[Spoiler PB62] Vanrober in a new chapter learning from Miguelito

[vanrober]

I hope it was more fun than misery on the balance  .

Ohw it was, really, the only trouble i had this game were the thoughts of PB61 that pulled me out of the game several times. Also started to work when this PB started so it made me harder than expected the experience. Over all it was really satisfactory.

I really liked our opening with the capital move into the Cre-sped settler. Afterwards the worker costs (and barbs to some extent) really sucked the momentum out of our game, but we had some very promising cities.

Still mostly happy about our pick. I guess that everybody was surprised by how the map was laid out, and evidently Cathy, or Gilgamesh, or Kublai Khan () would have been better, but we could not really expect it, or at least didn't - lesson learned: 120 tiles / player can mean a very tight map if you're presented with an all land start. Although we also had one in PB54, and that map while tight was a lot more relaxed, due to water separations, cylinder, and overall more quality land.

China seems to have been correct. Maybe agri/wheel would have been feasible as well, but I don't feel like Egypt would have given us a massively better experience.

There is an argument to be made that we should have taken Mali first, and picked up any Cre leader that returned.



I fear some of my advice was misguided at some crucial points:

• I'm not sure but I think that I argued against Mali. If that was the reason that you didn't pick it first then that turned out badly. But I made the wrong assumptions about the map same as everybody else.
  
• I massively overestimated the benefit that Lithium would give us. I fear it ended up dragging us back more than helping. Part of that was that I somehow assumed that it would have the deer in its BFC, but tbh that would not have changed too much. While it had some good tiles they costed just very much to improve, and the logistics were awful. Not sure if eg Berryllium would have been a feasible alternative at the time
  
• You have discussed a lot with Mjmd already about Oak and Boron, and I will also post afterwards  . I had missed the visible cost tile NNE of Oak, or rather failed to draw the proper conclusions of what that meant for the shape of his land. I'll post more in Mjmd's thread, but the error we made here was failing to understand how much that plant would annoy him inevitably, and not protecting it better. (even if that meant founding 3-5 turns later). I think we also had some bad luck with the timing of the nauf / Mjmd peace as well. Fwiw I maintain that Mjmd made the biggest error here, mainly by founding Oak where he did.
  

Anyways, I enjoyed my part in this game very much. Thanks for the detailed reports and the added flavour, and if you would still have me I would be glad to join your team for another game.

If i werent with you i wouldnt have notice that move at all. We can now wonder if it was a good move now that we know we could have had copper in the bfc and all that. But with the info we had (and thats how we should compare it) it was really good move. Im really glad of your call there.


I think you agreed on Mali and thinking that we could lose faster Zara was also an option, dont feel too harsh on you, i agreed, so in case it was a bad call it would be from both of us (in the worst case, i guess it was just my bad because i decided to do so). 
I also had the same issue with Li, i felt with that floodplan and the wheat it would be somehow better but it wasnt, maybe we should have settled south before that, that city did was killer.
I loved your post on Mjmd thread. I missplayed there, i should have known somehow what was that war going, we needed more intel in general. But as you said, i really thought we could be friends with that OB and trying ot focus in the 2 leaders by that moment.


I feel kind of sorry because i left this thread not as good reported as i would have liked, i think PB61 has been much better in that sense. But yeah the work, the Pb61, the map and the feeling of being unable to play this game as good as i liked, made me spend less time than i would have want in the reports of this game. I really like your offer and i would totally want to play another game with you, and i promise that ill make better this reporting.

From reading your thread it seemed to me that you just did not make enough workers, especially very early. More early forest chops into additional workers would have enabled you meet the unsually high demand on worker labor. Your granary timings would also have been improved with more chops.

Civac, i completely agree with you here, in my head  (not sure if i posted too much about it) the plan for those chops were cats to get the land we were needing by war. Also to chop in case of a need in terms of defense. I didnt manage my time as well, and the lack of knowledge of the game with this lack of decent land has been really bad for me in this game, and i think that has been the biggest mistake i did. I should have choped more and get more advantage of more workers that would mean more settlers and more everythign afterwards. At least thats something nice i ve learnt this game and ill try to do better on the nexts. As i said in the beggining and in the thread name. One of the things i like most is to learn. And learning this game with all your help is being a really nice experience, and i want to thank you all for that.