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City number 2 founded, named:
WILFORK!!
Pats Player summary:
I'm going to do one of these from now on. I didn't bother for Tom Brady, since the greatest QB of all time needs no introduction (if you're going to dispute that, not the point, let me have my fanboy bravado . He's at least top 3. Anyone besides Brady/Manning/Montana doesn't deserve to be in the conversation)
Vince Wilfork, #75 (knew this one without googling, I won't for everyone), Defensive Tackle:
He's been with the patriots since 2004, the longest tenured current player besides Brady, and as well as the only one besides Brady left from the superbowl winning patriots of the early 'aughts. He's a monster in the trenches, a giant space-sucking nose-tackle that stuffs the run and at least until his recent injuries would consistently command and defeat double teams. Two years ago I would have said he's the 2nd or 3rd best player on the patriots roster, though his age, season-ending injury this last year, and the recent acquisition of Revis might have knocked him down a few slots.
Notably, for a few years (09-11) Wilfork was basically the only brag-worthy aspect of our defense. We were mediocre against the run, horrid against the pass, but at least we did have 1 player worth talking about. You didn't have to respect much about the Patriot's defense, but you did need to respect the Will of Wilfork.
Two favorite Wilfork plays:
Monster tackle against someone not used to being hit by 300+lb linemen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g51UuV8umOE
And one of his (two !) interceptions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tYb-leyxVw
All right, back to civ:
So Wilfork the city will be pretty sweet. I don't really have to really make spec decisions for a bit, but this looks like a good production powerhouse given ample food, 4 grassland hills, 3 plains hills, and a forest ivory. Weird to have the floodplains in a production city given I usually feel they go better when cottaged, I'll have to figure out how that will work. If I didn't have a happy cap I could just farm them for massive food bonuses to feed all the hills, but well, happy caps exist...
I can share at least 1 of the floodplains with a city down here. Prospectively thinking about 1NE of the plains cow. Need to see how Whosit border develops though
Speaking of that, scout reveals (after checking to make sure I wasn't double moving him) that Whosit has some pretty nice stuff down south. His 2nd city is certainly going this way not north given the land up there is only meh forhim, hopefully he focuses his attention down here so I can iron out a border to my liking.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Fiddling with thoughts of trying to found Judaism.
I want Ag->pottery first, but I think I can put off animal husbandry for quite a bit by just avoiding the deer and settling other spots first (there are plenty of great spots to settle).
The hard part is the 33 players make doing c&d to keep track of opponents after this basically impossible. And the lurker civ. If I say the two civs who founded Hinduism and Buddhism won't chase it (possibly bad assumption, TBS got Hinduism+Judaism in PB13, only for me to raze the Jewish Holy City... around t70 ) anyway... so if I assume Hindu/Buddhism owners won't immediately compete for it, I could narrow it down to the other civs that started with Mysticism as likely competitors. Of course, someone could have popped Mysticism from a hut like me... ugh
So C&D is hard, but if I get city#3's gold online quickly I should have a pretty high research rate. And the payoff for a religion here is soooo highhhh.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Scout landed next to a wolf. I should be fine, i have +200% from terrain + scout-animal-bonus + promo's. I'll probably have to heal afterwards though.
Nothing interesting happening up at the cities.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Joined: Jun 2013
Current plan has city 3 founded t38, with 3 workers extant and 2 warriors (2 more warriors to complete in the next 2 turns).
1 workers will just be improving Wilfork in that time period, Pasturing sheep and cows. Probable next move is going to a grassland forest hill, chopping for 2 turns, mining until pottery completes, and then chopping in a granary. Possible alternate plans have the chop be used for a 4th worker or a settler.
The other 2 workers chop out a settler in Brady, with intermittant roading, then road the path to the new city site just in time for the settler. They then (guarded by both warriors) begin pasturing the pigs and mining the gold.
Hopefully that gold can power me to Judaism. I'm seriously thinking abotu this path. 1) Religion = great. Don't need to reexplain. 2) I don't NEED any more improvement techs for a while, I can find plenty of things to do with cottaging + granaries + worker/settlers. 3) I'll be wanting Monarchy sooner rather than later anyway b/c of my wine spot (and who doesn't love an early supercap).
Once pottery comes in I'll be in a hurry to cottage up all the capital's riverland grass. This is a strong argument for that worker #4 above, since he'll be very useful for that.
Not sure where 3rd settler is going to come from yet, or where he'll go to.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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3 cities on t38 sounds pretty slick!
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t50 for city 4 in sims right now.
This one is taking longer because I'm choosing to grow the capital up to happy cap to get the cottage-machine running, so the settler is coming out of Wilfork (after the 4th worker).
