[PB16 SPOILERS] SevenSpirits goes off the deep end and finds Krill

[SevenSpirits]

Great report for T39.

You still get those four turns in revolt even though he's eliminated?

Yeah, we still get the revolt turns.

[spacetyrantxenu]

At first I was confused, but after turning on my sarcasm detector the report made a lot more sense! I see what you did there!

Nice job securing a good chunk of land and reading the tea leaves correctly in doing so. I don't necessarily think people are trying to poo poo the good rush you did here, but I fear no matter what you do in this game it's going to earn you less credit than you probably deserve. Probably something about not getting full credit for swimming in the shallow end of the pool when you're as tall as you are, or something. I don't know what else you could have done in the setup phase to handicap yourself more. Churchill of America or something equally horrid, perhaps, but I can't blame you for not wanting to play a boring combo like that.

Given the source (me) I'll help with tone and intent by saying this post is intended to be read without a sarcasm detector engaged.

[Lewwyn]

I didn't mean to piss you off or take away from your win, it was very well executed and I'm sure that some would have struggled even with that - or not tried it in the first place. My comment was more directed at reteps (in my opinion) suboptimal play.

OK, I see where you're coming from. Thanks for clarifying.

It's just really frustrating that pretty much every game I play, people in the lurker thread are saying I've already won when it started, and that I got lucky in manner or other. I can already predict I'll get it this game too, despite picking AGG in a large game. What's the point of reporting on actual decisions you make in the game if people think they don't matter and treat the conclusion as forgone?

Deciding to switch off the ideal plan onto BW (and even waste a few worker turns) when we met a nearby neighbor who was teching BW and therefore a dangerous threat with axes was an important decision. Deciding to scout out his whole capital BFC except for a known forest was an important decision. Deciding to whip off of two resource tiles to get the quickest possible impi with an ikhanda thrown in was an important decision. Deducing retep's likely/possible build and tech timings was critical to making this decision. Heck, it even turns out moving onto the correct forest to chop, based on possible copper locations, was important.

But the only thing that gets mentioned here is that retep made a mistake. I mean, I figured out pretty much his exact micro and it seemed perfectly fine to me from settling onward so I assume you're talking about the t0 move and maybe the civ/leader choice. Give the guy a break! You can't play civ without making some suboptimal moves - that is just how things are. Why not give retep some props for continuing to produce a warrior every single turn from the moment he knew he couldn't settle copper in time? Sure it was a simple situation, but most people would find a way to screw it up based on what I've seen.

FYI, I don't think your decisions were easy and I've actually told some people not to believe you weren't taking this seriously. Retep did make a mistake and you did capitalize. That you were a good enough player to capitalize is part of the reason people say its a foregone conclusion. The very argument you write here proves just how much you were considering the decisions and the skill level involved in making those decision and that is why people will say its a foregone conclusion. Count me among those who believe that. And trust me it's because I know you are ruthlessly relentless even while you think you are not.

Anyway, just know that I recognize the skill in the decision (I'm not sure I would have done the same).

[SevenSpirits]

t40

Krill and I discussed this at length yesterday, and eventually came to a consensus on wanting a city on the sugar here (it will be a quick started short-term, a stepping stone towards gold medium-term, and a strong production city long-term) and a granary in the capital. After logging in and checking the details of the situation, I'm opting to go for the settler first. The problem is we are quite production-heavy and can't start the granary for another three turns. If we didn't have those great production tiles, the thing to do would be grow until pottery is in, immediately build a granary, and then grow again and whip a settler. But as is, if we don't start the settler now, we're forced to build more military at a time when we need economy to catch up to our opponents. And we'll kind of have to build military once we have the granary regardless - we'll be wanting to grow and military will be the only available build. So I'm starting the settler now for sure. Second factor is we have a chop which can come in as soon as next turn. To delay it we'd have to put turns into a useless road (due to the river) or a mine (which we won't want to use much post-granary). So there's some inefficiency there too. Meanwhile, again, since we have a production-heavy city, I don't feel too bad about chopping our forests into the settler, leaving us with none for the granary. And the new city will be productive even without any worker labor.




Scouting immediately reveals a strange fact: there are three sugars to our southwest, just as there are to our northwest. That heavily implies some symmetry, and remembering that the land to our north ends, maybe it ends in the south too? I get the impression that we're supposed to compete for the 6 sugars with retep and then trade them around to other players for the various other calendar resources. The question is whether retep has a western neighbor. Signs point to yes so far - there's a lake to his west so the ocean has to be at least a few more tiles away.

Looking at the slightly-tilted line running from the NNNE to the SSSW from sugars to sugars, maybe our original capitals were on opposite points around this line? That would put retep's original spot approximately 1W of his corn - so he would have seen the clam but not the fur. Moving his initial scout onto the plains hill of course, he'd see the FP tiles and this could explain his initial move. I wonder what he moved away from though? And wait, is the fur supposed to be the counterpart to our ivory? But the clam he's not even next wouldn't compensate for the bonus hammer on our ivory and the lack of FPs, and he's probably in a worse geopolitical position than us, stuck between two players. I can't quite figure it out. There's certainly no plains hill in range of the fur so it wasn't that. I'm looking forward to our heroic impi healing a bit so we can send it west and see what retep moved away from.

