[spoilers] FT's attempt at social distancing

[Fintourist]

Turns 28-35
 
I settled my 2nd city couple of turns ago. It hurt my soul not to settle for shared food and make the shameful walk north, but in the end those pigs are the best resource I have and all the variations that delay pasturing them were weaker..




AH finished and horses were unfortunately not in my backlines as I hoped/thought. Settler that is about to finish will head for those.

***

Findings in the north keep making the big picture even more clear.




Elkad has in his nearby jungle area more food than I will have within all mainland expansion cities combined. And Miguelito, whose borders our scout just found, apparently can settle for 4 food resources if he pleases.

Simply put, I do not have anything that resembles the output that will come out of those future cities. They will be stronger than what we will have even if my opponents would not build any tile improvements.
Fingers crossed for magical islands to our west, but most likely we have to make someone else’s land ours in order to stand a chance here..

***

In addition to Miguelito, the scout has also met Cornflakes’ scout in the north. Opponent intros to be provided..

Finally:




OH noticed that Rusten logged into the game and responded immediately. Tech was changed to Sailing. Gotta get that headstart with the navy.. 

[Fintourist]

Alright, we have met two competitors recently:

Cornflakes, ORG/CHA of Babylon (cheap Agrigranary Garden, Bowman)

Cornflakes has been around and while I have never interacted with him in a game and never followed his games super closely, I somehow have an impression that he is a competent fellow. And what he is doing in this game so far is in line with that.

Cornflakes is putting up a nice show on how to abuse your pairing to its fullest. Early granary and multiple whips supported by CHA happiness. I think he has teched archery and has at least one bowman, possibly more as he is a relevant candidate for rival best in soldier points. Based on the tech thread there might be something going on with Ras. Sometimes people overplay their traits and UU/UB, but I think that in this case both the pick and the execution could be quite strong. Of course, impossible to judge properly as I don't even know where CF is located..

***

Miguelito, SPI/IMP of India (cheap granary, super Pike)

I know very little of Miguelito. He played in a PBEM against TheHumanHydra that I remember lurking a bit. I quickly glanced the thread and there was a lot of planning going on, but for some reason Miguelito and his team mate Adrenier struggled in the game. Well, that was 2015.. Miguelito seems to be running an active thread and getting support from pindicator. There might be a good combination of Migu's efforts and pindi's experience backing this civ.

Depending on expansion paths, Miguelito might become my neighbor in the future. Migu is actually having an interesting start: He has some kind of a watery capital, invested into very early 2nd city+Hinduism and has now worked two size 1 cities for a while. He is already roading his way towards the sheep-cows area (visible in the previous post), which will provide him with a really nice foodhammer output that can be turned into further settlers/workers or military if needed.

[Fintourist]

Turns 36-38

Inca empire consists now of three cities:




I would have loved a stronger foodhammer city, but this is the best one available. Tundra silver is, well, a decent silver lining as extra commerce will be useful for hitting a competitive tech timing post-Pottery. Be it HBR, Currency, Religion or something else..

Settling on horses was kind of a must-have in order to get access to some food, but it also serves another purpose. I think Elkad built an axe couple of turns ago and I don't think it's super likely that he is bee-lining me.. But if he is, I should be able to connect those horses and whip a chariot just in time to deal with the threat. Well, I'll know that in two turns.

***

In more exciting global news, Cornflakes used his bowmen and razed a city from Raskolnikov. Time will tell if that is good or bad for me, but congrats Cornflakes!

[Fintourist]

Turn 39

More map knowledge flows in:




So those are borders of Cairo's Persia and Commodore's Japan (intros to follow). The map is pretty interesting so far, very tight, asymmetrical, natural-looking, maybe even balanced? It seems that there is a bunch of high-quality land at equator level that I am jealous of, but looking at the above pic, starts around it might be even tighter. So the balance could come from the fact that we (let's use we-form from now on as Hitru and OH are appearing in the chat for their daily civ fix  ) have more barren land, but get to play in our sandbox for the first 50 turns.. So maybe lower upside in peaceful expansion, but better chances to make the most of it? 

In other macro news, either Elkad or Superdeath founded Buddhism (most likely superdeath). Early demos are worth pretty much nothing and I have not posted those, but let's make an exception. If we spot Elkad's axe approaching next turn, this might be the last time Incas can boast a food lead in this game..

[Fintourist]

No sign of Elkad's axe, so let's continue with opponent intros:

Mr. Cairo, EXP/ORG of Carthage (Numids, Cothon)

I mean, who is not a fan of Cairo after PB43? As a lurker, how can you not root for a culture victory attempt and all the drama involved? For other players, it can feel cheap and frustrating, but at the sidelines it was really great to see a PB again go for the full distance. I don't think PB43 is the only positive performance from Cairo, but I can't recall his earlier games with much detail.. Anyways, he should be solid.

