(May 11th, 2017, 22:38)RefSteel Wrote: Looks like we may need to wait for a reload as well, since no one had a chance to pause for Ventessel when the server finally came back up.
One of the things I like about getting warriors out early is that you can't get them out later: Even if we're not threatened by barbs or other players early on, having a few extra early warriors means no need to burn ~twice as many hammers on back-lines MP units. Also, if we don't have warriors out fogbusting and boosting our Soldier Count, we're more likely to be harassed by barbs or other players early on. That said, there's something that worries me more about Microplan 1: What if the only accessible Copper is in Muqa's second ring, or an even further back-lines location?
I started thinking ... is there any way to get first-ring corn in our second city, and both copper and at least one forward city between the first three? And it struck me ... dare we risk planting Muqa where you originally wanted our third city to be? On that coastal riverside plains forest in the northeast with river corn, grassland silver, and grassland sheep all first ring? And then we could found city 3 for copper if necessary.... It probably depends on who's up in the north there, but I did come up with a plan that still gets e.g. the worker T34, Bronze Working T36, etc. Maybe it's too risky; that northern neighbor wouldn't be amused when they spot the city (unless it's Krill and he's already moved way off in the opposite direction, obviously) but I thought I'd put the idea out there, just in case....
A reload is quite likely unfortunately. I`ll just have to wait to play the turn until Ventessel has had a chance to respond.
The idea of moving Muqa to the great spot in the NE is interesting. It sure is risky, but if we can get away with it, I think we`d be in a strong position.
Pros:
We`re moving directly towards a neighbour, which is obviously good.
An early luxury. We can hook up that silver at will, increasing the happy cap earlier than the other plan. It also has wet corn and sheep first ring for food.
That site is the best by far we can see. It`s so strong after a border pop that it will be way better than Borte I think.
Cons:
This city will not get an instant trade route and (probably) cost an extra coin in maintenance. Compared to the other site that`ll mean 3 beakers lost on every turn, until we can get a road built. It`s gonna take some time. Demands a lot of worker turns to get that silver mine, pasture and farm done.
Not sharing any tiles with the capital. Will probably be a bit slower in getting up to speed.
Could be difficult to defend. If we go for this plan some warriors would be needed for safety.
Conclusion: I`m tempted to go all-in for that strong spot. It`s bound to be slower than the clams-sharing alternative in the early days, but having a foothold in the NE in such a good region is worth a lot. How strongly do you feel about going NE?
(May 12th, 2017, 03:26)JR4 Wrote: Cons:
This city will not get an instant trade route and (probably) cost an extra coin in maintenance.
My expectation is that it'll cost an extra gold in maintenance, but my plan was to complete a road (T31) that would accelerate its settlement and get it onto our trade network as soon as it's built (T32) and also let the Worker start improving its corn on the earliest possible turn (also T32). (See below for the micro...)
Quote:Demands a lot of worker turns to get that silver mine, pasture and farm done.
True, but only because they're all great tiles that we want to be working.
Quote:Not sharing any tiles with the capital. Will probably be a bit slower in getting up to speed.
True: It would be planted one turn later, grow to size 2 two turns later (EoT37 instead of EoT35) and generally be a turn or two "behind" for a while. Borte would get to use all its good tiles for (nearly?) all this time, but it would be turning food into hammers in a Settler and/or Worker (lame due to Exp) instead of into growth.
Quote:Could be difficult to defend. If we go for this plan some warriors would be needed for safety.
That's the big one. It's 6 tiles from Borte, 8 tiles from our presumed notheast neighbor, and perhaps 9 tiles from a due-east neighor as well. Warriors would defend early, but it would want a barracks ASAP for cultural defense and vision, and we'd probably want at least an axe/spear pair there fairly early on as well.
Quote:Conclusion: I`m tempted to go all-in for that strong spot. It`s bound to be slower than the clams-sharing alternative in the early days, but having a foothold in the NE in such a good region is worth a lot. How strongly do you feel about going NE?
I don't feel strongly, honestly: I think any second city site we've uncovered would be a gamble, but of different varieties. Planting to share the clams might force us to delay either copper or a territory-claiming plant until at least our 4th city. Planting the super-site on the northeast isthmus risks angering a neighbor when we'll be light on military.
My inclination would be to find out who our northeastern neighbor is and decide on that basis. If it's Krill (MIA - i.e. no contact in spite of super-familiar terrain) - great; go for the northeast site. If it's dtay, definitely not. With the others, I'm not sure, partly because I should have been asleep hours ago (but still have some last stretches I need to do for my feet; don't wory, I'm getting them done as I type this).
Some specifics in case they help, in the form of Candidate Microplan #3:
Instead of the stuff described below, the worker could start by acting exactly as in Candidate Microplan #1, with the first change coming on T25, when the Worker would move 2N to the forest north of the river; in that case, the micro below would apply from T26 on.
