Gaspar & Noble make their triumphant? return; mostly just get asked about "The List"

[NobleHelium]

Well it might be considered bad form to write the description for a game you participated in, similar to writing your own Wikipedia article.

[El Grillo]

Well in that case that game had so little lurker activity on top of the language barrier that I doubt anyone will ever do a proper writeup

[Gaspar]

One little bonus top 5 on my way into work...



TOP 5 THINGS SUPERDEATH IS LIKELY PLANNING IN HIS THREAD UPON MEETING US

1. Axe rush
2. Spearman rush
3. Warrior rush
4. Scout rush
5. Worker rush

[Charriu]

You forgot the workboat rush.

[mackoti]

TOP 5 BEST DEDLURKERS

1. Fintourist
I haven't followed any games with this Hitru chap, sorry. FT is the gold standard, IMO.
2. NobleHelium
Noble actually might be a better dedlurker than a partner.
3. Man Behind the Mask
I haven't forgotten all that micro in FFH7, buddy, wherever you are.
4. spacemanmf
#nospaceftw
5. Boldly
5 (tie). zakalwe
5 (tie). Harry
5 (tie). ceiliazul
Look, if you can't be biased towards people who have dedlurked you, what is the actual point

Well ,I think Fintourist might be dedlurker of SD.

[NobleHelium]

All right well if we win this you can't say we didn't deserve it.  Let's review:

1) Map much smaller than intended.
2) Crazy neighbor to the west.
3) Guy who thinks we are favorites to win to the south.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 8.



As I hinted earlier, we met Serdoa in the south.  Given the heading of his scout as well as what turn it is, he must be our southern neighbor. The three people I have played the most with are Gaspar, pindicator, and Serdoa. Lewwyn is fourth. I know Serdoa has a lot of respect for me but I'm not sure I agree with his implied assessment that we are favorites.

As you can see, we are now teching Mining.  Meeting Serdoa gives us a 10% KTB on Mining which means we get a bonus beaker there but not on Hunting.  So, we are going to tech Mining first in the hopes that we will meet a third opponent who knows Hunting by the time we finish Mining. (Both Bob and Rusten have Hunting.) When you have the worst combination of starting techs in the game, it is necessary to scrounge up every possible beaker. In addition, we won't get a second bonus beaker from KTB from a third civ until we have 13 bpt (14 bpt after the bonus beaker), so waiting on teching Mining will likely not give us additional beakers.  We won't have 13 bpt until the worker finishes.

In other news, SD has found us which is unfortunate because I was hoping he would head north (he saw our scout facing southwest when we met him).  Serdoa will presumably continue with his northern heading and meet SD in a couple turns.  We will continue to allocate our EP on SD until we get graphs at ~43 EP.

We also found stone in the jungle.  I can't say I'm happy seeing stone that close to SD, even assuming we have an equivalent one the same distance to us. (We can't compete for this one since it's on the other side of the water.) Jungled stone may appear to be delayed at first glance, but it is pretty trivial to settle on top of it and get it relatively early.  It's certainly too far away to be claimed with a first settler, but it could conceivably be claimed by a second settler.  I would say a natural (and great) second city placement for SD would be north of the rice, which gets a huge number of food positive tiles.  So he is definitely incentivized to settle towards the stone.  It certainly wouldn't be bad for us for him to settle away from us though.



I am now 95% confident that Lewwyn is teching Meditation.  Lewwyn has moved his second citizen off the second 3f tile and onto a PFH, presumably to finish his work boat as quickly as possible.  Last turn he was working two 3f tiles, one of which was a grass forested deer. (I didn't mention this last turn because he could have been working improved clams and a 2f tile, but now that rival best CY is only 5 he couldn't have been working clams.)

We are the first civ to be working an improved resource. The commerce from the fish plus KTB shoots us to the top of the pile in GNP.  We will in fact likely be leading in bpt for a good while (e.g. until someone has a connected second city).  We have the Mysticism bonus, most civs are not improving their seafood for a good while, and we will be researching things that other people already have.  Lewwyn will be the one with similar bpt but he's sinking a lot of beakers into a tech that nobody else will research.

[BRickAstley]

I am posting here to try and maintain my lead as #1 lurker in this thread

[Gaspar]

Entirely too long chat.  Come for the rampant map speculation, stay for the regional stereotyping.