I think I can improve the worker micro for this though. I make the settler eot47, but I have to trudge through unroaded jungles and stuff to get to the city site. This can hopefully be improved upon.
Nice side of this is the capital buildup results in like 5 (i'm guessing, it was 4-6, forget) more warriors out, which will be great for mp later on (I hook up bronze t52, could be earlier but I prioritized a cottage over it). In the short term it will help cover this not-really-aggressive but could-look-aggressive plant against Whosit (I'm talking about the spot discussed earlier on the sea with Whosit).
So there will be 3 warriors around to babysit the plant. That obviously won't do anything if Whosit sends an ax, but certainly stops an idle check.
I would really really really love to not be in such an early ancient age war. And I don't really know how Whosit will react to a city plant 6 tiles from his capital square (it is also 6 tiles from mine, thus the not-really-aggressive but could-seem-so moniker). That distance is over a little sea though, perhaps that will make it "seem" further?
I think this is the best strategy though. It's one of the two good spots I can settle without border-popping, AH, or fishing, and the other spot is in the backlines so I don't want to prioritize it.
After the Judaism run I'll tech fishing->AH->Sailing almost for sure, then probably writing->math->etc all that good stuff.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Ok, improved sim by switching out a mine for roads to new city. Mine was only being used for 2 turns before being whipped off, so road + 1 t faster settling time outweighs 2 hammers. (This tradeoff is in fact so obvious that not sure what I was thinking with the first go through).
Here's a shot of the actual land before we go into sandbox, which notably has a bunch of just random grassland and no Whosit borders:
I'm also now noticing I had what is in reality a jungle be a grassland in my sandbox, which will slow down the worker in reality by a turn. Luckily this won't actually change any of the timings because is ALSO noticed I have the river drawn 1 spot too long. Those two mistakes combined allow the (improved) fix axtually of roading grassland cow -> SE jungle-hill, still in time for settler and now the road doesn't go over a river. Worker loses it's turn moving onto the jungle before roading as opposed to after roading, which is fine.
Anyway, so here's the slightly-inaccurate sim:
Wilfork (Aksum) has a worker chopped out, worker from the now-bare-hill moves to chop another, built worker goes and roads cows, then moves to road grassland (not in realty, see above) whille guarded by 2 warriors
Off on the other half of the empire I skip over the copper to start a cottage for the capital to grow onto. (Making it the shared cottage is certainly better, so he'll cottage a diff spot in reality)
2t later, chop then whip out settler. Note the worker is done with roads 1t ahead of time, so the adjustment above is fine
Worker moves to sheep to pasture when city founded, 2 warriors on settler, 1 warrior off providing LoS/scouting (should stay out of sight of Whosit border so as to not freak him out)
Over here capital now has two cottages. Either cottage could be exchanged for the copper mine (has 1t into it right now) if I felt the need for more security. That current has move either goes to chop forest for a capital settler or goes to mine.
City founded t49 now
Improvements to make:
1) Considering settling 1E of current location. It's on a hill, so more defensible. Farther from Whosit by land (though not as the crow flies). It's a worse city In that it doesn't share cows / future floodplains with Wilfork and the plains cows become 2nd ring (look at actual shot, I don't have them in the sandbox b/c laziness).
2) Road through the jungle-hill instead of grassland (since the river is actually 1 shorter and grassland actually jungle). Road is now better, allows flexible choice of the two settling locations and doesn't cross a river.
3) Trade a cottage for copper so I can build an ax. I'll certainly make this change if Whosit sends a unit up north so he realizes the lay of the land up here. Otherwise, not sure
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Included shot again since I'm going to discuss it (come on turn, ROLL)
So if you look closely as the fog in Whosit-land, it appears that the northern three tiles in his borders are from west to east Forest-Coast-Coast. So the north of his land is actually "Isthmus" -> Jungle -> Fog. Doesn't look very attractive from his PoV.
The tiles he can see are the line Forest-Jungle-Jungle north of his border, then a lot of the coast, then the plains cow and the grassland across the seas. Also not appealing. Can't draw too strong conclusions from this, but to the extent Whost's map knowledge means anything is points away from him contesting me up north.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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Mine finished, 1t put into a road. Both workers will go to forests to chop next. City grows to size 3 on a warrior, then works Grassland-Cows + Mine + Plains Forest Hill for just enough overflow to speed the next settler by a turn.
Scout came out of its fight with just 1 more scratch.
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
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its a shame the scout fights weren't *before* you popped the xp hut... instant Epic!*
Assuming unwoody scout survived the fights to pop the hut, of course.
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