(August 19th, 2013, 12:18)WilliamLP Wrote: They both burned their anarchy turns, and Bacchus may be doing our choking and pillaging for us, LOL.
That's Baccus' second DOW on Retep right? Once on T22 and now again on T33. They weren't just passing through this time. So why would they DOW a second time?
-It's too risky for a scout to sit on a resource at this point in the game, so that's unlikely.
1. Baccus is simply having fun with a warrior choke. Unlikely scenario as Baccus should know that a warrior choke will, at best, get an even hammer exchange.
2. Retep had a warrior in the area and Retep's new settler was passing through? Guarded or unguarded,...win or lose that's going to piss Retep off.
3. Baccus got XP from a hut and has a WII warrior. Maybe picked up a worker? We'll need to be careful with our workers, see below.
4. Baccus saw a strategic resource in Retep's BFC and wants to deny him.
#1, #2, #4 are all great for us.
#3 also pretty good but we'll have to be careful.
(August 19th, 2013, 12:18)WilliamLP Wrote: I find it a little strange that we've explored this much land in an 18 player game and only met two people.
Yeah, I'm a little surprised too. That gold-corn city is no longer quite as valuable now that there's an easy way around the lake. It only has its own merits of corn + gold + hill defense + mucho river tiles.
(August 19th, 2013, 12:18)WilliamLP Wrote: After thinking about it a while, I decided to loop back around the lake to the SW, both to see what's around the city site, and also so that W2 quechua can be closer to home since he could be useful in some tactical scenarios and fog-busting for settlers.
So you're going to put our WII on the hills and continue SW?
I think that you should head up north-East. Baccus' scout is there already so you're unlikely to find any huts in that direction. Better chance back up the other way.
Also, I value the intel to our West more than our south. I think that it's likely that we'll find Baccus down there while the East is a greater unknown.
Yeah, I can't puzzle it out either, why there would be a second DOW, unless he's actually trying to do damage. If he was doing it for scouting info he should have already gotten it.
I'd say a W2 warrior is very unlikely, but... well...
Good points to keep in mind about those invisible tiles that could be in range of a W2 snipe. The capital has an amazing vision sentry radius in all the right directions but Fab city not so much. It would be great to get borders expanded there ASAP but unfortunately it's going to take a while until we get pottery, unless we get a miracle random religion spread.
Sorry, I already did the SW move with the scout yesterday, but I didn't post the pic. I think it's very debatable which way is more useful to know. My gut says there's nobody very close in that fog to the NE, because how could they leave a hut unseen as late as they did, but I could be wrong. Going SW a bit I think has a decent odds of showing a third player's capital borders, which would tell us if that site we want is "ours" geometrically. Also the deciding factor for me was the value in moving him closer to home and the next couple of settlement sites, since as W2 he's ideal for preventing bad die rolls against barbs when a settler is in transit to a site.
I wish we still had our first scout but if wishes were horses, they'd appear on that funny plains tile 2SE of the gold.
There's our rival for the SE border. I'm guessing it's Ichabod / Bandit (Matahachibod) from the in-game colors, but I don't really trust my reading of that, since the color scheme for the score list is different than the one for the map borders. (Anyone know if there's a comprehensive list of colors for Civ 4 per civ, with both the schemes linked up?)
That border is a second city, not a capital. Now, A) He doesn't know we're his neighbour, unless he's seen our borders and backed off without contact. B) He doesn't know we have a W2 quechua. So the "obvious" move of SW might be a waste of a surprise. I'm thinking NW next, then SW and see if there's a forest connection that maybe could snipe a worker for us.
Gold is improved, and BW is effective next turn. After that we can decide on a third city site. Wheel after BW seems obvious.
Retep shows no signs that he's doing anything at all to his E, not even chopping forests.
It turns out I wasted a worker turn putting a mining turn into the ph. I thought we had one to spare, but the worker should have moved onto a forest this turn to start chopping next. Sorry, noob mistake. (Reload request plx!)
Ah, the sweet demos. And this is before we grow onto improved gold next turn! I'd much rather be lucky than good, at least in a Civ 4 opening.
Wow, so that's not Baccus?!?! The civ is where I thought that it'd be,...just not who I thought that it would be.
So that likely puts Baccus to the SW of Retep given he encountered us on the SW on T20? Hmmmm, that might explain the second DOW a little more. A real choke of a land rival. If that's the case, then good for us. Are they still at war? Any indication that it wasn't just a pass through? Any drop in Retep's food/production/power to indicate a real choke?
I was going to post my latest choke picture,...but that might not be necessary now.
We can get a settler much earlier than that I think. We have two chops that could finish in 4 turns, plus the option to whip. I'm not sure how to best work the micro right now, either start a settler right away, or maybe slow-build another military unit to size 5 and whip. I'll do some planning and micro on this.
Yeah, it makes no sense to talk about a third city site before seeing copper. It's a key to everything - even a peacemonger can see this.
I agree Bacchus has to be somewhere to the south of retep I think (who probably started 3-4 tiles north of his "natural" start). If he had been to the east, I think he would have run into us first. I didn't see anything weird about retep's graphs yet. I still wouldn't rule out someone to the NE of light blue, but if so I bet they'd be further E along the coast, too far to be an immediate threat.
I really wonder what the world looks like. It kind of feels like a big open Pangea blob right now, with some water and peak chokepoints. But maybe we're the blind people feeling one part of the elephant and there are some more interesting water connections elsewhere.
I haven't played the turn yet, but I will just leave this here:
Without the copper, we could build a quechua + archer, and grow to size 5 in 4 turns, and then double-whip + chop a settler ready for turn 42. With it, the new worker should obviously just improve it! And we need a grand total of 1 road in our empire to start building copper units.
Options are:
1. Settler straight up, aided by chop and 1-pop whip.
2. Quechua + archer + grow, then settler.
3. Quechua + archer + grow, then worker, then settler.
4. Immediate 3rd worker.
I kind of like the third worker before a settler right now, since we'll have a lot of roading and chopping to do.
- Barbiere slow-builds a worker. It doesn't really have much use for being size 3 right now, and it has hammers in an archer for an emergency whip.
- Turandot builds a quechua and an archer in the next 4 turns. Then it will either build a settler (with chops + whip probably), or yet another worker.
- Quechua is scouting S a bit by retep's borders.
I think our next city should be the pink spot! Copper's covered, and at 7 tiles away we know that nobody else is closer. After that may be "backfill" to the floodplains site east of Barbiere, and then we either get the seafood site or work west.
The bottleneck for the pink dot seems to actually be worker turns and roads. Without any it would take a settler 6 turns to walk to the site, so every road we can get down speeds up the settlement, which is why I'm thinking of going for a 4th worker before a settler, to give a bit of time after wheel to start roading a route.
that might explain the second DOW a little more. A real choke of a land rival. If that's the case, then good for us. Are they still at war? Any indication that it wasn't just a pass through? Any drop in Retep's food/production/power to indicate a real choke? 