T14: Worker begins a Road.
T15: Worker completes the Road.
T16: Agriculture is complete; tech Mining. Worker moves NE-SE though Borte to the "river" grassland tile beside the rice, begins a Road, and then CANCELS orders.
T17: Worker moves E to the Rice and begins a Farm.
T18: Borte is now size 2; Work Boat is complete, moves NW to the Clams, and Nets them. Borte resumes building the Warrior and works Cows + Clams.
T20: Warrior is completeand is available to scout more of the local area and/or move to fogbust the future-Muqa region; Borte starts another Warrior.
T21: Worker completes the Farm.
T22: Borte is now size 3, and works Cows + Clams + Rice. Worker moves 1W back to the partly-roaded grassland and completes the Road.
T23: Mining is complete; tech Bronze Working. Warrior is complete; Borte starts building a Settler. Worker moves 1N to the floodplain, begins a Road, and CANCELS orders.
T24: Worker moves 1NW to the river grassland just north of Borte, begins a Road, and CANCELS orders.
T25: Worker moves 1NE to the river grassland forest a knight's move from Borte.
T26: Worker begins a Road.
T27: Worker completes the Road. Note this road connects to the river, which in turn connects to Borte, all inside our territory, so continuations of this road will be on our trade route. (Confimed in sandbox.)
T28: Worker moves 1NE to the grassland SW of the Sheep and begins a Road.
T29: Worker completes the Road.
T30: Settler is complete and moves N-NE into the roaded river grassland forest. Borte begins another Worker. Existent Worker moves NE to the Sheep and begins a Road.
T31: Worker completes the Road. Settler moves 3NE to the site of Muqa.
T32: Worker WAITS until Settler builds the City of Muqa. THEN Worker moves NE-N to the corn and begins a Farm. Muqa begins a Barracks and works the Corn. Set Research slider to 20%.
T33: Set Research slider to 100%.
T34: Worker is complete at Borte; Borte starts a Warrior or Settler...
At last the turn arrived. Ventessel played his turn so I assume that he`s fine with losing a turn of scouting. It`s not the end of the world anyway. I decided to follow microplan 1 atm, as I like the road on the grass hill to save a turn on a mine later. As expected, our scout found our northern neighbour. Take a look at that. It could have been better I guess. It will be tremendously risky to settle up on dtay. If we do, we should make sure we can defend our front city (cities). As you said, Agg/Pro Zulu is very strong in the early game. Oh well, nothing we can do about that.
(May 12th, 2017, 07:23)RefSteel Wrote: My inclination would be to find out who our northeastern neighbor is and decide on that basis. If it's Krill (MIA - i.e. no contact in spite of super-familiar terrain) - great; go for the northeast site. If it's dtay, definitely not.
In fact I don`t think we should rule out that north-eastern plant just because we border the Zulus. It is actually on our side of the half way line between our capitals. Sure, it`s an aggressive thing to do, but will dtay really go to war over a site that`s "ours" by definition? I think he will be quite content with building a city somewhere between his capital and our proposed Muqa site. And another point: dtay is not a very aggressive player I think. He`s very good at getting the snowball to roll fast. I cannot remember reading about any early dtay wars.
Thanks for asking after my health - but don't worry! I'm up way too late way too often because my work schedule is highly erratic, but I actually managed to sleep pretty well last night (wellllll ... this morning) anyway. Also, yesterday was pretty terrific. The stretches (well, the ones I was doing at 5 AM last night / this morning) are to control plantar fasciitis. I'm always walking and standing, so keeping my feet from hurting when I do is really, really important, but the thing about them is that they work! (At least for me....)
In PB13, his very first game on this site, dtay established his incredible early position partly by rushing Jowy following Jowy's forward plant even though the plant actually connected copper! If he knows he has impis vs warriors, and he knows that city exists, I doubt if he'll hesitate. I won't say we can't do it, but unless we see something unexpected that changes the calculus, I think it would be an enormous risk.
International News again, spoiled for length, with one exception:
Coeurva continues to be weird: I was wrong last time, so he's either being really indecisive or trying to disguise his tech intentionally. Thing is though ... he started with fishing and mining, and it's not like he's teching sailing here, so there isn't a whole lot of uncertainty that the tech he just finished is Agriculture (no soldier count increase means it's that or Myst, which ... yeah) - so he's flopped back and forth between that and Bronze Working at least a couple of times (maybe with something else mixed in for sport). He's back to teching BW now. Okay.
Also, I was wrong about the other three EXP civs: One of them still isn't working a Cow Pasture. My best guess is that Gav decided to improve his rice before his cows, going for maximum growth ASAP, since he's the only EXP civ that has Agri yet. I'm interested in seeing how his start plays out, even though he didn't try a crazy Pottery-first type of opening.
