[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[pindicator]

038

A little closer look at Bing and the silver, since that is already being looked at for city #5 (eta turn 53)




Our next 2 settlers (for Pig/Sheep city & southern Copper) are both coming out of the capital. The settler for the Silver City is going to come from whipping Eldritch Horror. EH is currently size 2 and just had its Corn farm finished. It will grow to 3 at end-of-turn, build a worker (t44), and then grow to 4 (t47). Settler is whipped on t49.

I'm not sure what to make of Bing, but we have a warrior up on his border this turn. I don't plan on keeping it there, but I could keep it in the area to watch for settlers - or at least make it a little more difficult for Bing to settle this direction. My next 2 warriors are both finishing on t46, so I'm also inclined to just keep scouting with this warrior and get some more map knowledge - maybe find Superdeath in the west.

As for where the city goes, I think you have to put it on the hill SW of the silver. I would love a 2h plant, but it surely is more important to get all the bonus resources first-ring. I am a little wary about how spread out our cities are being laid out. Nothing to do about it - this is what the map is dictating - but it is going to make defending a little more difficult. If this was a deliberate decision by Commodore to spread the resources out a bit more on the map then kudos to him. It's nice to play something a little different.

[pindicator]

039 & 040

It finally my time to be last to end turn, so I played 39 & 40 both in one sitting.




First off, rather surprised at Superdeath's choice. Did he settle right on top of the stone for his second city and tech Masonry? I have so many questions. I already know he was one of the first people to get Bronze Working so maybe he just chopped it without the stone.

Mjmd was the first to get his capital to size 4, reaching it a turn before us on 39. I reached it on 40 and then swapped Wingspan to a settler. Still working the lake tile since a 1f2h tile only nets us 1h for 2c even with the IMP bonus factored in. I don't need the lake as badly as I thought, and could even have started the worker at Eldritch Horror on size 2 and still made AH on time. I don't know where I got the extra half dozen beakers unless I wasn't tracking known civ tech bonus correct. In either csae, EH is building its worker now and will slow build to completion.

Our two present workers are getting the road setup and ready for Wingspan's settler. 3 turns away from city #3.

Cornlakes has BW now. He might be the first player with both BW & AH. (Or he built to chariots and I should be VERY concerned, but that doesn't seem as likely.)

[pindicator]

041 - Sequential Interlude

If you didn't catch it in the tech thread, we got no production from turn 40 when they switched from Concurrent to Sequential. It jumped out at me because the settler at Wingspan was still at 0/100, and from there I just checked everything and discovered food, hammers, production, expenses - none of it happened.

So instead of a turn report today I'll brag at nabbing one of the more difficult Europa Universalis 4 achievements I've tried to do:




Starting as Navarra I had to conquer and culturally convert most of Iberia before the Age of Absolutism (usually 1610). The start is very difficult, as you can't just wait out the ideal situation to attack - you need to be pressing from the start in order to get your snowball going and overtake first Aragon, and then Castille & Portugal for supremacy of the Iberian peninsula. Making this painful was the fact that Castille's AI was downright awful - losing wars where they had all the advantages just by splitting forces or sending half their army to attack Aragon's holdings in Italy.

I made it harder on myself by misreading the achievement and going for all of Iberia when I just needed most (32 provinces). But I managed to get that, converting the last province in 1605. I had to truce-break Castille at the end to get in under the limit, and find some shenanigans to work around separatism mechanics (you can't culturally convert a province that is still suffering from separatism).

But in any case, I can check off the Basque in Glory achievement from my list.

[pindicator]

041

It seems like the issues have been fixed, the game reloaded, and we're now playing Sequential. Kind of. Right now there's nothing actually limiting you from playing outside your turn, but your production occurs at end-of-turn instead of all at once at the beginning of the turn - but I'm guessing this is just a transition and after this turn we'll be truly sequential.

Bing joined Mjmd and myself at size 4 this turn. However, our time at size 4 would be fleeting, as we whipped 2 pop away to get our settler out:




The worker on the pig started its road, and the other worker threw a turn into a chop. Next turn we complete a pair of roads and escort the settler to the plains hill.

Mjmd is on a farming tear: despite rocking CRE & PRO as his traits he's managed to pop out City #3 a full 3 turns ahead of us. I would like to note that we did slow down our city 3 because there was no point settling the Pig/Sheep spot before we landed Animal Husbandry. Hopefully we'll be landing cities 4 though 6 faster than him and pull ahead on the curve.




Undoubtably that is him at top food now.

[pindicator]

042

Fireworks or just an opportunistic scout kill?




