[SPOILERS - El Grillo PB54] Staying home and stargazing

[Lewwyn]

Nice use of the settler. 4xp is great and more if the warriors attack, very good for early unit.

[El Grillo]

T61-62:

My little ruse ended up being worth 7xp, as a third Warrior showed up. At that point I had already moved the Settler away, but my full-health woody-2 Warrior in a forest had no issues. I got a lot of mileage out of this new mechanic, as I would have had a rough time taking out the Spear otherwise, and getting two flawless wins Warrior vs Warrior on top of that was very helpful.



In this overview, you can see our plans proceeding smoothly. Our fogbusting net is back in place, Meteor Shower was settled ASAP to get its border pop, though it pains me to forego 4 commerce per turn due to the lack of roads for a trade connection. We 2-pop whipped and chopped into the Settler at Milky Way to 162/100h EOT, which I'm currently leaning towards overflowing into a Galley to start moving some military over to the contested island. Yes, I've changed my mind yet again While we could settle for one more 5-yield tile on the mainland in the wheat to the northeast, it's a bit of an awkward place to get a Worker to, and we haven't defogged the coast so I don't want to orphan seafood. Furthermore, as much as I'd like a canal city on the grass hill 1N of the wheat, maybe something to the east that gets the clam in first-ring would be a better fit over there. On the other hand, we know how good the land on the contested island is, and Ruff is still on only two cities, so let's take advantage of our 3xp PRO Archers out of the capital and make a claim. It doesn't have to be the boldest possible one, as I still don't really want to have to fight if it can be avoided.



I know comparing trade network resources this early can be misleading, but dang, that's still impressive. That has to be at least four cities and a very strong opening, especially if some of those resources are riverside (I doubt he's built that many unnecessary roads).



Argh, I should've signed a ceasefire and not a peace treaty with naufragar, but who could've expected a city there of all places, on a resource-less 2-tile island in spitting distance of an opponent's capital? The enforced peace lasts 7 more turns so I decided to just start teching Writing so I can try and get Open Borders. Ruff has already achieved circumnavigation, but that's no longer a race in CtH, so if anything it's nice to know that it can be achieved on this map.

[Charriu]

I think you were very lucky with the free win mechanic. That many barbs from the same direction and you just happened to have a settler nearby

[El Grillo]

T63:



An eventful turn abroad. Elkad built the Oracle at his capital, Judaism was founded, and Elkad declared war with a scouting Workboat.



This superdeath Worker was moved very strangely. We spotted it last turn on the grass hill 1E of the horse facing NW, and now it moved 1SW onto the PHF. Clearly some kind of evasive maneuver, though I can't puzzle out what kind of threat would prompt those moves in particular. Anyway, you can see our Settler for city #5 en route to found on T65 in the background.



Galley before Granary here is a tough call, but the contested island beckons. I'm doing some rough estimates of how many units I can ferry over, including the Archer finishing in the capital this turn, the Worker once it finishes hooking copper (and what a trek that has been), a Settler 2-pop whipped out of Milky Way, and another military unit out of the capital.

[El Grillo]

T64:



Hi there Mjmd. More importantly, notice how the superdeath borders visible through the fog to the south have disappeared? Fantastic news.

Elsewhere, Miguelito revolted into OR so we can pencil him in for Judaism, and we see new KTBs for MC and IW between turns as possible Oracle targets for Elkad, let's go with MC. Still no 3rd city for Ruff, and his power has been spiking.

[El Grillo]

T65-66:



Naufragar accepted our Open Borders request and our Workboat is continuing westward. However, we're not getting trade routes from him, and I suspect it has something to do with the razing of Seville (on the highlighted tile) by scooter last turn. Or at least that's the only thing I can think of, I'm getting routes from Cairo and naufragar hasn't signed OB with anyone else. Maybe it'll refresh next turn, or perhaps we'll have to wait until we complete circumnavigation. I pre-emptively offered OB to Elkad for that reason as well, he'll benefit now but we should get his routes in a few turns.



I still don't have a good sense of where scooter's cities are relative to naufragar, and how his other neighbors in Ruff and vanrober are reacting to this early aggression. vanrober refused my OB request, and Ruff is doing who-knows-what with his economic demos flat and still on two cities. If I had to guess I'd say he's been busy whipping units, but who could he be fighting? He's at war with Cairo but we know that can't possibly be real, so either he's been having really bad barbarian trouble or...? Anyway, the simplest guess here is that scooter is to naufragar's north and Ruff's west, but that doesn't mesh well with this land we've scouted, unless it's their version of our contested island and scooter has a coastal capital just east of it?

