[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

Turn 65 (1400 BC)
This universe seems to have it in for us.


Just as our fogbusting screen is diverted, a barb city spawns betwen sugar and dye invalidating our spot. There's an axe coming from the south and plemo has ensured we don't have horses to create a new chariot to deal with. Lastly there's another barb city down in the jungle.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 66 (1360 BC)
Yeah, this is getting ridiculous.


Plemo's spear only took one hit, so neither of our chariots have even 50% odds on it. There's also a fresh barb warrior threatening Dominion we need to deal with. The weird/worst part is, we're not even last in any demographic except population:


Somehow we're fifth in hammers.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 67 (1320 BC)
Something went according to plan, and the barb warrior died without scratching the chariot. Plemo offered a cease-fire so we can stop the turn-split, and see no reason to not accept that. Azul and Carcassonne are almost ready to spit out some more settlers too.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 69 (1240 BC)
Plemos northern spear has been staying put near Wormlake, and this turn the southern barb axe dies obligingly to our chariot at 99% odds but still inflicts major damage. Pindi had a mid-turn score increase which I thought was oracle, but seems to have been a bulb as Stonehenge is still the only wonder to have fallen. Nothing else big to report for now, repairs and damage mitigation is on-going.

[Tarkeel]

Thinking some more about it, a bulb seems awfully early for someone that's not PHI and doesn't have an early specialist building (looking at you here Egypt). Did Pindi get lucky with a hut?

[Tarkeel]

Turn 71 (1160 BC)
The great resettling is underway.


Carcassone just whipped out a settler, and the overflow combined with a chop finishing next turn will make a second. Azul can contribute a third pretty soon as well. First one is going on SpareHogs, the alternate to the spot Amica stole, while the second will go resettle Catan. After that we're likely taking CattleCorn before resettling Augustus in a new spot.

Barely visible in the north are the three annoyances; Plemo has a spear fortified by the old WormLake spot, and we just found an axe hiding in the east, while yet another barb spot is approaching the ruins of Catan.

Pindi built Oracle this turn, I wonder if he managed to combine it with the free tech he got last turn. It seems like we're stuckin inbetween the three front-runners in this game.

[Dreylin]

It's always interesting to see how other people's dotmaps for the same area differ from your own.

Why not push the pigs city to the coast; are you planning to contest Comben's 1st ring tiles?

[Tarkeel]

Comparing dotmaps is very interesting. Our first choice would have been the plainshill 2N of Azul/Anchovy, but that site obviously got invalidated. DustyHogs was then the preferred site, allowing a FriendlyFiller to grow cottages and steal some food for whipping. We don't think it's worth waiting to burn Amica's city to settle that spot, and then we're down to picking between SpareHogs and the grassforest W of the pigs. In the end, it mainly came down to not being on the coast being a benefit with Plemo's raiding forces, and we do intend to contest the inner ring tiles.

As you're probably painfully aware, settling much of anything in the south requires iron working, and most likely a filler city on the lakes to reach there. We have a small hope of being able to capture the barb city that spawned down there, and have yet to decide what to do about the city by the dyes.

[Dreylin]

Yeah I spent quite a bit of time going back-and-forth about how I wanted to settle the area; the plains hill is the "right" spot productively and defensively behind the river, but I felt it would inevitably lose the pigs to a city you would found with them 1st ring (I'll be honest though, I had no idea how your dotmap would work with the band of plains and desert), plus it would mean losing a filler spot in the middle between it and the Cow/Horse spot in the South, so I decided to risk grabbing for the coastal spot 1N that would probably secure the pigs and create a "natural border" since there's bugger all food north of that to contest. Yeah it might have lead to tensions, but I thought I'd be prepared for them building out of Anchovy.

FWIW, I thought the Comben/Gold area was going to be the real flashpoint though, being roughly equidistant between the 3 of us, but the best laid plans, etc. etc..

[Jabah]

FriendlyFiller is not compatible with your new Hogs city ... and moving it NW will make it unable to work any (decent/cottage) tiles