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

[Charriu]

I'm pretty sure that's a 1-tile freshwater lake SE of the gems, though we'll be able to confirm that soon enough.

You are probably aware of is this trick, but if not: If you hover over the gems tile the usual tooltip text appears, if it says fresh water there, it's very likely that the water tile is really a lake.

[Charriu]

Ending situation:
Domestic: 3 cities, 2 Granaries, 3 Workers, 4 improved bonus tiles, 3 forests chopped, 3 cottages
Military: 2 WCs, 3 Warriors

The Worker moves and Granary/Settler timings look okay to me, and we don't drop our 4 improved bonus tiles at any point. However, the tradeoff is that our military is extremely light with 1 WC on t42 and the second on t52, and no extra fogbusting Warriors. Too greedy, perhaps?

Help me here, when do the WCs and other military units appear in the aggressive plan?

It might be enough to make the other players think that we go for a WC rush in our domestic plan. After all if you try to see it from their point, they probably are afraid of a WC rush or expect it. If we could make them believe we are coming for them, we might make them invest hammers in stuff like spearman and so on. Might even show Multiple WCs at the border to stroke fear in their hearts.

[El Grillo]

RE: The lake: hovering over the gems says it is fresh water, and the only doubt I have is if it's just the one tile or if if there's more water NE of it (fog says there's land directly to the N and E).

RE: Military planning: in the super aggressive plan where the Settler founds city 2 on the horse tile, 3 WCs finish on turns 34-36 with 2 whips and a chop, with options to whip and chop out a couple more in the following turns. If this was an all-in attempt in a 1v1 duel, then we'd have 5 WCs done by start of t39, and unless Amicalola gets Archery real soon he'd be in real trouble. I believe in this game that this could be sufficient force to eliminate him, but it's uncertain to me that it would be worth the cost at that point. That second city makes me cry after seeing how productive it could be if settled 1S instead




I haven't simmed out slightly less all-in options yet, but if we improve city 2's horse instead of the wheat farm first, we can probably finish one or two WCs around t37-39 before starting Granaries.

[El Grillo]

T20:

Amicalola rolled the turn and we had a nice chat about hiking, it turns out he did the Appalachian Trail in 2019, though he's currently residing in Australia. What a small world, indeed

He moved a Quechua next to our Scout, and although it's not an issue since we can't declare war until t25, our Scout had finished healing up anyway. Also good to know that his Quechua isn't headed on a beeline north to cause us issues! That's a nice 6-food tile there, too.



Our Warrior reveals the lay of the land, and interestingly enough there seems to be more contiguous land to the east than I had originally expected, more than the one backline city's worth of space Amicalola has. Those gems should be within our sphere of influence, but the midpoint isn't much farther north than that. Holding that peak NE of the gems for vision would be nice, especially if there's more water in this area.



The Top 5 Cities screen says that two players have grown to size 3, Amicalola and one other. It's a little tricky to figure out who the other is, since land points came in as well for everyone other than Mjmd. Ramk got +20 points, and deducting 6 for a tech still leaves an awful lot, so perhaps it's him? Another explanation would be that it's the other EXP player, superdeath.

[El Grillo]

T21:

Still no sign of Amicalola's horses, they could be either at the capital, which could be problematic, or somewhere to the northwest in the remaining fogged tiles. I'm thinking of sending the Scout N-N and then N-NE to check the last diagonal into Springer Mtn., then curving back to the southwest and following the coast to try and find more players.



I'm not sure how far out I can comfortably send the Warrior, especially because soon barbarian Warriors and Archers will be in play, but I do want a better sense of how thick this jungle belt is, and what that potential 3rd city site would look like. Maybe N, NW, W, SW through t25?



Idle thoughts on what the staging for a WC rush on Amicalola might look like. Combined with the all-out attack sim from earlier, this would be 4 WCs on the tile NE of his capital on t42 for maximum surprise, well before t50 when the capital would hit 40% cultural defenses.


Mjmd grew to size 3, Plemo finished his second tech (Bronze Working?).

[Charriu]

I think it's important to uncover the north. The forests and jungles should provide enough protection for the warrior. The barbs won't enter your border at this stage of the game, too few cities overall.

[El Grillo]

T22:

Amicalola's power chart reflected another Quechua, and conveniently enough our Scout spotted it. To my great dismay, there's a LOS-blocker on all 4 of Springer Mtn.'s diagonals, so there's no way for us to get city visibility as I had hoped for. The Incan horses are real close by as well, so maybe he'd feel tempted to settle in this direction first?



I'll take Charriu's advice and keep the Warrior out scouting for a little bit longer. N onto the forested hill next turn seems promising, there look to be some unobstructed flat tiles to the north.



Lots of people are growing to size 3, so our yields are looking pretty rough. Maybe if I had had a 3rd bonus tile, or even just not lost so many Worker turns to movement, but our earlier 2nd city should be worth it.



T23:

Wow, a quick turnaround today.

I got greedy with the Scout move and put him in great danger. Small consolation that it looks like Amicalola's Scout died recently too, if that low-hp Lion is any sign.



Starting to doubt if that water to the east is actually the coast, given how much more solid land there is up there. Are we not where we think we are on the donut?

[El Grillo]

T24:

RIP our Scout John Muir, eaten by a Bear. I did a quick sanity check re: Amicalola's northern Quechua and the earliest it could threaten the capital would be on a route with it visible T27 and attacking on T30. Our own Warrior can make it back on T29, so it's time to turn it back and slightly to the southwest. With our tiles we also have the slightly awkward issue of not being able to 3t a Warrior from T27, though one would finish on T31.




I got sloppy and forgot to reassign enough EPs on Amicalola and so lost his graphs. Should have them again next turn.

[Charriu]

I think we should move our warrior back or we producing another one in our capitol?

[El Grillo]

Yeah the Warrior is heading back starting next turn. It'll make it back in time to defend even if the Quechua beelines our capital. To be safe, we could put also turn of hammers into another Warrior in the next turn or two so that it could finish in time if we did see a Quechua on t27.