[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

Turn 31

Thanks everyone for once again helping me with mechanics!

I did not make contact with Azza yet, we can do it next turn if we want?




So which promo it is? Combat or Guerilla? I don't have too strong feelings about it, Combat would be generally more useful, but maybe we want to move SW-W next turn? I know that OH is burning to see Azza's capital, but I'm still not sure I want to meet him. There is some beautiful land between us that will be contested. That plains hill between wet corn and grass pigs would make a wonderful city plant, but we simply can't go that far with our first couple of cities and our planned third city will invalidate that spot (maybe that's good) (we probably don't want to risk it and slow our development by leaving that wet corn into our second ring by settling S of sheep)

Micro post coming soon.

[Fintourist]

Micro baseline until T55

Yeah, micro plans are typically obsolete before one manages to post them, but I thought I try to communicate some of my current thinking anyways. This time I decided to try it with the help of youtube.

This video is probably mostly relevant for OH, but of course I'm happy for any criticism, suggestions and comments if someone else opens it too. Are you retep still unspoiled? Btw, please have some mercy when making fun of my lack of language skills and terrible Finnish accent though

LINK: PB 18 Old Human Tourist: Micro T29-55

[retep]

Actually I'm dedlurking this

The video is pretty good. The only mistake I found was at 26:10 you were talking about which tile works in city Two, and you said the difference between corn and cow was 3f when actually is 2f. This change nothing though.
Minor mistake? Yes, but hey this show I was paying attention!

Edit: In a different note, I like your accent and you speak english so much better than me is embarrassing (for me)

[Old Harry]

Yeah, great video. You could totally make a career reading kids audiobooks!

We chatted a bit about needing to rush Azza before someone else does, I think we'll leave it until about T90 and horse archers rather than chariots before t50. Getting vision of his cap would be very useful, but the longer he doesn't know we're here the better we can claim the land between us... I think he's going to stumble upon us sooner or later so my vote is to get a view of the cap.

[Fintourist]

Actually I'm dedlurking this

Awesome!

The video is pretty good. The only mistake I found was at 26:10 you were talking about which tile works in city Two, and you said the difference between corn and cow was 3f when actually is 2f. This change nothing though.
Minor mistake? Yes, but hey this show I was paying attention!

Actually that 3 food difference comes from avoid growth/granary mechanics:

Avoid Growth

Turn 50 (corn) --> EOT50: 22/22 food, 6 food stored in granary
Turn 51 (corn) --> EOT51: 28/22 food, 11 food stored in granary (size 1 maximum)
Start of Turn 52: We are at size 2 and food-box shows 17/24 food

Growing Normally

Turn 50 (corn) --> EOT50: 22/22 food, 6 food stored in granary
Turn 51 (corn + cows) --> EOT51: 14/24 food in the food-box

Overall we are winning 3 food, but lose 2 hammers and 1 commerce that working cows provides.

But yeah, probably our micro is destroyed several times before we get that far (by animals or forest growths etc) and actually we probably want to give that corn to city 4 for a turn so this comparison is even less important

[Fintourist]

Turn 32 - first impressions..

Oh Simba, Simba, Simba... Apparently micro plans aren't really appreciated here..




Anyways, if we want to stick with our current plan we can move our worker to the same forest where our warrior is. We should have ~97 % chances of surviving if lion attacks (+20 % vs. Animals, +50 % forest defense & +5 % fortify if it comes in time).

Or we just say screw it and don't gamble anything, then our worker pre-roads the plains tile where it is currently standing. That leads to a micro variation that is slightly worse and mainly just uglier than the one showed in the video, but actual difference is very small.

And yeah, I did not move our scout yet so there is still time to express your opinion whether we should meet Azza this turn.

[Old Harry]

I believe fortify doesn't take effect until you start your next turn so we only get 96.42% - a one in 25 chance of losing. Arse. Unfortunately on Monarch we don't get a free win.

As I may have suggested before you don't win a FFA by playing it safe, so lets take the fight!

And Retep and THH - what do you think about meeting Azza?

[Fintourist]

I believe fortify doesn't take effect until you start your next turn so we only get 96.42% - a one in 25 chance of losing. Arse. Unfortunately on Monarch we don't get a free win.

As I may have suggested before you don't win a FFA by playing it safe, so lets take the fight!

I approve this attitude!

However, as you can guess I tested the consequences of not moving onto that forest this turn and it's all fine. Our worker pre-roads this turn, moves then NE and then next turn starts improving cows. It's totally competitive with the micro where we build a road S of our 2nd city before pasturing and I'm having a hard time saying, which approach is in the end better (I managed to find some improvements to this "Simba version" too).

So I think we don't even need to take that enormous 3.6 % risk, but if that lions moves SE or E nothing will stop my ing!

[Fintourist]

Turn 32 -rest

In the end we decided with OH to meet Azza (OH ordered me to do it!):




Little we knew that we would also meet the founders of Buddhism, Mardoc+Brick! It looks like we might have a fair chance of getting a religion spread!

Btw, Azza has a settler + warrior inside his capital. It is size 3 as our C&D wizard Old Harry predicted a while ago Azza has a plains hill plant, but is working 2 non-resource tiles. Hmmm..

And here is the overview of the land between us and Azza. It is fertile, it is valuable, it will be contested.




Our scouting priority is to uncover the area near the stone resource in the south (7 tiles south and 5 tiles east from Azza's capital) so that we get a full picture of the area that we are contesting with Azza, then we probably try to get an idea where Brickdocs are located. Current hypothesis: somewhere west/south of Azza, let's see if we can organize some kind of a mutual military struggle against Azza in the future!

[retep]

Bummer I though I have found a crack on the micro. The lion showing up is unfortunately. Lets hope your neigbours are also swarn with animals

And Retep and THH - what do you think about meeting Azza?

I don't know is he good looking?
Now that you meet more people I expect more thoughts about your opponents!