[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[civac2]

As Qgq^5 said there were costs. Not only is our second city



misplaced, Augustus also had to invest its scarce resources into implements of war. It will be around t70 until it is fully online which is astoundingly terrible for a second city. The demographics speak volumes.



The capital recently made two workers. I convinced Tarkeel to transfer them both south to our new holdings.



For the time being, the two halfs of the realm develop independently. In the north the capital will equip two settling parties for the two genuinely powerful spots near us.



In the south Dreylin's former capital should be able to squeeze out another settler so that we reach 7 cities by turn 70 which is anemic but not hopeless.

[Tarkeel]

Adding my own thoughts on this rush, I firmly believe it came from a position of weakness and not strength. They way I see it, if we let the situation develop normally we'd be locked out of doing anything south of Augustus. Now we still don't know what the north holds but there were no immediate strong cities in that direction at the very least. We'd be very weak to a push straight to our core with horchers or knights.

Dreylin is something of an unknown to me. <...> I got the impression he's competent.

I'd have gone with "competent, but rusty" if you'd asked! 

It's hard to tell how deep the rust sits. I think you played a very competent defense here and made it as hard for us as you possibly could. Based on graphs we were pretty sure that the only way you'd survive was by settling on the copper and researching hunting, which at that moment you had no reason to believe was necessary. Even then you almost got us with the axe-upgrade; I'm still not certain if the axe defended due to higher base strength or just pure luck, but that one could have really hurt us on the counter. I was surprised you didn't take the 2 vs 1 warrior strike in the opening moves, but it was a better play to retreat and defend. Our worry at first was that your scouting warrior would move north to harass, but I think you got more out of it in defense. I do hope you weren't too put off by this and stick around for another game.

Lastly, our brave scout got snuffed out at Amica's borders by a barbarian warrior, so here's a look at what he uncovered:


The land-shape looks very interesting, and if we get a road connection to Amica we should also get sea-trade with both Pindi and Commodore.

[Dreylin]

It's hard to tell how deep the rust sits. I think you played a very competent defense here and made it as hard for us as you possibly could. Based on graphs we were pretty sure that the only way you'd survive was by settling on the copper and researching hunting, which at that moment you had no reason to believe was necessary. Even then you almost got us with the axe-upgrade; I'm still not certain if the axe defended due to higher base strength or just pure luck, but that one could have really hurt us on the counter. I was surprised you didn't take the 2 vs 1 warrior strike in the opening moves, but it was a better play to retreat and defend. Our worry at first was that your scouting warrior would move north to harass, but I think you got more out of it in defense. I do hope you weren't too put off by this and stick around for another game.

I'd say the "muscle memory" is still there for sure, but I needed to remind myself of a lot of details. Examples include: Horses being revealed by AH, mechanics of bouncing on declaration, and Warrior's innate City Defense bonus. On the 2v1 Warrior opportunity, I recall playing that turn fairly quickly and then realising / thinking about it more the following turn. I believe my conclusion was that I probably wouldn't have attacked; my second Warrior was across the river and I knew you had follow-up so it would most likely have been trading 2 for 1. That was also when I refreshed my memory on who bounces whom - which I had mentally the wrong way - to see if there was a way of using that to my advantage <narrator voice> there wasn't.

I think that forgetting the Warrior's city defense bonus (until after the Axe was dead) was also important; I should have kept at least 1 Warrior in the city building up fortify, rather than having everything in the forests. I also messed up my micro/Worker movements as the attacked closed in; looking back, I don't know if I could have connected the Copper a turn sooner, or pushed a second Axe out of Cod on the connection turn if I'd ripped up the current plan and started from scratch rather than trying to adapt it.

In the end though I'm not disappointed by my performance, nor bitter about the result - I totally understand the motivation for the attack - and I think I am left with enough "unfinished business" that I'll probably be lured into another game...

[civac2]

Yes, if you had used both workers for the road you could have connected the copper t40 (and upgraded warrior) and then whipped an axe t41. This whip would have been tricky due to our ability to pillage copper with the lead chariot on t41. A possible play was to attack out t41 with your axe and cover with 2 warriors. We had only 2 chariots in range and your axe could have lived if it got wounded badly enough. So you could have had 2 axes. This is an excange that definitely can go south for you too though. Just keeping the upgrade axe in the city and exacting a price for pillaging the copper was also an option. You probably did have to defend the western forest on the way to your capital so it you could not use all warriors.

[civac2]

Nemesis has appeared.



The gods are displeased.

[klops]

wow, I did not see barb spears very often.
that's unfortunate if you only have chariots

[Dreylin]

Karma? 

[Tarkeel]

Turn 54 (1840 BC)
Speaking of costs, another of the downsides from the rush has come calling, as civac spoiled above. Just as we're pulling some chariots back north to fogbust, we get a barbarian spear coming from the fog, which is the absolute worst that could happen. Even using both the C2 shock chariots in the north only has a 76.5% odds of working. To put it bluntly, there are no means of dealing with this that doesn't suck:

Fact 1: Spear can step into Catan in 4t (T58); 5 if it stops to pillage pigs or road, 6 if both.
Fact 2: The two units we have in the north can attack in time, but the odds are not great. The GG chariot will be in time only if the spears stops to pillage
Fact 3: We can't hook up the northern copper in time.
Fact 4: The southern copper can barely be hooked in time (A1) since it is pre-mined and roaded, but this stops us from building MP warriors
Fact 5: Augustus can not contribute anything in time.
Fact 6: Catan can slow-build a warrior

A warrior defending Catan will get 115% bonus, which is as much as we can hope for. Best option seems to be to build a warrior, and lure the spear in with an undefended city, and have the chariots clean up after the fight.

Appendix 1: Hooking the southern copper
T54: Forest worker roads in-place; other worker moves to forest
T55: Both workers road corn
T56: Both workers mine copper
T57: Both workers finish mine and if needed road on copper
Sailing also comes in on T57, allowing Catan to wither dry-whip on T57 or normal-whip T58.

Karma? 

[Tarkeel]

Turn 56 (1760 BC)
The spear decided to step on the pigs, but we're completing the road to Surf-N-Turf and whipping out the settler.


Defensive warrior will join up with Chariot from Augustus and protect Catan next turn. We're purposefully leaving Catan open so the spear might be lured toward it instead of pillaging. The workboat did some minor scouting, and that island looks bigger than expected. DryPigs looks to have more food than it can do anything with, claiming 6 floodplains, flatland pigs and riverside bananas, so we're slotting in a FriendlyFiller to help split off some tiles.

I've been tracking whips and cities from PbSpy more closely than usual, and if I've not made a complete fool out of myself, these are my findings:


Commodore is already pulling far away here, settling his fifth city this turn. Only Pindi and Piccadilly have managed to settle their fourth, while we've captured our way up to four. Xist and GT seems be stuck on two cities, I wonder what's going on over there.


Part of the reason can be seen here; there's been very little whipping in this game. Four players have only done a single whip so far; with the slight caveat that scooter and Miguelito both have a 3-whip on PBspy that could be 2+1. Miguelito is the only one even close to Commodore's whipping frenzy.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 57 (1720 BC)
Naughty spear pillaged the pigs instead of going for the bait, which puts us even further behind in the foodhammer race.


Both chariots take a peek to ensure it's safe, and the settler is off for Surf-N-Turf. Augustus has some lovely timing lined up; We finished Sailing this turn, so it can start a lighthouse. Next turn it grows and can whip it, while the borders pops and fish is netted.