[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[GermanJoey]

1N of the clam requires a city 1N of the peak in order to still have a 7f fish tile... I guess we need to see what else the scout uncovers.

3 Granaries by T50 does sound appealing, given our lack of food...

[GermanJoey]

I just think the start is slow and we just have to accept that.

Well, of course. We'll have what we'll have and that's that. We still want to figure out how to optimize what we have though!

[Krill]

The worker movements are a challenge, but that is where we need to work out optimization. For example, to get a granary in city 2 we need to work out how to get the cow improved on time. It either rush the cow and work the wheat tile.for one turn, and the cow for 6, or a 4/2 split with only one worker needed.

[Krill]

Slightly more difficult turn this turn, for scouting movements.

Turn 9




Barb animals are spawning, but at this point they are just XP for scouts. Unfortunately there are forests along the coast, so moving back onto the plains hill and along the coast is slow. Quicker to run around this peak and move onto the hill under the fog 3S2E of the scout location in this picture.





Scout moves should be S - SE, SE - NE - heal. But the scout has 99.7% odds of victory (famous last words, I lost a couple of these battles against barbs in PB42).





Next turn we need to choose between a warrior and a scout build. By my reckoning, if we go with the granary into size 6 triple whip, we can build three 15 hammer units before the whip comes in, in which case I reckon scout is the smarter move, and send it NW (another reason why a supposed 6 turn delay in settling the second city isn't actually that unreasonable when we have no food for cities, we have no way to get enough units out to cover first two cities and a further settler.

[Krill]

Pre-turn 10 Scouting

Joey, we need to discuss scouting. Now that we have uncovered all the land around the capital we can do with the scout, we need to decide what to do with it.

We also have to work out what resources we want to throw at scouting, what is available other than that invested into settlers and warriors. The relevant information is that Pottery is completed eot28, so if we want to, we can then beeline AH and have that researched by around T40 (Hunting done first, obviously). Or we could have Archery done by T35.

What I’m thinking is this: If we go with the triple whipping of the settler on T39, we can have both workers in position to pasture the cow on T42 (city settled T41), with the road in place for trade route commerce. We would need a single warrior in the capital on T37 (size 5 city, 1 whip unhappy, so needs MP), and a further warrior to defend the workers on the roaded tile on T40 (as they will be outside culture. The triple whip option gives us 15 hammer units eot23, 33 and 37, or we could amalgamate some of these hammers to go for an early scouting work boat.

We have the option of getting a scout out now, and getting a good 15 turns worth of scouting against barb animals, before we could bring it back to act as a fog buster to the north (until T50 and capital border pop, the north is not safe as the plains ivory tile is never barb busted unless we have a unit on the grass hill NW of the northern rice). I don’t think we can do anything with a warrior, and we can still build two warriors before the settler, and the one warrior we need to cover the workers can use the roads to get into place on T39 before we need to move the worker pair on T39 (the settler can stay in borders). And we can even bring the scout back as extra cover from barb animals, as barb warriors shouldn’t spawn before T40 I think.

But if we don’t want to rush the land scouting, we could instead get two warriors earlier, and save 15 hammers towards that scouting work boat.

The other point is I think I want to work out what the coastline is to the south, because I’m not sure how we can scout to the west with boats? Or is this a reason to get the second scout, to try and find where the western shoreline is? And where our neighbours are. Next turn we have an option to move the scout (providing that the lion doesn't get insanely lucky) to either move the scout NW - Something, and we can either scout deep looking for neighbours, or we can go S - SE or E - SE, and continue to map the coastline. What I just realised is that the two forest tiles south of hte square lake are snow covered, so we know we are in the southern hemisphere and there should not be neighbours down that way. If there is a single neighbour to our south, then we will be crammed in pretty tight for a map with 200 land tiles per player.

Regarding the continent layout, snaky continents doesn't give globular shapes: given how far south the land goes, there should be a coast somewhere nearby to the west. What we don't know right now, is if we will get an opportunity to settle that coast because neighbour locations may mean we never naturally settle that coast before a potential war of conquest. We also don't know if the little bit of land around the ivory coast are separate islands, or our continent wrapping around. Given how the coast runs straight south, I expect the plains hill sheep area to be another continent or island. Realistically, I reckon we want to consider a galley/scout/chariot being sent to the north IMO, rather than just a scouting work boat. We can send a scouting work boat to the east if we lack the hammers to send real scouting parties in both directions (and obviously we do lack such resources).

Do you have any thoughts, now that we have completed your original task of “Find the first couple of city locations”?

[GermanJoey]

I'm definitely inclined to prefer the extra warrior over the extra scout... this is already a slow start, so we should be frugal with hammers. 15h into a warrior now is 25h that we don't need in an archer later. (on that note, even that early scouting workboat I had hoped for before the game started is probably unrealistic). That would mean bringing the existing scout back towards the NW to act as cover. (as well as scouting our W a bit). We can always get another scout later; the map is big enough that I don't feel like neighbor pressure will be an early concern (e.g. look at PB22, which was also a TBS-made map on the same mapscript), and the land itself won't change.

