[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[novice]

My understanding was the size = huge, but the map is manually set to be "large" size for maintenance/tech purposes.

Hm, yeah that rings a bell.

Edit: Why don't you just use the goto trick to check the map dimensions.

[pindicator]

Updated Worker Plan: thru t54


I found a pretty big flaw in my last worker plan:  namely that growing the capital to size 3 without a MP before turn 46 will cause it to grow into unhappiness.  Add to that the fact that I feel we are really behind in the growth curve (first having slow traits, and second in Commodore's aggression), and I've changed my idea for what our next dozen turns should look like.  Naturally feel free to poke holes in this, and I'm sure details will change, especially in the later turns.  And they could change a whole bunch if we find horses somewhere nice.

To help readability I'm going to list out the whole chart for easy reference, and then I'll go turn-by-turn to explain what we're doing with the workers and why.  If I'm really good then I'll add pictures tonight.

With the table below, assume every action is only for that turn.  Just because a worker farms or chops on one turn does not mean he will continue that action the next.  I'm canceling all worker actions at the end of every turn, to prevent mistakes.

Turn	Worker 1 "Clyde"	Worker 2 "Terry"	Worker 3 "Geoff"	Worker 4
43	farm rice (3/5)	farm rice (4/5)	chop (1/3)	-
44	finish farm	S-E, chop (1/3)	[td]chop (2/3)	-
45	S-E, chop (2/3)	SW, mine copper (1/4)	finish chop	-
46	SW, mine copper (2/4)	mine (3/4)	road (1/2)	-
47	finish mine	W to forest	finish road	-
48	N-E, finish chop	road (1/2)	NE, cottage (1/4)	-
49	W-SW-SW to forest	finish road	cottage (2/4)	-
50	road	chop (1/3)	cottage (3/4)	completes in Red Wing at eot
51	finish road	SW, chop (1/3)	finish cottage	SW-SW, chop (2/3)
52	SW-S, farm Wheat (1/5)	SW-S, farm Wheat (2/5)	E-NE	SW-S, farm Wheat (3/5)
53	farm (4/5)	finish farm	chop (1/3)	N-NE, finish chop
54	N-N, farm (1/5)	N-NW to stone	chop (2/3)	NE-N, cottage (1/4)

Turn 43

Clyde & Terry continue farming the rice.  Geoff begins a forest chop that will go into the settler being built in Trailblazers.

At EOT:

Animal Husbandry (112/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (24/100)
Red Wings - Size 2 (16/24), Warrior (6/15)

Turn 44

Clyde finishes the rice farm.
Terry moves to the copper to start mining it next turn.  In order to not waste a worker-turn, he moves S into Red Wings, then E on the road, and puts 1 turn of a chop into the forest.
Geoff continues chopping his tree.

At EOT:

Animal Husbandry (137/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (34/100)
Red Wings - Size 2 (24/24), Warrior (7/15).  Growing to size 3

Turn 45

Clyde does the same maneuver Terry did last turn, moving S-E, and putting 1 turn of a chop into the tree.
Terry moves SW to the copper and begins mining.
Geoff finishes his tree chop, putting 20h into Trailblazers

At EOT:

Animal Husbandry (162/161).  No overflow due to rounding

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (64/100). +20h from forest chop
Red Wings - Size 3 (8/26), Warrior (9/15).  New citizen works unimproved copper

Turn 46

Clyde moves SW to the copper and begins mining.
Terry mines the copper.
Geoff starts a road.  Unsure about this action, but we have 6 turns until Trailblazers needs to work a tile, so I figure 2 turns for a road to let us come back to the hill, and 4 turns to cottage.

At EOT:

Sailing (21/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (74/100).  Whip anger now at 1 citizen / 10 turns.
Red Wings - Size 3 (16/26), Warrior (11/15)

Turn 47

Clyde finishes the copper mine.
Terry moves west to the forest.
Geoff finishes the road.
Recommend that our archer be on the forest SW of Red Wings, or SW-SW of Red Wings, to protect Terry in case of barbarians.

At EOT:

Sailing (42/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (84/100)
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Warrior (16/15).  Warrior completes

Turn 48

Clyde moves N, then E along the road and finishes chopping the forest.  Hammers go into Red Wings.
Terry starts a road on the forest.
Geoff moves NE, then cottages the riverside grass tile.


At EOT:

Sailing (63/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (94/100)
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (34/60).  +20h from forest chop

Turn 49

Clyde waits until after Terry finishes the road, then moves W-SW-SW, out of cultural borders and onto the forest SW-SW of Red Wing.  We need the archer to be covering this tile this turn.
Terry should go first and complete it's road.
Geoff continues cottaging (2/4)
Archer needs to be 2SW of Red Wing to protect workers.


At EOT:

Sailing (84/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (18/24), Settler (104/100).  Settler completes
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (47/60)

Turn 50

Clyde roads the forest 2SW of Red Wings
Terry chops the forest it's on
Geoff continues cottaging (3/4)
Settler moves SW-NW-W, to roaded forest beside Red Wings


At EOT:

Sailing (105/161)

Trailblazers - Size 2 (24/24), Warrior (8/15)
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (60/60).  Worker finishes

Turn 51

Clyde finishes roading the forest 2SW of Red Wings
Terry moves SW after Clyde roads, then chops that forest for a turn
Geoff finishes the riverside cottage.
Worker #4 moves SW-SW, joining Clyde & Terry, and chops that forest for at turn
Settler moves W-SW-SW, to the same tile that Clyde, Terry, and Worker #4 are on.  Archer on this tile!


