[SPOILER] [PB38] OT4E plays this one because lurking around takes too much time

[chumchu]

hmm. I think scouting closeby is better to get the information faster so that we can make an informed decision about our settling plans asap.

[OT4E]

Somebody has got 9k soldiers already.


Considering 9 it must be someone who got 1k from growth, so Dark Savant or Aretas. Dark Savant has started from 0 k soldiers and has got no tech. So unlikely he could get 4 warriors. So it must be Aretas. He got 2 k from start (Hunting) and got 1 tech on T5. It could be Archery only, +6k. What is suspicious is that he didnt build warrior while growing. What is he doing? Another scout? Or barracks for desperate archer rush? We need to watch out since he could ne our neighbor.

Btw we found marble far to the East. I expect it is supposed to be contested by several nations there.

[OT4E]

hmm. I think scouting closeby is better to get the information faster so that we can make an informed decision about our settling plans asap.

I will return scout ASAP, just didnt want to step on the flat

[OT4E]

So far the land aound us seems to be rather poor for commerce. The coast is limited and there are no rivers except the one we have a cap. I dont think that TGLH or our UB can be relevant but Colossus could be usefull to push us to the mid-game till we be able to spread windmills and some plain cottages to make all this land to the East work.

[OT4E]

T11

Worker is out, started farm.
Warrior in building queue.

Our scout found stone, closer than marble. Also it faces lion now, hope luck wont turn away from us this early.


One more thing from demographics is that everyone has 20-21 land tiles in starting area, so noone had coastal start. So I guess map is pretty balanced in terms of starting resources and things around of the cap. 1-6 food, 1-5 food, 2 floods, number of forests and etc.

[OT4E]

I would consider pyramids. With stone they will cost us 250 base hammers or ~225 if we also insert forge. Thats 2 settlers, but overexpansion will lead to economical collapse.

Pyramids will allow us to stay in police state which makes nice synergy with early forges. There is no problem with happy resources here and I dont want rep-economics because it goes against our base strategy.

As small side effect pyramids increase GE output.

[chumchu]

Ge is definately possible but it might be hard not to contaminate the pool if we want it in time for early machinery. Pyramids is dicey in 25 people but the failgold would help with overexpansion as well.

My guess is balanced starts as it is by far the easiest

[chumchu]

I agree that Tglh is not worth sacrificing infra for in the same way as pyramids. If we aim for pyramids we should try for a period of rep, preferably with pacifism but I totally agree that will not be the main plan because of diminishing returns.

[chumchu]

Whipping out 25 numids with police state and forges looks tasty though.

[OT4E]

Scout is dead, 26.2% bah...

Pyramids is a gamble indeed but the risk is not high if we do not sacrifice a lot for it and failgold is reasonable reward especially if we get 100% bonus.
GE for Machinery normally comes in 40 turns after MC. But if MC itself was early then the waiting time is not that long. We will get HBR, Maths, Calendar and may be Currency.

But actually I am even thinking about double GE strategy. This means that once we get MC we set 2 engineers in 2 cities and the slower one builds Pyramids or HG. This will let us get Engineering in like 20 turns after Machinery or earlier with lower probability. Engineering allows you to consolidate army quicker and rises new opportunities to make 2-3 round of pikes against rival HA's or WE's or even Knights. It works with slow stacks better but I do not exclude that we can determine what our stack will consist of closer to the date.