"Don't move or the bunny gets it" - German Joey plays Cyrus the Virus of Khmer

[Borsche]

Plains river hill by the sheep would be my guess. The only other place to go is further south but that borders on way too aggressive, especially for a civ with no immediate copper. It's hard to make more guesses with so much land directly around the capital is still unexplored.

[Borsche]

You could settle on the floodplains, to pick up sheep, claims, and the other FP, I guess. That's a mine on a plains forest there which is, what, 4 shields? That would be a nice spot, and isn't too vulnerable defensively thanks to the two lakes and two mountains, forcing a bit of a detour for anyone attacking and forcing them to go through one spot. Idk.

[GermanJoey]

Hey thanks for answering guys! Its a lot easier to report when other people are posting too.

That said, I just got back from another awful awful business trip and I'm tired as hell, just had enough energy to play my turns and then literalilly fall asleep in my chair. So, since I don't want to insult y'all with posting some half-ass thing now (although the short answer is the guesses so far are wrong, although Borsche guessed what was my planned spots 2 and 3 before I saw I had no copper, and they remain my 4 and 5), I'll post a comprehensive report tomorrow night after I get back from work.

(I would like to say that I would post it while I was AT work, but, unfortunately, I found out that while I was on the trip HR compressed our cubes by 50% and lowered the walls. Now anybody walking past the aisle will be able to walk by and see that I'm posting on forums all day instead of working... )

[GermanJoey]

Ok. So, this new setup at work is awful AND I have to work late tonight. I won't have the energy to do this later, but, instead of delaying the post another day, I decided to just take a break at the cafeteria and write the first half of this up now using old screenshots. I'll take advantage of this "opportunity" to be cagey and coy and not fully reveal my plans until the last minute. Love to build the tension. Part 2 will be tomorrow evening, with fresh screenshots.

Anyways, as Agent420-6-Niner and Borsche rightly surmised, my primary concern for the immediate future is my empire's safety so that I can grow to the big powerhouse that my traits would suggest I should be. Unforunately, however, the map presents a dangerous strategic situation for me - and I'm not just talking about the lack of an "easy" (food-accessible) copper or horse hookup. My biggest fear is this:


(note: this image is from turn 6)

Specifically, my fear is Haram taking control of this southern valley with a city that claims 3 strong food sources. This is an incredible spot on its own just because of the food, rivers, and harbor, but what really terrifies me about it is that it acts as a natural fork staging-point into my territory because of the lakes/mountains geographic construct. Both block movement, leaving narrow land passages at each side, and the mountains block LOS view. That is to say, he could hide units behind them (on the tile marked X) that I won't be able to see coming until its too late - even with sentries posted all along his borders. He would settle on one of the three orangish-yellow dots I marked, with the darker the mark the more likely I think he'll settle - the opposite for me. The darkest orange dot is particularly good for him because, in addition to getting a +25% defensive bonus due to the river, it can assert cultural control over the forest 2W1N with a single border pop, preventing me from chopping it and ever seeing the Xed tile. That'll be very difficult for me to do, as, with 3 strong food and his Agricultural trait bonus on top of that, he can whip out early culture buildings like a monument and library lickity-split while the floodplains city struggles to get any kind of production at all.

Haram's eventual Keshiks could thus hit either a city on the floodplain (that Borsche mentioned) or city at the Atlantis spot the turn after a war declare before I had a chance to move appropriate defensive units into position. (as those cities would be 4 to 5 tiles apart). Losing either of those two prospective cities puts my capital at direct risk and allows him to fork towards a number of inner cities, which means that I can't *NOT* settle those cities. Simply choosing to expand in a different direction lets Haram take these spots, putting my capital's land at risk at turn 0 of a war. If the first situation was like putting my balls in a rack, then the latter is like voluntarily asking instead to for them to be drawn then quartered by four stallions hot n' ready to trot.

What's more is that Haram wouldn't necessarily suffer the same situation in reverse. If I give up my southern land to let him settle one of the two marked spots, or even both, then I can try forking him with 2 mover at the start of a war, sure, but his cities would be in a much better defensive position compared to mine, able to easily reinforce either of them with 2-movers in a single turn. Even if I could take the spot, it is not as big a loss for him, being third-ring cities out from his capital and helping integrate the 3 food valley city into his core.

So, TLDR, I feel like I need to take control that southern valley ASAP in order to develop a stable empire able to grow to its full potential. Part 2: the actual city location revealed, my micro detailed, and my city naming scheme finally unveiled!

[Borsche]

Yeah the problem with putting cities down there is that it's difficult to position them in a way that you can move troops from one city to another, or have them sitting in a staging tile. City on the floodplains and a city on that grassland tile 1NW of the fish behind the river would let you shift troops between them, and he wouldn't actually be able to fork them since they're just out of distance of two movers.

[agent427]

if I were Haram I'd interpret settling there as a major aggressive move.. hope you can get copper online fast enough to secure the spot.

[GermanJoey]

Haram figured it out...



I didn't realize until the end of turn that he actually declared war on me!!! I think he knew what my plan was and just wanted to claim the first half of the turn. Shit, how irritating, what a turn to do it too. I wish I had noticed, I would have moved my warrior 1SW instead of 1S. Damn, that warrior came out of nowhere, I wasn't able to see it last night... I think he's going to try to buy time by choking his warrior on the forest, but if he does he'll just be feeding me XP. Well, here goes nothing...

[GermanJoey]

Also, you can't see it in this screenshot, but my capital is named tinyurl.com

[GermanJoey]

I suppose I should go into some detail on my last half-dozen turns or so. Right now I have 4 workers and shall get a new chariot during each of the next 5 turns, on average. So, i went worker -> grow to 4 -> worker -> worker -> settler -> worker. This was the fastest way to get horses connected *AFTER* I discovered that I didn't have copper. Getting a settler out immediately after the second worker would get my 2nd city settled faster, sure, but would not get horses connected faster. My goal is to bully Haram around a bit until I can secure the triple food spot with Axe backup. This might seem foolhardy, and it may indeed fail because he discovered my gambit at the last possible moment he could do something to slow it down considerably, assuming even best case conditions where he's in the same resource situation I was, but I don't intend to just die slowly like a chump! If I don't have anywhere good to settle, I'll make sure he isn't settling either until I find something better!

[GermanJoey]

Whew, finally something going the way I hoped. Haram bought my bluff, and moved his warrior away.



He must have noticed my soldier count greatly increase, and it is true that I have a chariot this turn - in my capital. Had it been built in http://tinyurl.com/puggdacious then, with my workers roading the forest, I would have indeed been able to eat his warrior for free XP at 96%+ odds had he moved it 1N.



I'll have another in 1 turn, but I'll have a gap of 2 turn before I then get 4 more chariots in quick succession that I didn't have in my sims, because I want to get some chariots down to his capital ASAP to search for and destroy copper if it exists. Him getting one spear means that it won't be Christmas for me, but I can still gain an advantage by choking him. Him getting two via heavy whips means that we'd end up about even from this gambit I think. Him getting two and still being able to make more? I'm probably screwed.

Of course the best part of this turn is this.........



I'm looking at woodsman II baby!!! Come to mama!

(I'm also looking at a food-rich expanse of land on Haram's side of the aisle and a big fat fucking barren nothing on mine, but then again what's new? I'll probably want to chew my own tongue off when I explore north of my capital and see it awash in dozens of wet corn tiles....)