We already have quite a bit of the neighboring terrain mapped out, so maybe our top priority should be figuring out the general shape of our domain at this point, rather that scouting out e.g. the jungle to our immediate south.

[SevenSpirits]

t41-42

Road to hogfather is under construction. I built the hill segment first because the worker there had good vision on potential threat tiles (where wolves/panthers could be lurking) - only the forest 2E needed to be worried about by other units. The eastern flatland segment second because it was doable with only the warrior keeping watch. The western flatland segment will start next turn when Hogfather is out of revolt, so the culture will make it safe without any need for guards.

The impi in hogfather is healing up to full while it's convenient and will then set off to explore.

Hogfather is set to a warrior build right now, but I will switch it to a granary next turn when it's out of revolt and we have pottery.



Back at home, we chopped the second-to-last forest, and that worker is now roading the wheat - we'll need the health. The other worker is chopping, and both workers will start on some FP cottages when they are done with their current tasks. This is why it's particularly nice that the third city will not require any immediate worker labor - there's a lot to do right now with pottery just coming in. After the settler, we'll overflow into a granary and quickly build it with our fairly high hammer output.



Scouting...



Here are the demographics, captured as a curiosity as this is pretty much our low point - right before city #2 is out of revolt. Note that 2 food and 3 hammers there are phony - we're not actually getting the yield from Hogfather's city tile or its two citizens yet.

Commerce-wise, Hogfather is going to provide 3 immediate commerce and 2 more once the road is done, while costing 3-4gpt. But in the short term we ignore that gpt cost since we have a stockpile of gold from capturing the city, so our economy is really going to pick up from its current painful slog.

[SevenSpirits]

t43-45

Here we got 12 overflow from the settler, so the granary will reach 30/60 in just 2 turns. Then we'll whip it. Yes, it's good to whip off of that copper or that ivory to get a granary up sooner. It pays for itself so quickly.



Settler is making its way towards the city location. I'm thinking the worker will road the oasis and then build a mine or two.



Hogfather is just going to grow to size 4 and then 2-whip a granary.



Our scouting impis:





The land is looking very much like a private island which we were supposed to split rather lopsidedly with retep. Man, it's a good thing we took him out!

[Krill]

We should feel priviliged.

We finally get to see a game where Seven actively tries to not be the tech leader.

Happiness situation looks a bit dire though. 3 pre-Calendar happy and then only Sugar?

Anyone founded religion yet?

[SevenSpirits]

I think I've been checking every turn, and no one's gotten a religion yet that I saw.

[SevenSpirits]

t46-47

We finally found our second city! As a likely future heroic epic location, it gets a military name. (Yes btw, it's connected to our capital via the river + lake.)

Krill pointed out that GP would be at pretty low pop so MaA could borrow the ivory for a couple turns. I took it a step further because that ivory tile is in some sense the worst tile at GP anyway: MaA can have it semi-permanently. We're starting off working it a lot because it's just got better yield than the oasis and we can use it to build a granary. 6t of the ivory puts MaA at 18/22 food and at that point 1t of the oasis can grow it to size 2. Then 4t more of oasis + ivory and the granary will be complete (with one chop).

Meanwhile, GP is growing hastily onto its many good tiles. Tile #1 is wheat, #2 and #3 are FPs, #4 is copper and #5 is the third FP. Then we'll put a turn into a settler, grow up to size 6 and whip it, I think. Though we could consider trying to avoid whipping off those great tiles, I think at this point we're still in a mad scramble to claim more resources, and also we wouldn't be taking advantage of GP's lovely food surplus if we weren't whipping it.




Where would that settler go? I tentatively marked a spot: on the sugar, next to the gold. The idea is chop out a monument immediately (done in 4t), then work the gold while growing to size 2 (growth after 10t). Shortly (4t) after reaching size 2, we'll claim sheep and corn, and go to town. I checked and our 3 workers can pump out the necessary improvements to make this happen in pretty much the correct timeframe, while still completing all the FP cottages and giving MaA its chop + grass farm. I like the plan because it gets us our best city ASAP, without having to settle another weaker city first. Settling on the sugar is great since it gives the city a fast start and is a non-cottage tile we'd be obliged to work otherwise. And we immediately get to start working the gold tile for a commerce boost that could earn us Judaism (or mitigate the damage if we don't land it), and we get +1 happy which GP is delighted to have.

Krill, I know you were preferring other locations for the gold-claiming city. Do you have any ideas for an alternate path? Note, we currently have 7 more worker turns needed for the two FP cottages and 1t more for the oasis road.




This impi would scout around towards the northeast and would protect our workers/settler near the gold.




This impi may just head back to hogfather, or the center of our road network, for general protection of existing cities. Anyone remember when non-animal barbs start appearing and why we haven't seen any yet?

[Krill]

My view on city sites is that every turn the slider is above 20% and we're not running a deficit is a wasted turn.

The advantage to being broke is that Brick can't ask us to support the server.