At home, we're ready to start ferrying over Archers to the contested island with the Galley finishing EOT. I'm definitely taking a risk sending our first real units west instead of garrisoning the south, but superdeath and Mjmd remain at war and given the raze and earlier presumed rush, I figure they have their hands full and our hilltop observer Warrior can give us enough notice if that changes.

One of the downsides of meeting everyone is that we're getting outspent on EP with 3 players putting points into us. We lost graphs on vanrober, and I'm pretty sure Miguelito and scooter have our graphs since I haven't been able to spend much on them yet, and we're going to need to get to at least 43/43 with superdeath first (hopefully he swaps back to Mjmd at that point).

[El Grillo]

T67:




Someone please slow down whoever that is with 63 CY. I can tell there are a bunch of us around 40 CY by working different tiles, but first place having an almost 50% lead is pretty scary. The bad news is that that's likely Miguelito with his two connected luxuries and self-founded religion, neighboring players I don't see as particularly aggressive.

We get to take a peek at the contested island next turn. Ruff just settled city #3, let's hope we don't reveal its culture when we make landfall.

I need more Workers, and Granaries, and Settlers, and preferably a Library in the capital before I turn tech back on...

[El Grillo]

T68:






It appears we may be living in interesting times. On top of this, superdeath and Mjmd made peace, so I have to worry about leftover troops coming to test our defenses. Which, uh, currently don't really exist. We're still 5 turns from hooking copper because of how awkward the land near that tile is, it's taken the Worker 13 turns to connect it which is not negligible. Ah well, we should be able to whip in an Archer in both border cities by the time anything can show up, unless superdeath already has Chariots in the area, which could be quite troublesome...

[El Grillo]

T69-70:

Couldn't sleep, and vanrober happened to roll the turn.



Barbarian RNG has a small but worrying chance of really wrecking us here. My Chariot can hit any of the tiles the Axe could move onto that would threaten the city, but I only get 78% odds if it moves onto the jungle. I faintly remember something about the AI valuing pillageable tiles which would be get me better odds in this case. I foolishly moved the southern Warrior back and saved an extra turn of gold for an emergency upgrade, but not only would I be a turn short, I also still don't have copper hooked Oh, and my 8xp W2 Warrior could also lose its 95% fight, that would be unfortunate.



I certainly wasn't expecting more reasons to want to fight over the contested island, but one of the three unfogged tiles revealed marble, and one not buried under jungle! I'm curious if Ruff brought over any other units than the Scout, but I think the plan now is to park my Archers on those two hills to get visibility on most of the coastline, then decide how greedy I'm feeling. Settling those two hills would be much safer than flatland, perhaps enough so to dissuade Ruff from trying to fight, but they'd also orphan the copper for a long time and the southern fish forever.

At home, it's Granary-whipping time finally, then regrowing on some more units for the southern garrisons, and then a round of Workers to finally get some cottages up. Where the capital's Settler goes remains to be seen, let's hope it's not to replant the razed Meteor Shower...

We also got graphs on superdeath but I don't feel optimistic about keeping them, so here's a dump:

He seems to have whipped quite a number of units in response to whatever Mjmd did that let him raze a city. Again, really hope those aren't headed north now...

[El Grillo]

T71:



Our units continue the win-streak against the barbarians, though far from flawlessly. The Warrior took a few hits but now has 9xp. The Chariot fared worse, it attacked at 90% odds and took 4 straight hits before rallying, which means we were one or two bad rolls away from the city being razed  

We're also still not out of the woods, with a Mjmd Chariot in position to potentially threaten our two cities. We can stuff enough defenders into Meteor Shower, and I've prepped an emergency whip Archer at The Planets, but I hope he is content to leave us alone. He did offer Open Borders, but I think I'd prefer to avoid signing that with my immediate neighbors.



Ruff also has an Archer on the island in addition to his Scout, so we probably both will get to settle one city without much chance of being denied. Not a bad outcome in my opinion, if we can avoid fighting now as a result. In ~20t when I have Ballista Elephants though, now that's another question altogether.



I believe that's good enough for circumnavigation. That's a surprising plains cottage being worked at the capital (I'm sure the bare plains is a newly grown pop point).