[spoilers] - Pindicator makes America great again!

[scooter]

Truthfully, what's hurting us is picking America. China would be awesome here, and Egypt would be fine. But I think America pretty much forces our hand for going wb first. Maybe the other options will see that different, though!

Are you having second thoughts?

One bummer here is the units and settler appear to be starting stacked. If that remains, we won't be able to move a unit and get visiblity to inform a potential settle-on-sugar plan.

[pindicator]

Nah, no second thoughts. The start is meant to be slow all around and us having fishing instead of mining to start won't matter more than playing the turns well. I'm just trying to squeeze blood out of a stone and was getting frustrated when it didn't happen.

I'm also fairly certain moving the capital is going to be a bad idea. This is more for meta reasons, though: why let us pick leaders off a starting bfc only to have tiles just outside the screenshot be big enough to impact the decision? If there's any bonus food visible from that plains hill I'll be shocked. And then upset.

Plus, the theme is just too much fun to give up on

[scooter]

I'm also fairly certain moving the capital is going to be a bad idea. This is more for meta reasons, though: why let us pick leaders off a starting bfc only to have tiles just outside the screenshot be big enough to impact the decision? If there's any bonus food visible from that plains hill I'll be shocked. And then upset.

My only hesitance to agree is that this map is supposedly lightly edited, and Calendar resources tend to clump together pretty drastically. If there's, say, 2 more sugar in BFC range over there, moving might work out after all. I guess it just depends on whether we think the mapmakers went out of their way to assure nobody lucked into a much better situation by wandering.

It does depend on how the unit situation is going to be like you just asked in the general thread. I don't think it'll be easy to really evaluate moving the settler until you've actually got a chance to move the starting units in-game.

I did install the mod last night intending to try simming out a couple weird variations just for kicks, but then I realized we don't have an updated sandbox right now. There's got to be a way to re-save it to work in a mod, right?

[pindicator]

That's a good point or two. I'd definitely expect them to have accounted for the plains hill plant, especially since the scout can move there on t0. But the sugar 3f plant is lesser used and could potentially have been overlooked. At least, until we started talking about it

[pindicator]

4. Settle on top of the southern sugar for a 3f plant.

Well this one is interesting:

Build Order: Worker (12), start 2nd worker on t13, swap to warrior t14 and grow to size 2 (18), swap back to worker and complete it with chop (24), finish warrior (25), chop out settler (29)
1st Worker: farm northern sugar (17), have nothing to do for 3 turns, move to forest (21), chop it into worker (24), move to forest (25), chop into settler (28)
2nd Worker: move to forest (25), chop into settler (28)
Tech Order: Mining (7), BW (21), Hunting or Wheel (29)

I didn't assume anything in the fog, so this one only has the potential to get better. It's also a few hammers from getting the settler on t38. But again, we're only looking at an farmed sugar for tile improvements, as opposed to

I was going to say here that being Toku would be great for Wheel ... but then I remembered that the only reason to chop out a settler like this with no improved tiles (well, unless you count the farmed sugar) is because we're IMP.

It does mean we're going to have a sub-par capital, barring something great in the fog. But we're also IMP, so, we can just sit the capital on size 3 and work a cow, and 2 mined hills and pump out 6-turn settlers.

Something I don't like about any of my builds so far: not much for scouting units.

[scooter]

4. Settle on top of the southern sugar for a 3f plant.

Well this one is interesting:

Build Order: Worker (12), start 2nd worker on t13, swap to warrior t14 and grow to size 2 (18), swap back to worker and complete it with chop (24), finish warrior (25), chop out settler (29)
1st Worker: farm northern sugar (17), have nothing to do for 3 turns, move to forest (21), chop it into worker (24), move to forest (25), chop into settler (28)
2nd Worker: move to forest (25), chop into settler (28)
Tech Order: Mining (7), BW (21), Hunting or Wheel (29)

I didn't assume anything in the fog, so this one only has the potential to get better. It's also a few hammers from getting the settler on t38. But again, we're only looking at an farmed sugar for tile improvements, as opposed to

I was going to say here that being Toku would be great for Wheel ... but then I remembered that the only reason to chop out a settler like this with no improved tiles (well, unless you count the farmed sugar) is because we're IMP.

