[PB62] Tarkeel and civac feel the need for speed

[civac2]

Both fights were at exactly 99.1%. That's lucky, 99.1% is slap bang on the limit for getting 2 EP per battle (=2/1 strength advantage). Although I suppose for the scout it couldn't have been otherwise. For the axe though, the promotion is really useful.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 39 (2440 BC)
Fabled evacuated Tar Valon, opting to pillage the gold instead. That's spiteful but understandable. The jungle-axe takes Tar Valon, claiming 26 gold, while the other two charge forward:
Axe vs Warrior, 99.9&: Win, suffering 1 round of damage (89/100)


We spot his eastern warrior racing back home to defend.

Lastly, AnimalHusbandry was completed this turn, revealing horses in the BFC of Silverstone! That was very unexpected, and it makes us fear that Fabled (or SD!) has something similar on the unrevealed tiles. We'll want some spears out soon to cover the heartlands.

I was going to post graphs this turn as we were supposed to have for all neighbors, but SD broke vision so you'll have to wait.

[civac2]

The chop in Silverstone would be optimally invested into a settler I think. But we can just discuss this tonight (18 CET).

[Tarkeel]

Turn 40-41 (2360 BC)
Our scout got a look at Caemlyn, which was double-whipped but empty. The warrior is almost back at home, and will reach it just before our axes next turn. The main problem is that Caemlyn was double-whipped, and someone just researched archery, so that could be a problem. We have to see if we can finish this though, so we move up the axes as planned, and are greeted with this next turn:


Whatever Fabled whipped, it wasn't the necessary archer, but he did manage to found a new city, most likely on copper. Our axes line up:
Axe vs Warrior, 99.2%: Win, suffering 2 rounds of damage (72/100)
Axe (4.4) vs Warrior, 97.4%: Flawless win (89/100)


Capturing Caemlyn reveals that the camped deer SW is also roaded, allowing our axes to press on to the last city next turn. It also appears that the double-whip was a worker, as he now demonstrably have two.

We have a new settler coming out of Silverstone, so we've started talking about where to settle. We have four main sites, as laid out on this map:


Coldcorn in the frozen north has the most immediate power with dry corn and sheep, and will also let us settle the ice-land island. It's probably the least contested of the sites though.
Marbletusk to the west will claim marble and ivory and set a decent border towards Mjmd, but it can only use the capital fish for food.
BovineLake to the east is also a strong site with cattle and (dry) rice, but it's on flatland and is sure to anger Superdeath.
Sandstone to the southeast won't make Superdeath any happier, but it's on a hill. It only has a floodplain as immediate food, but it will claim the only stone we've seen so far.

Right now Civac is leaning towards Coldcorn while I want Sandstone or BovineLake.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 42 (2320 BC)
I'd expected Fabled to evacuate the workers we could see at his third city, but instead they put in a turn of chopping the forest. That allowed our axes to use his roaded deer tile to capture them, in effect pre-chopping the forest for our later use. That neatly solved our issues with worker labor for some time, but we shouldn't have been able to capture them.

We've also found a bug in the economy advisor:


Note how we're running a deficit of 10, with total expenses of 9. The unit cost shown is 1, but 2 in the hover tooltip.

[Charriu]

Thanks for the bug report. I will look into it.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 43 (2280 BC)
The most interesting part about the fall of Fabled, is that he wasn't the first player eliminated: Naufragar managed to eliminate Bing earlier in the turn. This revealed Vanrober's chinese culture in the fog:



I promised graphs a few turns ago, so here they are just before the fall of Fabled:

Superdeath seems to be struggling on expansion, while Mjmd is flourishing.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 44+45 (2200 BC)
The great wild north has spawned it's first barbarian for us, a warrior threatening Sakhir. We'll whip out the almost-completed axe to deal with it next turn, overflowing into a granary. That's right, Pottery just came in, so every city is set to build granaries now. Our two new workers (Stirling Moss and Jim Clark) are sent to chop forests at the city formerly known as Caemlyn, while Fangio and Ascari finish coralling the horses of Silverstone before chopping for Silverstone and Sakhir.

Edit: Superdeath seems to be in trouble; he's back down to two cities again! It must have been barbarians, as it happened on the turn roll.


With Fabled's fall it's time to rename the captured cities.



Tar Valon becomes known as Monaco, site of the second World Championship of Drivers race in 1950, but the race itself has roots back to 1929. While it doesn't offer the most spectacular racing it nevertheless has a special place for many fans and drivers.



Caemlyn becomes known as Spa, or Circuit de Spa Francorchamps, as it's officially known. It was the host of the fifth World Championship of Drivers race in 1950, but this is another circuit with a rich history. The original layout of the course in 1920 used the public roads linking the towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 45 (2200 BC), Part Deux
Superdeath's misfortune set our wheels in motion, and we might move to capitalize. His capital is whipped down to size 1 and he's obviously focused elsewhere. Meanwhile, his western approach is lined with (in-)convenient forests. We can stage on the wines SE of Sandstone, out of sight, and then launch an attack that threatens the capital in three moves, with all four of the southern axes.


It needs some worker labor to pull off:
T46: Stirling (W of Spa) and Brabham (Monaco) move towards grass SW of Sandstone
T47: Road grass
T48: Axes move to wine; Workers road wine
T49: Launch attack

[Tarkeel]

Turn 46 (2160 BC)
It's our turn to face the wrath of the barbarian horde, as a spear descends on Silverstone. This necessitates a shuffle of defendes, leaving Silverstone unhappy for the turn.


Meanwhile, our scout made contact with Vanrober. That's a very fascinating iceplain...