[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Tarkeel]

T-hawk is correct. Warriors don't upgrade unless you also have hunting.

[Tarkeel]

Scooter, is your turn split with Yuri compatible with player id?

[scooter]

Scooter, is your turn split with Yuri compatible with player id?

Turns out there is no turn split, because it seems I was overly paranoid and Yuris accepted peace. I wonder if his axe was just trying to warn me or secure a city site or something?


I'm fairly glad about this. I could have handled 1 axe easily and 2 axes uncomfortably, but it would have definitely slowed down my expansion plans. I can get 2 cities planted and a settler for a 3rd one out during this peace, so it lets me connect Copper at a slightly more leisurely pace. More later.

[Zed-F]

Great news, though I guess we’re at the point where we have to start thinking about matching Yuris’s power with some actual units of our own even as we work our way up to WEs.

Yuris might have sent an axe out to stake a claim to the jungle — he is planning to get iron working and there is pig and rice sitting right there, just ahead of his city 3 and his horse city — but it seems a little early for him to have a settler ready to go for that location just yet? He might be planning something like that in the next 10-20 turns though. When I simmed his start I didn’t put a huge priority on settling that spot ASAP, but I was able to claim it before Cataphracts came online.

[scooter]

Great news, though I guess we’re at the point where we have to start thinking about matching Yuris’s power with some actual units of our own even as we work our way up to WEs.

Yuris might have sent an axe out to stake a claim to the jungle — he is planning to get iron working and there is pig and rice sitting right there, just ahead of his city 3 and his horse city — but it seems a little early for him to have a settler ready to go for that location just yet? He might be planning something like that in the next 10-20 turns though. When I simmed his start I didn’t put a huge priority on settling that spot ASAP, but I was able to claim it before Cataphracts came online.

I would assume he's gonna settle horse next, but honestly I don't know. I've played a little fast and loose with military so far partly because Yuris is pretty low on the aggression meter. Obviously he's going to come at me with Phracts, but I sort of expected nothing before then, though I was watching the Jungle for a reason.





I'm gonna give this 2T here to see if he'll sign OB once Writing comes in. If he says no, I'll just declare and pass through and bet he does not have a Galley yet. Note that he did just grab Buddhism in Dulle Griet 4N of my WB, so he is quite unlikely to have Sailing yet. I mentioned in my previous post that he's likely in quite a lot of trouble. If he starts to fold, I can gift him Copper in a couple turns for a very short time, but I'd be slightly loathe to do so. We'll see. On one hand he might not want to sign OB with me and fuel GLH, but on the other hand he does benefit from them too**, and pre-Currency has no way for me to pay him for the right.


** I think, people have explained trade routes to me roughly 9 times already, and I never remember the rules.





Judaism did indeed pop Shiv's borders, so into Hinduism and OR this turn.





Domestically had one pleasant surprise. I miscounted overflow into Logan which meant my settler whip overflow was actually enough to 1T the worker exactly. As a result, the worker and silk settler are both out 1T sooner. So yes, that means Logan just produced a settler and a worker in 3 turns.

Kendall actually put a turn into a missionary this turn, not a warrior, lest you wonder why revolt into OR while not ready to benefit from it. I've got an OR Granary whip + missionary plan, but need to delay the whip another turn for some tile juggling, and the Granary is in the queue at the whip threshold already.





Worth talking about Yuris a bit more. I pretty much plan to not complete IW or HBR before him. That will allow me to track more precisely how close he is to Cataphracts. I expect he'll go for Iron Working first. Once I see that fall, it'll be red alert time.

[Zed-F]

Glad to see that Buddhism fell, and not to Oxy. Probably Oxy doesn't really need it since he has Terrace and start 1 should have good luxuries, but happy citizens are happy citizens. It'll be a while before he can get another shot at one, even assuming we aren't so much faster that we sweep the other religions too. If he's not under threat from any of the rest of us, anything that slows him down is welcome.

