[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

FWIW, I thought the Comben/Gold area was going to be the real flashpoint though, being roughly equidistant between the 3 of us, but the best laid plans, etc. etc..

We had originally concluded that we wouldn't get anything south of Augustus and Dominion peacefully, and was the prime motivation for the rush. The golds we were ready to cede to Amica, with DustyHogs and SweetSparkle as our likely eastern border. Since that isn't happening, we'll have to see how it shapes up. It feels like the three of us was always being channeled into a triangle of death, which is why it was so surprising that we have northern neighbor(s). FWIW we still haven't unfogged any reasons to settle in that direction earlier. I really wonder what thoughts went into the design of this part of the map.

FriendlyFiller is not compatible with your new Hogs city ... and moving it NW will make it unable to work any (decent/cottage) tiles

Correct. It's an old sign, but it neatly illustrates what we lose by Amica's greedy plant.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 73 (1080 BC)
Kingdom Builder is settled to claim the pigs and floodplains, and we have three workers chopping out the granary ASAP.


Barb warriors in the north and south are easily dispatched, although the chariot did suffer some damage (but also got to 10 xp). More intriguing is the fact that the barb city is size 2 and defended by 3 warriors. The big question is if manage to take it before Amica does.

We got graphs vs Plemo last turn with 42 vs 44 EP (analysis coming when I can spare the time), and he stopped spending this turn so he's met someone else. Assuming his mystery contact is not the same as the one in the south, that means 8 of 19 players are in this corner of the world. I had expected a more spread out map.



Kingdom Builder is another entry game with deceptive depth featuring randomised setup. Gameplay is featured on placing your 40 city tokens on the map, and each turn a card determines which terrain type you can place on. The caveat is that you have to place next to another of your tokens is possible. The scoring is based on 3 cards (out of 10 in the base game) and most of the time you want to spread your tokens far apart. The board consists of 4 map section (out of 8 in the base game) for many setup permutations, and each section allows players to claim a special action for either placing extra tokens or moving existing tokens.

[El Grillo]

Ah, Kingdom Builder is another fun one I haven't played in a while. The neat thing is that some of the scoring cards are simple and others can ask you to play quite differently, and you might not be able to try to maximize all 3, so deciding which to try to aim for can be polarizing between players, and also change over time based on what everyone is doing.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 74 (1040 BC)
Scouting with the chariot reveals that Amica has an axe/spear pair ready to assault the barb city. We really can't afford to let him keep that city, as it will block anything east of our capital. It also reveals yet another barb city in the south.


We really can't catch a break in this game. For some more depression, let's take a look at Plemo's start; Graphs are the first 50 turns and colourmarks are the same as last time:

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

Score in spoilers (note. 5x scaling)

T1: Works 5f3h (as opposed to the "normal" 5f2h) (*)
T16: Gains 2f from camp finishing
T18: Gains 2f1h1c from growth (riverside plainswheat)
T21: Gains 3f from farming wheat
T29: Gains 5f6h from settling a new city and growth in capital (**)
T33: Gains 2f1h
T34: Gains 3h, growing onto forested plainshill
T35: Trades 2h for 2f; swapping from forested plainshill to grassforest

*) There are three possible options for his start:
1) 2f2h city from regular plainshill, working a 3f1h tile (grassforest deer)
2) 3f1h city from banana/rice/etc, working a 2f2h tile (grassforest ivory)
3) 2f3h city from stone/marble plainshill, working a 3f tile

**) He gains four point at the T28 turnroll while being logged in for the third time that turn. When you know what you're looking for this is obvious: it's not enough for a tech, the wrong timing for a landscore, and a single city can't grow twice. Assuming a normal 5f2h plainshill city w/3f tile, he then grows onto a 4h plainshill mine.

Plemo moved to a plainshill with inner ring grassdeer, and a riverside plainswheat next to that again. Worker finishes T11, camp finishes T15 and farm T20, with growth to unimproved wheat T17. He then builds a settler on size 2 as he would have grown T22 if not building a food-unit, finally growing to size 3 on T28 while simultaneously settling his first new city.

Other noteworthy timings are BronzeWorking T30 and AH T37. I wonder if he avoided animals by moving?

I get that plemo moved his capital, but this is still a steep difference in start quality and a good reminder why hunting/deer starts need something to hold them back. To quote myself from the mapmaking guide:

Opening Moves
Consider a city working an unimproved 3 foodhammer tile, which is common and easy to find. Most openings start with a worker costing 60 foodhammers, and with only 1 spare foodhammer from the city it will take 60 / 4 = 15 turns for the worker to finish. Add in a second food or hammer from the city tile and the timing drops to 60 / 5 = 12 turns. If the start also has a 4 foodhammer tile (such as forested deer in a hunting start) the time drops even further to 60 / 6 = 10 turns.

This neatly illustrates why it's so hard to balance hunting vs agriculture starts; deer without a forest has similar yield to a dry corn or wheat, but the forest (bring it up to a wet) itself will skew the base yield and speed up the worker. The classic solution is to make sure everyone has a 4 foodhamer tile to work, with forested ivory being a favorite. Since improving the ivory is a high priority for both yield and happyness, this adds tech requirement and takes away choice from the start. My personal favorite is to use bananaforest instead, which while isn't a naturally occuring tile does give some interesting option how you improve the tile down the road: You can either chop and cottage it early, or turn it into a lumbermill or plantation later in the game.

[Tarkeel]

If there is a reload due to Amica/GKC requesting it, I'd like it to be to the start of our turn. We've been waiting for 22h on Amica to play after him, and doing an early morning turn led to an error with some consequence: One of the forestchops for Kingdom Builder's granary went into Azul instead. Azul already had enough overflow to 1t an archer will actually lose a hammer as well.

