[Spoilers] RFS-81 - Anubis? More like A-noob-is!

[RFS-81]

No, your screenshots made it clear how far the Pantanal site it is - it was me not being clear. It's effectively "second ring" from cap, and I was think that you'd probably want to settle 2-3 "first ring" sites, partly to make things more defensible. That might not be the case. These steam-based screenshots are working nicely for me, so far BTW.

I see! You're right, and also, we'll get more benefit from the Colosseum and, much later, factories. But that all depends on finding more fresh water around the capital. Or arranging the cities in a ring around the second one could work too, I guess.

On another side note, I like CQUI (despite the fact that I keep meaning to change production and instead add to the end of the queue), but it does seem to increase crashes and freezes for me.

I didn't have any crashes so far. The only bug I encounter regularly is that sometimes, when I select a city, the layer where you assign citizens to tiles doesn't appear. Still more convenient than the vanilla UI!

Regarding the settler, I was too lazy to calculate the construction time, but now that the city has grown, we don't need to speculate.



With a heavy production focus, it will take 6 more turns. I've also experimented with different assignments: Picking floodplains, stone, stone, it will finish in 8 turns.

I also swapped the civic to foreign trade, since Crafstmanship was close to half full.



Look who I found again!

[shallow_thought]

6t for the settler looks good .

Would be great to kill that scout so that our scout can go roaming. It would be a shame to have to research the whole of FT, but that's a risk of settler first (which I still think is right here). Onc esecond city is down, could perhaps risk sending warrior to clear that camp.

[RFS-81]

I lost sight of the scout, but found him again. I'm trying to set up a pincer movement in case he advances to my city.



Astrology is finishing next turn, I think Pottery next would be a good choice, since no animals are around.

[RFS-81]

Big, and probably bad, news! One of suboptimal's Eagle Warriors stumbled upon my capital. That's the civilization I least wanted to meet at this point in the game. I sent a DoF request to subobtimal, although I doubt that he'll accept. Even if he doesn't want to attack me right now, why would he allow me to play a farmer's gambit? Still, it doesn't hurt to try!



I moved my warrior towards the city instead of across the river as I planned. I can also rush-buy a slinger there on the next turn. My scout attacked the barbarian, and I think he can prevent him from reaching the camp.

Scores show that rho21 and suboptimal finished CoL.

[shallow_thought]

Time to start tracking suboptimal's power, I guess.

Tiny map meant we were always going to have to worry about the Aztecs in the early game, but - like you - I'd hoped not quite this early. Going to be a little bit interesting protecting settler, dealing with barb camp, keeping up scouting and making sure we can fend off an early probe. Would rather be able to get into Agoge before spamming too many slingers, but that's a little way off.

[RFS-81]

Suboptimal accepted my DoF, so I can spend some more time in builder mode and don't have to cash-rush any units! I moved my warrior and scout a little to try to intercept the barb scout. Strangely, he doesn't have the Red Exclamation Mark of Doom, even though he was one tile away from my border. Maybe because the forest blocked line-of-sight to the city center?

[shallow_thought]

That's good news. It was always possible that Suboptimal had snapped after his last couple of games and decided to go full tilt with the rushiest civ available . But looks like he's picked them for the longer term. Which is its own concern as he seems pretty solid as a builder.

A horseless camp wouldn't be a disaster if it triggered, but would help if you could deal with it at your choice of pace.

[RFS-81]

Turn 18 came around, and I kept chasing the barb scout. The position of my scout is possibly a major blunder. Barb spearmen sometimes leave their camps to attack. I've seen them chase down slingers, but I don't know if they can also go after scouts. I didn't think of that before moving. The settler is due in two turns, and the warrior will have to escort it, so unless the barb scout makes a bad move, he'll get away for now. They seem to be quite competent at finding a place where they can't be attacked next turn.



Rho21 has researched 3 techs and CoL now.

[shallow_thought]

Ooh I have a bad feeling about this. I've found barb spearmen keen to hit scouts they can reach. But that may be dependent on difficulty level. Let's hope.

[RFS-81]

The spearman would do 36-58 damage, so there's a chance that he kills my scout I don't think I'll get the save before going to bed. We had a good turn-around today, too bad that it had to stop at this cliffhanger for me.

EDIT: Got another turn, and my scout is gone! How embarrassing! ETA for settler is next turn, and I move my warrior towards the city.