NobleHelium:
any thoughts on stuff

NobleHelium:
stone placement, whether we should change our scouting strategy

Gaspar:
do we think we have stone in the jungle area we did not unfog?
or south of jungled spices, nearer serdoa
i dont like the presence of stone on the map at all

NobleHelium:
yeah
i don't like it
i think both are possible

Gaspar:
i dont love serdoa as southern neighbor
but there really arent any great options this game

NobleHelium:
i don't love any neighbor given how small the map is

Gaspar:
yeah
next time we should trying hiring a mapmaker we trust and giving him specific instructions

Gaspar:
in terms of scouting strategy
i feel like trying to move in a general SW fashion is probably most likely to find the next neighbor
the question
is do we want to double back a bit and go west then south
rather than SW
i feel like direct SW is correct
but its debatable

NobleHelium:
about the stone placement

Gaspar:
yes

NobleHelium:
i think the possibilities are
1) stone is between each pair of players somehow
2) stone is in the middle and pindicator fucked up and placed it way too close to sd
3) stone is just in the general vicinity of each player
i think #2 and #3 are more likely than #1
because if it's #1
i don't see how that stone could be in the middle of sd and another neighbor
unless he really thinks we can compete for that stone somehow (would fall under the category of fucking up)
so if it's #2 that means we have stone to the south in the jungle
if it's #3 then the stone could be in the few jungled tiles we didn't defog
now, is it relevant if stone is in the stray jungle we didn't defog?

Gaspar:
i mean
we'll see those tiles well before we go for a theoretical mids
so I'm not sweating that
i guess the question is
if stone were in the tiles we didnt defog
would we change our settling plan
and i dont think so
its also plausible that marble is there
and stone is elsewhere

NobleHelium:
yes, okay
but i'm not sure we care about marble being there much
since it would just be for oracle
if we were to plant on it

Gaspar:
yeah
any marble wonders i want will come well after IW

NobleHelium:
we might tech calendar before iw, but it wouldn't be a big deal to tech iw as well at that point

Gaspar:
i guess yes
the point i was making was by the time im ready to build MoM, IW isn't a problem

NobleHelium:
yes exactly

Gaspar:
i mean
what id really love to do
is continue to send the scout out W to meet people
and somehow train a 2nd scout
to scout S
but thats not reasonable

NobleHelium:
well we're not training a second scout

Gaspar:
obviously

NobleHelium:
also if you really want to join a superdeath gmed game you can join but only after you name me the beneficiary to your life insurance

Gaspar:
lol
yeah i think we go to the tile serdoa's scout is on
idk if you noticed
but serdoa has also met someone else

NobleHelium:
no
we met him
so he hasn't had chance to put ep yet

Gaspar:
ok

NobleHelium:
i would say it is unlikely he has met someone else
since that scout looks like he beelined nw from his cap
all right so about the scouting
if we move se next turn
we reveal some coast tiles
then we move s
vs if we move onto the stone
we reveal the land tile sw of the stone
which looks to be a hill
then we move se
my point is
if we are definitely moving onto the tile s of serdoa's scout
i'm not sure it's worth it to move onto serdoa's tile next turn
because it doesn't reveal anything that the tile south of that will reveal other than two coast tiles
even though normally yes, we want to move onto the hill rather than the flat stone
and i'm pretty sure the tile se of serdoa's scout is a hill as well

Gaspar:
i just want to express how irritating it is on our reasonably sized map
we've met 2 players by t8

NobleHelium:
now it might be worth to reveal those two coast tiles
there might be seafood there

Gaspar:
well
the advantage of revealing those two coast tiles
is purely what it tells us about the shape of the coastline imo

NobleHelium:
well we know the tile 3S of silver is coast

Gaspar:
because we're not settling there whether there is food there or not

NobleHelium:
the tile W of that is probably coast
the tile 4S of clam is coast
so i'm not sure we're learning anything about the coastline either

Gaspar:
yeah
fair enough
maybe the stone is mirrored with the jungled spice
and pindicator thinks stone and a 3rd spice is equivalent


NobleHelium:
i will probably be a lot more pissed off if he makes an egregious resource mistake
rather than just the size of the map

Gaspar:
i think generically speaking
i am already pissed off
and anything else we find

NobleHelium:
not because the magnitude of the mistake is bigger
but because it is harder to make

Gaspar:
just continues the being pissed off longer
rather than allowing me to start getting over it

NobleHelium:
in addition to TOP 5 MISTAKES THIS GAME we can have TOP 5 FUCKUPS IN THE MAP
ok so the other option
if we do not continue south
is to double back and move west as you said
the upside to doubling back west is that we do not take the risk that we end up mired in the jungle for who knows how long
what do you think of that

Gaspar:
yeah
i mean thats why i mentioned it
but i think south and then west is probably smarter
it is plausible
i should mention
that we are reading too much into serdoa's scout position
and hes actually directly S of SD
rather than directly S of us

NobleHelium:
so you're saying that we should actually be checking further southeast for another neighbor

Gaspar:
im saying its not out of the realm of possibility
hence
we should probably prioritize S

NobleHelium:
okay so how are you envisioning the starting positions of the players then
is it two chevrons of three players stacked on top of each other

Gaspar:
because moving S will tell us more about the shape of the land than moving west will

NobleHelium:
maybe we have a southern neighbor and then a northeast neighbor?