E: Just as I type that, GKC logs in to play, so guess we'll have to live with this as well.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 75 (1000 BC)
Due to the situation with Mauryan we've been waiting for Amica to play, but after 22 hours we just have to get it done with. If Amica now double-moves he will take the city, so we just have to hope for the best. To top it of, this waking up early to play made for another serious misplay, choping the forest for KingdomBuilder into Azul instead.


Let's have a look at what is, and what could have been. First, our natural lands:


Catan: Currently smoldering ruins, but a new settler is en route for T77.
Augustus: Also smoldering ruins, will be resettled 1N at unknown date.
Dominion: Has a monument and will expand borders next turn, and hook the fish the turn after, at which point it will be rather productive.
CattleCorn: Will likely be settled before Augustus, but no set plan is in place.
Wormlake: We'll have to see if we can get to this site before Plemo, and possibly have to move it SE, giving up both the silks and the filler city
WoolyStallion: Seems like an untenable reach now
WetFill: Was marginal filler even when we had the area under control

Next up, Dreylin's former lands:


Azul: Our new capital rocks no less than four 6-yield tiles and is the star in our little empire. It has a monument (from before it was unnecessary) and granary, and is ready to pump out settlers and units for us.
Carcassone: Dreylin's old capital also has monument and granary, and has already contributed two settlers for the cause.
Kingdom Builder: Freshly built, the granary should have completed this turn after an intense choping operation.
SweetSparkle: Was intended as a non-offensive bordercity towards Amica, but is now depending on the fate of Mauryan.
GreenLagoon: Extremely slow starting long-term city, relying on lakes for food
The two southern barb cities are unknown quantities for now, and might both fall to Commodore, effectively heming us in.

Even with IMP I don't see how we could have claimed anything more than the inner ring around our capital without force. In total there's space for 5 cities and one filler in "our 130 tiles" (I counted, it's about 80, depending on how the border vs plemo plays out). The island seems to be equidistant between us and Plemo, who has the natural seafaring advantage. In total these cities would claim 2 fish, 2 dry corn, 2 grass cow, 1 plainshill sheep and 1 lake for "food". We could possibly claim 3 different calendar resources, but both the incense and spices aren't clearly ours. We also claim a total of 3 new riverside tiles.

As far as we can tell, Plemo hasn't actually settled anything in our direction (we can tell the distinct 3rd ring borders of the capital), and frankly that land isn't worth fighting over. While he's undoubtedly played well, the most impressive part is that he's found space for 11 cities at all. We can barely fit that many in two civs worth of land.

Dreylin would probably have been able to claim more of the territory around his start, likely meeting Amica further out and controling the area which Amica controls against us. It's not unlikely that Dreylin could have consumed Amica with horchers, and then us with knights, if left to his own devices here. Given that SweetSparkle has the only "safe" lux for Dreylin (gems and sugars), he would have to contest the gold and dyes vs Amica and spices from us so conflict was always looming for him. Meanwhile we have yet to actually have a lux connected, despite starting with one at the capital.

For funsies, total improvement count:
4 Mines; two on coppers, one built by Dreylin, one on currently unclaimed gold
3 Farms; two on corn, one on currently unclaimed wheat
3 Pastures; all on cows
0 Cottages; 3 partially built
1 Fishing net; currently unclaimed
17 Roads; two from city ruins

(Apologies for the negative tone, but sometimes you just have to get things out of the system)

[Tarkeel]

Amica played a double-move and took the city, and offered a reload when he saw our forces. We had a slightly spoilery talk, but he attacked in the right way so we couldn't have done anything and no reload is needed.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 76 (975 BC)
With some frustration out of the system, it's time to make some lemonade. I honestly don't think Amica knows how annoying Mauryan will be for us, he probably thinks we can still fit another city in that direction. We're not really in a position to have any advantage over him for the forseeable future, so we're better of coexisting as minnows in the sharkpool. Connected resources looks hilarious:

Carcassonne's scouting workboat just finished and will check out the SW, while the city itself regrows to 4 on an archer before doing some more settlers. Azul will get a library to help with the culture war, it even has the food to run some specialists, so we should be able to keep control of the gems even if we can't work them. Kingdom Builder will get yet another chop into it's granary, timed for growth to size 3, and Dominion will also start it's granary.

[Tarkeel]

Luckily for us, tech is also anemic in this game:

Meditationa and Poly is Pindi and Comm (I forget who got what). Pindi, Comm and Amica all had writing as of last turn. Pindi got both Oracle and a classical hut tech, so one of those is MC and the other has to be Monarchy (since Theology religion didn't drop and Machinery is medieval)

[Tarkeel]

Turn 77 (950 BC)
New Catan is re-settled on the ruins, and our warrior has some information on Plemo's lands:


We've rejigged the dotmap in this area slightly:
Wormlake is pulled 2S, off the coast and onto a hill, for a much better border city.
WoolyStallion is likely to be invalidated by a Plemo city NW of the incense, and was barely worth it in the first place.
WetFill is pulled 1S to a much worse but more defensible city on the hill.


The south is also rejigged with new information from the workboat:
GreenLagoon is pulled SW to allow for a canal-filler, since SweetSparkle is denied.
BendyFish is our ultimate reach and something of a wish, but would make the best border (for us) vs Commmodore.
Illinois looks like a decent post-IW city, and what appears to be an island.
BadBarbie we'd rather burn, and let Commodore settles something S of the rice instead.