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

[WilliamLP]

I think Mindy's saying that if we had to spend the higher cost for AH at the start to hook up our food then the detour to Meditation would be far less viable?

Anyway, I'm almost sure we'll get it, barring something really crazy I missed, like someone popped Myst from a hut in the first 4 turns and immediately switched research.

I ended the turn with 1 move left on the scout:




It might be theoretically slightly better to end the turn 1N for defense across the river against a wolf or panther coming from 5 possible tiles instead of 2, but meh. I think we go to the forest NE-NE next turn. Also we can probably count on a border pop for some immediate scouting around the capital so we don't need to make a perfectly tight circle to cover all terrain.

Usually I'd be willing to take some risks sending the first quechua a little astray for a little more scouting but Retep's capital really is extremely close.

EP ratio is 16:8 for us on Retep. I can only call that a flat out mistake on his part, with no upside. He let us know he has another neighbour when he didn't have to. He let the other neighbour know too. He gives us graphs earlier, before he gets graphs on us. He won't have graphs on either of his neighbours until the time he would have had both anyway, going one at a time. We can hope that the rest of his play will be similarly imprecise.

[WilliamLP]

I'm considering taking a wider arc with the scout, offloading some scouting duty to the first quechua. I think we're still safe on defense doing this.




We'll have three turns to react to any approach, and obviously if there's something incoming on turn 19 we keep the red quechua near the capital. I think this is still fine since it gets back in time to reinforce the second city, and allows more scouting in the long run because the scout can cover further ground. The blue quechua can pre-guard the silk tile. You can tell me if I'm not being paranoid enough with this plan.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm not really a proponent of this warrior scouting plan.
1. If we see a hut we pretty much want the scout to pop it anyway.
2. Scout could conceivably be on tile T23 in 3-Turns so we're not gaining alll that much territory with our 1 mover.
3. We're not in slavery. 2 warriors, which most people will build by T31 have about 50% chance of taking our capital and end our game. 5 turns of fortify really shuts them down.
4. We're likely to encounter an animal, get wounded and get delayed (set aside the chance of getting killed) Any delay means that we're delaying our second city or we're moving into this highly aggressive plant (in retep's mind anyway) with only a single warrior. No hills, no culture, no fortify and even a single warrior has 25% chance of killing our city. 2 warriors have an 80% chance of razing that city.
5. The objective of this scouting should only be huts and intel. We have several awesome city sites already so that's not necessary. If we're going to be blocking anyone its probably retep. That mountain range to the south is a nice defensive feature so I only see us planting one city to the East in the near-term. Intel is not worth a delay in the 2nd city and of course we want the scout for the huts anyway.

[WilliamLP]

I'm not really a proponent of this warrior scouting plan.
1. If we see a hut we pretty much want the scout to pop it anyway.

I think increasing the chance of finding one dominates this factor.

2. Scout could conceivably be on tile T23 in 3-Turns so we're not gaining alll that much territory with our 1 mover.

I very much disagree. It's not that the 1 mover covers much territory, it's that the wider path of the scout covers dramatically more territory, if it goes somewhere else in the next 3 turns. The total difference would easily be 20 revealed tiles or more.

3. We're not in slavery. 2 warriors, which most people will build by T31 have about 50% chance of taking our capital and end our game. 5 turns of fortify really shuts them down.

I don't think most people will have 2, by turn 31. Even fewer would be willing to leave their capital empty on a long march. And by the time we see warriors on the border we have the option to 3-T a quechua at size 2-3 anyway, if we really need it.

4. We're likely to encounter an animal, get wounded and get delayed (set aside the chance of getting killed) Any delay means that we're delaying our second city or we're moving into this highly aggressive plant (in retep's mind anyway) with only a single warrior. No hills, no culture, no fortify and even a single warrior has 25% chance of killing our city. 2 warriors have an 80% chance of razing that city.

To me the chances of dying to an animal are low enough to deal with. It would back off early if wounded.

5. The objective of this scouting should only be huts and intel. We have several awesome city sites already so that's not necessary. If we're going to be blocking anyone its probably retep. That mountain range to the south is a nice defensive feature so I only see us planting one city to the East in the near-term. Intel is not worth a delay in the 2nd city and of course we want the scout for the huts anyway.

