[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

Turn 78 (925 BC)
We get some genuine good luck this turn, as Hinduism spreads to the newly resettled Catan, vindicating our choice for granary first instead of monument. Azul will squeeze out a 5t hardbuilt settler while regaining happy, then grow into a freshly chopped library.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 79 (900 BC)
Plemo has built a scouting workboat for the east coast, and we decide it's worth whipping out a galley in Dominion to kill it. The benefits are denying him knowledge of our lands, delay contacts with our neighbours, and more importantly it's a unit that can help defend that coastline and apply counter-pressure. Medium-term we can build a canal between Catan and CattleCorn to shuffle it west if needed.


Poor Dominion is on it's third different build in as many turns now.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 80 (875 BC)
We make a new friend in the north. Superdeath's scout comes through plemo's territory to make contact at Catan, and diplo screen reveals their EP spending is even at 72/72, which means they both have more contacts.


Normally I'd be inclinced to kill his scout for free XP, but in this instance he's on the other side of our biggest enemy, and thus something of a friend. A slow-expanding SD would explain why plemo has so much land, but SD actually has 7 cities which isn't that far off others. Plemo on the other hand is up to 12 now, settling as expected to claim the incense and invalidate WoolyStallion. We're sending out our own settling party for WormFort, which has all of it's good tiles in the outer ring.

It's not all quiet from the southern front either:


When we saw the city had a lone warrior next turn, we expected Commodore to be working it down while waiting for it to grow. He might not appreciate that we showed up even if he can only see the chariot. We're happy for him to raze the city and take the gold, but if we're unlucky (again) and it grows to 2 next turn, we should be able raze it if Comm takes and keeps. We could kill his axe regardless, but I don't want to antagonize him without a reason.

Colossus was built in a far away land, and PBspy scores indicates it might be Miguelito. Great Lighthouse is yet to fall, and part of me wanted to try for it in Dominion with 6 forests available, but that would be tantamount to building it for our enemies.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 81 (850 BC)
Plemo settled on our island this turn, stealing Augustus' fish and pushing that city spot down the priority list. Oslo was still undefended against our roving warrior, but we didn't think plemo would leave it actually uncovered, so sent the warrior south to check the path to WormFort:


As expected, he had an axe covering and would easily have dispatched our warrior. On the eastern coast his WB is moving full steam into our waiting galley. The worker starts roading and the rest of the settling party moves up.


Commodore retreated his axe in the south, probably due to the chariot threat, and is flashing a C1 archer instead. We take the opportunity to burn Ligurian with the axe for a measly 14g. We try our hand at some gibberish AI diply, offering our fish for his rice to indicate he's welcome to take it. Let's just hope he doesn't take it as us begging to get the rice.

Speaking of islands, our workboat has mapped out Spiceland (there's a spice SW and fish NE of sign). Going by the shape, location, and that most others are settling islands, it seems everybody was supposed to have their own dedicated island. Too bad ours was just as close to our neighbor as to us (3 coast from our capital and 5 from plemo).

[thestick]

Ah, but Oslo's not plemo's capital.

[Tarkeel]

Ah, but Oslo's not plemo's capital.

I know that :P That's why Oslo is marked that it's plemos 12th city. It is however an inner-ring city to his capital; you can see a small marker on the edge of the screenshot indicating his capital is two tiles away. Now, that marker might be wrong, but I believe it isn't. There is also the issue that plemo did move his capital, so we're not sure where he was supposed to start.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 82 (825 BC)
Plemo settled yet another city (14) somewhere we can't see, and retreated his spear from our freshly settled city of Rococo.


We decided to not kill the WB just yet, and see what he does; he might delete it when he meets our culture, or declare to pass through.



Rococo is a moderatly complex euro-game where the goal is to impress the Sun-king's Court with your lavish dresses. The core mechanic is managing a hand of your workers to gather ingredients and recipes to sew dresses, which can either be sold for profit or donated to the court for prestige (victory points). The game usually flows well with not too much downtime between player turns, and while it's initially low conflict, someone can snipe away the recipes or cloth you really wanted for that super dress.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 83 (800 BC)
Plemo did declare war and moved up the WB despite there being no courtesy PM. We pop the workboat as planned, and the warrior can finally scout the coast around the horse, revealing no food there either. Things are starting to look up in our new core though:


Kingdom Builder 2-whips an axe into a library, and still regrows to 3 next turn thanks to the +10f. Azul gets a ton of chopped overflow into the library, which will complete just as it grows to 5 (taking back the corn next turn). Carcassone spits out a worker while waiting for the happy to grow back to 4, and a settler is ready for the horse-canal next turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 84 (775 BC)
There's news from the south, as Commodore starts settling the jungle peninsula.


I doubt Commodore has scouted the entire peninsula, as Blitzkrieg and Illinois would block any city inbetween them. BendyFish was always something of a reach for us, so this is likely a border we can live with. We also start settling this area with Ticket to Ride on the canal site, and will be moving units to take Illinois. We'd still cede the rice to Commodore in the interest of future relations.



Ticket to Ride is another of the classic gateway games, in which players try to build routes between cities to claim tickets for points. It does have the slight problem that drawingthe right or wrong tickets near the end can win or cost you the game. The boards are also good for only certain player counts; the two base editions (US and Europe) are both best for four players, despite the box claiming they can be played with two. For two-player I recommend Nordic or Switzerland.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 85 (750 BC)
I really don't have much hope for this game when even Superdeath refuses to close borders with the game-leading holder of the Great Lighthouse. We are atleast trying to throw some sand into the machinery and test if plemo's ready to defend Oslo.


We've deftly maneuvered a chariot around the peak-vision into a position from where it can threaten Oslo next turn. Plemo smelled that something was up and moved the axe SE from the hill on which it has been perched, but we can still threaten the city from the desert hill. But first the warrior has a peek. The city is still undefended, but he can save it (or at least buy time) with the axe. We suspect that the galley holds his C2 spear from earlier, so the chariot takes the inland route. His axe has the option of attacking into it (at 30%-ish odds), in which case our axe can clean up.


Let's see if he wants to roll the dice.