[SPOILERS] Out of retirement and into the fires of war. yuris125, Pitboss 68

[yuris125]

T3
Thoth continued to advance, so moved our scout to the banana. Contact with Miguelito as well




If one of them parks the scout on the corn, it will be annoying. Plan B is to improve the wheat first, but it is slower, settler is slower by a turn this way

Of course, worst case scenario is that they both park their scouts on our food resources, and our worker has next to nothing to do while we wait for the warrior to come out. But surely they don't hate us this much, surely...

Still no contact with Commodore btw, guess he went to make contact with Miguelito first? Anything we can read from it? or would it be trying to extrapolate data from a coinflip?

[yuris125]

Both scouts seem to be just passing through. If they continue on their way, I might just follow Thoth's scout to meet Commodore. There's no big reason to have contact established until we finish Mining - BW and can take advantage of KTBs for Fishing research. But might as well get it out of the way

[yuris125]

Also, I forgot to adjust EP spending (I said I was rusty!), but we probably should focus on Thoth first

[naufragar]

Also, I forgot to adjust EP spending (I said I was rusty!), but we probably should focus on Thoth first

I completely missed that it was no score! A turn or two of delayed graphs won't make a difference ( ). Honestly, I'm shocked that neither scout tried to camp a resource. As you say, both camping would be disastrous. I've got some time this morning, so I'll fool around in the sandbox.

[yuris125]

Well Thoth's scout is on our flood plains this turn, if he wants to do something unpleasant he still can. Miguelito didn't even enter our borders (E of the oasis right now), feel like he's just circling around the inner sea. But for him there's no real reason to try to slow us down instead of one of his neighbours

Any sandboxing you can do will be appreciated! As I said, I couldn't find a fancy worker plan, nothing was able to beat the straightforward sequence of farm the corn - farm the wheat - road towards the furs hill

[yuris125]

Demos just before we discover Mining




No one's power jumped from where it was at the start yet, but I imagine Thoth and Miguelito both researched Agriculture first. They would've finished it last turn, but with no score there's no way of knowing. Commodore's early research options are more varied (as we noted when discussing starts) - he doesn't need early agriculture. He could be on Mining-BW like we are, in which case we'll see his power jump next turn

[yuris125]

Commodore's power did not go up. Rivals' power is all unchanged this turn

I am so worried that he's going Archery first and will try to do unpleasant things to our second city

Made contact with him without revealing our scout - at least we'll know for sure from F6 screen if he does get it (edit: scratch that, we won't see it until we research Hunting - we'll have to rely on power bump for this knowledge)

I was considering getting a 2nd scout over 2nd warrior while growing to size 3, but if Commodore does go Archery first we will likely need that 2nd warrior

[yuris125]

Looks like my fears are quickly becoming a reality




Firstly, max population went to 6000 - someone's capital grew to size 2. Checking the top5 cities screen, both Commodore and Thoth didn't go Worker first




With Commodore, we thought workboat first was a potentially viable option for his start. For everyone else, I assumed Worker first was the play. But since Thoth starts with Mining, maybe his plan is to go for early BW and whip the first Worker?

But the other thing is power increases. Rival power values changed from 7k, 5k, and 5k to 12k, 7k, and 6k. The one with 7k is Miguelito, he starts with the Wheel just like us, which is worth 4k power points; his power didn't go up at the same time as ours presumably because he had to research Agri first. The increase from 5k to 6k is likely from Thoth's capital growth. But the increase from 5k to 12k is almost certainly Commodore getting Archery, along with his own capital growth

Basically if Commodore builds an Archer, he can annoy either one of his neighbours. Miguelito would be more vulnerable - since he had to research Agri, his BW will be slower than ours. Hope it's reason enough to make Commodore look his way

I will pull back the scout to ensure we can keep working our crucial tiles (banana and corn). The first warrior will fortify on the hill where we'd like to settle our second city, and keep an eye on Commodore

[naufragar]

I'm playing around in the sandbox now. Can you confirm that Comm got Archery and a pop point on turn 8? I ask because when I sim out Commodore's position, he gets Archery by turn 7 and then grows the next turn on turn 8.

There's not much we can do to prevent an archer harass. There are risky ways to speed up the settler, but that's not so viable if Comm just starts spamming archers at us. Will he? I don't see much profit in that for him when every starts on Copper. Perhaps we can be optimists and say Comm went Archery first defensively? Yeah, I don't buy that either but why would Boudica of the Dog Soldiers go Archers when her axes beat everybody else's axes?

[yuris125]

Do Boudica's dog soldiers beat everyone else's axes? Iirc from vanilla experience, dog soldiers have lower power than axes, but don't require copper. Don't see any changes to it in CtH changelog

I think Commodore got both on T7, but we didn't see it in the demos until our T8 - he plays after us

I also don't think he's going to spam archers - there would've been benefit to an archer rush if it was possible to take out a player, but with everyone's capital protected by a CG3 archer I don't think that's possible. However just by getting one archer he can contest whatever city location he wants for himself. And ceding our chosen 2nd city spot to him is something I really don't want to do

As I said, I do think it makes more sense for Commodore to choke Miguelito, whose BW will be a few turns later than ours. Mostly posting my paranoid thoughts in case there's something we can do to minimise the chances of him sending an archer our way, or at least what would be our best way to keep an eye on his units approaching, so that we can react if need be