It does mean we're going to have a sub-par capital, barring something great in the fog. But we're also IMP, so, we can just sit the capital on size 3 and work a cow, and 2 mined hills and pump out 6-turn settlers.

Hmmmm. It's an inherently faster start. If we find anything food-like or significant green in the fog, this is probably a no-brainer. It also allows us to settle an early city (how quickly depending on whether we find anything better in the fog) between the clams and dyes which we can be confident is safer than normal and can save us some worker turns.

I'm waffling on what to do if we don't see anything though. Is plains hill start worth considering? I hate walking away from the river which is why I dismissed it a little too quickly, but maybe that's underestimating short-term (and snowball) upside.

Something I don't like about any of my builds so far: not much for scouting units.

Well we'll have a starting scout and we'll have a second warrior pretty quickly, so I think that should easily allow us to scout out our first 3 city plants without endangering ourselves - 28 turns is enough to do a pretty significant scouting radius, especially since east is ocean and north is jungle which limits our options. I guess what I'm saying is we don't need to scout all 4 directions (or rather we can't even if we wanted to), so it should take less time than usual to scout out our viable options. If we all start with a scout, it's not like a warrior is going to pop out of the fog prior to T25 and end you. I don't know, I'm less concerned about this unless there's something I'm missing.

[scooter]

I feel I should clarify something that I think we both know, but it bears saying: this is 100% your game. I only want to follow along and chip in opinions. So please don't make any decisions to appease me or something. I'll still be opinionated as usual, but I don't want to repeat mistakes from the last game where I unwittingly push you into making a decision you don't want to make which kills your fun. I don't plan to play any turns (nor could I even commit to that right now) unless you're absent or something and need a fill-in.

I mean sure, I want to be VP of Charlemagne's America and all, but more like a Selina Meyer than a Frank Underwood.

[pindicator]

I can't understate how happy I am that you're chiming in. We've had some very enjoyable games together, and I'm sorry our last one went the way it did in the end because you're an awesome teammate and a great asset for this community. Commodore sent ne a note a week or so ago saying how happy he was to see you posting in my thread, so I'm sure there are many others happy to see you posting here as well.

I mean sure, I want to be VP of Charlemagne's America and all, but more like a Selina Meyer than a Frank Underwood.

We know which one the lurkers would prefer

I am very tempted by the sugar plant, enough that I think the first move when we game goes live is to move the scout W. I'll take a look at the plains hill plant too just to be sure, but I suspect it isn't as good.

I mentioned scouting units because I didn't see anything indicating barbs were off, but IIRC we get the first combat win for free on Monarch difficulty so the scout should be able to get the area around the capital scoped out without too much trouble.

[scooter]

I can't understate how happy I am that you're chiming in. We've had some very enjoyable games together, and I'm sorry our last one went the way it did in the end because you're an awesome teammate and a great asset for this community. Commodore sent ne a note a week or so ago saying how happy he was to see you posting in my thread, so I'm sure there are many others happy to see you posting here as well.

Glad to hear it . Yeah, seeing you signed up for this sparked some interest in following along with a game for the first time in quite awhile.

I mean sure, I want to be VP of Charlemagne's America and all, but more like a Selina Meyer than a Frank Underwood.

We know which one the lurkers would prefer

Oh I think I've done Frank Underwood enough - remember the only games at RB I've ever solo-won were Diplomacy games.

I mentioned scouting units because I didn't see anything indicating barbs were off, but IIRC we get the first combat win for free on Monarch difficulty so the scout should be able to get the area around the capital scoped out without too much trouble.

Hadn't even thought about barbarians. My Civ instincts are suuuuuper rusty.

[pindicator]

Hey scooter, i probably won't be able to play between Friday night to Sunday night. If the game starts this weekend how do you feel about playing the first turn and posting what the scout reveals?

If you're not comfortable with it I have no problems telling ppl to hold the start until Sunday.