In this game Cairo went for an early Archery and tries to claim his share of fertile equator area on the back of it. With at least 2 archers and 2 warriors guarding on the field, it looks like the attempt will be successful.. for now. At some point fireworks between Cairo/Commo/Migu just have to commence.. But if Cairo survives a while, Numids will give him something to work with.

***

Commodore, AGG/CHA of Japan (Samurai, Nanpan Harbour)

I am not sure whether I joined this game because I wanted to play civ or because I want to read another Commodore-thread of a mutual game. Probably the latter, so now I just have to work for it the next X months..

AGG/CHA feels too slow for this setup and Commodore is not someone, who tends to compensate with neurotic micro. However, there is so little room in this map that micro plans will get trashed pretty early and Commodore has the experience to capitalize on unstable geopolitics. Let's come back to everyone's winning chances, but even in less successful scenarios I expect Commodore to be around for the whole game, as pretty much always.

***

One question to Charriu if you are reading:


  

How does the BUG calculate the strength ratio visible next to the player name? My point:

• Scoreboard shows 1.0 ratio between us and Elkad
  
• As you can see, power graph shows 7000 more soldier points for Elkad
  
• 1.0 makes sense though, as we finished Wheel+Quechua+grew population at the end of turn 38
  
• Power graph comes with delay, so are we getting more accurate/up to date info from the scoreboard? Or does it use our current soldier points and the last one available from opponents graphs?
  

[Charriu]

I will check that.

[Fintourist]

Turns 40-41






Here's what we think happened:

1. Superdeath settled an aggressive/greedy city between him and Ruff
   
2. He made a cute play and popped Buddhism in it
   
3. All good so far, but apparently superdeath forgot that his military consists of 2 warriors, he has no Archery or AH and he has not connected copper.
   

So I guess Ruff is teaching a lesson here with couple of axes(?). We had a chat about making SD's life a bit more difficult via sending our quechua (I think we could complicate connecting his copper), but in the end we are more worried about Ruff being too successful vs him needing help to make more chaos.. So   is the chosen strategy for now..

[Fintourist]

Turns 42-44

This seems like an entertaining game for the lurkers.. Please see other threads for all the fun, we are just sandboxing away..

City #4 was founded:




Would have loved to settle for first ring crabs, but we simply need one city that can take a food resource from the capital or we are wasting those 3 goodies.

It does not yet seem like a treasure island to our west, but fingers remain crossed 

[Fintourist]

While waiting for the next turn, we have found our scouting results pretty   -ish




Miguelito has expanded in a pretty ambitious way and not only grabbed 3 food resources, but 2x gold in his BFC. Cairo just founded his 3rd city probably in the gem area as he was roading that way. So this means that based on our limited vision Commodore is out of attractive city sites to his south.. 

On top of everything, Migu's city sits on flat ground so here were the estimations in our chat, when that city gets captured or burnt:

• OH T65
  
• Hitru T70
  
• FT T74
  

After having stared more at the picture I think OH might be onto something or even too conservative. That city is just too good to be left standing.. Or at least I hope so as it has more foodhammers from resources than our cities 2-4 combined..

As for the short-term, I'm pretty happy with the micro work so far and it keeps showing in the demos 




If barbs and power graph let us focus on our own sandbox for another 5 turns that would be nice - after that I don't really mind building some actual military. As discussed earlier, our land lacks competitiveness in the long term vs. the equator area, so after 5-6 cities things will get more dynamic.

[Fintourist]

Turns 45-46

Met Raskolnikov, who is being choked by Cornflakes, so it's time for my last minimalist opponent review




Raskolnikov, IMP/CRE of Carthage (Numids, Cothon)

Ras is new to RB, but as with Migu+Pindi+Adrien team, I thought that Carthage might be steered with a good combination of Raskolnikov's enthusiasm and Rusten's experience. Early traits make even more sense than I expected on this map and Numid is a UU that is available at very relevant time... But unfortunately Cornflakes decided to show Babylon in its full glory with not only early Garden, but a bowman rush.. Hard to say from here whether Ras was being careless or just mostly unlucky.

This game could still turn into a total chaos, which could enable even very unlikely comebacks, but based on quick logins, Ras is probably pretty checked out. As he has archers and settled on horses (high five, so did we!), Ras might survive long enough that Cornflakes becomes busy elsewhere, but mostly likely we need more games to see what he is really made of..

***

Btw, lurker activity seems pretty limited at the forum right now and I'm not quite sure what's behind it (not really meaning my thread, but overall view counts of different threads). Maybe I'm used to playing at "RB main events" that have more players and buzz? People have seen enough ancient time civ openings? It's a 15-year old game? Anyways, while this might become a bit of a stressful game from player perspective, I see a lot of   potential from lurker perspective in this game and we definitely won't have to wait too long before the world is in flames.. 

As a kind request/prayer to any active lurkers out there: Players definitely appreciate all kinds of spam in the lurker thread, be it overview posts, forecasts or even criticism, so make us a favor and share your well justified or random thoughts.