[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[MindyMcCready]

Oh yes, if a single warrior attack appeals to you, you'll need to play before him just in case.

We must also assume that before this play could be enacted he will have discovered us as well. By no means a guaranteed thing as his scout could get eaten,... but even if he detects us almost everyone would want to go worker first for the economic advantage over a low odds warrior rush.

His capital would have 20% culture so it wouldn't autoraze even if its still size 1?

You've got some homework to do before your next move! :LOL:

[Krill]

You haven't made contact yet so you can't allocate EP.

[MindyMcCready]

I checked the settings and it looks like EP is on. So we won't be able to see his graphs.

So Option2: Single warrior becomes much more risky. Low odds chance of complete success (worker-worker start), decent odds of a viable choke. Serdoa would be set back at least as much as we would be but we're still set back relative to the rest of the world.

Option3: Archer rush. Still seems doable. Pretty solid chance that Serdao would detect our power build up. His defense options wouldn't be great though as archers aren't great defenders against our Quechas.

Option 4.5: Triple warrior attack post worker? Odds seem much better. Delays attack by 4T. Commits 45H in the hope of capturing a capital. Allows our capital to grow. You're building warrior anyway while growing to Size3? Fair chance that his warrior(s) are out exploring. We have the cover of forest so we may go undetected, or detected too late anyhow.

Option 5: Develop in peace. If we land our religion + UB we've got a good chance of putting the cultural crush on him. More 'backed into the corner' mindset for him I'm sure.

[WilliamLP]

First, I'm not sure it's Serdoa. We only have the color to go by - there is no contact in game. I don't know if the colors on CivStats tell us anything. Serdoa might be the best fit if that color of blue is matched with the border we see. Why it doesn't match the scoreboard in game is a mystery to me.

If it is Serdoa, I've never played with him but he has the reputation as one of the best and savviest players on this site. He also has a very short fuse, apparently. Among him, Plako, and Commodore he's one of the worst neighbours we could have drawn.

Yeah, we won't see graphs until 43 EP, 11 turns after contact, assuming we're both spending on each other to the max.

Warrior before worker doesn't appeal to me at all. I think it's more likely than not he either knows he has a close neighbour, or will by turn 15. If it fails it just means we've sort of spoiled someone's game and, our own even worse in turn.

Without sacrificing too much (maxing the hammers away from the silk tile, but still working improved corn as soon as it's online) we get warriors on turns 15, 20, 24, 26 if we build them straight. It does sacrifice something though - we grow to size three on turn 23 instead of turn 21, and also lose the beakers from not working the silk at all.

My gut is that he'll know we're close, with chances about 80%. There's no way you'd choose to go long with a settler in an 18 player game with land on all sides, without being aware of your immediate surroundings. Also I'd bet against him taking 15 turns to build a worker, as I bet most have settled on plains hills.

My personality says play normally and be careful. I also fear the kind of game we'd have to play for months after failing with a rush. But I'm arguably way too nice. There's a chance we have a big intelligence advantage right now, also a chance we both think we know something the other doesn't, etc.

Now, if we did a double warrior march starting on turn 20, is there a chance that works? I'm not sure about that. If he doesn't know we exist, maybe. A big factor is whether he has a hill in his culture (NE or NEE of his capital) that could spot our diagonal approach. Having three turns to react would be massively better than two turns.

Anyway... at the end of the day I don't think I can be convinced on a plan that doesn't finish the worker right now, so we have a bit of time to decide what's next. Presumably not making contact now is a no-brainer? (I wouldn't want to give up our advantage if he doesn't even know he has a neighbour net.)

I'm really not a fan of the scout choke in general. It makes enemies, doesn't actually gain us anything (beyond a slightly set back neighbour) and declaring war hurts the value of trade routes later, maybe. Plus I'd rather have a scout actually scouting.

The other question is can we afford to keep going with Meditation? If we do so, we get bronze on T36, wheel T43 (approximate). We can take 8 turns off of those if we switch now.

[WilliamLP]

I thought I could move the scout SE-NE and we wouldn't make contact. But I misread the tile bleed. It turns out we couldn't have gotten the scout through without seeing a hill:




So the news is: This isn't Serdoa (thank god) but retep. I know little about him, but that he's in PB11 so not extremely experienced.

