[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[scooter]

Wow, I'm not sure how to react to all this. First of all, I have a map rant/conspiracy incoming, but I'll hold off on that for now. Second, excellent Saruman post . Third and most importantly... Wow, I'm really surprised on that archer move. If he wanted to retreat, why not 1S? That would have at least forced us to attack a forest at iffy odds and also be unable to retreat fully after attacking. This lets us (probably) kill it and retreat with ease. Also, the unit is probably dead, but if he left it on the hill, our axe attack was only going to be 57% or so. That's a pretty good chance he wins the hammer exchange is what I'm saying. Just a surprising move overall. I guess he didn't have a second unit in range of the hill. Anyways, yep, let's kill it and retreat, covering our new city (4T away now).

I also think this means we're safe to start a settler at LJS now, accompanied by the chop. We can finish that Impi afterwards.

I'll wait until Noble weighs in, but if he doesn't show up in a few hours I'll just go for it.

[pindicator]

Thanks for the ALT+I and CTRL+I tips, but I should have explained what I meant better. What is killing me is the size of the resource bubbles when you zoom out. Why can't those things scale with your zoom? Instead when you use flying camera to get a huge map screenshot, half the map gets covered in resource bubbles.

Edit: Now i have Trolololo Saruman stuck in my head

[scooter]

Ok, so we went for it:



Clean win. Retreated to the hill and covered it with the axe.



Side note - that leaves our Impi 1xp away from a second promo. If we see a barb, let's chase it down and get that promo. Anyways, the Impi + axe is enough to hold the hill, so let's slip north and cover the northern pass:



Priority is just getting our spots settled right now. On the domestic front, I goofed:



This was not where the chop was supposed to go. However, I'm actually OK with this. The granary is useful here, and will let us whip it some. However, here's my solution:



Take the pig back from INO and grow to sz5 instead of building the settler at sz4. This will give us enough time to finish a mine and work that at sz5. The 3T delay on starting the settler will be partially recovered by working better tiles, and then there's the obvious benefit of getting this thing up closer to where it needs to be. Commodore's cities are 6-5-2-1 compared to our 4-2-2-1. It's pretty rough, and big cities are a bit more valuable in Krillmod anyways. We're trading a couple commerce by not working the cottage and handing the pigs over, but INO grows regardless of working the corn over the pig (corn completes next turn anyways). We can whip the granary in INO next turn, then start the lighthouse.

Also, we need to address the ivory that Commodore has. This is bad, I dunno what else to say. We don't have easy access to Formation Impis since we aren't Aggressive (sigh). Impis will still do a good job, but it's just not a great scenario. The solution is probably going to have to be Impis + Catapults. Commodore is probably beelining Construction right now, so we need to get it ourself at some point here. The question is - before or after Alphabet? We have two realistic options:

Alphabet-Masonry-Construction
Masonry-COnstruction-Alphabet

I think I still favor Alphabet first.

[NobleHelium]

Epic fail on the chop dude. t.t

I dunno about tech. You guys figure out how aggressive we need to be against Commodore.

[scooter]

Okay, so this map nonsense. CONSPIRACY THEORY/RANT TIME. This is supposed to be total random right? Seriously though, let's think this one through.

I've been theorizing for a bit that we've had way too many coincidences here. So let's see, take Commodore. He's the most aggresive player here in that he's most likely to look at a scenario and conclude that aggression helps his chances of winning. That's just how he operates. It also helps that he's pretty good at it. His combat tactics are generally excellent (which is why his archer onto flatland was really puzzling to me), he's patient with grinding out battles, etc. That stuff doesn't result in him winning, but he can lose with style and take someone with him for reasons nobody really knows.

So you're wanting fireworks, you pick him and give him a scenario where he's likely to resort to bloodshed. Give him the appearance of being boxed in (even though he has a ton of good spots to settle), give him the best military UU in all of Krillmod, and make sure he has the necessary strategic resource to use that UU. Then if you really want some excitement, put him next to a reasonably good team and watch the sparks fly. And be sure to put the ivory halfway between the two to encourage Commodore to head in their direction. Oh yeah, and let's see all the funny quirks of it being OUR TEAM specifically he's next to:

1) We are Zulu. Yes, same Zulu Commodore had in V1 of this game (PB5)
2) Cyneheard chose to ded-lurk our thread, the second guy who got Commodore'd with Zulu in PB5
3) Pindicator is on the team, the first guy who got Commodore'd in PB5
4) NobleHelium is ded-lurking, the person who has a mildly uncomfortable dislike for Commodore that is basically personal and not just a game-related thing

So... this is all just a coincidence right? RIGHT!?!?

