[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Qgqqqqq]

I assume the second National Wonder for the Capital would be Oxford? I don't think there's an issue with that but worth thinking about it.

[Zed-F]

Yuris is laying down an impressive amount of cottage spam this early. This sort of suggests to me that he's having a hard time scraping together the commerce for IW + HBR, honestly. He doesn't have the population here to actually work all of it I don't think, so if he wasn't worried about tech rate, I think he would have gotten a settler out instead of one of those workers. Also looks like he's skipped Hunting. That sort of makes some sense given that it's not strictly on the beeline, but hoo boy is it painful to not be able to improve those Furs this entire time. Surely the happy would help too?

I wonder how much Yuris is really focused on commerce as compared to growth. In my sim game sure I did work as many cottages as I reasonably could, but I was also whipping cities for settlers and regrowing on those cottages, so not all of them were constantly being worked. Maybe he is going for a different balance of tech speed versus expansion; if he really skipped hunting then he definitely is. I guess we can revise our estimate when iron working falls.

[scooter]

Little bit ominous that on our first full day of sequential turns, we didn't get through the full order, and I didn't play any turns. Also in world news, Luddite still has not lost any cities. This is somewhat surprising and makes me wonder if he squeezed out an Artillery? I don't think he has. Top Power hasn't really changed, and average power has been pretty static. Sort of odd and makes me wonder if one of my assumptions are wrong. That said he spent like an hour playing the turn last night, which is not something you do at this stage unless you're making some really tough decisions.





We are getting tantalizingly close. That said, I do know from Luddite's screenshot that the WB near him may have to go north soon instead of straight west. Speaking of which, we can add another dot.





I assume the other dot is over by the Wheat. We ought to be able to find out pretty soon. This tight ring is interesting, and the fact that he didn't really push north at all with his settling may be why this supposed conflict with Cairo is taking awhile. It makes me wonder if the land north of him is really weak, or if he thought this tighter settling would buy him time to get some Artillery out.





Back home I've updated my settling plan again. I can settle the southwest island on T64, give or take 1 turn. Logan will complete the settler, 2T a Galley while growing to size 7, and then build another settler. That'll get me to 8 cities by T64. Zed-F projected T80 at the latest for Cataphracts, so if I drop that to T75, I'll have a ton of population/queues to work with. I probably settle the east island prior to that too just because I won't have to defend it, plus it places my Galley on that coast which would be, uh, convenient.





Oxy is slightly ahead on food thanks to his cities mostly being larger. I would bet he's building the Pyramids right now with his Stone, though Joao means he can build settlers easily out of any city that can get to size 4, so that won't necessarily limit him too much. I expect him to have to choose between pushing further ahead of me on expansion versus figuring out how to tech. We'll see if that proves to be accurate or not. My GNP is really funny. It's going to be a problem for the field, and I don't know how they can really deal with it beyond slightly limiting the damage by closing borders.

[Commodore]

My GNP is really funny. It's going to be a problem for the field, and I don't know how they can really deal with it beyond slightly limiting the damage by closing borders.

This is an interesting game, because while normally I think you're right, this game I think it's a problem for Oxy. It's a challenge for the rest of the field, certainly, but 12 strength, 9 strength, and 14/18 strength units being available for the laggards sure makes a big difference.

[Zed-F]

Thinking about Moai, I don’t think the time is quite yet. It makes more sense to expand first as you’re doing, and make sure our initial wave of WEs equals or exceeds Yuris’s first wave of Phracts, then think about Moai.

[scooter]

My GNP is really funny. It's going to be a problem for the field, and I don't know how they can really deal with it beyond slightly limiting the damage by closing borders.

This is an interesting game, because while normally I think you're right, this game I think it's a problem for Oxy. It's a challenge for the rest of the field, certainly, but 12 strength, 9 strength, and 14/18 strength units being available for the laggards sure makes a big difference.

