Cheater Hater, Ruler of the Modbreakers

[Cheater Hater]

Thanks for the suggestion Ceiliazul, I posted a thread about barbs in general here--hopefully I asked so many questions (that I legitimately don't know btw, so it's still helpful for me ) that people can't figure out my situation

Of course, all that means I can't play the turn quite yet--but there's still a lot of people yet to play, and I'd play the waiting PBEM58 turn first anyway

[Cheater Hater]

T11 Report:
Well, my worker actually finished this time--that's an improvement, I guess?




Other than that, the turn's boring as usual
I did decide to go with the scout instead of the warrior though--I need to scout the north anyway, and even if there was a "no-barb" time period, it certainly wouldn't be in place by the time I was popping the northern hut.

[Cheater Hater]

T12 Report:
Finally, some excitement!


I should have highlighted the scout, but that's Whosit--an interesting first contact. Here's what I said about him in my pairing analysis (since I didn't get to him in the opponent analysis):

Whosit: Hammurabi/Vikings (Agg/Org)
This is interesting--is there too much of a good thing with regard to reducing maintenance? Vikings are always a sleeper on any map with water, but it'll be interesting to see how much the Trading Post nerf affects them--notably, it's the same amount of promotions to Nav II as before.

So we have Vikings that expand aggressively? I haven't seen much, if any coast at the moment--maybe the coastal stuff becomes mostly irrelevant? Of course, this is T12, and there's a lot of turns left to play.

[Cheater Hater]

T13 Report:


My pasture finishes next turn--hooray?

[Cheater Hater]

T14 Report:
Excitement--but not the good kind


Hi lion
It's something like a 50/50 shot--I'm at .9 (1.8 with the animal bonus), but I'm on a hill as well, so I have an advantage, though not that much of one. We can also see a hut, but Whosit's scout is also in range--that brings up a couple questions:

• Can Whosit's scout see the hut? I think it can, but I'm not sure.
  
• Assuming the turn rolls tonight (and my scout survives the lion attack), how long do I need to wait before I can move my scout? Obviously I'll be able to play after Whosit ends turn, but what is the balance between getting the turn played at a reasonable pace and not double-moving Whosit?
  

Now to the capital--we have our first improvement!


As I mentioned, the plan is improve the sheep next, then one of the mines (probably the plains mine since it's riverside, and I don't need the food as much with 3 food resources)

I also need to decide what I'm researching next, but Bronze Working seems like the obvious choice, since I get to start running wild with Impis. My only other reasonable choices are Wheel/Animal Husbandry for chariots, but not only is that two techs, AH doesn't do much by itself, yet I'd probably want it first since I think I'll have my first settler going out before my 4th tech finishes. Chariots might be stronger than Impis in the abstract though (since Impis are best against Chariots, which are nerfed because they need so many techs now), but I don't think it's as important (and that's even considering that people are thinking on the same level as me with regard to chariots).

[Cheater Hater]

T15 Report:
Well, the Lion battle went well--I'm at 0.5/1 (getting relatively lucky with the combat), and I need to heal sooner rather than later, unless I want to lose my scout. However, I decided to move to the forested hill where the hut was for more defense, and I'm really glad I did:


Babylon? Who's playing Babylon? Let's check my pairings list:

Krice: Willem/Babylon (Fin/Cre)
Both of Willem's traits got almost purely nerfed, which means he now has two traits both best used on making the most of crappy land. Babylon's boring though--Bowman mean you won't be rushed, but the Garden is a near-worthless Colosseum replacement :/

Oh...oh no

1. Krill + Novice
This is the obvious power team here, at least to start. Krill knows the most about the mod, which gives him a sizable advantage everything else being equal. Of course, that might be a disadvantage; they might get dogpiled to remove an obvious threat. I don't know if this means I need to start next to them in order to kill them early, or try to stay away and hope he gets dogpiled by other people (or devours them and becomes unstoppable)

They're supposed to be devouring people on the other side of the map, not being the first person's territory I find! Granted, they seem really, really far away (especially compared to the close-quarters PBEM 58 map), but still, they're the first territory I've found regardless. At the very least it means I'll have interesting/relevant stuff to read from them in a year/3 months

Now to the capital--not much is happening, but there's some stuff in the event log I noticed while checking the combat, so I'll pop that up for reference:


Yeah, so both religions have fallen, and the lurker civ already has another Great Spy. This also reminds me I need to figure out what I'm naming my cities--both because it's what you do, and because the Zulu cities eventually become unpronounceable masses of letters that all look alike.

