[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time

[Charriu]

Let them fear and tremble before our mighty thread count

[mackoti]

when i played usualy i had this agreement with my foes.I remember just one of them beeing against.

[El Grillo]

So there was a flurry of activity in the Incan thread after the war declaration as expected, and now we go back to our regularly scheduled episode of Waiting for The Turn

I don't want to start simming future turns in detail while the war introduces so much unresolved uncertainty (if we're successful in eliminating Amicalola at all, and if so, how long it would take to capture Springer Mtn., how many WCs we have left, if we manage to capture any Workers, etc). That said, in broad strokes, the idea after a successful elimination as hoped-for would be a boom of cities to make use of the extra land, then growing and developing into a research lead. Ideally we'll have enough surviving WCs to catch up on scouting, and be able to settle great cities 4-6. For example, without the pressure of Amicalola, we can delay Iron Working and cutting into the northern jungles, though I'd like to get a safe border city toward Ramk in the north for some strategic depth for our capital. Sending one WC in each direction to meet more players would also be really nice, though that may be a luxury.

Tech-wise, after Pottery, I'd like to pick up Fishing fairly quickly, with Sailing a bit after that (I imagine we'll want Mysticism before it as the beaker-cheapest way to make culture), since I fully expect to crash our economy for a bit while we boom in city count. My thinking is that we'll be short Worker labor in the short term while prioritizing Settlers and defenders/fogbusters, so having some cities capable of putting excess pop onto 2/0/3 lakes will make planning Worker actions a bit more manageable. Then, having already confirmed islands to the southeast, getting ICTRs will be helpful once we're up to 8-9 cities on the mainland.

[Fintourist]

when i played usualy i had this agreement with my foes.I remember just one of them beeing against.

Still re this topic: I agree that you should not log out of turn order unless agreed with the opponent. In tight situations I can see how players would be against it, but sometimes RL implications are bigger considerations. E.g in PB18 it was quite useful that we were able to micro our 100 cities already in advance so that we could manage the turn in a reasonable time when it was actually our turn to play. During ancient times, there is of course less need for that and one might as well just wait..

[El Grillo]

T40:

There was only one Quechua on defense, with only 5% fortify. Where are the other four (that I'm pretty confident of)? Let's say that's one far off to the west exploring, one fortified at the capital, but that still leaves at least two more unaccounted for. Well, this made the first step of the war easier than expected.



The first WC won (2 hits), a slightly better-than-average result. No spears for now, and 11 capture gold is a nice bonus. Seeing no Quechuas from atop the hill, I split off the second WC to reveal more tiles and try to see if I can pick off any vulnerable Quechuas outside of Springer Mtn. I hope to be able to get a bit more value out of CHM here in that two wins at the odds I'm expecting will be enough to promote to Shock, which I'm hoping will let my damaged WCs continue to contribute against newly built, unfortified Quechuas at the capital. Here's the position after my turn. 4 WCs in play, 2 more finishing end of T41.





Some players have started to grow their cities in earnest in preparation for 3-pop Settler whips with top Population having 6 pop split 5/1. If I'm reading the charts right, Amicalola has 11 MFG, which is good enough for 2 Quechuas every 3 turns before factoring in chops and whips. Again, if there's any consolation there, it's that he's limited by only having one build queue.



Either Ramk is having seriously bad luck with barbarians, or he's also fighting someone, which might help explain his slower development.

[Charriu]

Excellent start to the war. With no copper Amicalola becomes a non issue as we can choke them to death if it comes down to it.

[El Grillo]

T41:



Well that's a simple enough explanation for where the Quechuas are: they're all in the capital. Unfortunately there won't be any opportunity to pick any off, but that's fine. The C1 WC will heal before joining in. My forward WC will move S-SE to flush out any chopping Workers and perhaps pillage the cow? Or just start getting hits in on T43.

The other thing I want to comment on is I was surprised to see that Amicalola's third food resource was a wheat. I had been sure it was a grass hill pig hence the researching of AH first. With two Agriculture resources available from the start and EXP, I have to think that a Mining->BW opening would've been more effective and much safer.

That's not all the news though:



This Warrior from Plemo must have taken a long path along the outer coast past Ramk, and it has clearly survived at least one animal attack in the process. The three FIN leaders in the game all in a row, this should be interesting! It looks like Plemo and I have both had fairly smooth openings, while Ramk has been a bit slower to expand. Curious to see how this part of the world ends up developing, especially since as noted earlier Ramk and Plemo both appear to be experienced and solid players.

If his Warrior is in range of the WCs finishing next turn, I do intend to declare war, kill it, and offer peace. He's too far away to retaliate any time soon, and him pillaging my horses would be a real pain. Otherwise he's welcome to explore to my east and get eaten by the 2 lions over there

Here's the dossier on Plemo so far:

Plemo (AGG/FIN of Netherlands):
2 cities, second city founded T30
Techs on T7, T21, T30, T34. Mining -> BW have to be the first two since he 2-pop whipped on T28. Maybe Wheel, revolt, and Hunting after that?
Pop growth on T19, T22, T34, T38. That's 4 pop between 2 cities as of now.

EP reassigned to the Dutch.

[El Grillo]

I received this PM from Amicalola:

Hi, El Grillo, I've whipped after you moved, then got paranoid that I'd broken a rule, then checked, and I have broken a rule. Fuck. Not sure what the correct move is. I can change my build queue away from what I whipped, or I can reload? Any of the above are fine with me. Let me know!

Hey, no worries. I'm not sure either, but I think you can ask one of the game admins to reload in the tech thread. In this case the nearest autosave would be to my logout save, which wouldn't disrupt too much. I'll post this in my thread too in case one of my lurkers has a better idea of what to do.

[Charriu]

What are the odds of a WC against his Quechas? I would think they are lower. In that case it would be important to pillage all the food to prevent more whips. But start pillaging the second ring resources first in that case

[El Grillo]

An unpromoted WC gets 75% to win (plus retreat) on his 20% fortified Quechua. In my sims I was getting good results just attacking 4v6 with autopromote on, since my C1 WC hits one fully fortified Quechua and the others can’t all be at full fortify.

The odds get a bit worse with 40% culture.