[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, the T18 tile is key. I was trying to look at it with the flying camera:




It looks flat from there, doesn't it? In which case we'd be seen from T17, since that tile appears to be on a hill. I'll try to find out more conclusively from world builder and getting the pixels to match.

I really really doubt he has a 15 turn worker build. I think only a really poor player would move a settler twice, and then build a slow worker, and I know he's not terrible. If not a plains hill, it could be settling on something like a sugar or banana.

Is the cost of 4 scout turns away from the likely second city site worth viewing his capital? I'm not sure about that. It does have advantages though, we can then see its population for the rest of the game to track whips and likely builds.

[MindyMcCready]

Just to be clear, we have a 1T window of opportunity here. So if you don't commit the hammers to a warrior this turn then this plan is dead in the water. Big decision time.

Assuming we abort after peaking the capital the cost is 2T of warrior build causing the worker to be delayed 2T. Also, we'd darn well better swtich to Archery if we fail this. :LOL:

Last question: Do you (or anyone else?) know if a Size 1 captital with culture will autoraze? I believe in PB2 Mortius' city autorazed but that might have been pre-culture. I'll go check. Ah crap, the city auto-razes according to PB2. Booo!

[WilliamLP]

In this case, it's clear to me. Call it a clash of personalities, but I don't agree with making a major economic sacrifice (delaying the first worker several turns) to take a chance that isn't nearly a sure thing.

Playing a metagame to maximize the chances of winning among 18 players, it might be the best play to throw the long bomb, I'll concede this. But I really don't want to play a long game where we have an economic disadvantage from the start. The start is a really strong economic one.

Edit: And yeah, if we don't get to keep the capital tile at size 1... that means we're set back against the rest of the world even in the best case scenario. That doesn't seem very appealing.

[MindyMcCready]

Yeah, the T18 tile is key. I was trying to look at it with the flying camera:

It looks flat from there, doesn't it? In which case we'd be seen from T17, since that tile appears to be on a hill. I'll try to find out more conclusively from world builder and getting the pixels to match.

Actually I don't think that the T17/T18 would matter so long as we moved 2nd on T17. I figured that he'd complete the worker on T17 and begin a warrior on T18 regardless.

I really really doubt he has a 15 turn worker build. I think only a really poor player would move a settler twice, and then build a slow worker, and I know he's not terrible.

If that's what we feel the balance of probability is then we shouldn't proceed of course.

If not a plains hill, it could be settling on something like a sugar or banana.

Well most people (other than Brick? - Settles on deer) don't do this. But regardless of what bonus it is the outcome is the same and we'll see it if we take a peek.

Is the cost of 4 scout turns away from the likely second city site worth viewing his capital? I'm not sure about that. It does have advantages though, we can then see its population for the rest of the game to track whips and likely builds.

This info is invaluable if we're going to conduct an attack. Now that I've determined that the city autorazes,...its not as valuable. Still valuable to remove an opponent,...but not as valuable as removing an opponent and capturing a city.

Tracking population, whips and builds is very valuable information on what is likely to be our #1 enemy. We have a number of turns before we need to plant the city. So I'd say that it's worthwhile regardless of whether we attack or not.

[MindyMcCready]

In this case, it's clear to me. Call it a clash of personalities, but I don't agree with making a major economic sacrifice (delaying the first worker several turns) to take a chance that isn't nearly a sure thing.

Playing a metagame to maximize the chances of winning among 18 players, it might be the best play to throw the long bomb, I'll concede this. But I really don't want to play a long game where we have an economic disadvantage from the start. The start is a really strong economic one.

Edit: And yeah, if we don't get to keep the capital tile at size 1... that means we're set back against the rest of the world even in the best case scenario. That doesn't seem very appealing.

Well I don't feel its a clash of personalities,....just hammering out the worst-best case scenarios and the odds of success.

I certainly don't disagree with your decision now that we've determined the low odds chance of success combined with the auto-razing outcome. It needed to be thoroughly examined before making that decision of course.

Scout moves: if we're going to act friendly (and we're in a corner while retep probably has neighbours) what's the harm of revealing our scout and peaking at the capital?

[WilliamLP]

Well I don't feel its a clash of personalities,....just hammering out the worst-best case scenarios and the odds of success.

Ok, great then, I think that's the best way to make decisions too. Make the most passionate case possible, shoot down what's wrong, what's left is the good ideas. I've had co-workers call me too blunt before but this isn't a relationship forum but a hardcore gaming one.

Scout moves: if we're going to act friendly (and we're in a corner while retep probably has neighbours) what's the harm of revealing our scout and peaking at the capital?

Opportunity cost of seeing what's to the S and SE and earlier contacts. Also the expected gold per turn value of hut discoveries. The reveal itself isn't a problem... I arguably already screwed that part up. My excuse is that reading tile bleed is hard.

I'm definitely not set against taking the turns to peek but not sure about it. It would have been much better to do that last turn but oh well.

[WilliamLP]

For fellow students of the dark art of World Builder and tile bleed:




So actually the T17 tile is a peak! And the T18 tile is definitely flat. It's subtle, but we can clearly tell by trying both flat plains and hill plains in Worldbuilder, shown to the right.

The colour of the circled part to the left I don't think it's possible to match in WB, because it's determined by the peak's terrain type (I think). And I can change it to plains or grass or tundra, etc, but none of those colours match the game's real image. I could go into XML to see what's going on but XML leads to hatred which leads to suffering.

Next... the ancient lost art of how to make correctly matching river shapes... Seriously if anyone knows of any writings about Worldbuilder and tile matching and tile bleed with the RealmsBeyond level of OCD detail I'd love to read it.

[WilliamLP]

Well, the question of whether to scout Retep's capital was a moot point I think:




There's a shadow of a tree to the SE of the tile, which means it wouldn't see the capital tile anyway.

I decided to move the scout through to a tile he can see, because there aren't other options that don't waste a lot of scout turns.




Hi, we come in peace! Want to be friends?

Note his 2 EP spent against us means he has another contact already. It also means he wasn't shrewd enough to disguise this from us (or his other neighbour) but instead revealed this information to both of us by going 2-2. The next scout move I think is SE-E for forest safety.

Suttree finished his first tech. This means we get Meditation with near certainty I believe. I'm not even sure if a hut can give it?

[MindyMcCready]

I've never seen a hut pop a religion so that's probably not a concern. T16 for a religion is really, really early.

We're definately painting a target on our heads with the religion grab. Retep could conceivable land BW around the same time that we land Meditation. Waiting for the next 2 techs might be too late to not get rushed. If we want to plant south of the capital to share the corn, we're going to need Archery to defend that location.

Axe odds vs Archer:
No fortify 62%
5% Fortify 60%
10% fortify 58%
15% fortify 57%
20% fortify 31%
25% fortify 29%

So we pretty much need full fortify to have odds until we get culture.

Lastly, the location 4S of capital is not very good defensively. Its easy to imagine retep planting 1S of the spice on the plains hill and then in 1T land on the corn and fork both our capital and 4S of capital city. I'd suggest 4S-1W but retep is gonna tilt at that location plant,....which is why we'll need to be able to defend it.

Wow,...this is going to be a conflict oriented game unless we concede disputed lands. This is why I was really interested in the warrior rush. This guy is just way too close for us to not knock heads. I just don't see the option of developing in peace. Also that little 2-tile lake will make defending harder than it should be.

Given the T2 start, he could have easily started on the coast 5 tiles to the West or SW. We'd be totally choked out of land if not for our move into the contient.

[Krill]

it is not possible to get a tech that founds a religion form a hut, in either RB mod or in any version of BtS.