[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

Turn 58 (1680 BC)
Despite earlier predictions, we're still only behind frontrunner Commodore to five cities.


Biggest decisions for the turn was actually what to build in Dominion; it was a tough choice between granary vs monument and workboat first. In the end the monument won out, since the city has enough hammers to slowbuild it doesn't need to whip as much, and the monument does take 10t to take effect. For the other cities, poor Augustus finally gets to work an improved tile as borders expand and the fish is hooked, and Azul gets most of its Monument chopped out while the workers make their way to improving the copper just in time for size 2.



Dominion (Digital) is the game that created the deck-building genre. What's that you say, deck-building has been part of CCGs for years before? Dominion's revolution was moving the deck-crafting into the game itself and not something you did before playing. Being the frontrunner it's a little bit rough around the edges, as show by the most broken base-card (Chapel: Trash/Destroy up to four cards from your hand) and the best newbie-strategy (buy gold: ignore the fun cards). It's still an immensively popular game, to the point of actually ruining the English-language publisher Rio Grande Games, which for years didn't have the capacity for other games.

(Side-note, my personal favorite Dominion-style game is Valley of the Kings.)

[Tarkeel]

Since there was no turn yesterday, I spent the time poring over graphs instead:

Colourmarks:
T8: dk grey
T13: lt grey
T18: red
T23: orange
T28: yellow
T33: dk green
T38: lt green



Score in spoilers

Amica:
T1: Working 5f2h, indicating 2f2h city and 3f inner ring tile.
T3: Pops tech from a hut, seems to be Mining
T8: Trades 2f for 2h, and gains 8 pts/1k power indicating growing
T9: Gains a further 1f2h for a turn
T11: Amica trades 4h for 5f (2x1f2h -> 3f+4f)
T24: Gains 3f from finishing improvement on wet corn (2f2h + 4f2c + 6f)
T25: Gains 2f1h from growing to size3 (2f2h + 4f2c + 6f + 2f1h)
T28: Gains 3h from growing to size4 (2f2h + 4f2c + 6f + 2f1h + 3h)
T30: Trades 3h for 4f; most likely improving wheat and working lake over (2f2h + 4f2c + 6f + 4f1h + 2f2c)?
T31: Trades 2f for 2h, without change in commerce
T37: 2-Whip; losing 4f3h3c

Amica does a workboat opening, hooking crabs or clams on T11
First improvement on wet corn finishes T24
Second improvement on dry wheat finishes T30
Can't quite make out what he's doing on T31.

Amica obviously did a workboat first opening, working a 3f tile, finishing growth to 2 by working a 1f2h, then adding another 1f2h for two turns, finally on T11 working 2fh + 3f + 4f2c.
The opening is so sub-optimal that we thought for a while the corn was a pig, which would leave the worker to improve a dry wheat. This was the same dilemma we had, forcing an early AnimalHusbandry run. Careful analysis of the power graph however reveals that he popped Mining from a hut on T3, research BronzeWorking T23 and AnimalHusbandry T34.

Commodore:
T1: Working 5f2h, indicating 2f2h city and 3f inner ring tile.
T17: Gains 2f from worker improvement; timing indicates it's inner ring dry corn
T19: Grows to 2, adding another 3f tile
T23: Adds 5f1h from worker improvement and growing to 3
T25: Trades 1f for 1h (3f->2f1h)
T26: Gains 3h from growing to size 4
T27: Trades 3h for 3f
T28: 2-whip, losing 4f2h (3f+1f2h)?
T30: Settling #2, adding 6f3h for 19f5h total

Commodore gains a tech from a hut (mid-turn score increase T1), giving 8K extra power T2, which can only mean free Bronze Working
First improvement on dry corn finishes T17
Second improvement on ??? finishes T23
Third improvement finishes T30

Saying Commodore might have won the game on T1 might be a bit harsh, but getting BronzeWorking for free so early did really turbocharge his start. It seems like most of the start are animal-heavy, and this would allow Comm to research AnimalHusbandry without delaying chops and whips or other sacrifices. It looks like both the second and third improvement are animals, but it's hard to tell exactly what they are since the second city comes online so early.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 59 (1640 BC)
The rude barbarian spear refuses to attack, pillaging our roadwork instead, so we have to wait another turn. Meanwhile, here's a look at the deep south instead:


We're thinking cities between sugar and gems, and SW of horses. If we could reach down and claim the plainshill with banana and fish that would be great, but Commodore is likely to claim most of this area.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 60 (1600 BC)
The spear finally attacked (at 30.8% odds) and killed the first warrior, but injuring itself down to 1.5 str (37 hp) in the process. The chariots have 98% odds, so let's get at it:
C1 Shock Chariot vs Spear (1.5), 97.8% + 0.2%: Flawless win
With the threat taken care of, the other chariot is free to explore north and the workers can start hooking copper and pigs. The fogbusting GG spots what appears to be the advance guard for Amica's settling party:


We hope he's aiming for the golds, so we can still sneak in a city at DryPigs.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 61 (1560 BC)
This was supposed to be a boring filler turn not worth reporting, but when our chariot finally stepped north it found this:


That is plemo's spear, standing just outside contact range. It isn't fortified though, so there's no telling how long he's been aware of us and avoiding contact. The repercussions of this contact is huge though, as we'd earlier speculated there were three options:

1) There is someone there, and they've (all?) avoided making contact on purpose
2) There is someone there, and they've (all?) lost their scouts to animals
3) It's safe backlines

Given that we know there are/were atleast six players on this landmass already, option three sounded like the most probable. I still don't belive Mjmd would stand for an isolated player to our north, and plemo probably wouldn't have avoided making contact if he was alone, so that means there are likely more players in that direction. Are we all on the same continent?

This feels a lot tighter than expected, not quite PB62 claustrophobia, but PB66 was roomy by comparison. This is exacerbated by how all of Dreylin, Amica and us are pushed into the same small area: Dreylin had literally no other direction for the first cities, and the south was jungled. Amica's south was jungled, and we had unappetizing land in all directions.

Another thing of note is that Plemo is up to 8 cities, and not the 5 I have noted according to PBspy, so there's clearly a gap there. Somehow we're 3rd in crops with 43, while the leader (Plemo?) has 64, so the field in general is lagging hard.

[Tarkeel]

Another thing of note is that Plemo is up to 8 cities, and not the 5 I have noted according to PBspy, so there's clearly a gap there.

I just went through the entire PBspy history for plemo, and there is no trace of the missing three cities. Either PBSpy has been down, or he's done whips just before/after settling to camouflage it, which IMHO is pretty dastardly.

[klops]

ah, I wondered when you finally will explore the northwest.
I mean... your known world ends right next to your capitals culture. I would be very nervous and curious

[Tarkeel]

ah, I wondered when you finally will explore the northwest.
I mean... your known world ends right next to your capitals culture. I would be very nervous and curious

Unfortunately, once we committed to the attack, this was our earliest opportunity to further explore the north. Mind that we did explore some early on, and the chariots have been heading north to explore since the war was over on T50.

[klops]

Sure, there is a reason and since your attack was successful... two bases are a good trade for less scouting I guess
Wasn't about to criticise, just wanted to express my uncomfortable feelings about the "wilderness"

[Tarkeel]

Oh, we've been very uncomfortable about it as well. One of the ongoing discussions is how and where to spare the hammers for a scouting workboat.