I don't know. I'm a believer that in general people here undervalue map awareness. By being able to swing the scout further we increase the chance of knowing if there is an east coast or if the land continues a long way. We increase the chance of contacts for known tech beaker bonus. I think the chances of delaying the second city are small, in fact even if the scouting quechua dies.

[WilliamLP]

Well, one decision just got resolved really really quickly!




I don't understand why the most veteran players here don't like playing with huts on!




Hello #1 soldier count.

[MindyMcCready]

Our disagreement I think revolves primarly on our assessment of early war with retep:

I think that we need to stay very focussed here on retep. Our plan should absolutely be to land the city spots that we want; be vigilant against any aggressive moves that he makes AND opportunistically punish any risks that he takes.

You want to develop in peace in the early game. That's because we have 7+ vey solid city sites; a start speed advantage; luxary + hopefully religious happiness, safety to our north/north-west. Of course we want to develop in peace.

Retep has:
1. A slower start. He's probaby going to be pissed that he missed out on that city site.
2. A neighbour who's just planted 5!!!!! tiles from his capital. That's pretty unforgivable in this game.
3. A second neighbour. If Retep plants a city to the South we take his city sites to the north. If he plants to the north other neighbour takes his city sites to the south. In other words he's going to feel boxed in.

Let's say that this map is bigger than us + retep + other. Who would you want to attack? A. Neighbour to the north who backs onto the ocean or B. Neighbour to the south where he may run into additional contests for land?

My feeling is that he's going to feel boxed in making him aggressive. I'd also say that, once he figures out the map, it'd be more natural for him to push into us than head south barring the possibility that we're on a 3-team island. Even if we're on a 3-team island he still can't win this. We have 1 direction in which to settle; south team has one direction in which to settle. Without throwing the long bomb he's not going to come out on top of this.

So I am advising conservative, defensive play here.

...

Of course, I wrote this before seeing that we popped Archery! Yay!

1. One archer is probaby better defense than 2 warriors. How does 1 Archer + 1 scout sound? More scouting ability + >= defense for City #2.
2. We should start debating possibilities of a choke. If we scout his land we should be able to see the +1hammer that comes from copper. We can prevent him hooking it up. Given that he's so close to us, it'd be natural that he plants for copper as his first city.

[MindyMcCready]

Ok, I re-read your warrior scouting plan.

My early points were a bit knee-jerk reaction. I'll re-evaluate your plan more carefully and get back to you.

[MindyMcCready]

-So on T18 red warrior moves to Time 18 tile.
-If 2nd half of T18 warriors show up on the spice, we can still get back in time. I get where you're coming from on that.

On T19
-2nd half of turn timer warrior appears on spice.
-T22 we have a warrior in cap, enemy can attack on the second half of T22
-1 Warrior has 3% chance at our capital
-2nd warrior has about 50% odds

So we're safe from an opportunistic 1 warrior attack. 2 Warriors is a pretty low prob outcome (although we definately considered it) and we still have a coin-flip's chance. So the risk to the capital is tolerable.

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The 3T warrior. Will that protect us in time from a warrior appearing on the spice on the 2nd half of the timer? See picture. If not, the easiest way to manage that is to put in 1T of hammers into the warrior so that it can complete in time for that worst case scenario.

To get full fortify on the silks tile we'd need the 2nd warrior to depart on T23? That means that the capital is undefended from T23 to T32. That's where we'll need the 1T invested into the warrior.

[WilliamLP]

We've already got 9 hammers on a quechua (12 if we don't re-login after ending turn), so can't really afford to change that build. Going quechua-archer-settler would delay the settler by 2 turns I think.

The settler on turn 29 plan has pretty much literally zero wiggle room. The settler comes out with exactly 100/100 food-hammers that turn, and requires 3 overflow from the second quechua into the settler to work, so pre-building a third one would cost a turn getting the second city out.

However... we'll be size 3 at turn 22, and actually will have the capacity to two-turn a quechua then (cow + 2 x forest hill is 8 hammers), so I think even if we want to plant the blue quechua on the silks and get full fortify (which isn't a bad idea!) we can defend in emergency. Also I'm not sure if you accounted for it in your odds but we should have the +40% culture bonus on turn 26.

[WilliamLP]

Hmm, pre-fortifying on the silk tile would telegraph our intent to settle that site many turns earlier than he'd know otherwise, if he scouts the warrior there, right? Is it still worth it or better to keep that quechua quietly closer to the capital for a while longer?