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

[WilliamLP]

We met Bacchus, aka Will Blunder. His scout there at turn 20 doesn't really tell us much about where his capital is. He's puting all EP into us even though with his scout in that position he almost certainly has met Retep.




It looks like Retep's first warrior was out on turn 20.

I'm posting demos, because after improving our second resource very early this might be as good as they will ever look!




2nd in food and gnp, while being 1 off the lead in production and tied for the lead in land area. If only this were turn 201 instead of 21, haha.

[WilliamLP]

This looks like phony war shenanigans. Bacchus probably wanted to see inside of Retep's borders is my guess? I would be very hesitant to do this in our position, because we're very close to having natural trade routes and devaluing them with war takes a very very long time to recover.

The scouting warrior ran into a wolf, which probably means his scouting arc won't be very wide, to get back in time to guard the second city on T32.

Retep is being very sure to play last every turn. This is probably a good idea for him because he hasn't seen our graphs. Still, it would be nice if he were less invested in the game than this.

Another vanity post of the demos:




There's no skill behind it but this clearly shows that with strong BFC tiles, the religion, and EXP, we must be a contender for the best start in this game.




That's a fast tech after BW, and a 6k point increase. That's Archery! He's probably as paranoid as we are about needing defense. That's really good for us. Obviously archers are very poor attackers against us, and it slows him down to wheel. Also he knows where copper is so it surely isn't in his capital? And quite possibly he doesn't see copper anywhere very close at all! Or why wouldn't he just get wheel and try to grab it with his first settler?

[MindyMcCready]

Initially intimidating,...its all good news!

Archery is only 40B + prereq so that's how it came out so fast I'd guess. No hut pop from the looks of it. So Retep is wisely playing defensively with the Archery grab.

Now that we have his graphs and all his power is accounted for,...I'm starting to like your Quechua scout a little more. A WII warrior would be really nice to have if we can afford it.

What comes after the settler?

[WilliamLP]

What comes after the settler?

That's a good question. It could be either growing to size 4 on an archer or warrior build, or a second worker immediately if we can get away with it, and should finish in time to do a chop or two. I don't know if there's much value in being size 4 right away since the second city will steal the corn to grow.

We've got a bunch of turns to see what kind of other things develop too.

[WilliamLP]

What would you do with this guy right now?




We can either move him to the city site and fortify, leave him more or less where he is as a patrol, or maybe march him over in view of retep's borders to keep him honest? That would at least force him to keep his warrior close to his capital, and may even disrupt his plans if he's planning on building a settler off only one warrior?

Edit: I guess it's also pretty important to be in place for the settler and not lose a bad die roll to a bear.

[MindyMcCready]

Some pertainent info:
-Retep has only 1 warrior.
-From the power graph it looks like he built it 2T ago + the graph lag.
-Between the 1K pop power and the 2K warrior power, we should know in a turn or two if Retep is going to build another warrior/archer or if he's started on his settler.
-It looks like he grew 3T after we grew. Presumably he'll be 3-4T behind us in getting out his settler if he follows the same path.
-Our settler is still on for T29? Could he beat us to the site if he stays at Size2?

Scenario:
1. Retep grows to Size2, has 1 warrior, starts Settler. Potential for him to beat us to the site or take that PITA plains hill. If the power graphs indicates that then I think that we need to disrupt his settling plans assuming they're northward. Maybe we disrupt his settling plans regardless.
2. Retep grows to Size3 and has 2 warriors or 1warrior + archer. He'll be 3-4T behind us in building the settler. We beat him to the city site and cross our fingers that he doesn't send 2 warriors or 1 archer in our direction before our other warrior catches up.

Delaying him a couple of turns could be important in the race for copper and horses.

Hmmmm, we'd have a lot more flexibility to react if we had another warrior close by,.... . :LOL:

After we pink dot him, he'll instantly see our culture, but not into our city. Am I right in saying that? He won't be able to see into our city until he's entered our 3x3 culture? If that's the case, then the element of surprise is probably best. If he reads our charts he'll know that we have 2 warriors + archery,...so it'll be risky even with an archers + warrior to take a run at us.

And come to think of it, we can't pink dot him without getting an archer into that city pronto. An archer would have 78% odds against an unfortified warrior and 57% on a fully fortified warrior. If we see he's built an archer we won't have time to build one ourselves in time to counter it.

BW on T36? 4T after we plant city #2. Hmmm,...how quick will it grow with that corn? Is it 30F to size2? Sorry I have to ask that question. Bascially how soon until we could whip out an archer,...?

[WilliamLP]

-It looks like he grew 3T after we grew. Presumably he'll be 3-4T behind us in getting out his settler if he follows the same path.
-Our settler is still on for T29? Could he beat us to the site if he stays at Size2?

I think he might be even more far behind than that, since we lucked into such good BFC starting tiles.






His second tile looks like a 3/0 one right now, not improved yet. He would have the ability to whip or chop a settler but I can't see him doing that before improving more tiles. He also needs to burn the anarchy turn to do that.

Also the site we want is closer to us than him, and doesn't share food with his capital - and doesn't have any in the first ring. Those are the two golden rules of civ IV openings, and I'm sure he isn't a terrible player. It would be an absolutely horrible first settler site for him; to me it seems so insane as to completely rule it out. His econ would be woefully behind for the whole rest of the game if he did that. Similarly with the plains hill site.

It's possible that he'd want to settle on one of the sites to the S that would block us from that specific site, like the river plains 2S of the spice, but in the worst case we could settle 1E of silk. And again a T29 setter is on the side of the curve for being extremely fast, I'm sure of it. (See where we are on the demos compared to the other teams at the moment).

