[EitB 55] Miguelito's and Ginger's thread is where the magic happens

[Miguelito]

I traded maps with Brian who showed up in the west. He's rather far (my settler move helps), so our copper should not be contested. I feel like we can make a first dotmap attempt:


next up would be the cotton. Ivory first ring would be nice, depends on what Q does. The incense X has rather low priority, and Bing will likely invalidate it. If he settles NW of the copper it's a bit of a problem though.
Anyways, city 3 -> south, city 4 -> copper? Or SE, where I suppose Auror is.

[Miguelito]

after we traded maps left and right (and Brian got circumnavigation out of it , Q also agreed to a trade:


His surroundings are terribly barren. This looks worse than our PB66 in terms of food, and I don't say that lightly (at least Q does have luxuries and strategics in plausible range. His power has spiked; I could not blame him for tilting. He has not settled a city yet, but just finished Way of the Forest. I'm afraid of the worldspell . At least there is little we can do about it, literally only build warriors and pray.

For comparison, here is our expansion zone:


much tasty.Have to think about if we get the mana with the current dotmap, or if it'll fall to Brian.

[Miguelito]

I don't want to say that Q's second city is a hugely offensive in your face FU pink dot


But it raises an eyebrow.
Now if you have read previous threads of mine you'll know that I'm peaceful at heart. I will not crank out warriors until this giant middle finger of a plant goes up in flames. And in a way, I have to give Q a bit of a pass. He really needs this; he has one more spot with a dry wheat, and then that's it for him. He also appears to have a single worker, and this city will take some time to set up - although with agriculture farms it will be pretty awesome.
But of course, him having just one more worthwhile dot means that he'll come attacking sooner rather than later. Let him come, then exact vengeance. I'm chopping the border forest to shoo the nasty elves away for what it's worth.

Meanwhile you also saw that the next settler is about to get done:


Ginger, are you reading? We go for that marble plant? Auror hasn't scouted us as far as I'm aware, but I can't entirely deny that it's a tiny bit greedy (it's the midpoint from where our capitals were supposed to be, but now aren't). Auror's second city there is pretty fresh. We can convert to runes of Kilmorph next turn and get str 4 dwarven units (at 50h each however...). We also got a free str 3 Thane of Kilmorph, to get us through the early phase. And we have a warrior coming from Timberling.

we can also cede the corn and found 1E, but then he can attack from marble. Or NE and grab the copper but lose the horse. My plan has copper for the 4th city, around the time we'd get BW (I guess that should be our next tech)

Oh yes, having founded Runes we are now making money at 100% research

[Miguelito]

Oh, and Bing built himself three hill giants. He is 10 tiles from our cap, 10 from Q's and 11 from Brian's (who to my surprise seems to be leading?). Who'll win the lottery?

[Miguelito]

I'm afraid of the worldspell .

Oh look, I knew how we'd die!




I chopped that forest and deleted the worker to slow him down as best as I can, but it's moot. I think next turn he'll have 6 treants on the tile where the workers are this turn, and he is after me in turn order, meaning each of them will have 2 turns to attack. More treants will come behind. - yo we're very dead; was there a viable defense? Going for hill giants from t0 wouldn't have solved it, but foregoing the second settler in favour of many warriors may have gotten us 6 or 7? Probably still too little, but maybe with excellent dice... I probably should have understood that Q would recognize this option, instead of wishing it away. But I'm not quite sure when it was that I recognized it. Don't know if it'd have been the game I'd like to play   .
All in all, a sorry coincidence of the ultraclose map, the advanced start getting him Way of the Forest so fast that we couldn't really get a defense up, and Q starting with that civ in that map spot.

[naufragar]

For what little comfort it is, the mapmaker didn't recognize the possibility either.

[Miguelito]

For what little comfort it is, the mapmaker didn't recognize the possibility either.

don't worry, it's just one of the many little hilariously OP things that make us love FFH so much. And no mapmaker could account for all the possibilities. As I wrote, it's a coincidence of several factors going against us. Btw, could Bing do something similarly devastating with his worldspell? Well at least Brian has Elohim.

However...


not only are the treants str 10 at a time when regular units are max str 4, they also get double moves through our forests. That might be a tad over the top.

[Miguelito]

I misunderstood something, and Q's treants were dead a turn earlier than anticipated. Apparently they expire at the beginning of his turn, not the end of it? Acutally that makes sense if you consider summons that last just one turn - they can defend, but the turn after they're not available.
Now we're alive, but looking pretty silly with all the guerilla promoted warriors. Will try to makeit difficult for Q to profit, and get a city down by the copper (Bing felt inspired to build a ritual that damages him as much as everyone else; well, our settler is blocked for the moment).

[Miguelito]

Hello Brian, thanks for sparing me from being first to die
I take it that the Elohim worldspell doesn't work with barbs then?
And Bing's Samhain turns out a genius move against all expectations...

[Miguelito]

valiant rebels, but I'm woefully unprepared