Early AH seems like a decent idea. Early chariots would let us delay a copper hookup for quite a while, and get extra hammer-savings from garrison warriors. I suppose we would also need to finalize the location of the city near the clams... if we want it 1N of the clams, we don't need Mysticism right away, but if we want it 1W or 1SW of the clams, we do want Mysticism when that city is planted. So, either Pottery -> Hunting -> AH, or Pottery -> Mysticism -> Hunting -> AH?

[Krill]

I'm definitely inclined to prefer the extra warrior over the extra scout... this is already a slow start, so we should be frugal with hammers. 15h into a warrior now is 25h that we don't need in an archer later. (on that note, even that early scouting workboat I had hoped for before the game started is probably unrealistic). That would mean bringing the existing scout back towards the NW to act as cover. (as well as scouting our W a bit). We can always get another scout later; the map is big enough that I don't feel like neighbor pressure will be an early concern (e.g. look at PB22, which was also a TBS-made map on the same mapscript), and the land itself won't change.

To be clear: we can't safely move a warrior outside our borders until the barb animals disappear around T40. And if we are planning to get a galley out by T60, we would have to dedicate a 15 hammer unit to fogbusting duty anyway until that time when we would build the additional scout, so I don't see how a scout is worse than a warrior, and only how it is better: we can get 15 turns worth of scouting out of a scout, but we can't with a warrior. And the scout is of more value in the immediate sense: if we do not use a scout to explore, then we need to build a 30 hammer chariot to do the same scouting later on (so we would realistically need 2 chariots, one on a galley, one at home to explore), but we would still have to build the scout later to go on a boat.

I think scout is more appropriate at this time as we still get those 2 warriors before the settler anyway.

Early AH seems like a decent idea. Early chariots would let us delay a copper hookup for quite a while, and get extra hammer-savings from garrison warriors. I suppose we would also need to finalize the location of the city near the clams... if we want it 1N of the clams, we don't need Mysticism right away, but if we want it 1W or 1SW of the clams, we do want Mysticism when that city is planted. So, either Pottery -> Hunting -> AH, or Pottery -> Mysticism -> Hunting -> AH?

I'm not in any rush to nail down the clams city location. Definitely waiting for copper, and if we go for Hunting>AH, then Myst would still land before we settled the third city, so we can even wait for horse knowledge before making a decision.

[Krill]

Turn 10




Found the south coast, found another lion. E - E onto plains hill next turn seems obvious, provided second lion doesn't get lucky. Might get lucky with a second turn tonight despite it being a Friday.





Going with the scout for above reasoning.

[GermanJoey]

I'm definitely inclined to prefer the extra warrior over the extra scout... this is already a slow start, so we should be frugal with hammers. 15h into a warrior now is 25h that we don't need in an archer later. (on that note, even that early scouting workboat I had hoped for before the game started is probably unrealistic). That would mean bringing the existing scout back towards the NW to act as cover. (as well as scouting our W a bit). We can always get another scout later; the map is big enough that I don't feel like neighbor pressure will be an early concern (e.g. look at PB22, which was also a TBS-made map on the same mapscript), and the land itself won't change.

To be clear: we can't safely move a warrior outside our borders until the barb animals disappear around T40. And if we are planning to get a galley out by T60, we would have to dedicate a 15 hammer unit to fogbusting duty anyway until that time when we would build the additional scout, so I don't see how a scout is worse than a warrior, and only how it is better: we can get 15 turns worth of scouting out of a scout, but we can't with a warrior. And the scout is of more value in the immediate sense: if we do not use a scout to explore, then we need to build a 30 hammer chariot to do the same scouting later on (so we would realistically need 2 chariots, one on a galley, one at home to explore), but we would still have to build the scout later to go on a boat.

I think scout is more appropriate at this time as we still get those 2 warriors before the settler anyway.

It's no more dangerous for warriors outside of borders with this version of RtR versus other versions. You stick them on a hill, and if an animal comes adjacent to you then just move away. I don't get what you mean about us needing to build a 30 hammer chariot for exploration later - we can still build a scouts until the medieval era! The warrior, on the other hand, can be pulled back as an MP and save us 25h on an archer. Warriors also obsolete as soon as copper is connected and so our only chance to build them is now, pretty much.

An additional scout seems like an absolute waste of hammers to me when we can't afford that with this slow start!!! I really don't like it! I strongly urge you to change this build!

[Krill]

What are we going to do with a t23 warrior? Scouting is inherently slower and riskier with a warrior compared to a scout. If we move a warrior outside our borders we are accepting the risk we lose it, but that risk is much for no scouting benefit.

There is no fundamental difference in how a scout or warrior will affect the speed of expansion: we will need to use a unit to fogbust, and we can use a scout for this purpose. In essence, if we play this right, we can get additional scouting for free. No

The argument regarding needing to build one fewer archer does not seem valid: if we build 3 units, and we need to use one for fog busting, we only have 2 units for city defence purposes anyway, whether we build 3 warriors or 2 warriors and a scout. We would have to build an archer, axe, spear regardless. But if we have not scouted terrain that we need to uncover at that point, we would need to build an additional scouting unit at that point. That is when we would need to consider the extra chariot, as it would not be safe to scout unknown terrain with a scout at that point.

I agree we will want to get enough warriors before copper hook up, but we need to be clear...unless copper pops at the capital or next to the plains cow we are pretty much fucked and will not be obsoleting warriors for a while.