move them around.
(April 19th, 2019, 05:49)JR4 Wrote: you can`t defend against every threat, imaginary or real.
Well said. If we're paying attention, we won't die to an ultra-early axe rush anyway. We would lose the game of course, but so would whoever attacked us.
I'm curious to see our scouting over the next few turns. The reason I'm especially curious about a dotmap this early is partly this: If we're sure we eventually want a city 3W of our capital, sharing the pigs, and especially if that's going to be our next city, it may be worthwhile to chop that city's center tile first (i.e. move our Worker there after finishing the pasture). It would yield only 16 hammers instead of 20 (which doesn't delay the first Settler at all) but basically gives us a forest "for free" if we'll be planting a city on that tile shortly anyway.
Our Scout went to the forest hill NE and found nothing much of interest. There is a floodplain further east it seems but no strong food resources there. I`d like to find out if that is a peninsula east or if its contested by other players.
Chopping the forest 3W of Gower before settling sounds good to me. I`m quite convinced that the spot sharing Pigs with our capital is our best bet. The problem with the terrain S and SE of Gower is that there is only Rice which we can`t yet improve and tile sharing won`t be possible. We have a lot of catching up on worker techs to do. But at least we have a temporary joint lead in food right now.
Our Warrior went SW this turn. It could fortify somewhere further SW or go on a scouting mission further away. We need to be aware of the possibility of a random Warrior walking in from SE of Gower, though. If an emergency arises we can get 7 hammers a turn into a Warrior which will leave us a single hammer short of finishing it in 2 turns. Oh well.
I think it's safe for us to move the warrior SW to scout. We're going to get a border pop in 13 turns and I don't think anyone will be able to get a warrior close enough to our capital at that point. Especially if we haven't met someone yet and I expect other people to try and skip early warriors if they can.
