[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

Which tech were you oracling? Are you playing India?

MC, and yes we are playing India.

[The Black Sword]

Hmm, I remember getting that "cheaters never prosper" thing a couple of times in tests, didn't happen all the time though and I wasn't sure what it was connected to.

I don't think we ever even discussed another tech to oracle, none of the other options are great and we wouldn't want to delay much in an 18 player game. Monarchy and triple revolting with OR/slavery is the only thing that might come close, but we'll have double pre-reqs on it and are well set on happiness with religion/gold/ivory. The Colossus is going to be great with Financial on this map.

[Jowy]

Now we can properly celebrate! We've gotten off to a good start, but we will need to continue kicking ass if we want to beat these pros.
Also 47 gold from a hut! Was hoping for a double freebies this turn, oh well.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I think we deserve another of these smilies now.

We managed to beat dtay's scout to that hut by 1 turn! He was standing on the tile when I logged in.
I feel better about building that scout now that he's shifted the odds on 2 huts.
There's also the first barb warrior running around the area:



He is facing away though ...

That wheat looks very tasty, would be really nice to know how close dtay is here, the copper city means we need to settle past the lake for first ring wheat. I doubt it's worth moving though. We could try to find him along the coast and have the option of open borders with Sailing.

I see you left a warrior guarding Dr Tachyon, but it doesn't need the happiness for a while. I was originally thinking of sending him to the copper city, but that's looking safe now. Maybe he should just sit on the hill in the north and fogbust until needed? I left him where he is for the moment.

[Jowy]

1W of the wheat could work for a future city. On a hill, first ring wheat, grabs a wine for us later, lots of forests. Still some unfogged tiles that might make it even better. Gotta find Dtay so we can tell how far we can safely expand. And if we expand that way, we also need to unfog a lot of tiles so we can plan out our cities. Let's hope the scout has a long and healthy life! Do what you want with the warrior, I just like to keep some around the roads, maybe fogbusting would be a better idea :P

[The Black Sword]

K, I sent him north to fogbust for the minute.

[The Black Sword]

Heh, moved the warrior out to fog bust and unit supply went up, guess that can wait until the copper city is founded. Settler is out in 2t.


The scout went through the forest to avoid the barb, which predictably didn't reveal much.

[The Black Sword]

dtay is close:


There's also a lion on the plains hill forest 3E.

I need to think about this for a bit. Assuming he couldn't have popped borders in his second city yet, that must be his capital. Settling that plains hill looks really difficult.

I also noticed that open borders has been moved back to alphabet in RB mod, so we'll need to rely on our own trade routes for a long time. We should be careful with the scout so, since a war dec to kill him won't trash the trade bonus. I don't really see the point in scouting north now, that will pretty much be ceded to him.

Even if we moved the copper city 1 forward, he could still settle that plains hill himself and get the wheat first ring.

So, I guess continue as planned?

[Jowy]

Check if it's really his capital, and not the borders of two cities mashed up. If it's his capital, then we need to give up that wheat spot. If not, then I reckon we should try to get it. Keep an eye on his strategic resources. We should be able to defend the wheat city if we get there, it's on a hill and only 4 tiles from our copper city. Dtay is Germany so he doesn't have any early UU to kill us with. Those forests alone on that city are worth a ton. Honestly though, I'm not the best guy to ask about how far we should settle :P In PB9 I was way too passive and ended up with less land than the others, then in my next PBEM I went aggressive and ended up losing a far out city. Still trying to figure out the golden middle road.

[The Black Sword]

I moved back to the Ivory square so he couldn't hit the scout with a warrior. We see he has copper hooked up, but nothing that looks like an actual unit on his power graph(forgot to take a picture.) Unfortunately, no trade route yet to check for horses:



Those borders do look like third ring capital to me, but then his cities are named East City and South City. If those are accurate to geographical location, this could be their borders. That still needs a border pop in East City(his second) though, it would be quite a weird move to get a monument so early.

Here's an overview of the land so far:


Assuming that is his capital's borders we see, that wheat is 8 tiles away from both of our capitals, just our route is more diagonal. And if that isn't his capital, then it's even closer to us. So, I think we should try for the wheat. We have a couple of options:


Option 1 is our current plan, and if we want the wheat, we settle on the plains hill 1W. That city would have to be city 5, with a reasonable chance we lose it or skip blue dot, which is a great city. Btw, the grey filler is pretty much unsettleable I think, until dtay is dealt with, as it opens up some good forks for him. It's also very likely that dtay will have control of the deer. That's the same in all cases though.


This is option 2, that I've been mulling over today. Orange is on a plains hill, taking 1 extra turn of travel time compared to the first plan. It does need a border pop quicker for the cows, but the extra first ring forests are also handy. We can then settle green to pick up the gold and the flood plains. The capital is going to pop borders again not long after blue dot is settled, so I think this could be timed to work the plains cow straight away, gold in first ring for the happiness.


Option 3, which I don't really like, tries to redeem the crabs. This still has the forking issue though.

I like option 2 I think, we're not missing out on much good land past the wheat, beside the forests. It's also in the middle . Another thing to keep in mind is that we could use the marble to put the Temple of Artemis in the front city down the line for a mini-culture bomb.