[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm also including towards Construction if he's got one of the last techs. But Zed has the right of it - when would you build /start a WE if you Oracle it? How many before Currency would get you there?

I think the distances means a low investment choke on Horse might be too difficult to pull off, given he's already settled.

[Tarkeel]

Yuris got Iron Working. Based on my break-even for HBR and extrapolating to what his rough rate must be, I'd guess I have like 12ish turns before he can build Cataphracts. Probably a little longer than that, but let's call it T71 conservatively. I have no way of knowing Iron's location, so I'm just going to have to assume he has it, though I can watch for improvement oddities to try to figure it out.

Resource yields for other players territory will take into account any resources they can see, so it's possible to go hunting for an extra hammer. If nothing else it will show up in trade when improved

[scooter]

I guess part of the question is do we even have any cities that can get a barracks built in just the next 5 turns so if we do Oracle Construction they can build WEs immediately, other than the capital? We might not benefit that much from early Construction if we’re building unpromoted WEs. I think having cities with barracks being the ones concentrated on military is the biggest draw of early Construction.

FWIW I already have a Barracks in Kendall, and Roman can whip one this turn.

Yuris got Iron Working. Based on my break-even for HBR and extrapolating to what his rough rate must be, I'd guess I have like 12ish turns before he can build Cataphracts. Probably a little longer than that, but let's call it T71 conservatively. I have no way of knowing Iron's location, so I'm just going to have to assume he has it, though I can watch for improvement oddities to try to figure it out.

Resource yields for other players territory will take into account any resources they can see, so it's possible to go hunting for an extra hammer. If nothing else it will show up in trade when improved

Yeah I was sort of lumping all those little tricks under "improvement oddities" as there's quite a few ways to spot/deduce a hidden resource.

[Zed-F]

It sounds like we will have or can get the setup we need to go for early Construction and focus our military to a few cities and pre-build enough WEs to stand up to whatever timing/wave attack Yuris is able to put together, while allowing our other cities to keep focusing on basic infrastructure and expansion.

Our problem is not economy, so to me keeping a strong partial focus on continued growth in underdeveloped and expanding regions of our civ is maybe worth giving up early Currency. Mininmizing disruptions and costs-in-hammers to our growth curve is probably more important.

[scooter]

I took a gamble.





I moved my warrior into a vulnerable spot. It's bait. Yuris has not seen that Chariot in the Jungle I'm almost certain, and I've been moving it up this way as so far I've seen exclusively axes from Yuris. If Yuris decides to use that Axe on the pigs to kill the warrior, he might think he's safe to do so given his retreating warrior. However, if he does, and he does not have a second unit coming in, then his Horse City is dead. I doubt he'll do this, but I was comfortable risking a Warrior to try. I don't think he has reinforcements coming because his Warrior sure looks like it's headed to reinforce horse city, but it wouldn't be fast enough under this scenario.

The open question is where is his other axe. If it's in Adrianople like I suspect, this plan works out great. If it's NE or NW of the Furs, I'm risking losing a Warrior for mostly nothing if he were to declare and attack. (And I'm not sure he would actually do that, FWIW.) The upside here outweighs the downside.

Also don't worry too much about the "62" sign for the Chariot. If he does take the bait, I'll move it differently to keep a worker from protecting the city. I moved the scout away after taking this picture to make this look less aggressive (remember the Chariot is unknown), but next turn I can declare and put the scout on the grass hill to get full vision if I need more info to decide.


Worst case scenario is I lose a warrior and he picks up a promo. Not great, but it's a tradeoff I can live with for some potential upside here.





Construction it is. Ultimately the Currency play feels a bit too Win More to me. Construction first is just me giving up like 40 commerce to have more security, and I'm willing to take that trade.

[T-hawk]

Since you made that decision, I'll comment now - yeah, Construction seems like the pick. This game could be won or lost on having another elephant or two; it's not going to swing on a few turns of Currency.

[Zed-F]

I like the gamble, especially with scout in the area to see if it’s likely to work. If not razing his city maybe we can at least delay the pasture / snag workers. He should see the move as sus, but he has to do something about your scouting warriors; he must know you’ll be able to see him coming miles off otherwise.

What’s the plan for Connor after granary - barracks or trading post? The latter is good for lakes but maybe you want to build riverside grass cottages and worry about lighthouse later? We know an attack is coming soonish and Connor is front line, so might need to be a unit producer in the short term.

How about worker plans more generally now that Oracle is done — what’s the general plan? Are we chopping forests north / west of Connor to avoid leaving defensible terrain for Phracts, or saving them for a wonder? Building a road from Connor to the capital / to Kendall? Getting around to building mines on hills near Kendall / Logan?

What about plans for Shiv, after the settler, is that city going to keep working on expansion while the northern cities play defense, or is she building a barracks as well? I guess somewhere needs to be building a bunch of work boats and this seems a natural choice.

Tech after Horseback Riding — Currency next, I guess. Then maybe Iron Working & Calendar make sense? Or do we want to head toward forges & zerkers? We might still have a reasonable shot at Colossus if we care to make a late play for it, now that our immediate tech objective is taken care of, and assuming we take care of our security needs first. Don’t think it’s a priority, but a lazy effort could still pay off. With Copper, OR, and Forge, it should be relatively cheap, maybe a bit more than the cost of a settler.

[Qgqqqqq]

Phracts can't use defensive terrain.

[Tarkeel]

Conqs can though. Makes me slightly sad we never got to use them in 66.

[scooter]

What’s the plan for Connor after granary - barracks or trading post? The latter is good for lakes but maybe you want to build riverside grass cottages and worry about lighthouse later? We know an attack is coming soonish and Connor is front line, so might need to be a unit producer in the short term.

How about worker plans more generally now that Oracle is done — what’s the general plan? Are we chopping forests north / west of Connor to avoid leaving defensible terrain for Phracts, or saving them for a wonder? Building a road from Connor to the capital / to Kendall? Getting around to building mines on hills near Kendall / Logan?

What about plans for Shiv, after the settler, is that city going to keep working on expansion while the northern cities play defense, or is she building a barracks as well? I guess somewhere needs to be building a bunch of work boats and this seems a natural choice.

Tech after Horseback Riding — Currency next, I guess. Then maybe Iron Working & Calendar make sense? Or do we want to head toward forges & zerkers? We might still have a reasonable shot at Colossus if we care to make a late play for it, now that our immediate tech objective is taken care of, and assuming we take care of our security needs first. Don’t think it’s a priority, but a lazy effort could still pay off. With Copper, OR, and Forge, it should be relatively cheap, maybe a bit more than the cost of a settler.

Will be honest, I’m very much playing one turn at a time right now because so much hinges on what Yuris does each turn. For example, next turn I complete the Stone Quarry at Logan. This 30h chop + overflow from this settler gets me really close to being able to 1T a settler, and it definitely means I could build 2 workers in 2 turns. Or I could 1T a Barracks and then go War Elephant the very next turn. I’m just not planning quite as far down the road as normal because these turns are very swingy right now.

Will probably go Currency next, but beyond that things are pretty wide open.