[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[Zed-F]

I’ll second Pandemic, and add Robo Rally, Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, Forbidden Desert / Isle, Arkham Horror, Dixit, Exploding Kittens, Flux, Chrononauts….. I could go on…

[Tarkeel]

One of my personal favorites lately is Endeavor: Age of Sail (Usuallu just Endeavor though). It's just the right combination of heavy but speedy. Another that I haven't been able to play as much as I wish is Concordia. Both of these have very streamlined rules for faster play, but still retain strategic depth.

On the lighter side there's always Azul.

[Mousey]

My group's latest default boardgame is Quacks of Quedlinburg (Quedlinburg as a city name I guess?), it's a ton of fun. Fast and low brain power, with lots of luck involved but not in an unfair way, since it mostly comes down to how far players are willing to push their luck and results in a lot of hubris.

[Charriu]

Yes it's a city in Germany (where else).

[pindicator]

047

Settler is on the move and we will found city 4 in 2 turns. Pic is from after ending turn:




No seafood uncovered in the south. We're only going to have a crab and a whale for the entire south coast. (And if you want to quibble and say we orphaned a fish, that was a shitty fish to begin with.) I was originally thinking on getting a work boat out to scout the coast, but I'm not seeing anything here to make me think we're going to have pre-optics routes to any islands. Once we get City #4 down and the borders expanded, having sight with that mountain peak will tell us for certain if there's any reason to hope for ICTRs before Astronomy.

Expenses have shot up as we have finished another 3 warriors; we're now paying 2gpt in Unit Costs. Hopefully growing and founding more cities will offset those unit costs, but we're also seeing civic costs go up every 3-4 population. Eldritch Horror grew to 4 at end of turn, and will start a settler next turn (switched already just to illustrate for the pic). That settler gets whipped on t49 and will be our City #5. Our two workers up by Sushi Go have just finished improving the Sheep tile and now will start building roads towards City #5, by the Silver. That city is 5 turns away.

The other reason I waited until end of turn to take pics is because we now have graphs on Mjmd:

[Zed-F]

If they had put that fish 1E it would have made a lot better sense fitting with other resources & would have enabled 2 decent cities. But c’est la vie I suppose…

[pindicator]

049

City #4 is Azul. Seemed a good name for our first coastal city.




We'll have a trade route in 2 turns, and the copper will be improved just in time for the city to grow to size 2. It's taken the grass deer from Wingspan, and Wingspan is working the plains deer and lake before stealing the sheep from Sushi Go.

Eldritch Horror whipped out the settler for city #5 this turn. Hopefully we can get to the silver, but Bing has a Quechua in the area now and I'm sure he has to be looking to grab that spot for himself. Mjmd grabbed the Marble/Gems spot to our northwest with his latest city last turn and if we get frozen out of the silver then it's going to be probably settling near the horse and building a quick army instead.

Expenses are really high at just 4 cities; we're break even somewhere around 25% after Azul. Pottery will come in next turn and then it is cottages and granaries; already I think we have built too many warriors as unit costs are making the commerce problem worse. But still: one more warrior out of the capital; we are sending 3 to escort our next settler for the silver. Then the capital is on cottage duty.




Mjmd sent us this diplo message on his last turn. I don't know if this is a proposition to split Bing or a warning that he is sending a settler. Probably the former. I didn't want to commit to anything (and Mjmd is probably shopping around anyway), so I sent him a War on Superdeath counter.

To be honest, I see Mjmd has main rival and with him placing his 4th city inland, I wonder if he has grabbed his copper yet. I'll watch power, but maybe I could whip up some trouble and send it his way.

[pindicator]

050

Some more context on Mjmd's messaging:




So that's a clear indicator he has copper hooked up. Well, we are still 4 turns away from ours, and hopefully we can land our 5th city and then develop a bit in peace, because we are very close to broke. Getting shut out of the central city locations (as IMP!) would be devastating.

With that in mind, I've moved a number of warriors up in case Bing is indeed about to plant his own city here. I'm a little concerned because his Quechua is sitting on exactly the spot I would want to plant if I were him:




If a settler shows there next turn, I might just move up 3 warriors and move to raze it.

I built too many warriors. Usually I don't build enough, so this was a bit of a shock to see the pendulum swing so far the other way, but I'm paying 4gpt in unit expenses to cover my 8 warriors. Perhaps a couple of these should have been the start of a barracks, or left half-finished to change over to spears, but I should have really good map vision.

We hit Pottery at end of turn, so the great cottaging can begin. Capital will grow to max size, work the plains deer and cottages. Eldritch Horror is a great city for just cottages as well. Hopefully we can also get that silver and that will give us some more commerce. Someone else beat us to Pottery by a turn, so we're not falling too far off the science trail yet. But yikes are we close to the edge.

[pindicator]

051

I was a little apprehensive that Bing would move up a settler inbetween turns and beat us to the silver, but it looks like we are going to be able to claim our 5th city without issue:




That's 2 warriors on top of a settler & worker, all inhabiting the spot we plan to settle next turn. The worker is going to farm the rice and then move on to hooking up the silver - and we'll certainly be wanting that commerce! Speaking of which, we're currently looking at a 30% breakeven rate, but we're also losing 2gpt to unit supply & 4gpt to unit cost - things that should both go down when we settle next turn. It's a good thing we grabbed Pottery because we're going to be limping along until we can get some cottages going.

I whipped Sushi Go to complete its worker. Originally it and the other worker up north were going to start making cottages at the capital - but I'm watching Mjmd's power spike and feeling a little concerned. To that effect we have 2 more warriors coming north to Sushi Go (1 will have to go back to the capital when it hits size 4), and we'll be chopping an axe out of that city as soon as the copper is connected. Speaking of: we started mining the copper this turn, so we'll be able to start an axe on t54. That could mean our new worker out of Sushi Go is made for chopping that axe (or a granary) out.

We'll have 1 worker to improve City #5 - getting the rice hooked up and then the silver online by t60. Could speed that up to 58 but its not really worth going any faster than that.

No plans yet for City #6 but I imagine it will go to the southeast to grab the horses. We are giving a little pause to let our cities grow onto new cottages, but I don't want to wait too long. There's still some good land to grab.

[pindicator]

052

City #5 is our newest Dominion:




We are at just under 20% breakeven, getting -1gpt while at that level. Time to grow population size and possibly delete some warriors as we start building axes & spears. Thought about starting warriors in our newest cities just so they could switch over to spears, but decided to put hammers into granaries instead; we'll have a spear coming up from Azul and both of our frontline cities in the middle will be swapping to axes when the copper is connected.




Mysticism up next, due at end of turn 57. We're going to want border pops at the 2 central cities, but also at Eldritch Horror to pick up the Ivory and Azul so it can hook up a clam.