[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Krill]

City locations. 5 cities, one outer ring 4 food tile.

Although Olive is just tentative because I have lots of FoW in the area, Plum has a single fp which will hopefully be claimed by Pear, and Rhubarb does pick up 5 fp tiles, two will be given to a city placed to the south.

The question is if Pin wants to try and claim the flood plains, by settling 1E of Rhubarb. If he does all bets are off and it's a fight to the death. If he leaves it alone (and I have real units and he doesn't) then I pretty much ignore him until I hit 7 cities and grab the stables event extra food. I don't think any other sites could be contested apart from Olive.

[Krill]

SD has HBR, (yuris got Maths the same turn, eot57).

Even if I have researched tech in the wrong order, I feel comfortable with the point that HBR needed to be my first Classical era tech. Now I just need to point SD at Yuris and the rest should be relatively straightforward.





Pin does not look to be expanding towards me, so once I plant Rhubarb I only really need to deal with SD, and Pin and I can have a nice calm border.

I have to say that despite PIndicators land being all brown, it is all absolutely workable if he irrigates everything and uses windmills. Every city would have a food resource, anyway. He can set up a nice border with Thoth and have quite a chunk of land, but I think he would benefit from henge given the wide spacing needed, and there are only a few approaches that Thoth or I could take.

[Krill]

I have seen more barb spears in this game than I have seen in all other MP games I've played in for the past 15 years.

They are everywhere. I think I have the largest military in game (units on the ground) and I am struggling to cover everything (given the bad rolls which happen every time I attack a barb at 99%). I wonder how SD is managing because those spears are problematic if he wants to rush anyone.

[Krill]

Got it:




Those damned barbs can go annoy someone else for a change.

[Tarkeel]

Grats! That is an underrated wonder on maps such as these.

[Qgqqqqq]

Any plans for the Spy?

[Krill]

Not going to generate that spy for a very long time.

[Krill]

Grats! That is an underrated wonder on maps such as these.

Thanks, I think on this map the GW will possibly have the greatest, potentially more than Mids, atleast it may do for me. I think every other player is going to have to consider their position now: Oracle has fallen, two players have HBR, there is the Stables quest so someone may pop up with 6 free HA (and be fair, I'm the front runner because I should be the first player to 7 cities to trigger it). Barbs can come swarming out of the fog of war (Pin seems to be doing a good job fogbusting though).

How do they defend, when four players are still on three cities at T67, and Thoth and Bing have only just reached four? How do they prioritise? Pin is surrounded by land on all sides as am I, otherwise they all have safe backlines but it's not straightforward when there are barb spears and they have to worry about HA arriving.

I'm not planning on turning on the HA rush, but realistically the option will still exist in 10 turns when I reach 7 cities.

Any plans for the Spy?

I'm persuing three routes to stretch all of my opponents.

First, I'm going to tech Maths and try to chop out Mids in Pear, but I will be building it in the meantime (fail gold is decent, don't want to build units due to expenses, don't want a library, Zigg could be whipped for minimal (probably no) effect on Mids time. This will help slow down the tech rate, which helps me drag out the game where I want it, where I have the cheap buildings, lower tech needs and AGG, and stick with Police State because I am going to need units to cover so many fronts.

Second, I'm going to Get out a GS from Apple. I've already looked at the micro for either library after the settler just built, or after another settler. The short version is that I still have enough food to triple whip the library and not really slow anything down, but it is helpful to have Pomegranate and Pear both at size 3 to make sure all tiles are worked. I do not intend to work two scientists all the time but even if Mids land T78 (not happening, but useful to explain the gpp), Pear would produce a GSpy or GE eot97. This is not difficult to beat with a library triple whip around T75. Mainly I'm tryign to make sure all the good tiles are worked, which requires 3 pop at Pear, 2 pop at Pomegranate and 4 pop at Apple whilst also making sure the whip timers are constantly counting down. The GS is intended for an Academy, so that I can focus on growing capital cotages with the three core cities and slow grow Apple as large as I can get it.

Third, I'm going to get to seven cities and make players devote resources to defense rather than expansion, and keep them small, using the stables quest as the threat but really I want the food, given how low food this map truly is. Maintain a higher soldier points, flash a few HA around. Make people cautious. I should be able to get there around T80, and I want people thinking about defence and miltiary techs whilst I clear up Mids, and then after considering the best way to catch up they leave an opening.

Ultimately it's a 7 player game. Eat one player and start eating another and the game will end.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for the update.

Do you think players are going to want to abandon the game when the time comes due?

[Krill]

I think the players will want to continue, except possibly SD (he is basically not doing any micro and is not expanding right now, and SD never really puts in depth plans in place. I imagine that this is probably him checking out.

The reason for phrasing that vote is essentially to create a concession vote, with everyone wanting to quit. This is something everyone can do anyway, this just brings it into focus.

Pin and Com are engaged, so they will want to carry on. Yuri as well. Bing doesn't post much, he just puts together videos with his horrific upper clash English accent. Thoth is actually putting plans together (just seems he forgot how to not go broke).

I must admit that this map is an exercise in masochism beyond any I've seen on RB. I've gone back and looked at PB69 and I laugh every time I see Commodore with more food (resources) in his capital than I have in 144 (12*12 square) tiles, with counting grassland this land is comparable to Naufs. AND I HAVE THE HIGHEST CROP YIELD IN THE GAME! Part of me doesn't want to rush anyone because I'm happy to watch what happens in a game designed to highlight capitalist expansion models where there are no resources to exploit. It feels like everything will fall over, except Pindicator does actually have some land to expand into and can slowly grow a bunch of larger cities.

But if they want to play on and they are happy, who am I to stop them? As I said I'll play my turns and I'm not going to slow the game down. I'd rather play quickly and see what happens.