[PLAYER THREAD] Brian's Awesome Thread of Awesomeness

[Brian Shanahan]

I'll be able to take back over tomorrow, should be home in roughly 12 hours, probably less.

[shallow_thought]

I'll be able to take back over tomorrow, should be home in roughly 12 hours, probably less.

Great - we're celebrating my Mum's birthday this afternoon and not having to play will make things a little easier.

FYI, the worker is roading the forest because I reckoned it was worth it to speed up future moves across the city between the river area and the pigs / horses, but my plan was to farm a cotton next.

Sorry about the lack of reporting but it's been quiet and a weird week for me timetable-wise.

Oh, and I hope you enjoyed the rugby yesterday. Another well-deserved slam for men in green.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'll be able to take back over tomorrow, should be home in roughly 12 hours, probably less.

Great - we're celebrating my Mum's birthday this afternoon and not having to play will make things a little easier.

FYI, the worker is roading the forest because I reckoned it was worth it to speed up future moves across the city between the river area and the pigs / horses, but my plan was to farm a cotton next.

Sorry about the lack of reporting but it's been quiet and a weird week for me timetable-wise.

Oh, and I hope you enjoyed the rugby yesterday. Another well-deserved slam for men in green.

No problem, when I see the turn I'll play it. Tell your mother I said happy birthday and have a lovely party.

Thanks very much for the help over the last few weeks, if ever you're in Cork, give me a shout.

[Brian Shanahan]

Save is played.

I didn't do much with the save, just a bit of exploring and moving the worker.

I took one photo, of what is known of the map:

Thinking about the game plan going forward, we badly need worker labour and scouting both west and south of our current position. We also need commerce. Therefore after the settler finishes, I'm going warrior worker before pushing out a second settler.

The settler in queue is going to go south to the gold site marked and will steal the corn to get population going, the current worker will cottage the two cottons to get some commerce going (though aristograrianism is probably what we'll run for commerce longer term), while the new worker will get our second city set up, and once a few tiles are done there will go onto our third city, which I think has to be the sheep/pig/bronze unit pump. We need a city pumping units as early as possible here, both for defence and also for potential offensive duites. The second city can be a secondary worker/settler pump early on, transitioning into a hybrid econ/hammer city later.

Thinking longer term, we need to figure out how to win this game. At the moment I think the best chance is to gain an upper hand in power and conquer somebody and have the two civ power be enough to enforce victory. But again, that will not be done without better knowledge so in the short term scouting in paramount to find out the full lay of the land and identify avenues of attack, areas for defence and opportunities.

[shallow_thought]

Thanks very much for the help over the last few weeks, if ever you're in Cork, give me a shout.

No problem - and yes, I'm still planning to stick around and encourage / help. Just be aware I've got a lot of holiday booked in April and May.

Thinking about the game plan going forward, we badly need worker labour and scouting both west and south of our current position.  We also need commerce.  Therefore after the settler finishes, I'm going warrior worker before pushing out a second settler.

The settler in queue is going to go south to the gold site marked and will steal the corn to get population going, the current worker will cottage the two cottons to get some commerce going (though aristograrianism is probably what we'll run for commerce longer term)

...

Thinking longer term, we need to figure out how to win this game.  At the moment I think the best chance is to gain an upper hand in power and conquer somebody and have the two civ power be enough to enforce victory.  But again, that will not be done without better knowledge so in the short term scouting in paramount to find out the full lay of the land and identify avenues of attack, areas for defence and opportunities.

Absolutely agree on warrior / worker before second settler (there's a question about order depending on how may tiles can be improved with the current worker). I'd penciled in farming one cotton just to help to get up towards the happy cap / push out settlers workers, but would have started on cottages after that and hadn't done any detailed analysis of whether that first farm would be worth it.

IIRC, the keys to survival are (in no particular order):
- raw power
- collateral
- mobility
- vision (including the ability to see the various flavours of invisible units)

I don't know what your preferences are here - I have a suspicion that pushing mages is beaker-efficient if you have enough mana nodes for body+air+meta because that covers mobility+collateral+vision, using sage bulbs to do the heavy lifting. Against that: CHM might make it  a bit easier to get the adepts promoted, but without ARC it's still hard to actually get mages; adepts and mages don't provide much raw power in themselves; I don't see three spare nodes.

Chariots are good, and Trade helps with the economy as well, and siege workshops can also provide cats for interim collateral at a pinch. Trade also gets closer to Empyrean for some vision (and other tricks). However, you still need proper magic collateral at some point.

Elohim's natural bent is towards priests and Ritualists are a thing (and can be bulbed towards?). The downside is that you almost want the other guy to have an army full of Diseased Corpses (or Drowns) because you can counter them so hard with Devouts. I guess Monks also have adequate base strength, decent mobility and don't need a special building, and turn up at the same tech as priests. How much do you need a backup plan if someone else goes Veil first? I don't really have a feel for how important heroes are in MP. You still need vision from somewhere though.

Speaking of heroes, Corlindale is also down the religious path, I suppose. He'll be toast against assassins, but I guess he might be worth it for an eventual Shrine of the Champion.

[Brian Shanahan]

Turn played, but I won't make a full report tonight as I'm still tired from the boat home over the weekend (plus staying up past my bedtime last night after Toastmasters).

But we did meet Miguelito to our east and I've found his borders. Some interesting decisions to make after the last two turns, after revealing resources and the meeting.

[shallow_thought]

Opened this morning's turn to have a look - interesting.

I'd be tempted to accept OB. I've not even considered any real kind of player ranking, but my gut fears Q and Auro more than Mig, so being friendly might be a good start towards and eventual alliance. I suspect he wants to move his first settler to that pigs / copper spot - there's nothing you can meaningfully do to delay him, but making it clear that you don't have any shenanigans in mind avoids stoking any possible paranoia. More narrowly, I think we're in a better short-term position to make use of OB to scout him than vice-versa.

Doesn't look as if he is in contact with Auro, but I'm not sure if the interface would show us any other contacts he has yet.

I guess for resources you mean that mountain wheat, hanging out in literally the last tile to be uncovered in the Peak District? It makes for a better city spot than one that shares the pigs, perhaps, but it's not great and I don't think it changes any immediate plans for me.

[Brian Shanahan]

Nice to see about the open borders offer. I am also inclined to accept and also possibly to move the scout away from his settler coming out. In relation to contacts you should be able to see from the diplo screen who's talking to whom.

More generally in diplo circles, it may be a good idea to do resource swaps in the next turn or two to signal peaceful intent for now. It's way too early to plan an offensive, better to find some breathing room for expansion and development.

[shallow_thought]

In relation to contacts you should be able to see from the diplo screen who's talking to whom.

Yeah, that's how I knew he hadn't met Auro. But I don't know if we would see people he knows who we don't ..

[mackoti]

In relation to contacts you should be able to see from the diplo screen who's talking to whom.

Yeah, that's how I knew he hadn't met Auro. But I don't know if we would see people he knows who we don't ..

You dont