So, timelines for WEs. If I assume an average of 50 bpt, which is what we are making this turn (we also need gold, but our rate will rise as we found more cities with trade routes and build a library or so) then we should be able to complete Writing, Math, Construction, and HBR (albeit with not much to spare), around T75-T80.

The question for Oracle then is less 'do we need it to get our military techs in time' and more 'is the added value of an Oracle Currency play worth the time and effort to land a marble quarry and a couple of Math-enhanced chops at Horse city?' It does tie up several of our workers that are already in the area around Shiv and Horse city, perhaps for longer than they'd otherwise be there, but it does seem like getting the income and Oracle culture growing there would be valuable for defense of the city and in the long term for future growth.

Otherwise.. apart from the worker turns, it doesn't seem like it will cost us much to do this. City build queues and research targets are largely unaffected, I should think, unless this means we decide to build an extra worker to compensate for needs elsewhere.


Regarding trade routes with Luddite -- wouldn't he need to have unfogged a trade route to us to gain benefit from ICTRs with us?

[T-hawk]

Regarding that last - yes, an OB partner needs to have unfogged a path up to your border in order to have a trade route. (Stated alternately: a player's trade route can use a fogged tile if it is within another civ's border. I'm not sure if this applies only for the destination civ or also to tiles within a third party along the way.)

[scooter]

So, timelines for WEs. If I assume an average of 50 bpt, which is what we are making this turn (we also need gold, but our rate will rise as we found more cities with trade routes and build a library or so) then we should be able to complete Writing, Math, Construction, and HBR (albeit with not much to spare), around T75-T80.

The question for Oracle then is less 'do we need it to get our military techs in time' and more 'is the added value of an Oracle Currency play worth the time and effort to land a marble quarry and a couple of Math-enhanced chops at Horse city?' It does tie up several of our workers that are already in the area around Shiv and Horse city, perhaps for longer than they'd otherwise be there, but it does seem like getting the income and Oracle culture growing there would be valuable for defense of the city and in the long term for future growth.

Otherwise.. apart from the worker turns, it doesn't seem like it will cost us much to do this. City build queues and research targets are largely unaffected, I should think, unless this means we decide to build an extra worker to compensate for needs elsewhere.

So, worth considering that I could Oracle Construction rather than Currency. It's a less impressive play on beakers/commerce for obvious reasons, but it would still speed me to Elephants by several turns.

I think the bigger question with Oracle is can I finish Writing-Math-Priesthood before it falls. It's possible, but it will be tough. I think therefore my path is basically Writing -> Math, and if it's still up with a few turns left on math, start pre-chopping and plan to go Math -> Priesthood and 1T it. So I think it depends on whether others go for it or not.

There's a real chance nobody does. For one, the early religions are gone, so only myself and Luddite have started down this path most likely. Luddite won't go for Oracle if I'm correct that he's about to be fighting Cairo. So teching down to Priesthood is a gamble with real costs for the other 3 players as they'll get no religion out of it. Oxy I would expect to be focused on Pyramids or Colossus. So it's possible he uses Oracle as a method of popping Metal Casting I suppose, but it doesn't really fit with his traits, so Pyramids makes a little more sense for him.


So, Oracle is definitely on my radar. I don't need to divert much for it. But it's most interesting with a post-Maths tech, so it has to stick around long enough for that.

[Zed-F]

I agree that Pyramids makes more sense for Oxy than trying to go early to Metal Casting for Colossus. Also, we don’t know who has access to marble other than us. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were not balanced between the starts; it’s possible (maybe even likely) that nobody else has the right circumstances to realistically make an attempt, whether due to a lack of motivation to research priesthood, or military objectives, or a lack of Marble to so efficiently. It does make sense to have a plan in our pocket for a post-Math run to Oracle Currency, but not commit to it until we get closer.

If Luddite and Cairo really are at war, who do we actually want to win? Is a weak Cairo and Luddite who invested too much in early squabbling more of an opportunity for us or for Oxy? Does a stronger Cairo who clobbered Luddite and was then able to expand in peace for a while grow into a better counterbalance for Oxy, or into a problem for us? I don’t think there’s much we can do to answer or influence this question anytime soon, but it’s interesting to think about. It really depends a lot on too many unknowns, like how much we get slowed down by our own struggles with Yuris and whether anyone else makes enough boats to get involved.