Speaking of opportunistic scout kills, our scout ended up right by BING. Let's see if he has a heart of gold (I can dream).

Settler has moved into position, as you can see in the lower left. Wingspan is starting straight away on the settler for city 4.

And when the turn ends we found horses:




I really hope there's a seafood in the fog 2SE of those horses, otherwise that's not going to be a spot worth settling for a while.

[pindicator]

043

City #3 is Sushi Go. I'm giving a zoomed out look so you can see how it sits relative to all our neighbors.




I got to play this with some friends a month or two ago. It's a fun card game about making the perfect sushi meal. Kind of like a drafting game where you need to track the cards in different hands as they get passed among the players. Take a card for your meal, pass your hand to your left, and repeat until you run out of cards. Simple concept and the strategy is in what the cards do and how they work together.

As for Sushi Go the city, I am very happy with the setup and worker turns to get this city running. Right after it was settled our two workers went onto the pig and started the pasture; having a 5f tile the turn after it is founded will get it to size 2 quickly. Expenses are up to -8gpt, which is right in line with expectations. (Note: city #5 is really going to want to work that Silver so we can stay solvent.)

The capital is building the next settler for the copper, and I'm going to revise some worker turns to connect it a little faster. The worker to hook up that city is going to come from Eldritch Horror, and I was going to have it come around to the grass tile SW of the capital and road south. But this actually takes more roads - instead I'll just have the worker move SE of the deer and then road the Copper itself. Copper will be improved and hooked up on t54.

Speaking of copper, look at the copper to our west: that appears to be Superdeath's copper. The city our warrior is nearby - is that the capital or the Stonehenge city? If it's the Stonehenge city then he'll have the Copper under its culture pretty soon. If it's the capital (and not Henge) then we could think about choking the copper if Superdeath continues with a slow start.

Mjmd and Cornflakes signed peace. Must have just been a scout that Cornflakes bopped. Cornflakes also revolted to Slavery, so I'm guessing that means his settler for city 3 is out. He actually nabbed Bronze Working about 5 turns ago, so I don't know why else the delay. Our scout did not get bopped by Bing's Quechua, so we're moving north to see what is between Bing and Mjmd.

Further scouting moves: the warrior at Sushi Go is going to move west to scout out the area between the silver and Bing. We want this silver and will try to deter any settlers from Bing heading this way. The warrior out of the capital is going to unfog that one potential seafood tile and then sit to the south of the lake, to keep an eye on Cornflakes coming from that direction.




Back to #1 in Crop Yield.

[El Grillo]

Sushi Go is a fun gateway to drafting games due to the cute theme and relatively light complexity, but there's definitely still some depth to it as you play through the deck and the number of copies of cards like sashimi/pudding changes over time. I'm a big fan of all of these, though I haven't been able to play Wingspan in person.

[pindicator]

044

Will superdeath actually try to trade warriors here? Or is he just shadowing?




In any case, that is his Stonehenge city and he will have culture over the Copper relatively soon. We can forget any ideas of claiming this copper. Maybe we can grab the sheep and establish a city in the far west, but I want to pick up the Stone & Marble sites before trying that. Or maybe we can still choke the copper since it's only just over his border. We shall see.

[pindicator]

045

With the pigs done, we chop out the next settler:




Worker #3 finished out of Eldritch Horror end of last turn, and this turn moved 2SE to start roading towards city #4. Thanks to my insight about roading from the west (instead of coming south from the capital), we're going to save 3 worker-turns and actually have the copper hooked up at turn 54, the same turn the new city grows to size 2.

Speaking of new cities, you all have 4 turns to come up with a board game. I mean, I have one that I really want to use (but will have to condense down to an ugly name), so I'm hoping from better from the lurker crowd.

Also, I was wrong about Superdeath's city. Stonehenge is in his capital!




In addition, Superdeath laid an obvious trap: he set up his warriors so that if I had continued along the edge of his city he would have had 2 warriors to bop me once I hit bare ground. Instead I doubled back.

[El Grillo]

Speaking of new cities, you all have 4 turns to come up with a board game. I mean, I have one that I really want to use (but will have to condense down to an ugly name), so I'm hoping from better from the lurker crowd.

Challenge accepted! Some board games that we play commonly are 7 Wonders, Hanabi, Race for the Galaxy, Beyond the Sun, Space Base, Codenames, and Wavelength. A few others that haven't seen play recently are Tokaido, Innovation, Res Arcana, and Pandemic. Some games that are relatively new to me are The Voyages of Marco Polo, Jump Drive, and Living Forest. Some old favorites that I never get to play any more are Power Grid, Suburbia, Spirit Island, and Through the Ages.