Gaspar, Lewwyn, et al go full Sartre

[Ichabod]

Why are you guys so mean to me?

Sorry, Gaspar.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about who'll be second place.

[Lewwyn]

We found TBS's borders:



So TBS has a shock chariot headed towards us up north and a chariot somewhere by the barb city I guess, and that spear.
We have 3 chariots.

I offered TBS open borders as both a sign of peace and in hopes that we can scout him.

Need more settlers...

[Gaspar]

Report in a bit, but here's my updated map theory:

[WilliamLP]

TBS being a smurf would be a serious long con! Would you bother to smurf when posting to something like Seven's opening micro potluck thread a few months back? Also correct me if I'm wrong since I can't read the thread but maybe he's shown improvement since getting ousted from PB13?

[Gaspar]

TBS being a smurf would be a serious long con! Would you bother to smurf when posting to something like Seven's opening micro potluck thread a few months back? Also correct me if I'm wrong since I can't read the thread but maybe he's shown improvement since getting ousted from PB13?

Nothing would surprise me re: Parkin given what I know about Parkin. Still, the most likely scenario is that he's just a newer, very good player. But it is possible he's a smurf and more importantly, its fun to troll about. Given how much you guys troll me in here, only appropriate if I return the favor.

Also, as Lewwyn mentioned, we went ahead and signed OB with him. He added 3 cities last turn - the barb city and 2 cities towards it. Given where his core appears to be this is some pretty brazenly ballsy settling - also reminds me of Parkin.




We're going to push to settle the wheat city there a little sooner than originally anticipated. If we could settle that and somehow nab the iron city in the north, that would be a reasonable border to set with him. Hondo does give him the possibility of sniping something along our future border with dtay. I'll be absolutely shocked if there isn't an ugly conflict with him before the game is out.

Sailing came in last turn and we have enough gold to get through Mathematics in 4t of burn so waiting on the library in Valhalla was definitely the right call. After that Calendar will take something around 8-9t at breakeven. Our breakeven is 30% now and its going to get much worse before it gets better as the two cost defraying techs will be coming in behind Calendar but we're still going to be settling cities as fast as possible. The NE cottage city gets settled on t82 and then we're expecting to settle the mediocre wheat city in the NW, the lake city in the south and the aforementioned wheat border city with TBS by t90. After that expect the stub city to share food at Cockaigne, the silk city and the Moai city. Then we probably slow down a little. Here are a couple maps showing those locations...






Updated city counts (this is a slightly overrated statistic but this map just begs for you spam cities - maintenance is less punishing because of the settings and there's a ton of land especially with one player already eliminated.)

TBS: 11
Oxy: 10
dtay: 9
Us: 8
Commodore: 7

If you were to ask me to do an updated power ranking I think I'd put TBS ahead of Thoth. After that its a bit tricky. Commodore, Us and Oxy are 3,4,5 in some order and I think you could make a case for any order. I still think dtay is in last, even with his stream of settlements.

So yeah. Krill would be having a gay old time on this map, that's for sure.

Few other quick notes... Commodore founded Judaism and adopted OR this turn. I'll be expecting him to land Pyramids via an Engy as he tries his hardest to replicate our losing gameplan from PB16. Also we killed a couple of barb warriors down by Shangri-La.

[Lewwyn]

Okay. So I logged in played some of the predetermined moves. Now here's how the situation looks with TBS that Gaspar posted earlier:



Notice my proposed movements in red. We need to back off and contain TBS if we can and bring all of the units to the spear to protect the wheat placement site. Need to be able to attack TBS if he brings a settler in the next 8t.

Good signs:
TBS left his spear in place on the hill next to our sentry chariot.
TBS moved his spear towards barb city.

Bad signs:
TBS moved his axe south.
TBS Moved a chariot

The biggest thing for me is that axe. If he gets the axe and the spear to the PH 2W of the Cow he can sit there and whip out a quick settler (he's IMP) and settle it before we can settle our wheat city and invalidate the spot and make closer borders. We desperately do not want this. There is little to prevent it without an axe. We need an axe.

Let's first go through getting the settler out of atlantis. 13hpt at size 4. Now the plan was to get the worker over there and chop into the settler so taht we can easy 2 pop whip it. The issue is that the worker doesn't get there in time. It gets there and chops and the chop finishes on the 4th turn of the settler production from the city, which is enough on its own for the 2 pop whip. So the worker can't speed it up. If all goes well we settle the wheat city on t89. t89 seems far away when dealing with TBS. We need an axe.

The closest city is Q. How do we get an axe out of Q? Either whip or chop. When I started the turn I had not come to the conclusion that we needed the axe yet. So the worker there on the cottage should have been moved to the forest south of that this turn so that it could chop and finish the axe EOT84. Then the axe reaches that hill with the spear t86. But we can still do it. it will cost us 1 worker turn to do so.

T82 Worker moves to forest. Worker on hill finishes road.
T83 Worker chops. Worker on hill moves to forest.
T84 2nd worker chops. Chop completes axe.
T85 Both worker move SE and road. Axe moves to roaded hill.
T86 Both worker move to wheat and road. Axe moves to hill with spear.
T88 settler arrives, T89 settle hopefully.

Gaspar?

[Lewwyn]

Super tired, going to bed. Gaspar play the turn? I can't think of anything in the game we haven't discussed.

[Ceiliazul]

TBS being a smurf would be a serious long con! Would you bother to smurf when posting to something like Seven's opening micro potluck thread a few months back? Also correct me if I'm wrong since I can't read the thread but maybe he's shown improvement since getting ousted from PB13?

TBS is very good, more precise than me and mor flexible than Sulla. learning fast too... I agree with krill, hes to good to have many candidates.

[Gaspar]

Played t83. I must confess I'm starting to get that crushing inevitability of defeat feeling from TBS that I get when I play against mackoti. Might be time to make a smurf and join a greens game to feel better about myself. Since I found this turn depressing, I'll just paste in a few overviews.
















Few quick notes:

• I teched Math on 50 even though 40 would have worked because Noble and I got screwed by that in PB16 and we have a couple chops finishing next turn we need full value from.
  
• If you can't tell, TBS has a settler on the move towards us near 3 Texas Steers.
  
• Our northern chariot is under TBS Medic/Shock chariot.
  
• I killed the barb warrior with the spear, it got 2 xp and can promote next turn.
  
• I kept the axe near Shangri-La where it was because it left the most options for a future barb issue.
  

[mackoti]

Played t83. I must confess I'm starting to get that crushing inevitability of defeat feeling from TBS that I get when I play against mackoti. Might be time to make a smurf and join a greens game to feel better about myself. Since I found this turn depressing, I'll just paste in a few overviews.

I felt from , actualy i knew from pbem 53 , the one in which he beat dtay he is very good, he even won a micro chalange so he might be better then me, he reporst nicer so is a pleasure to falow his play.But not forget he has right now the all adavantages: exp, imp , well yuo have creative but what you need is to risk a litle bit and get more cities even you might be in danger becasue of that, sometimes is worth to do that.And dont forgot this could be as well a very long game.