GermanJoey still hasn't played, so he was (I'm assuming) still working his forest hill while building a Workboat when we saw the demos. This may or may not continue this turn, but either way I expect him to start working his pasture next turn.
Ventessel is probably also just continuing to tech BW, although I think I said he was building a Warrior last turn (while working his clams?) for some reason; in fact he's surely building a Work Boat like GermanJoey, and could well (but might not) be working his forest hill as well. Since he has Agri+Mining (as China) but not Hunting (yet) his worker might finish a mine (to speed up his workboat) the turn after next, or finish a farm on the rice the turn after that instead.
Krill is still building his Worker and researching Future Tech or whatever. If his score ever rises above 30, I'll try to figure out what it means.
dtay, as Tokuzulu founded in place T0, started a Worker, and teched Fishing, working his Floodplain. On T5, his borders popped and he started working his Oasis. T6, with Fishing complete, he started on Mining. T12, his worker finished and probably started to pasture the cows, though our Scout couldn't get close enough to confirm before moving east. I'm going to guess that like us, dtay probably decided to time growth and the Workboat to come in at the same time; he's probably working the clams while waiting for pasture to complete, and will switch to it next turn. As of this turn at least, it looks like he isn't working either of his two forest hills. (Both are in sight of our Scout this turn; the snowy one obviously grew during the course of the game.) We have to assume that he's teching Bronze Working for now, and will beat us there by 8 or 9 turns.
So about Muqa:
With the assumptions above, I think dtay can get a Settler out the same turn we do (EoT29) with a single chop, but in that case would do so with just a single Warrior yet produced, and still be several turns away from The Wheel. I don't see him rushing Muqa with warriors even if he builds more (delaying his first Settler by multiple turns) and inexplicably delays BW - so it's all about the Impis, as it's always been.
He'd need a lot of luck to produce an Impi before EoT34 even by whipping a part-built warrior to upgrade in the queue: Copper would have to be on a river at the capital itself. He'd need a decent amount of luck even to produce an Impi before say EoT36: There are seven specific tiles outside the capital BFC that he could connect T34 or T35 if Copper appeared there. And there is a chance, if connecting copper requires enough roads, that he'd end up unable to connect it any sooner than we could hook our own.
All of which means, while it's still a risk to plant Muqa on that site, there's a better chance than I thought that we can get away with it ... even against the Zulu. And I guess we have at least another week to (potentially gather more information and) decide.
Hmmm, dtay has a flood plain to his SE, while we don`t. Lots of bananas in this area! Looks pretty similar to our SE. Maybe we can find out if there`s land to our SE by scouting the corresponding area of dtay. Next turn the scout will have a look at his capital. I don`t expect any surprises there.
(May 13th, 2017, 00:02)RefSteel Wrote: We have to assume that he's teching Bronze Working for now, and will beat us there by 8 or 9 turns.
All of which means, while it's still a risk to plant Muqa on that site, there's a better chance than I thought that we can get away with it ... even against the Zulu. And I guess we have at least another week to (potentially gather more information and) decide.[/spoiler]
That`s right. We don`t have to decide on which city site to choose just yet. Have you taken into account the turn of anarchy dtay has to eat before swithing to slavery? And Muqa would have to be size 2 in order to whip out an axeman. I think it has to invest al least a hammer the previous turn in order to singlepop-whip it the next turn. it`s surely difficult to predict the exact turn that the first impi would arrive if copper is (reasonably) close to his capital.
We still have a solid backup plan by going for the clams-sharing option. I`m a bit torn right now.
Yeah, the turn of anarchy is included in my (rough) calculations. If anything, I didn't give him enough credit: There might be (a few) more than 7 potential copper tiles that would allow him to whip an Impi as soon as T35. That would be a costly plan for him, of course; I'm not sure he'd actually want to! And if he hasn't scouted that way yet, or isn't paying very close attention, there's a fairly decent chance he won't even know Muqa is there for some time. Planting up there is a gamble, but it isn't suicide.
Muqa has to put 5h into an axeman before it can be 1-pop whipped. (This is a weird way things are different from Marathon: The difference in the cost of units isn't the same as the difference in the value of whips and chops, even though the difference in the cost of buildings is.)
Also: Note two people completed warriors EoT14. One was Dark Savant, which was expected. The other was definitely not Krill, and definitely not Couerva, but it's hard to explain for anybody really. The only other Exp player who lacks fishing is my best guess: Gavagai. He could have produced a warrior e.g. by working his forest hill for the last three or four turns, if Ventessel has been working his clams all that time, and Occam's Razor says that's what happened. It could also or alternatively mean there've been fireworks, in the form of an attempted scout choke somewhere, but I'm not seeing it right now.
