[Eitb spoilers] Miguelito's fortune hangs on a thread

[Miguelito]

Magic Eye in the south finds Auror as our southern neighbour. Blimey. He is running GK/Agri and has much better starts than we do, and I can't even tell myself that it's because of traits, because he's Fin/Arc. Must be the map then. He also has one city more than us, and much lower power :/. I don't know, I've felt some pressure from the barbs, starting with that nasty spectre, wouldn't have wanted to have much less.

Here is what the Eye has found over the last 3 turns, with my preferred dots:






The one towards Auror seems the most doubtful one, because he has that excellent double grain + double gems available, and we'd have to at least settle pigrice first (or do we?). Yeah, he'll get there first probably, but I'll try to think of a way to steal it, making use of our superior map knowledge...?
I think getting the dots towards coldrain is rather more realistic, as he has to bridge that barren hill land, and hopefully has better options.

City overview.


actually starving with two sages, but it can take turns working cottages / sages once it's done with the settler and not on the next yet.



I'd so like to have an additional pop here. Poor mismanaged thing. The mine will finish the turn after growth, and I can hardly justify leaving it unworked in favour of a sage, with our bad food hammers.#



I love it, only not sure if it should start a settler at size 4 or 5 (or 3?? nah). Building a cottage NE, but maybe I should send all worker power south towards Auror?

[DaveV]

You can't settle both the "city" sign by pig & rice and the "BW dot"; they're only two tiles apart.

[Miguelito]

So with Ginger we fall back into Discord, which is not the appropriate forum for this game admittedly, but when discussing there I also noted what DaveV said:

Ginger
Re EitB
Maybe it’s worth settling on the rice?
That Auroracher spot is genuinely worth fighting for
Especially if you want to dip into zero-sum thinking for a moment and consider him as chief rival
6 resource cluster is the sort of thing where you freeze existing plans and ask “how fast can we get something there immediately”
Although now that I look at it again the cold rain settlements are more easily reached and also contested

MiguelitoRB
2 problems: 
1) we're not in a position of strength, like at all. You've seen the graphs, his rate consistently over coldrain's. We do have more power though, but he should get golems/cats soon. We can get BW, but I don't really want to build a training yard. But maybe we'd just do that, it's like 3 turns of cap production.
2) the spot is far out and needs lots of work to be profitable, the resources being jungled, and culture being difficult. On the rice is interesting though.
Yes the spot is insane long term, especially the hill I marked for Auror, which is why I think he gets there first.

Would need to be the next settler, and I will stare at the screen long and hard thinking how to make it work. We have some advantages - the adept might have Haste by then, we have decently promoted warriors and higher power...


Ginger
The typical jungle belt play
Let someone else chop it
Then ride in

MiguelitoRB
"On the rice is interesting" especially since my proposed dotmap is illegal
Problem is that for him it's a neat corn/ reagents plant at first.
A detail is that being Luchuirp he doesn't want BW (enabling jungle chop), because his unit is at construction. He wants BW for chariots, but that's some way to go yet hopefully

So, on the rice is a nice dream - river defense from 3 sides, and it blocks Auror from settling corn first ring. It is very unlikely to happen. As promised, I thought this a lot over but in the end we just can't afford to settle a pink dot which will be unproductive until after some serious worker investment and probably a monument, against a neighbour with way more momentum atm.

The question then is, settle the coldrain ricegold first, or ricepig back at home? Ricepig is the bigger immediate foodhammer injection, but the coldrain city is quite likely to be contested. So I'm leaning towards the latter, with an immediate next settler in Hogwarts after the current one, while Beauxbatons is starting a settler now, but should probably fit in the Training Yard for upgrading promoted warriors. With those I'd try a jungle expedition, if it still makes sense at that point. 

Now our dot could be considered controversial, because coldrain's capital is quite close:

 
I want it though, if only for the hill border town, but we also really need to grab that valley. I still don't see a good way for him to get to the gold, so I am hopeful this works out, without major conflict. I am debating moving the  dot 1N (to W of gold), to get oasis first ring, but one argument against is having first ring forest against elves. We could promote Sybill to Fire I , but coldrain in't an AI so that would end poorly. In fact I want to use Haste to speed up the settler a bit...
Given the closeness, I am considering ceding the Tomb and settling NW of the northern Wine instead. Otoh, he shouldn't care much for the Tomb, and we do need the cotton. It's  a decision for pretty far in the future.

edit: After this shot I returned research to BW. If Auror in fact goes for golems and siege, skeletons are looking weaker, should we consider Divination (for Law II) then? Or still Necromancy, but go for Entropy II? Rust also seems pretty worthless though... of course what I'm really scared of wrt to Auror are chariots, and there Entropy looks just fine...?

[mackoti]

Wow. there some balllllls , setling 5 tiles from coldrein capitol....How faris from yours? 

[Miguelito]

It's a comfy 6 tiles from his capital! And just 9 from ours. but clearly he's communicating that he doesn't care about that direction, and that's ok, we can take care of it

[mackoti]

It's a comfy 6 tiles from his capital! And just 9 from ours. but clearly he's communicating that he doesn't care about that direction,  and that's ok,  we can take care of it

You are used with march of the trees anyway....

[Ginger*]

There’s several advantages beyond just the distance, we have culture from new cities already close by, better land inbetween to bridge the claim (Coldrain can’t settle halfway, he’d have to settle all the way over on our side), and most importantly, we have constant vision

[Miguelito]

Amurites gonna light those trees on fire!

well, if he's so kind to wait 20 turns so we can get Sorcery :shhhh:

But in seriousness, I don't think he'll go crazy over it. The area isn't really attractive for him, he might not even see our plant right away, and most importantly he has no flying eyes, so he doesn't know how far our starting spot is. For all he knows the Tomb should be our midline, and then the plant is a bit cheeky but not horrendous.

[mackoti]

There’s several advantages beyond just the distance, we have culture from new cities already close by, better land inbetween to bridge the claim (Coldrain can’t settle halfway, he’d have to settle all the way over on our side), and most importantly, we have constant vision

Just for the sake of argument he can setle a city 1n w of gold which is 5 tiles of his capitol, he ahs workers as well so that will  2 ,5 turns trvels for 1 movers and 1,3 for the 2 movers. As  I said i realy like migolito''s boldness, i remember Dave didnt took very well me planting a city so close to him(well actualy was even not that close) .I dont know Coldrain and how he will react to this or how capable player he is, but i know what i would do in his place....

[Miguelito]

Team, what should be our gateway tech to Sorcery? My prio rn is
1/2. Necromancy/Divination (for Death->Entropy or Spirit->Law, taking the former for adepts, then repurposing the node once sorcery is in). Can't decide between those 2.

Necromancy is bad if we face Auror and he has nonliving units, although we can just do fireballs in that case, he'd be slow. But we could just summon beasts as well. Law II summons work just fine against everything right? And particularly against demons, but that'll take a while to be relevant. getting a Spirit II wizard on the way would be nice, as Dave has been saying.

3. Elementalism for Air II, and Air I when ships become a thing, but we'd be lacking a summon.
4. Alteration - assuming we get the Tomb only enchantment is somewhat interesting, but we're not going for Firebows, so there wouldn't really be a worthwhile level 2 spell.