Retep is Sitting Bull of Khmer (PHI / PRO, Hunting, Mining, Ballistaphant, Baray)

He settled on turn 2, and popped a tech from a hut that same turn. There's little doubt that we were moving toward each other at the start of the game, to be this close.

Since he is Protective, I highly doubt any early rush is going to work. He's one tech from archery at the start and he may even already have it from the hut. (This is where full C&D could actually give useful information, if I had tracked the global power change from the beginning to end of turn 2 we could reason about which tech he popped...) That peak tile 2N2E of his capital is a very nice defensive feature for him, and after turn 52 when third ring borders pop it will be a really nice watchtower too. In other words he's a tough nut to crack.

I think we have no real options but to forget early shenanigans and develop as normal while being cautious that he may attack, agree?

The efficient scout move now is SE-SE but he would see the scout. The more cautious move is SE-E.

[MindyMcCready]

Well I know where you're coming from, but I can't say that I agree in general. If an opportunity to take out a neighbour THIS CLOSE with a devestating offensive UU + stack stopping protective trait for the cost of a singe warrior I think that you should take it. Lurked AT facing Jowy Khmer in PB9 and it was only a combination of luck + Jowy's bad moves + AT's tech advantage that allowed AT to survive. Khmer is very tough to defend against until probably T150 - T180 in a non-tech trading game. That's one heck of a window for him to beat on us.

Since he settled on T2 I think that you need to closely reconsider whether that warrior rush could succeed.
-If he's on a regular tile (moved for food not plains hill) he simply won't be able to build a unit without slavery in time. Provided that the calculation are right, this one's a no brainer.
-If he's on a plains hill his warrior could still be out exploring.

Protective doesn't matter yet. Without slavery he can't build a warrior/archer unless he gets lucky on the timing.

Don't let him see the scout. When(/if) we're about to make a run at him we'll investigate with the scout to try to avert an international incident if we don't think that we'll get lucky.

So let's work on the timing to see if we can pull this off before your next move. Let me try to figure out the turns and we can compare to see if this is viable or not.

[WilliamLP]

He knows we have contact. It's going to be a pain not letting him see the scout because the spice tile is in his vision. Do you think circling back around the lake to the north is worth the lost scouting turns?

The philosophical problem I have with a rush right now is that this is an 18 player game and it's a negative sum game for us two, positive for the other 16. We need to prove a very high benefit for it to be worth it. That isn't to say it couldn't be, but we have a wonderful natural border of the ocean, and he may have rivals on multiple sides.

I think we basically have to assume he's on a hill, and that he's prepared at least for the idea of a rush starting right now. I think it's at least 75% against a decent player moving a settler anywhere else. Retep may have a minimum 4 turns to respond, too, since the forest hill we've seen will spot not just units adjacent to his borders, but those two turns away to the NE.

He started with mining around forests and also has a mystery tech. I think he'll certainly have slavery by the mid-20s, if not sooner.

FWIW, Ballistaphants have been nerfed down to strength 7 in RBMod along with regular Wes and still target mounted units in the open field. (Apparently they were still 8 in 2.0.2.)

If you want to work out potential build orders, that would be really great.

Here's my current sandbox if it helps. It's one turn behind and doesn't have perfectly reflected scout moves. I haven't world buildered much to the west of the capital yet either.

[MindyMcCready]

What do you think?

Looks like we can pull off only 3T of warning? If he hasn't already started a warrior, he can't defend.

[MindyMcCready]

I suggest using the scout to try to get a look at his capital. That desert hill NNWW of his capital could allow us to peak in.

Right then and there we can know if he's on a plains hill or not. If he's not then we've got a very high chance of taking him out with a positive-sum outcome. If he's on a plains hill we abort - no harm done other than 2 warrior turns invested + a nosy neighbour rep.

If it turns out that he's not on a plains hill then he's not likely to abort his worker in favour of a warrior. Most people keenly want that worker and for good reason. It'll be very painful to switch off that first worker. I'd lay odds on him crossing his fingers and continuing on with the worker build.

[MindyMcCready]

Can you tell if "T18" has a forest/hill or not?

If we peak at his capital and he's not plains hill then he'd likely be finished his worker on T17 and begin a warrior on T18. I don't think that it'll make a difference as he'll still be 1T too late.

So cold feet yet?