That's Grimace. Only a mere 9 tiles almost directly east of us.
Also Commodtay is exploring the same direction as me. He moved his scout to the same tile I was planning to go to. So my only guess is that both him and retap are somewhere to my North/Northeast.
I chose BW as the next tech. Military prowess is going to be needed early, at least to deter the neighbors. I just ran a sim (column B in my spreadsheet) that got us by T47 all the way to Mining/BW/Agri/Fishing/Wheel(and most of Pottery), with C1-Size4, C2-Size5, C3-Size1, and with 2 Warriors & 2 Workers. Could have an additional warrior out by then too probably, but in my sim I had C2 start a Barracks. This plan also has 4 mines (one of them being the gold), and roads where needed such that all cities have access to the Gold as of T47. I'm going to run one more sim to also make more detailed notes for which tiles the cities would be working and more details for the worker actions, but I think this is likely going to be our best plan....until things change.
Oh, and you can see an annoying Bear up in our north. right now we just have to hope that it goes away by the time we need to send our settler up there on T28. Maybe it'll eat retap's scout, which is probably going to be headed our way.
New turn is up. Nothing all that special to report other than that all the rest of the civs researched whatever tech they were going for (so now everyone has a score of 38), and Buddhism was founded.
And now officially met Grimace. Will need to decide if want to go around his city on the east of him to then circle back home, or if want to skirt his border on the west side on our way home.
So I logged in to quickly check something with the map and noticed that on his turn Grimace of Celtia (SPI/IND) adopted Buddhism. So that was him who got it. At least that means my next-door neighbor didn't go straight for a military tech. So that's one thing that's good.
Also realized afterwards that I shouldn't have been in such a rush to play the turn last night when it rolled. Since I went first, then Grimace played, with Commodore playing after that....Grimace only saw my scout this turn, so all his EPs will be going into me for at least this turn and he won't know until next turn that Commodore also came down to find his borders.
Also I decided that I'm going to send the scout along Grimace's western border (ie. the side closest to me). Realized I should uncover all the land between us as quickly as possible so that I can determine how quickly he might expand towards me. That vertical strip of 3 Peaks makes for a nice wall between us, with the 3 lake tiles expanding that "wall" further north. So his only easy approach to me would be around the southern side of those peaks, so need to see how far that "wall" extends to the south.
Interesting Notes
-that double corn, holy 4th city batman. On the water, with a river wrapping makes this more defensible than otherwise. Wow, that's going to be disputed territory.
Meeting Retep + Commodore + Grimace by Turn 8,...that's much faster than other games. We seem to be a little cramped here. If we don't have copper in our BFC there might be a bit of a race for it. With this kind of proximity we may need to react to pink dots or possibly defend our own. So Wheel could be the next high priority. After that we may have the option of an axe rush. As much as this sounds like a bad, fun idea landing any of those luxaries and/or double corn probably won't be accomplished without it given how tight the map appears. I think that we want our EPs into Grimace first so we can keep track of his power and determine if an axe move is warranted or not.
That bear puts a major kink in our Size 2 plan. Is it injured? Did it eat Retep's scout and/or is bringing our scout back to finish him off an option? On further scouting, it's less valable than in the past. With Open borders arriving at Alphabet, there's less urgency for the trade routes. Conversely, with OB coming so late we won't know the lay of the land once cities and culture show up.
I didn't get a chance to look at your latest sim. I do want to say that a SIM with a 3rd worker is better. There is a ridiculous number of forests up there and we want to capitalize on this as much as possible. Not to mention that we have a competitive advantage in producing workers which dictates that we ought to have more. If not wheel I'd consider Fishing before Agriculture due to the high number of seafood vs one grain tile.
On opponents: Retep with WLP ded-lurking. WLP/Retep won the greens game of PB11. I'd say Retep was 'winning' or in a winnable position in a close game, but he didn't have the patience to see the game to it's end meaning that he conceeded to WLP. So, they both have decent resumes. Retep is prone to mentally giving up as he did vs WLP in PB13 as well as losing to a Seven impi rush. Retep's also prone to unusual plays (moving his capital away from a PH I believe is what caused him to be rushed by Seven) and taking risks. He treats the game like a game.