2. Retep grows to Size3 and has 2 warriors or 1warrior + archer. He'll be 3-4T behind us in building the settler. We beat him to the city site and cross our fingers that he doesn't send 2 warriors or 1 archer in our direction before our other warrior catches up.

You remember we're Inca, right? Our warriors get +125% in a city vs archers and chew them up as snacks.

After we pink dot him, he'll instantly see our culture, but not into our city. Am I right in saying that? He won't be able to see into our city until he's entered our 3x3 culture?

Yeah the peak to the immediate W will give it away when we settle on T32, if nothing else. And it doesn't look like any tile outside the culture can see the city tile. I still refuse to call it a pink dot when it's touching our capital borders.

BW on T36? 4T after we plant city #2. Hmmm,...how quick will it grow with that corn? Is it 30F to size2? Sorry I have to ask that question. Bascially how soon until we could whip out an archer,...?

Those are good things to know. It's actually really nice to get the +1 commerce from settling on the silk, but I'm not sure if it speeds up BW or not. I'll work on micro a bit and post some of this. One of the little things about SPI that is great though is not having to worry about trying to revolt into slavery while a settler is in transit. As usual just say if you'd like the sandbox save.

The turn rolled and I did move our quechua down in view of Retep's hill:




I think seeing it right there might convince him to build a second warrior before a settler, at least.

The Quechua to the east sees furs, but nothing that screams "Zomg I need a city there right now".

My natural instinct is to consider using him as a long term scout now, but I can easily be talked into going SW and then back toward a defensive position.

The border pop in the capital should happen in 2 turns and will be a really useful fog and barb buster!

[MindyMcCready]

I think he might be even more far behind than that, since we lucked into such good BFC starting tiles.

I see what you mean with the food & mfg graphs. Plus imminent slavery civic swap.

Also the site we want is closer to us than him,....

I wasn't so much worried about him taking our site but rather him taking a spot that prevented our site. I do see that's a low risk now given the lack of shared food, the genearl dryness and the better land to his East.

You remember we're Inca, right? Our warriors get +125% in a city vs archers and chew them up as snacks.

Duh,...I do now! :LOL:

Yeah the peak to the immediate W will give it away when we settle on T32, if nothing else. And it doesn't look like any tile outside the culture can see the city tile. I still refuse to call it a pink dot when it's touching our capital borders.

Heh,....doesn't matter if you call it a pink dot or I call it a pink dot. The only opinion that matters is if Retep will consider it a pink dot,....and I'm pretty sure he's not going to care 1 bit that its 1-tile closer to our capital than to his.

Since you don't like Pink dot, let's call it the Fork-Allowing, Boxed-in (FAB) city placement.

One of the little things about SPI that is great though is not having to worry about trying to revolt into slavery.

Yeah, that's going to put us another turn ahead of retep and others. Not that it doesn't always matter, but it really matters in this game.

The turn rolled and I did move our quechua down in view of Retep's hill:

I think seeing it right there might convince him to build a second warrior before a settler, at least.

The tile 1E he can't see so it might be a good place to hang out while waiting for his power graph to tell us what he's done.

We also might consider following his settler when the time comes. Of course, SINCE WE'RE INCA, he's really at our mercy if he doesn't get metal or horse. If he's smart he'll settle on copper or else try to get copper in the 1st ring. We'll see the +1 production and maybe prevent him from hooking it up.

The Quechua to the east sees furs, but nothing that screams "Zomg I need a city there right now".

+1 Happy

My natural instinct is to consider using him as a long term scout now, but I can easily be talked into going SW and then back toward a defensive position.

Right,...now that retep making archers isn't a problem! Scouting and WII are good,...depends on what Retep's graphs show.

[MindyMcCready]

Can we have the scout-warrior head SW to uncover that fog?

Call me crazy but 4E-1S of city #2 just seems to yell out horses or copper to me. I kind of want to plant on that spot or 1SW. We could really have the pick of the land if we can delay/prevent Retep from hooking up strategic resources.

Also, didn't our scout-warrior get hurt by the wolves?

Sure, I'll take the WB save - stop me from asking some pretty basic questions.

[WilliamLP]

Call me crazy but 4E-1S of city #2 just seems to yell out horses or copper to me. I kind of want to plant on that spot or 1SW. We could really have the pick of the land if we can delay/prevent Retep from hooking up strategic resources.

I think I see what you mean! It seems like the RNG was in the mode of planting swaths of grass / desert and that plain is kind of conspicuous there. If we can actually get a city in that amazing floodplain location it would be nice to have the production from it if it really is a resource.

Also, didn't our scout-warrior get hurt by the wolves?

He took 2 healing turns, though I didn't report it.

Sure, I'll take the WB save - stop me from asking some pretty basic questions.

Sure: Here you go It only matches tiles and builds. AIs are running rampant (I didn't do the proper job and box them in) and retep isn't on there, and I haven't been mirroring Quechua moves. Still, city and worker micro should match the real world.

We also might consider following his settler when the time comes. Of course, SINCE WE'RE INCA, he's really at our mercy if he doesn't get metal or horse. If he's smart he'll settle on copper or else try to get copper in the 1st ring. We'll see the +1 production and maybe prevent him from hooking it up.

Yeah, it's a good point. I think he'd need really bad luck to be completely denied in resources, but if so he has no cost-effective way to defend against either axe/quechua or chariot/quechua I guess. We really should try and know where his second city is planted.

Anyway, here's the turn's scout move:




If only there were some food there could be a really nice hammer city in there somewhere.