(SPOILERS) Amicalola and Irismono Try Their Best

[Miguelito]

I set research to 0% for a turn.






chop and mine finish next turn, so you'll have plenty overflow again to 1turn quechuas. Or the settler, however you decide. (But do I keep building quechuas for now?)





I can play again in 24h. Do you want me to take it up then or will you be available already?

[Miguelito]

PM from El Grillo (which you will also have received):

Hello Amicalola, ded-lurkers, and Miguelito,

I write to inform you that we are at war as of T39. I will be claiming the second half of the turn, per the Pitboss etiquette rules surrounding wartime turn splits described here.

I would like to propose that we each be able to log in outside of our turn split to look around, take screenshots, and plan, but not make any moves in-game. If you object, then I will wait for you to play the turn and only log in afterward.

Take care,
El Grillo

[Amicalola]

Ok, thanks Miguel. Yeah, that's pretty grim. Having the first half of the timer seems like a bit of a disadvantage, but oh well. I'm still gone right now but should be back within 36 hours (this turn coming up should be the last one I can't play). At least my paranoia was justified.

Two options re: Gooch. We can start a spearman and hope to whip before he attacks (he surely isn't declaring war without some kind of stack), so we probably have 2-3 turns. Could we whip the spear by then? First half of turn might be the difference, which would be funny.
Alternatively, we can switch to the plains hill and finish the Quechua next turn(?), then start a spear, which is better if we won't be able to complete the whip anyways. let me know re: hammer counts, if you can Miguel. Going to keep doing quechuas now in the capital that we have that info, will possibly wreck my economy but I'm not going to go down without a fight. It's a real shame how all my forests are gonna go towards units than settlers/workers/terraces now

Workers stay at capital now, Gooch is likely a danger zone (I'm thinking he will attack on the copper rather than capital?). Maybe move onto grass forest/hill 2S of the capital and start mining that too. All quechuas save the Springer Garrison now move to Gooch I'm thinking, including that scouting one intended for the copper hill. He'll just get Eaten by the chariots that I'm guessing are already built. Man, well played to El Grillo I guess, I was expecting a fast rush but this is Very Fast. He must've done a good job on his micro. I'm cautiously optimistic at best, "there's no way I could've beaten this without losing long-term" at worst. I guess we'll need to see what the next couple of turns bring.

Thanks again for being so helpful Miguel! I'm sorry a war started while you're still in charge. Not quite the easy 5-6 turn sub I expected. At least you won't have to deal with the brunt, I think. Like I said the coming turn should be the last I need you to play.

[Amicalola]

Full disclosure: I sent El Grillo a mildly cheeky reply. Nothing to do with the game, but if it somehow breaks the rules of Diplo here, I'm sorry.

[Amicalola]

I have been nervously refreshing a couple of times today and el grillo and charriu will not shut up in their thread which is a bit spooky. It’s crazy how nervous I am about this, it’s totally sucked me in much more than I expected.
Meanwhile I have been kind of musing on what I could have done differently, I think Wheel>Hunting would have been better than the other way around like I chose. Spears don’t really help much until the capital can make them in 6 or 7 ish turns, whereas with the wheel I could road in between the cities now, especially since the workers aren’t doing much else. Hindsight, but probably should have been foresight too.

[Suite]

Haha, I can feel your nervosity and it's one of the reasons why PB is so great! Wish you good luck.

I'm not entirely sure whether or not this

Meanwhile I have been kind of musing on what I could have done differently

should be understood as an indirect question. If not, please ignore the following.

Because of that plan I want 4 improved tiles at the capital (river plains mine seemed the best candidate for no. 4)

> In my opinion this is slow and efficient and therefore risky and ineffective play. You had two wheat at your capital already and still chose to tech animal husbandry first. It is very costly and honestly in your situation rather nice to have than necessary at the early game, still less at the very beginning. Same for the planned river mine - this is a tile which gets whipped away constantly as you mentioned (indirectly) on top of page 4. Sure, you definitely want to improve it if you're settled down with the basics (but oh boy, the flood plains...). The combined worker rounds from cow and mine (which also had to be chopped on top of it, making it 8 worker rounds for zero yield until the next turn if I'm not mistaken) plus the beakers flowing into earlier bronze/wheel would have given you the much needed speed to oppose an Egyptian nearby. Your unorthodox monument is a 30 hammer concession to this problem. The location of the copper doesn't benefit you, sadly. As for the order wheel/hunting: Spears are imperative against War Chariots, so I like the decision. Better to be able to build a spear in one city than in none.

Something else: Did you read El Grillo's demographics? Some of your pictures aren't visible to me, hence my question. Analyzing these could give you a well-informed guess what you're facing now. As I'm skimming over El Grillo's story too, this question would have been a big spoiler before the declaration of war.

[Amicalola]

Hi Suite! It pretty much was one yeah, I'm too new to multiplayer to really know a lot of the meta (e.g. having looked at a couple threads, binary research seems very basic and common-knowledge), so I really appreciate any and all feedback. In the worst case scenario where this goes really south and I'm out in the next 15-20 turns, I'd definitely like to play in the next Greens Pitboss as well (this won't have been an exactly extensive experience), so any feedback is welcomed. From anyone!

I think I agree on Animal Husbandry, although it's maybe closer in my mind than yours. If I'd known Egypt (or Rome in theory) was a close neighbour, I might have gone for Bronze Working first, for exactly the speed reasons you described. But I didn't think it was worth sabotaging my early economy on the 2/9 risk (edit: hang on it's much more complicated than this: two neighbours so 2/9+2/9? maths never was my strong suit). Didn't work out in this case obviously, and maybe the difference long-term is smaller than I think (more time, and sims, would've helped for sure here - definitely going to do more of those next time, no matter when it is). The mine maybe makes some sense in this situation, since I need the hammers more for military than food for whipping out settlers/workers, I think? Maybe just whipping units would be better too.

I still think the hunting/wheel order is a mistake in retrospect, but it isn't a massive one. The second city can't whip out a spear for a couple of turns (1 pop), which will either be just in time or just too late - not sure which yet. Roads right now would be very nice though.

To answer your last question, I was checking demos (admittedly not fanatically) until I had to hand over to a sub last week. Didn't see anything crazy at that time, although I possibly just missed the power graphs. That was about 5 turns ago(?). Would be horrible luck if he built the chariots just as I lost access, horrible incompetence/laziness if I missed it beforehand. I'll be interested to check his thread after the game and check which. Thanks for the thoughts, always appreciated.
Miguel, would you mind posting the power graphs the next couple of turns?

[Amicalola]

Edit: I think for Gooch, I want to switch to the plains hill and one turn the quechua (correct me if ive done the maths wrong, I'm looking at screenshots only). I'm thinking he will attack turn 40 or 41 if the war is 39, which would make it worth it, especially since fortify bonuses will be a pretty big deal here right? Is there any reason to declare war if not attacking straight away?
Second edit: If he goes for the capital after all this fretting I'm going to be so sad. Although, that would make revenge hampering much easier, since we'd still have copper then, which I why I don't think he'll do that.

[Miguelito]

Amica, I haven't looked into the turn but can play in a couple hours, but I think idea also perfectly fine to hold up the game for a while if you want to play the war turns.
I'll post some observations later when I'm not on the phone.

[Amicalola]

Yeah ok. Thanks Miguel.