Yeah, after I posted it and walked away I realized the last sentence needed an addendum that said “or Cataphracts.” But the others, well thanks to the map in the mid and late game, the boats will matter a lot more than the Artillery/Musketeers I think. But “I think” is the right way to say it, because I’m really just educated guessing. It’s definitely true though that one of the points of a huge tech edge is to gain a military edge, and that doesn’t quite work the same way in this game because “Artillery” is a pretty durable military edge. You know, assuming you don’t die.

Thinking about Moai, I don’t think the time is quite yet. It makes more sense to expand first as you’re doing, and make sure our initial wave of WEs equals or exceeds Yuris’s first wave of Phracts, then think about Moai.

Yeah, I’m not exactly sure when it’ll slot in, but I think I’ll know it when I see it. The payback is a little middling right now as I’m frequently working 2-3 water tiles. That payback is fairly slow, even accounting for hammer modifiers. Even if I add another water tile, it’s still a little bit weak compared to other options right now. That will improve as the capital gets bigger, so I’m just taking it 5-6 turns at a time right now. I might feel differently if I didn’t have the Cataphracts looming.

[Qgqqqqq]

Impressive for Luddite to be on 5 cities through this, even if they're close and small.

[scooter]

Impressive for Luddite to be on 5 cities through this, even if they're close and small.

For sure. This is IMP + India and I'm assuming some chopping fueling this. It's also a product of a recent burst. Here's city settlements as best as I've been able to track them on PBSpy.

Scooter
T0: city1
T24: city2
T29: city3
T40: city4
T51: city5

Yuris
T1: city1
T31: city2
T45: city3

Luddite
T0: city1
T26: city2
T40: city3
T43: city4
T48: city5

Oxy
T0: city1
T27: city2
T39: city3
T46: city4
T50 city5

Cairo
T0: city1
T30: city2
T43: city3

His third city was settled a full 11T after mine, but then his fifth city was settled before my fifth, to put it into perspective - settling 3 cities in 9 turns. So yeah, IMP power, plus no stops for wonders or to even really grow cities. I've just sailed past 3 of these cities and they were basically all hovering at size 1 or 2, so that's the trade-off.

[Zed-F]

Kinda surprised Oxy hasn't settled more cities than us by now, since we took a break for a wonder and he has Joao and great land. His (crop produced - crop eaten) can't be that much higher than us. It seems too soon to go for 'Mids already, right? Maybe he thinks it's super critical and he has competition (not that I can see, he doesn't)... or maybe he's got some settlers due any turn now and we just need to be patient.

[scooter]

About to be away for a few days, so this is probably the last update until Monday night, or at least the last screenshot, though I will still be playing turns. But this was newsworthy enough to login while it's not my turn to figure out what happened after I saw the PBSpy update.





We finally have 100% confirmation of the thing that was 90% confirmed. Cairo burned this city. The fact that it's not the capital suggests to me that maybe Luddite did get an Artillery after all, so Cairo is using his mobility edge to dance around them and burn the periphery. It might explain why it took a turn or two longer than I thought, but 2-mover forks are just too strong. Notably this was also the Buddhist holy city which is a pretty tough blow. I guess it doesn't prevent him from using the religion since you can see Dardanelles and Tsar Cannon already received spreads, but it really limits the upside of it. Sadly this also means -2 commerce for me, but I suppose I'll live.

Kinda surprised Oxy hasn't settled more cities than us by now, since we took a break for a wonder and he has Joao and great land. His (crop produced - crop eaten) can't be that much higher than us. It seems too soon to go for 'Mids already, right? Maybe he thinks it's super critical and he has competition (not that I can see, he doesn't)... or maybe he's got some settlers due any turn now and we just need to be patient.

I'm expecting a burst of cities from him anytime now. I'm guessing he paused to put cheap Terraces everywhere, but once you have those online you really can fly. I showed my rough plans to have 8 cities by T63, and that itself is a flurry of settling, and I sort of expect he'll match that and then some. You're right that he could probably delay Pyramids quite a bit longer if he wants because he doesn't have any competition for it whatsoever.