At EOT:

Sailing (129/161)

Trailblazers - Size 3 (6/26), Warrior (12/15).  New citizen works cottage
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (13/60).  This could also be a settler for the gems site.

Turn 52

First Thing: Settler moves SW and founds City #3.  Then:

Clyde moves SW-S and farms wheat (1/5)
Terry moves SW-S and farms wheat (2/5)
Geoff moves E-NE to riverside forest, NE of Trailblazers
Worker #4 moves SW-S and farms wheat (3/5)


At EOT:

Sailing (153/161)

Trailblazers - Size 3 (12/26), Warrior (16/15)
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (26/60)
City #3 - Size 1 (2/22), Granary (2/60).  Works unimproved wheat tile over lake (speeds up granary whip); if we decide not to go granary first then lake is probably better.

Turn 53

Clyde farms wheat (4/5)
Terry finishes wheat farm
Geoff chops forest (1/3)
Worker #4 moves N-NE and finishes forest chop, going into City #3.


At EOT:

Sailing (179/161)

Trailblazers - Size 3 (18/26), Granary (5/60).  Or worker.  Or something.  Starting a lighthouse next turn
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (39/60)
City #3 - Size 1 (7/22), Granary (24/60). +20h from forest chop

Turn 54

Clyde does something.  NE to mine hill.  Or E to chop forest.
Terry moves N-NW to stone hill.
Geoff chops forest (2/3)
Worker #4 moves W and starts a farm.  Or moves NE and chops (2/3) to help speed worker/settler in Red Wings.


At EOT:

Masonry (51/128)

Trailblazers - Size 3 (24/26), Lighthouse (8/60)
Red Wings - Size 3 (24/26), Worker (52/60)
City #3 - Size 1 (12/22), Granary (26/60)

[NobleHelium]

My understanding was the size = huge, but the map is manually set to be "large" size for maintenance/tech purposes.

Hm, yeah that rings a bell.

Edit: Why don't you just use the goto trick to check the map dimensions.

Chance of scooter doing that: nil.

[pindicator]

Which is also the same chance that I do it

I will say that the game design was to have a huge map that was modded down to large for maintenance / cost. If that didn't happen then oh well, it isn't being changed at this point.

I can say that there are 3674 land tiles out there, which means 204 tiles per person, or a little more than a 14x14 square of land. And that would put everybody about 14 tiles apart, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at 13 tiles between capitals. Although it is surprising that the largest distance between neighbors is Lewwyn & Us at 16 tiles apart.

[pindicator]

Turn 044

Commodore is continuing to dump EP into us, past the 43 needed for demos. He's currently at 48ep and we'll have to watch how high it goes. I'm going to resist the urge to say he's doing it out of brainless malice, and instead guess that he only has met 2 people so far. Either us and Jester/Nakor, or maybe there's someone farther northwest of him? Hopefully his warrior can head south and meet someone new so we can catch up.

I did wait for him to move first before playing, and am pleased to see that we've caused him at least as much of a hiccup developmentally as he caused us:





He went from 71 points to 70, so that looks like a 1 pop whip to me. And I'm willing to bet it wasn't a planned one. Here's hoping he dry-whipped a warrior.

Question for warrior scouting: Do we peek north to the hill on the coast now? Try to see if his capital is coastal? (Please please please please) Or do we head southwest and fill out some of the fogged area between our cities? Or scout the coast and the gold on the way back to the capital?

With the updated worker turns, we need to have our archer south sooner, so I started moving him that way. Commodore's warrior has continued S or SW, out of sight regardless.

Demos:



First of all, 54000 power this early is nothing to sneeze at. Someone has some heavy military investment going on. Probably one of Bacchus / retep. Of our neighbors, I think we're top in power. We have more than Jester & Lewwyn, and I bet we have more than Commodore considering his whip. It's the other demos I'm worried about, but once we started growing these cities and stop spamming workers and settlers we should start to bounce back.

Lastly, I'm going to include a link to the first post for Plans. So any worker plans, wonder plans, military ... whatever. We'll have a way to easily reference them.

[BRickAstley]

My understanding was the size = huge, but the map is manually set to be "large" size for maintenance/tech purposes.

Correct.

Also remember, there's 18 (!) teams. Even huge maps get cramped then.

[NobleHelium]

Or we declare war and move northwest??

[pindicator]

Or we declare war and move northwest??

I'm leaning towards it. But I expect to see a unit on that grass hill when our next turn comes up.

[scooter]

Or we declare war and move northwest??

I'm leaning towards it. But I expect to see a unit on that grass hill when our next turn comes up.

Well, the only unit that's killing a woodsman warrior on a forest hill is an axe. It's not at all impossible that he has an axe as he likely prioritized it heavily and he did get his 2nd city down extremely early, but it's still not super likely either. I dunno, I'd lean towards just going for it. The visibility alone would be very valuable.

[antisocialmunky]

I'm for sitting on the hill, and making it so he can't setup his food.