[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You haven't scouted north/northwest at all, near the northern copper site - perhaps there's plenty of food there?

[williams482]

I'd be careful of dedicating a scout to "skulking around" a neighbor; if it's obvious you've stuck around longer than necessary to scout their land it might be seen as a clumsy prelude to an attack.

We really need one of those two scouts to whip around the capital towards that copper before we make any adjustments to our settling plan. As Chevalier says, we just don't know what's over there.

[ljubljana]

Yeah, current plan, I think, is to dedicate the eastern scout to the north when it is done with the river area west of the capital, and to produce a third scout while growing to size 3 immediately after the worker for the NE copper and river valley. But that leaves one free scout, with which I think it might be nice to scout as much of GT's lands as we can. It could be seen as a prelude to an attack, yes, but I also think it's what most players would try to do at this stage in the game, so it probably won't be seen as necessarily aggressive. It's also worth keeping in mind that there is at least some urgency about scouting our neighbors lands, as once they expand to fill them they could deny us open borders and prevent us from doing so for a long time. But yeah, I'll brood over it and possibly change my mind in a few turns. I do think we at least want to know exactly how far away they are so we can make decisions about which sites to prioritize and whether to rush a copper hookup, but after that I think there's room for flexibility.

Turn 23 - Zululand

@aetryn, tech situation:



GT is up Animal Husbandry on us, which gives us a nice KTB. With Mining/Hunting starting techs, I think it is just barely possible that they opened AH -> Bronze at the start and have both unlocked, but probably not too likely, especially given that their capital, Aksum, is one of the world's size 3 cities (so a. they likely needed to farm a resource and b. they are NOT working on a second worker as BW opens seem to favor). It would be really nice for us if they did go Ag->AH, as that means THEY will be getting a KTB on BW now, signaling to them that we have it and therefore providing a nice, early deterrent and possibly an incentive to sacrifice some of their OWN growth curve by fast-settling a weak copper site to defend against a rush from us. But...



...they did step onto the copper this turn, which could indicate that they do have BW. But it's not a totally unnatural scouting move in their position, so I'm going to resist drawing too many conclusions. If they are going in a circle around their capital in the west, there is a good chance they JUST missed defogging the silver and are about to get distracted by the southern floodplains, which would be a minor break in our favor.

No sign of any GT territory so far, which leaves me pretty torn @the western scout going Sw-SW to look for GT or NE-NE to support the eastern scout's firstish ring defogging mission. We Will See

Today's chill portrait of the serene, unchanging village of Takakeisho:



Unchanging for now, but next turn we will begin operation massive deforestation

[aetryn]

Definitely find GT's capital and it's fine to reveal his lands and definitely the border between us. Just don't hang around randomly after scouting them.

I don't like going SW with the scout, as if your guess about the map shape is correct that's just likely to be more barren desert. I'd consider NE-NW with that scout. I'm thinking GT is either W or NW from us and in general our northern scouting is utterly terrible.

[ljubljana]

Turn 25 - Zululand

I decided to split the difference with the scout and go SW-NW to head in the direction most likely to be towards GT's capital:



We find the first food resource we've seen in literal centuries, very likely indicating a future first-ring Ethiopian city site.



The vaunted 3-turn scout build + growth that gets the cap to size 3 on the same turn the scout is produced with no wasted food. I'm pretty sure that's the right forest to chop first as it at least speeds the new scout in its journey to the northern copper.



Somehow this turn we have ended up 8th in pop and last in food, a really troubling sign. Whatever this "delay AH + second worker at size 2" plan is, apparently it's not meta. We will just have to see if our growth curve makes up for it.... although I am liking the increasingly enormous-looking forest to our west in terms of worker payoff levers...

[El Grillo]

Don't feel too discouraged. The population demo can be a bit hard to read, since it obfuscates pop points, and you can't evaluate an opening purely based on how fast it settles a second city. Having a smooth growth curve, with cities growing onto improved tiles and well-timed chops/whips with granaries, can translate into earlier cities 3-5, then 5-10, and having more pop and improved tiles in the T75-T100 range, which is usually where we benchmark the opening.

[ljubljana]

oh dw i'm not, with land area average just above 21k i do not think there's more than 1-2 second cities out there, and i kinda think last turn there may not have been any iirc. i'm honestly considering (and will sim in the next few days) a THIRD worker before the first settler, although my instincts suggest that will leave the cow unworked for too long. i did try openings that had the second city come out faster (not on turn 25 though, that is SO fast....) and found it to be slower than worker-first with the second city working unimproved tiles for a long time..... i don't think it's possible for someone to have a size 3 cap and size 1 second city all working improved tiles already, the workers just haven't been out long enough...

i'm more worried about the food demo since it's the least lagging of the indicators of empire strength. we could have matched what other players had if we'd opened with AH and grew onto the unimproved cow. but idk man, i guess at a certain point i have to trust my sims....

[Jabah]

A small request : could you have the icon on in your screenshots, it makes reading the map/finding food/lux so much easier

Thanks

[ljubljana]

@jabah you mean the "makes finding resources easier" icons? sure!

Turn 26 - Zululand



food! it's at an awkward distance from the capital (too exposed for a second city site i think) and not close to the ivory or copper, but i shouldn't be complaining



GT where are youuuu

i'm starting to think we're too far south, i might turn north either this next turn or the following one...

[aetryn]

Yeah, there's potential for quite a lot of land north since we haven't hit the snowy trees yet. That's one reason I recommended going north earlier.