[Cheater Hater]

Sorry I haven't been reporting on the last couple turns--I'm kinda in a reporting rut, even posting relatively short reports for PBEM58. I'm still taking pictures and such and putting them in my Dropbox folder if you're interested--I haven't posted that yet, so here it is, and I'll get that in the first post soon-ish.

[Cheater Hater]

T16-T19 Report:
Not much happened these last couple turns, as you could probably tell by my lack of reporting. Still, my scout completed a couple turns ago, and it popped the hut this turn--what did I get?


57 more gold! Hooray! I mean, it's not the best hut luck (2 maps, 3 gold, compared to the people whom I'm sure got multiple techs, as told by the scoreboard), but it's not that bad, and there's still possibly one more hut I could get--and that's where the new scout is headed. Also notice the friend we have sitting in the southern fog--we definitely need a warrior first before the settler (even though I assume the wolf will suicide on my scout).

As for my first scout, it's still alive, and since it promoted to Woodsman I I feel safe still moving it between the trees--here's my current progress:


I feel like I should be planning a dotmap in the near future (as evidenced by the "North" pictures I've been putting in the folder the last couple turns), but I keep putting it off, mainly since I think my first city has to settle any reasonable copper, if for nothing but the barb protection. I also need to decide what to research next--I think it has to be wheel if I'm going to be focused on copper though.

[Cheater Hater]

T20-22 Report:
Again, not much happening--until this turn!


People renaming their civs is annoying--that's dtay:

dtay: Mao/Ethiopia (Exp/Pro)
Mao hasn't actually changed much--it has the old Expansive with the Granary boost, and then the nerfed Protective is all that's left. Though with the Oromo Warrior it wasn't much of a nerf, since it already had Drill I--and what is it with these Monument UBs?

Not that exciting, but it's good that I'm finding new people, seeing as how everything is based on known tech bonus in this mod. While I'm here I might as well give a capital shot:


Mining (under the scout) since I don't have anything else to do, and I'll end up mostly mining both hills before BW comes in--the question is whether I'll grow into unhappiness before I finish my warrior and start the settler, and will I chop or whip it? Still, I have 4 decent tiles (the crab, two improved tiles, and the silk), so it'll be fine

[Cheater Hater]

How can I get my mind off the PBEM58 mess...oh! A PB18 update!
T23-26 Report:
This is annoying--look at what my second scout found:


Bye scout
There's a lot of animals up here--the scout was initially damaged by a wolf, and the lion you can see in the last report was on the tile 1SW of the corn (which is why I ended up moving next to the bear in the first place). At the very least, the multitude of animals seems to confirm that the patch of land where the hut is is a peninsula, which probably means no one has sniped that hut from me (unless dtay's scout has eluded me somehow--and he would have still had to gotten past the bear and all the other animals). On the other hand, I don't know how I'm supposed to get past the bear without metal, horses, archers and a little luck, or a lot of luck. Hopefully copper shows up either at the capital or in the southern area--and assuming our mapmaking gods thought about how animal-filled the peninsula would be, it should be. As for the other scout, it's a lot more boring:


Yeah, he's healing--not risking him to a random lion or panther out of the fog

Now to the capital, and a couple changes to my plans:


Yeah, I'm building a second warrior instead of the settler--this aligns all my key dates (settler starting, city growing to size 5, Bronze Working completed) to two turns from now. I'll still be settling my second city in a reasonable timeframe, since I'll have five improved tiles being worked, and chops and whips available as well--I'll be looking into that in detail in two turns when I find my metal.