[novice]

Okay, so this map nonsense. CONSPIRACY THEORY/RANT TIME. This is supposed to be total random right? Seriously though, let's think this one through.

I've been theorizing for a bit that we've had way too many coincidences here. So let's see, take Commodore. He's the most aggresive player here in that he's most likely to look at a scenario and conclude that aggression helps his chances of winning. That's just how he operates. It also helps that he's pretty good at it. His combat tactics are generally excellent (which is why his archer onto flatland was really puzzling to me), he's patient with grinding out battles, etc. That stuff doesn't result in him winning, but he can lose with style and take someone with him for reasons nobody really knows.

So you're wanting fireworks, you pick him and give him a scenario where he's likely to resort to bloodshed. Give him the appearance of being boxed in (even though he has a ton of good spots to settle), give him the best military UU in all of Krillmod, and make sure he has the necessary strategic resource to use that UU. Then if you really want some excitement, put him next to a reasonably good team and watch the sparks fly. And be sure to put the ivory halfway between the two to encourage Commodore to head in their direction. Oh yeah, and let's see all the funny quirks of it being OUR TEAM specifically he's next to:

1) We are Zulu. Yes, same Zulu Commodore had in V1 of this game (PB5)
2) Cyneheard chose to ded-lurk our thread, the second guy who got Commodore'd with Zulu in PB5
3) Pindicator is on the team, the first guy who got Commodore'd in PB5
4) NobleHelium is ded-lurking, the person who has a mildly uncomfortable dislike for Commodore that is basically personal and not just a game-related thing

So... this is all just a coincidence right? RIGHT!?!?

If only you knew how many times Krill had to reroll the map.

[scooter]

If only you knew how many times Krill had to reroll the map.

Yeah, takes awhile to get this perfect of a setup to roll randomly.

[scooter]

Also, I'm going to wind down on whining too much about Commodore's choices here early and just roll with it, but indulge me One More Time as we examine his capital:



First of all, this capital is beautiful. It's all riverside, seriously. But the main part - MARBLE. I'm going to hit enter a bunch of times while you process this.









Okay, you haven't closed your browser window in disgust. You're better than me. So ok, Commodore has MARBLE and instead of doing something like, I dunno, build Oracle (keep in mind all those flatland tiles were also forested and prime for an easy 1T Oracle). The alternative was taking a settler + chariot and sending them at Zulu. Zulu. A chariot to rush Zulu. And no, he didn't try for Oracle and whiff, as he hasn't even bothered to road the marble. Geez, he could have Oracle'd Maths and got himself close to Construction to kill us and that would have been a very good play. He could have gotten an elephant before we even knew ivory existed! We would have had minimal Impis because we wouldn't have built NEARLY this much military had he not showed up to threaten our land.

Also, he's got a nice horse island off his west coast to get him IC routes and a capital that has easy access to it. Just pointing out - he could have easily gotten himself into the lead of this game by taking advantage of the tools he was given rather than just resorting to initiating conflict at first opportunity because... I dunno why actually. I know he likes duels (as do I), but I prefer them to be in 2 player games, not 11 player games.

[scooter]

Turn rolled. Commodore hasn't played so I didn't move or change anything, but I did take a look around. And... go Azza!



Putting those horses to good use . We'll have to cancel these fairly soon, but the 10T hasn't run out yet I don't think. He's whipped a bunch of times in the last half-dozen turns, so he's apparently done a nice job of making the most of the horse to fight off Lewwyn. Tough draw by him to get no horse or copper next to an excellent and aggressive player, so I'm glad to see he's not giving up despite losing 2 cities.

[pindicator]

Shit, I am jealous of that capital.

How about we just whip a half dozen impis and take it / pillage it into the ground?