[SPOILERS] Will: Thread title to be decided

[WilliamLP]

So, Harry spotted my scout with a warrior. This is fine, it means I can get his demo graphs a little sooner. They'll see my scout facing west and the W1 promotion and know my capital is fairly close, if they don't know that already. (W1 probably rules out a very long path since I had to heal after a wolf fight.)

My chances of actually winning this game have gone from about 0.5% to 0%. No matter how good you are at it you need a consumable neighbor or two to win in a field this big. Or, be TBS and find a way anyway.

I have a decent micro plan to settle my second city on T35, with two workers ready to improve the sheep. I'm thinking now I'm going to get Pottery before Agriculture, because cheap granaries and cottages are going to help me more than the dry wheat tile, and I think it's enough to sacrifice the prereq bonus by doing it out of order. But a little more testing is needed.

Thinking a bit about my settling strategy, I'm considering taking the hill SE of the fish in the norther borderlands. This would make a nice permanent border city to suit my paranoid defensive style of play. And it makes a bit of lemonade out of my lemon starting tech. The strategic idea is to give up a little space in the center and counter by taking a little more on the wings, and establish some control of the coast. All such plans are loose though, until seeing copper.

I wonder if I have to worry about some sort of rush. Harry is surely bee-lining Bronze first, and could pull some very early slavery shenanigans to get an Imp settler very quickly. If he has copper in the capital, one axe could ruin all my dreams. So I need to keep a really close watch on this.

However, he's Ind with _both_ stone and marble in view, and I can't imagine this not informing his short term plans. And he saw me play turtle chess against Retep in PB13, so my guess is he'll have enough respect to not try an immortal or axe rush. Still I want those graphs.

[WilliamLP]

Harry has had his warrior camped for a few turns 1N of its current spot, and he just advanced it south. He seems to have chopped a second worker at size 2 and has grown to size 3. He'll surely settle another city in a few turns with an Imp settler. I'd bet on an Oracle game plan right now, with a focus on the marble, especially with that river for trade connection.

I need to figure out what is to the south. There is certainly going to be a player there, but Harry has run full EP against me so far. Of course they'd know to do that even they had a prior contact.

This makes me think I ought to make a strong claim in the center. Now, I'm not one to blame the mapmaker. But look at how he has corn and sheep right on his side of the central stone while I have nada. And he has easy marble. I do have some decent stuff in phants, furs and gems. But maybe my forward spot to attempt for the stone is 1E of the dyes. He'd have to settle on corn to get the stone or else win a culture war and I have a small culture boost (cheap barracks) while he has none. He's going to be worried about wonder micro and I can focus solely on the border. I might need archery soon for this. But, he's not going to want to invest heavily at a military disadvantage.

Settling on wines SE of stone would be nice if there were a first ring food tile, but without it that city is just too much economic liability this early.

It seems I'm already a little off the metagame growing to size 4. 3 other players have done so, and two others have settled their second city. The rest have settled on size three. I'll probably be in the lower half of timing for planting my second city. But I don't think it will be that bad. City 2 will be planted while roaded to the capital with 2 workers on the hill sheep ready to improve it in two turns. My reasoning for the extra growth is that the forest elephant is enough like an improved tile that it can't be that bad to grow to work it.

[Ceiliazul]

My chances of actually winning this game have gone from about 0.5% to 0%. No matter how good you are at it you need a consumable neighbor or two to win in a field this big. Or, be TBS and find a way anyway.

However, he's Ind with _both_ stone and marble in view, and I can't imagine this not informing his short term plans. And he saw me play turtle chess against Retep in PB13, so my guess is he'll have enough respect to not try an immortal or axe rush. Still I want those graphs.

Can't be 0%, cuz you're still alive!  Respect certainly is worth a lot in this game: Proving you can win a fight is a lot more expensive than not fighting at all.   Have you met any other neighbors?

[WilliamLP]

Woot, I have a lurker. No second contact yet! But I should find a player to the south in 2-3 turns with my scout, I think.

If my first contact had been Aretas, I would have revised my chances of victory to about 3%. This is my game to get the rust off, and my play was never quite as good as the very best here. I can tell, just by the level of detail that handful puts into their analysis. But indeed, I shouldn't view my chances as exactly 0 I guess. But I still consider making a strong showing and lasting to the end a small victory.

To strictly maximize my chance of a win, my plan would be: try to find the perfect dagger vs Harry, exploiting the fact that in his probable Oracle plan he's going to need to pull out all the stops which would leave some vulnerability. (I'm not ruling that out, still, btw!) I'm still actually kind of kicking myself for not marching my first warrior to the west to keep him honest and throw a wrench in his plans. (I wouldn't expect to do actual damage.)

Here's the lay of the land around home:

Not shown, there's a grass hill pig and a non-fish seafood on the little N peninsula.

I'm not impressed with my dotmap options. The northeast first ring is literally a useless wasteland. C2 is my plan for the second city as the only reasonable site to grab two (mediocre) food sources in first ring. (The SE deer / clam site would permanently mess up my dotmap.)

If I settle B as my third city, beelining to Harry's capital, I wonder if that is a permanent war declaration. Maybe I have to do it anyway. If I could get B and D, that would basically lock down the stone. Mindy would be screaming for that hill SW of B, but nope, I'm not going to fall behind on food like that with my third city. That site doesn't ask for war, it forces war. Then again I am Agg though... Perhaps I really shouldn't be this avoidant.

Harry revolted on T27, which means his settler was built. This means a city should go down either T28 or T29. I will also get his graphs one turn earlier with the loss of EP. I expect tremendous strategic advantage out of this fact.

In my sandbox, I'm already salivating at what I could do with Pottery a few turns earlier. I really did drop the ball not passing on Japan and eating beaker loss in Fishing. Oh well, it's a learning experience. As well, I'm willing to bet growing to size 4 was a slight mistake in the long run. I messed up my warrior scout micro a bit, but that doesn't bother me much. Variance is scout micro is nothing compared to variance in being eaten by a lion or not.

Meanwhile... my province just chose Doug fucking Ford as the conservative party leader. I'm shocked and in disbelief that politics have gotten this bad.

[Fenn]

As a fellow Ontarian, I'm just as amazed and dismayed. The Tories are nutters, the Liberals are a constant source of disappointment (privatizing hydro, really?), and the NDP are just hopeless.

Anyway, you've got my support. Go and kick their teeth in!

[WilliamLP]

No voice on either side, to put down the pitchforks and have a sane rational adult conversation on any issue, is what depresses me the most.

Edit: I think I may have found a new weapon in the thread view wars.

[Ceiliazul]

That's funny, in the us it's the conservatives who want to privatize .gov power agencies.

Just goes to show that politics isnt about principle, it's about money.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[CML]

Incorrect, unless you're calling the Clintons conservatives—which I would

[WilliamLP]

Ok, Harry and Fintourist are definitely going to suspect I’m planning a war now, with this thread activity!

I encourage any and all political griping in here.

[CML]

Bellum omnium contra omnes!!!