WilliamLP is just the opposite. He's very good at micro and calculates everything on a micro cost-benefit. His placement of 5-7th place in PB18 is testment to his skill in that area. He's also capable of absolutely bone-headed strategic mistakes based on that same cost-benefit. For example, he shared a 4-city island with Molach in PB18. He attacked and took the one valuable city (leaving 3-1) and left Molach the remaining city presumably because that city did not have a positive net benefit. Molach, incensed at the loss and with foothold, lauched a counter-attack and ending up costing WLP far more than it should have despite WLP's eventual win in that area. He's incredibly defensive and will only attack a guaranteed sure thing but will maintain a large deterrant army. In effect, he doesn't play the game as a game, but as if he's carefully managing his own money.
I don't see these two meshing too well for too long. WLP won't appreciate Retep's risky moves and/or destroying the defensive sandcastle that he'd want to build. Conversely, Retep could grow tired of the game and hand over to WLP. If they don't quarrel and combine the best of each (WLP's micro + Retep's initiative) they'll be contenders for Master Commodore & DTay.
Grimace? This is good news. He's Spiritual and Industrious. He's gone for a religion. He'll probably try to get Stonehenge. He should be substantially behind in output if he makes these plays. Take advantage of him before he can leverage his religion. This guy will be completely unable to react to a pink-dot given his other objectives. He's actually the best person to be next to. I thi
(March 17th, 2015, 10:27)MindyMcCready Wrote: Interesting Notes
-that double corn, holy 4th city batman. On the water, with a river wrapping makes this more defensible than otherwise. Wow, that's going to be disputed territory.
Yeah that is a pretty spot. Though with how close Grimace is to my east, I'm sure that spot is likely closer to whoever is in my north (likely either Commodore or retap).
(March 17th, 2015, 10:27)MindyMcCready Wrote: Meeting Retep + Commodore + Grimace by Turn 8,...that's much faster than other games. We seem to be a little cramped here. If we don't have copper in our BFC there might be a bit of a race for it. With this kind of proximity we may need to react to pink dots or possibly defend our own. So Wheel could be the next high priority. After that we may have the option of an axe rush. As much as this sounds like a bad, fun idea landing any of those luxaries and/or double corn probably won't be accomplished without it given how tight the map appears. I think that we want our EPs into Grimace first so we can keep track of his power and determine if an axe move is warranted or not.
I agree, this is going to be quite the interesting game with a lot of early wars. With any luck (and some skill) we won't have too much trouble before we are able to get out our Landsknects. Copper in our BFC will probably be a key thing, so let's cross our fingers. But it's also highly likely that to balance the cramped map, everyone has Copper in/near their BFC.
My current plan has us getting Wheel on T42, which I think is probably still early enough. Putting off Fishing until after Wheel might be an option. But I'm still pretty sure we'd want Agri before either of those two. If I have time at some point today maybe I'll try doing a sim of the options of changing up those techs.
(March 17th, 2015, 10:27)MindyMcCready Wrote: That bear puts a major kink in our Size 2 plan. Is it injured? Did it eat Retep's scout and/or is bringing our scout back to finish him off an option? On further scouting, it's less valable than in the past. With Open borders arriving at Alphabet, there's less urgency for the trade routes. Conversely, with OB coming so late we won't know the lay of the land once cities and culture show up.
The bear was still at full health, and retaps scout was still pretty far to the east when I saw it. But if retap continues his westward exploration (the direction he was moving), then he could easily meet up with the bear.
(March 17th, 2015, 10:27)MindyMcCready Wrote: I didn't get a chance to look at your latest sim. I do want to say that a SIM with a 3rd worker is better. There is a ridiculous number of forests up there and we want to capitalize on this as much as possible. Not to mention that we have a competitive advantage in producing workers which dictates that we ought to have more. If not wheel I'd consider Fishing before Agriculture due to the high number of seafood vs one grain tile.
I don't fully remember, so will have to run the sim again, but even though I only had 2 Workers at T47, the new C3 was only like 5 turns from finishing it's Worker and both C1 & C2 were in great positions to be able to make a quick (ie. less than 5 turn) Worker whenever we wanted. At some point I'll try a sim with getting one of them produced earlier, but I liked the idea of being able to get C1 to be size 4 and C2 to be size 5 by that time. I didn't sim out adopting Slavery, but that could be done while the settler is moving to the C3 spot. Than we can always whip out a Warrior from C2 with the overflow going into a quick Worker (or just whip out a worker).
