[SPOILERS - NO PLAYERS] The Final Clusterfuck: The PB38 Map and Lurker Thread

[Cornflakes]

Did Naufrager actually pull off the double-settler at pop 1 thing other players are calling? I couldn't find any mention/screenshot of it in his thread (and I'm obviously not going to ask him, that'd be majorly spoilerific)

His last post he mentions founding 2nd city, but I didn’t see a recent screenshot of his capital. His sim screenshot shows 3 cities with the capital size 1

[RefSteel]

Yeah, he definitely built his first Settler at size 1; that's why he's first to two cities. (That, and teching BW first and chopping into his Settler as IMP right after improving the Pig.) He's not building a second Settler at size 1 though; from his sim screenshot and his reports, it looks like he's going to grow on a couple more warriors and get another Worker out (in some order) before chop/whipping the next Settler in time to plant around T35.

[Ceiliazul]

Once you've gone 3 years without a game all your accomplishments are handed over to team mates and ded lurkers.

[darrelljs]

You get to keep your failures though.

Darrell

[Ceiliazul]

A more geopolitical look:

It's hard to look past mackoti and Rusten with those neighbours. There are really many veterans in the east, I'd really hate to have Commodores or Pindicators starting positions, plako and Gav have at least one neighbour who isn't a veteran. It's interesting as well that OH + Fintourist who have been aiming for culture got one of those corner positions, let's see how it plays out.

Ok first thing: There aren't enough superlatives to properly reward the time spent on this map.  Judging by the pages and pages of discussion before hand, and the detailed notes on each start, I'm in awe.  Hopefully the resulting drama and plot twists as the game unfolds WILL be sufficient reward!

I feel like I should start taking money for bets on who of Pindicator or Commodore will tilt fist when they discover each other.

My first thought.  

Also:
-I don't know a lot of these new players.  Read the following through a two-year old lens, and my apologies to an new all-stars I haven't read up on.
-HarryTourist with safe backlines?  If William doesn't slow that down, I like their chances. 
-OT4E and Pindicator are on the short end of NeighborStrengthSum.  Much will depend on which direction their frustration is released.
-Sure Joey and Mackoti gotta like their neighborhoods, but how about 2Metra?  If his patience for big games holds out he must be figured into the end game. 
-Might as well pencil in "Mack" on those North-central islands, no?  With William occupied by HarryTourist, only BGN stands partly in the way.
-TBS/Comm/Pin/Plako/Gav... when's the Pay Per View on that fight?  Gut feeling, Plako comes out ahead locally by staying out the way and annexing Bandit... but the overall body count will keep this region back indefinitely. 

Now off to lurk!

[Mardoc]

We have graphs on William so I switched our EPs to OT4E. At some point I'll use these to figure out how far off my C&D so far was.

From anyone else, I would class this as wishful thinking...but FinHarry might actually put in the time !

[JR4]

Did Rusten really discover a t39 riverside Gems resource? Well, that`s certainly going to help him out in a big way. He`s in a good position for sure (and his neighbors aren`t doing too well either).

I fear for Dark Savant here. If Donovan goes all-in with his Holkans, DS will be in trouble. It`s a bit funny how people get very upset over enemy Warriors stepping too close for comfort threatening to destroy the carefully thought-out micro. TBS is probably too rational to go on full tilt over the annoying Warrior sneaking around but he might pay back in due time.

Is superdeath going to attack dtay? A two-front war is hardly what dtay wants right now. The war with BGN could set dtay back a fair bit, I think.

Also, it`s funny how William thinks that Elkad might be the neighbor that settles on Copper and tries to rush a neighbor while the Finharry team have already done exactly that (at least the settling part). If William does send 2-3 Warriors to defend his planned border city with Finharry, things could get ugly quickly. Axes vs Warriors aren`t a fair match. If William could get a sensible western border he`s still in good shape.

[Cornflakes]

It looks like Dark Savant's prodding at Donovan will end up with horrible consequences. The last thing DS needs right now is another diversion from domestic development as he's trying to catch up from this religious gambit. Now he's aroused the wrath of a neighbor who already has little to lose. If he had just turned that warrior around (and/or not met on the diagonal) he might have ended up with a tiny amount of goodwill instead. With Donovan already off to a weak start, a nice peaceable relationship early on would have give DS a little bit more breathing room. 2metra's misfortune with his first settler also would have taken a lot of pressure off from that direction. I'm really hoping that he can ward of any retaliation from Donovan and stay competitive in the neighborhood. Better get that copper connected pronto!

[Coeurva]

I think superdeath will not achieve anything with 2-3 dog soldiers, if that's still his plan, arriving by T50 against an opponent who will have had Animal Husbandry for 8t by then. If his dog soldiers were next to dtay's borders now, I'd certainly think differently, but even then Archery might suffice and BGN's provocation has coincidentally placed dtay's warriors such that he'll likely spot superdeath approaching earlier than cultural borders would.

BGN poking dtay with a pseudo-barb warrior doesn't matter much; maybe if that disrupts dtay's ability to whip axes/chariots at Kusanagi. Dog soldiers perform worse than axes against chariots; if superdeath doesn't add a spear, he'll have wasted 100 hammers before he knows it. Regardless, what does he achieve if he razes dtay's city? He loses 100 hammers and dtay loses 100 foodhammers; everyone around them loses nothing.

Early axe chokes work only if your opponent is starved on both ancient resources (dtay himself demonstrated that in pb13, and even then, TBS had some unlucky rolls attacking out of his city). Even then, you have to make sure that you profit from it more than anyone else. More likely, that's for the map to decide because you won't have so many resources in the Ancient Age.

[RefSteel]

This is a really incredible turnaround: If Donovan Zoi acts decisively and has a little luck go his way (Did he build a third Holk, I wonder? Will he even need one?) ... he could end up right back in the game with a Holy City and another nice, improved city not really even that far away, and bring a premature end to Dark Savant's game! (Yikes!)

Let's go back to a critical moment, when Dark Savant was deciding whether to declare war:

And really, if I built a warrior first instead of a worker first, I get the most value out of it by pressuring some neighbor's worker. That's not normally worth doing in a game with more than 2 humans, but I happen to have it because of my religion play, so why not?

Apparently this is why not, especially if you already know your target had a weak opening - and especially when...

That worker of his is actually building a pasture. So his researched tech is not Bronze Working; it must be Hunting. And he doesn't have anything else aside from his starting techs of Mining and Mysticism, so he's probably actually working on Bronze Working now.

That's from T21, the turn before he declared. So he correctly inferred Dark Savant opened with Hunting and BW, and would get the latter long before he could possibly get it himself - and he knew Donovan was playing as Maya, with its resourceless, archer-murdering Holks.

And to think none of this would have happened...

Either way, I'm wondering if I should move in and declare war. :eek: Or if that lion will let me.

...if that lion had just moved in any other direction than West! SW would have threatened the corner tile, as would S into the fog, and all [EDIT: four] other possible directions would also have been into the fog, so Dark Savant wouldn't have known it didn't move South!

Oh, and one last item: Last game - in PB37 - Dark Savant was the guy effectively reminding another player (Gavagai) not to declare war with insufficient force against a civ that's about to unlock its UU! That's kind of where the parallel ends though....