Gaspar:
which will inform future scouting
i don't think thats necessarily the case
but i think its plausibly the case

NobleHelium:
and then one dude really far southeast?
i'm just saying
is the chevrons consistent with what you were thinking
or were you thinking of something else

Gaspar:
well
it could possibly be like 2 triangles
who knows what pindicator thinks is balanced

NobleHelium:
ok
so steeper chevrons

Gaspar:
ring or 2 chevrons is most likely

NobleHelium:
or maybe chevrons in the other direction
pointing up

Gaspar:
i mean we really have very little map knowledge
all we know for sure is that the players appear to be on adjoining blobs

NobleHelium:
ok
i agree that it's entirely possible that doubling back west could lead to a lot of space without a new player in it
so let's not do that

Gaspar:
if we were agi/wheel
or agri/mining
or agri/hunting even

NobleHelium:
and south is generally closer to us so uncovering those tiles are relatively more valuable

Gaspar:
i probably wouldnt be as focused on ktb
as i am

NobleHelium:
if we assume no idea of where we can meet additional players
no, i am super focused on ktb

Gaspar:
i mean

NobleHelium:
i am just not sure what the best way to go about that is

Gaspar:
for sure i think the most likely scenario
is that Serdoa is generally S-SE of us
and the next player will be generally S-SW of SD
but its definitely most likely by a plurality rather than a majority
therefore
we want to acheive the most map knowledge possible in the least moves
so we can increase our chances of guessing where the other players are

NobleHelium:
well the ring scenario would mean serdoa is basically due south
and then there is a player sw of serdoa
that is far due south of sd
i'm pretty confident that we'll find someone to the south somewhere. question is how much jungle we'll have to slog through to get there
well even in the ring scenario
serdoa could be the guy far due south of sd

Gaspar:
yeah

NobleHelium:
and then we have someone else due south of us
and actually those four positions are consistent with both a ring and chevron scenario

Gaspar:
obviously the simplest answer

NobleHelium:
in fact the ring scenario is just two opposite facing chevrons

Gaspar:
is just to ask him


NobleHelium:
so the question is whether the chevrons are facing the same direction or opposite directions
but either way
i agree that it is quite likely that serdoa could be southwest of us rather than south

Gaspar:
the same direction increases the number of interactions
the opposite direction is more elegant

NobleHelium:
sure but then you have one dude very close to the center of the map
and how is that going to be balanced

Gaspar:
yeah
i mean
if the middle looks like a shitton of jungle
then we can anticipate ring

NobleHelium:
i mean i'm still assuming that pindicator was sober when he made the map

Gaspar:
and goodies in the middle
and we hate pindicator more
if we escape the jungle and there's just jungle where N-S neighbors meet
then the chevron scenario becomes more plausible
i mean it could just be X--X--X
                                   X--X--X
too

NobleHelium:
i hope you didn't really think that was going to come out correctly

Gaspar:
no
but i knew you'd know what i meant

NobleHelium:
well i'm assuming it's not two rows of three players
because we aren't aligned with sd

Gaspar:
i am also assuming that
but again
pindicator is from the pacific nw
he could have been high as balls making this map

NobleHelium:
i thought you were going to say that the canadian border is only a fake straight line so that he might think this is a straight line

Gaspar:
lol

NobleHelium:
i mean i guess another possibility is two columns of three players
with the offsetting that you mentioned

Gaspar:
yeah
thats also definitely possible
but same issues as with the straight lines

NobleHelium:
does tilted axis have north/south wrap but not east/west wrap
i forget

Gaspar:
no idea

NobleHelium:
i feel like it might have that
well the two columns wouldn't have the straight line issues
because we would be offset from sd
if you are talking about two offset columns
you were trying to show two offset rows right?

Gaspar:
yes
but you still have someone much closer to the center

NobleHelium:
yeah so i mean a 90 degree rotation of that

Gaspar:
no i get that

NobleHelium:
well there wouldn't be a real center
if it wraps

Gaspar:
yeah i guess thats fair
this is probably the sort of #content that is worth posting in the thread

FWIW, google makes it way too fucking hard to do this these days, so expect less of these than normal.

[Old Harry]

TOP 5 PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD

1. Brick
2. scooter
3. Charriu
4. Commodore
5. mackoti

*pindicator doesn't count because I'm still mad at him because the map is too small and Harry, well, you need to up your game to top mackoti.

I