[SPOILERS - El Grillo & Charriu PB51] One step at a time

[El Grillo]

T5-6:

I had to get on a call early this morning and was last to play as a result. Unfortunately, work must have left me a bit distracted because this turn I was faced with an interesting decision when I logged in, and then in an incredibly  misplay I misclicked the Scout move not once, but twice. How is that possible, you ask? All I can say is my fingers can be a bit twitchy in the morning, and one thing led to another...

Here's what I saw upon logging in. Borders, showing our capitals 10 tiles away. I did some color comparisons and unless the mapmaker changed some of the default civ colors, this is Amicalola (EXP/PRO Inca). Being last to play and having not made contact yet, this gave me the opportunity to move S-S onto the city's diagonal and hope to get a peek of the city tile, then move my Scout away on the next turn to deny Amicalola info about which direction I came from (unless this counts as double-moving and requires a turn split? Not that it ended up mattering in this case ).



Before making the decision, I checked those newly revealed water tiles to the east to confirm that they are freshwater lakes, and that's when I accidentally made a right-click... with my Scout still selected.




Without thinking, I pressed end turn, not realizing that the Scout would keep moving automatically if I didn't cancel its orders. And that's how I ended up here. 




So on the bright side, this kind of ended up fulfilling the Scout's original purpose of defogging the pigs, and it's nice to see a wet wheat to settle for. At least I didn't accidentally send the Scout back the way he had already come, or next to a Bear.

I suppose one could even find a silver lining in not making contact right away with Amicalola, in that now there's potentially an element of surprise if we were to prepare an attack while he wants an early Pottery for a Terrace in his second city, perhaps.

[Charriu]

Well stuff happens. I may be blind but where on the screenshot is Amicalola

[El Grillo]

In the first screenshot, his culture is visible in the fogged forest tile S-SE of the Scout. That puts his capital due south of ours, by 10 tiles. A lot will rest on if/where horses show up in 6 turns.

For reference, the combat calculator says that a base War Chariot gets 87.60% on an unfortified Quechua in a hill city, going down to 73.73% for full fortify. Quechuas having C1 over generic Warriors costs us ~3%.

[Charriu]

Ah now I see it. Was harder to see on the screenshot.

[El Grillo]

T7:

So much for staying under the radar. Our Scout met Amicalola's to our southeast. The crabs mark the coast, and those lighthouse-able lakes are looking pretty appealing for a one-day Moai city. There's another lake 1S of the ivory, and another to our northeast revealed by the capital border pop.




Also of note, we're starting to see score increases from tech:

T6:
- vanrober (must be Fishing, since his Zulu start with Hunting)
- GKC (Fishing or Hunting)
T7:
- Plemo (Mining, presumably not Mysticism)
- Mjmd (Fishing or Hunting, since he settled a turn late)
- giraflorens (Mining, presumably not Mysticism)

The important takeaway is that Amicalola has not teched Hunting or Mining from his Agriculture/Mysticism start. We'll know on t9 if the first tech was The Wheel as part of a straight beeline to Pottery, or on t12 if it was Animal Husbandry. In either case, this is a good sign if considering a rush.

I'm guessing there's not much more land to the east of our capital, and it'll be more important to get eyes on Amicalola's land so we'll have vision of his copper when it becomes revealed, so the Scout will waste a turn moving SW and head back toward the Incan capital.

[El Grillo]

T8:

No one finished any techs between turns, so we can rule out Amicalola going for The Wheel first EDIT: As expected, it would have finished on turn 9, not turn 8. Ramkhamhaeng's (FIN/PRO of Mali) Scout found us coming from the north. He'll be able to get visibility on our city tile, but there's nothing to be done about that. I doubt he would have had the patience to trudge through solid jungle, so there's probably a river through that area that led him near our capital. I think I like the idea of having him as a neighbor, since I don't expect him to threaten us early on, and we should be able to claim more land and have a better scaling combo.

[El Grillo]

T9:

Ramk's Scout managed to get a peek at our city... and was then promptly and unceremoniously eaten by a Lion. Charriu was right, animals are indeed no joke! Bad luck for him, and even less for him to do in the coming turns.




Unfortunately we won't be able to look into Amicalola's capital from the northeast due to the forest blocking visibility, but at least we'll be able to move into the forested hill S-SE. His Scout is due to find our borders, but due to all the rough terrain the only way he can defog the city is from the northwest.




superdeath finished a tech this turn, which I'd guess would be Agriculture, not The Wheel. Amicalola not finishing a tech here rules out The Wheel, which I incorrectly wrote last turn, but turned out to be true in any case. At this point I want to be on the lookout for him going for Hunting->Archery, since PRO Archers would be more than enough of a deterrent for me to decide against going for a War Chariot rush. It is certainly less than ideal that both my neighbors ended up being the only PRO players in the game, but c'est la vie. After all, this is much preferable than being sandwiched by superdeath's Rome and vanrober's Zulu.

[El Grillo]

T10:

Now our Scout gets to see combat if the Lion decides to attack. According to Cyneheard's combat calculator the Scout has 79% odds to survive.



I previously set our EPs on Amicalola so we can get graphs quickly, but not in time before the game put 2 EPs on Ramk on the first turn we met. If they check, they can both see that we've met both of our neighbors, while meanwhile both of them have put the full amount of EPs on us.

[El Grillo]

T11:

Our Scout lived but took a bit more damage than expected. I'm not sure if it makes more sense to push onward or heal for a bit. There are 14 turns left until human barbs spawn, so if we wait 5t to heal, we'll get 9t of relatively safe scouting. On the other hand, if we move forward we guarantee more vision immediately, and we can hedge by only moving one tile at a time and sticking by the coast, but there's still the risk of a Panther or Wolf, and moving into dense terrain isn't quite as safe as it would be otherwise. I'm leaning toward continuing, since Amicalola's culture will help fogbust so the odds of running into more wildlife should be fairly low, right? Fingers crossed.

We also have Galley-accessible islands confirmed. From the clues so far I'd be willing to guess that this is the outer rim of the donut, and that we're on the eastern side of the landmass, with Amicalola clockwise and Ramk counterclockwise. I'm guessing we would've seen the inner coast to the west if the Scout had continued on just a bit longer.



No new techs this turn. We'll see soon who went for Animal Husbandry and who for Bronze Working, and if either of the Mysticism players were bold enough to go for Polytheism first. Meditation would've finished last turn, but no one opted for it.

[Charriu]

I would continue with the scout as long as we are close to his border, but as soon as we leave the area or the coastline, I would opt to heal.