[scooter]

I agree that Pyramids makes more sense for Oxy than trying to go early to Metal Casting for Colossus. Also, we don’t know who has access to marble other than us. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were not balanced between the starts; it’s possible (maybe even likely) that nobody else has the right circumstances to realistically make an attempt, whether due to a lack of motivation to research priesthood, or military objectives, or a lack of Marble to so efficiently. It does make sense to have a plan in our pocket for a post-Math run to Oracle Currency, but not commit to it until we get closer.

If Luddite and Cairo really are at war, who do we actually want to win? Is a weak Cairo and Luddite who invested too much in early squabbling more of an opportunity for us or for Oxy? Does a stronger Cairo who clobbered Luddite and was then able to expand in peace for a while grow into a better counterbalance for Oxy, or into a problem for us? I don’t think there’s much we can do to answer or influence this question anytime soon, but it’s interesting to think about. It really depends a lot on too many unknowns, like how much we get slowed down by our own struggles with Yuris and whether anyone else makes enough boats to get involved.

Well, the simplest answer is we don't want anyone to win, but it might be more complicated than that? The big problem here is I have no idea where Oxy is in comparison to these two. We know where Luddite is, and I can only assume Cairo is north of him given what we know about the starts, but that leaves Oxy. We don't want these two to just drag each other down and leave Oxy untouched. But I don't know enough about the world to know why Cairo picked Luddite other than he just wanted to hit him before he builds Artillery? Maybe he's hoping Oxy builds Kremlin for him and then he goes and takes that next? That might make sense, actually. So I dunno, but I don't think I want Luddite dying super fast at least. Copper hooked next turn, so I think I'll send it to him (possibly with OB). I can have horse hooked for chariots prior to my peace with Yuris expiring, and that would cover the axe(s) from Yuris just fine.





Instant chop into a Granary, and a second worker is joining next turn to get Wheat/Horse and probably another chop post-Math. If I do Oracle, I think it'll be here as it's very easy to get 2 chops here, plus the front-line culture would be nice.

We're getting close. I offered Luddite OB this turn. I think he'll reject because he won't benefit from them. If so, next turn I'll offer it with Copper attached and see if that persuades him. We've been very fortunate where I've thought I was at a dead end 3 times, and then careful fog-gazing has always made it clear that there's a bit more to follow. There's a million islands here which is phenomenal news for us long-term.





Yuris pulled back his Axe. I strongly suspect he has another, but have only ever seen one.





I have never seen a 15F surplus at size 5. At least not one I rememeber. I had planned a different config before I realized I could squeak all the way there this turn. This speeds the Silk settler up another turn which is great.





First 3 cities all have Granaries now. Shiv will finish one next turn, and Connor will get it fairly quickly too. I haven't talked much about Roman, but I just finished laying another cottage down. Roman's primary job will be growing cottages for Logan. Logan won't want cottages or even hamlets right now, but it definitely will want villages and towns.





This is an island dot I'm considering pending the fog. Oasis is a useful early tile for FIN as 3/0/3 is always nice, plus the Fish. The upside here is this would require very little worker labor. It just needs a WB donated, and then the only time it would lack tiles would be on size 3 before Trading Post. I could feasibly settle it with no worker help, OR I could have a worker build a single cottage on the grass tile, and then ferry it elsewhere. Size 4 would just mean whipping Granary/TP, and once those are in grow on coast and provide domestic IC routes. The fog could certainly shake this up, but I like how low effort it is overall.





After pressing enter. I'm happy capped at 6 thanks to 2 whip anger, but conveniently one wears off right as this settler finishes. So I 4T the settler, grow on a Galley, then at size 7 I'll "slow" build some workers/settlers while finishing the rest of whip anger. Works out really nicely.