Unless we can deal with that bear, your sims should probably switch to the less efficient Size 3.
Realistically, you'd need to revolt as well (which is why your scearnio was ahead of mine I think) to reflect the likely reality. I'm not sure how whipping a [EDIT - warrior] goes, it might be highly inefficient. You get the 30 hammers + whatever the natural build is. Minus -15 hammers for the warrior leaves you with the max overflow which is equivalent to the item you're building (so 15 hammers for the warrior). So it's inefficient buy the natural build amount at least. There might be more inefficiency based on the zero hammers invested.
Gawd I hate bears. Not only are they strength 3 meaning that a warrior on a forest hill has only 71% chance of living but they almost always seem to get favourable rolls. This substantially delays us unless we combine a warrior + scout or unless somebody stumbles down that way.
(March 17th, 2015, 11:57)MindyMcCready Wrote: Unless we can deal with that bear, your sims should probably switch to the less efficient Size 3.
Gawd I hate bears. Not only are they strength 3 meaning that a warrior on a forest hill has only 71% chance of living but they almost always seem to get favourable rolls. This substantially delays us unless we combine a warrior + scout or unless somebody stumbles down that way.
Not sure what you mean by switching to the less efficient Size 3 to deal with the bear. Our size doesn't matter for the bear. All we need to do is make sure that the bear is not on that tile 1E of where he is in that T8 image by the time our settler is ready to move onto our PH spot. If we have to pull our scout back to check that, and possibly sacrifice himself for that check.
As long as the bear is not on either of those tiles next to the hill when we move the settler on to it, when we settle the C2 we no longer have to worry about the bear since it won't enter the borders. Then we just wait until we have an Axe to go kill it.
The Size 3 Sim produced a warrior before the settler whereas the Size 2 SIM produced the settler first then the warrior.
The bear can't be where he is or 1E as you say. I think that the animals only roam a couple of spaces so there's high probability that he is there. If the bear oscillates W-E between the two GFH, we’ll have to send a warrior and bank on our 71% odds. That’s where we’ll need a Size3 SIM to replicate producing warrior before settler.
If instead the bear oscillates N-S between the GFH and the Sheep tile,…well we might be able to sneak the settler in. The scout could be on the spice tile, to determine the bear’s movement.
I do recall one example where an animal was in the culture (having settled with the animal next to me) and the barb animal walked away. However, I have no information on whether that was lucky (barbs sometimes don’t attack) or whether that’s consistent behaviour for a barb animal. Barbs in general will attack a city in the same situation before their time; they won’t cross the culture but will attack once inside it IIRC.
If the bear doesn’t follow a predictable oscillating path, then we’d have some more issues. Also, we need to keep in mind that, even if the bear is following a predictable path, that pattern could be upset by encountering an explorer of any type (hopefully nosy Commodore, Grimace or Retep). If this causes any type of delay for the settler the advantage of the Size2 scenario is gone.
We also have a near identical situation down south where the Gold-PH location has only 1 tile that’s not visible due to culture. If we choose to do Fishing before Wheel that city (as city #2) could work the PHR mine to quickly get out a WB. Not my first choice but unless we figure him out, that bear’s a problem.
Worse case, we go Size 3, we send the warrior and land on the 29% odds. Now we’re stuck and sending the settler the other way or else waiting for a second warrior (and/or scout). That’s a substantial delay that will cost us in this tightly spaced land.
That's also his scout moving north along his own border. So my guess is that he explored south first, and is circling back around to the north.
I'm keeping track of that Bear as best I can. It was on that tile T8, must have moved east for T9, and is now back on the tile again T10 (since it is facing west). So as you said, it is sadly looking to be pacing back and forth between those two tiles. Which does not bode well for us sending a Settler up there unprotected.
I just did a sim (column C of my doc) with trying to get Warriors out before the Settlers, and it wasn't a bad path. It got C3 settled 7 turns late, but it means the settlers have protection (as long as the Warrior can survive the Bear). But that path (I went Fishing before Agri) did get us the techs faster, since I was able to maximize gold better than the other path. I'll try another sim later.
Mindy, as discussed I doublechecked the tech speed in my sandbox and confirmed that it matches the T11 in the actual game currently.....with 43/179 towards BW getting 9 bpt.
If your sandbox somehow isn't teching at the right speed, use the one I attached. It's as of T7 and when it hits T11 it matches the live game.
