[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[dazedroyalty]

I don't have any new comments really besides the chat. We just need to make sure Commodore doesn't get ideas about coming our way with 'phracts!

[scooter]

I don't have any new comments really besides the chat. We just need to make sure Commodore doesn't get ideas about coming our way with 'phracts!

Yeah no kidding.

To all - basically I think there's a chance Commodore just Oracle'd Machinery. Between his giant points leap (which pretty much requires multiple techs) and the mystery Great Merchant - it's not too hard to figure out what he might have done. It seriously never occurred to me until now what Byz + Grocer could do, so if that's what he did, that's an excellent play by him. Can't say that enough. I'm not 100% sure yet though that that's what actually happened, so I'm going to figure this out later tonight and report my findings here. If he did do that, I'll need to figure out my gameplan to avoid getting run over by Cats. I have a few ideas.

[scooter]

Wait, no. He gained 36 points. According to this though:

Oracle = 16 pts
MC = classical = 6*2 = 12pts
machinery = medieval = 6*3 = 18 pts

That would add up to 46 points which is much too high. I calculated tech points correctly right? If so, he didn't do this and I can breathe easier.

[scooter]

I'm a moron. He hasn't chosen his Oracle tech yet! That means that 36 point jump has not even factored in whatever tech he got from Oracle, and at this point I'm pretty convinced that it must have been Machinery because unlikely he got to 36 without a MC bulb. And that GM is just too perfect timing for it to be anything other than a great plan by Commodore. So to recap, my theory at the moment:

(this is turn order - serdoa-scooter-comm. numbers are points are as displayed on my turn)

t40:
serdoa: 241
scooter: 201
commodore: 218 (merchant at end of this turn)


t41:
serdoa: 241
scooter: 212 (i now see merchant in the log
commodore: 233 (after I see 233, bulbs MC and complete Oracle at EOT41)


t42: I open today's save and see:
commodore: 269 (+36) (MC pts, Oracle pts, +8pts)
serdoa: 257 (+16)
scooter: 223 (+11) (grow 4->5 and 2->3)

The 36 would be MC(12) + Oracle(16) + 8 points - from pop or whatever. If this theory is true, I would next turn expect a point jump including 18 points for Machinery. Rather than run through all the other permutations to see if something else happened, I'm just going to wait til tomorrow and see if the Machinery jump happens as I'm guessing. I'm really hoping it won't - hopefully it'll be 12 point-ish which would mesh with a MC Oracle. Still though, slinging Machinery is SUCH a perfect Byz play that I'm guessing that's the deal.

[scooter]

Okay so Serdoa's merchant popped a LOT more recently than I was remembering, so no way the merchant was him. It could easily have been Brian, but I think I can guess with a high degree of accuracy that it was Commodore, in which case the best play by far for him is to slingshot Machinery. That puts him REALLY close to Guilds - just needs to research Monarchy -> Feudalism -> Guilds.

So basically I have two options here:

1) Send some keshiks at him to slow him down

2) Make myself an unattractive target

#1 is mentioned because I can get to him quicker than anyone else with Keshiks. My guess though is that doing this would hurt me as much as it would hurt him and would be a huge gain for Serdoa to sit there and expand away with Henge and Representation to blow us all away. It'd also help Lewwyn get back into contention, and I'm mostly happy to let him be far behind right now since I consider him the best player here. Plus his traits are awesome late game. So #2 is a much more reasonable target.

Basically - get elephants ASAP. Thing is, it's not good enough to JUST get elephants. Basically, push my way north and settle Elephant Island as quick as I can, get an elephant built, and then find some way to SHOW it to Commodore. Honestly, if he comes at me with a determined Cataphract rush, I cannot win this game. I might be able to survive it, but only if I knock myself out of contention with a hardcore defense. So if I show that I have elephants when he is picking a target, he'll pick someone softer hopefully. Hopefully it's Serdoa.

Also - continue settling away from Commodore so that he has other people closer to him. Yeah I know we're technically equidistant, but in reality we aren't. So I need to figure that out too. More later on all this.

[scooter]

Also I think I need to land Hanging Gardens.

[scooter]

Okay I just realized something. So forts are enabled at Mathematics and we're about there. Well, I was mapping out how to get my north elephant so that's why there's dots on here, but then I noticed this:



Now correct me if I'm wrong here... but once Sante Fe's borders expand AND I have Mathematics, I could build a fort on that pink star and get a galley + settler into elephant land that way right? Obviously I'd need construction to actually build WE's, but this should work. The fort doesn't have to be adjacent to a city, just has to be a city OR water right? This would actually be far easier than getting my north source locked down because city placement is awkward around there.

The alternative is pushing north, but my one fear all along with pushing north is just how isolated that elephant island would be. Now that I've remembered a fort doesn't need to be adjacent to a city, I could move red dot 1S and fort the tile 9 of the corn, but that still makes the elephant site pretty way out there. Also, though you can't really see it in this shot, there's a deer source on that one grass forest just NE of the fish and pink star. If I settled north - no way I could prevent that deer from being pillaged - it'd be a nightmare to keep hooked.

Now... I COULD of course go for both of them . I'm pretty confident I could get them too - would just be a matter of holding them. That would give me 3 IC routes. Also, red dot looks like a really nice spot to potentially chop out the Great Lighthouse, although that might be waiting way too long for it. Perhaps chop out Hanging Gardens there instead.

The one drawback of all this is my northeast is the direction Commodore is in:



From his perspective:



To understand this picture, pretend like this is south of Commodore instead of south of me. If this is Commodore's south, that's the elephant I'm looking at settling. The upside is this would make it crystal clear to him that I have phants. The downside is it would make me "closer" to him and therefore a more appealing target. Lots to think about. Lurker opinions are welcome.

(note on the Lighthouse thing - TGL would be more valuable if I landed both elephant spots as TGL lets me get 3 IC trade routes. Basically, I'm not sure getting both elephants is worth it UNLESS I'm also landing the Lighthouse)

[dazedroyalty]

I think elephants are worth settling towards him.

[Kyan]

If he has multiple, nearly equidistant opponents and only one of them has elephants (which he can obviously see. If he can't, then show it to him!), it won't be you he is going for.

By settling that city, you guarantee someone else gets crippled instead whilst you continue economy mode. Sounds like a win-win to me. Of course, if regular diplo is on (is it?) this just got a whole lot easier.

If AI diplo is on, i'd be tempted to offer him a resource trade once ivory is hooked up. Or better yet, offer him ivory- in exchange for something he would never accept (multiple cities etc.). That shows him that you're aware of his plan and can stop it. His plan, if it is how you describe it, has been ambitious but brilliantly executed. He'll much rather go for a guy that is not ready and pre-warned than one who is and has the only feasible counter.

[T-hawk]

Now correct me if I'm wrong here... but once Sante Fe's borders expand AND I have Mathematics, I could build a fort on that pink star and get a galley + settler into elephant land that way right?

Pretty sure that works, yes. Also the fort can be built (started) before the border expands, it just won't work for ship travel until it's inside your border.

But on another line of thinking, you don't have to settle on the elephant. If it's inside your borders, you can connect the resource with a fort and road. 2W 1S of the ivory would be an excellent city with a bunch of resources and doesn't need fort tricks to get a galley and settler there.