[SPOILERS] AT: Tonight in Vultureland... Louis of Sumeria

[AutomatedTeller]

Filler, blah, blah, filler,


Picture of Bruce Springsteen:



yadda yadda yadda


moving on...

[AutomatedTeller]

The game so nice I had to play it twice!!

In 34g, I went financial and philo, under the idea that the only way to snowball was to tech heavy, because you couldn't expand heavy.

In this, though... well, it's more normal.

Why Louis? Well, expansive is slightly nerfed (there's a ton of health resources and you can't build harbors anyway). Expenses are insane on this, but organized is also nerfed (no lighthouses and we aren't getting to factories). I did financial and philo the last time and I'm playing spiritual in 35.

Creative is a solid expansion trait and industious is another solid trait. I kind of wish I had gone charismatic (because no one else did), but I'll survive.

Why sumeria? Well, vultures are good defensive units and decent on attack. More importantly, though, the Ziggurat is A) available without the expensive CoL B) cheap and C) available at the same time as Oracle... which can give me forges, which I get half cost.

Synergy is strong.

Opponents:

Commodore: Kublai (agg/cre) of Greece (phalanx/Odeon) Yikes. Speaking of synergy - commodore will be out to kill someone early. A regret is that I can't read his thread till later - for those who haven't read his Pitboss 5 thread (and can, because they aren't playing/dedlurking), please run over and read it. Very inventive and funny. His starting techs are actually ok for this game, though cheap. Starting with fishig is a small advantage and the hunting means he can get the furs early, so he'll probably be the early tech leader. But then, he has more beakers to get.


Scooter: gandhi. it says something about how strong this leader combination is that it's in the base game... I don't know that I agree with this choice - I think he's made himself a target - he's got 3 neighbors with strong early UU's, and he's clearly going to be militarily weakest. And Commodore will be aggressive. in 36, scooter was aggressive... but then, he had war chariots, so why not? Gandhi has mysticism and mining. If he's serious about henge from turn 0, this is the combo to do it - henge until you grow to size II, then worker till you get BW, whip the worker, and chop out henge while you grow and get techs like, you know, agri.

Pindicator: Zara (Cre/Org) of Maya (holkan/ball court). Eh. Maya has good synergy and a good UB... but honestly, i don't think happy is an issue in this game. You can easily get 4 happy resources without really trying, all of which double. Interestingly, Maya has mysticism and mining, too, so if he wanted, he could get henge pretty easy. He doesn't, of course. The holkan is useless, though - easily the worst of the 4 UU's.

Interestingly, the greens game was all charismatic - this is all creative.


My original theme was going to be places from stories about animals - Watership Down, Toad Hall, NIMH. But then I wrote Tonight in Vultureland and I'm thinking Bruce Springsteen.

Because, of course, the most important thing IS the theme...

I'm not going to win this one I hope to not lose...

[AutomatedTeller]

My plan, btw, is maybe a little odd.

Fishing, mysticism, meditation, priesthood, mining, BW, AH, in some order. Probably not fishing first - I'll go worker first, so I don't need fishing until I finish the worker. I want to get the 1s settler out, then build oracle to get MC and forges. May need to get pottery soon after that.

Send my second archer directly to the hill where I built Parish's Fort the first time.

[AutomatedTeller]

ok, so clearly, fishing first. The extra coin is the right play there.

I think mining after that.

I debated trying to rush out a chariot - i figure I could get one to someone's doorstep by turn 16... but with full map knowledge, there's really no reason to leave your cap unguarded, so you just die... so what's the point?

[AutomatedTeller]

And, no surprises in my land! or the demos. Everyone settled, everyone is working a 2-1 tiles, blah, blah blah.

Fishing->pottery (might as well get an early cottage out to take advantage of my starting techs and get a leg up on research)

After that, probably mining->BW for whipping/chopping, then up to priesthood.

I'll improve the fish and wheat and build some cottages.

[AutomatedTeller]

The start. I have Zero's start from 34g. pindicator probably has serdoa's start (he had a scout). scooter probably has my start (cause if he had maya's, he'd woudlnt' have the tech issue), so commodore has TT's start.

All that is very clever and meta-gamey, isn't it? :D and all so very useless, since I'll meet them all in a couple of turns and we know all about the map anyway....

[AutomatedTeller]

2 turns and commodore hasn't attacked anyone yet!!

scooter still doesn't have stonehenge - he must be grinding his teeth by now.

pindicator probably has a detailed plan for landing HG already - I'll never get that...

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 3, Commodore declares war on me! oh, wait... that just means he met me...

I have where I can get it on my 3rd (or 4th, don't remember) expansion. Which means doublers for NE and HE.

[AutomatedTeller]

No one got a score increase this turn, which means no one else researched fishing first. I guess everyone went with agri first.

My guess is that everyone knows I'm going fishing->pottery. The GNP makes it pretty obvious

I've been thinking about strategy, and I think what I want to do is expand to between 4-8 cities, get to construction and then go kill some people. Well, get a city out, build oracle, expand to 4-6 cities, then kill someone. I figure that a large force of cats, vultures and horses can take out one opponent, or at least get me a couple more cities.

One advantage of vultures - they are good on archers - ie, barb defense and taking barb cities...

hmm... now I want to go with my animal places theme.

[AutomatedTeller]

Commodore and Pindicator got a tech. I think it was agriculture in both cases, though I kind of thought that agri woulld take 6 turns, not 5. Guess not.