[SPOILERS] scooter Reruns Bluey

[scooter]

Scooter, here is your starting area. The fog might be truthful, or it might lie.

Noodling on this start, the one that I like the most so far is basically a variant of the TBS Suleiman Medieval start from way back. It goes roughly like this:


* SIP, revolt to Caste/HR, WB first, worker mine Copper. Tech Music.

* Second city goes 1S of Deer and goes worker-first with no worker support

* Worker goes Copper Mine, 2T into 1E cottage while waiting for border pop, then farms Wheat. Capital nets the Fish then max growths on literally anything (units, library, etc).

* On T16 we have size 6 capital, 2 workers, and improved Copper/Wheat/Ivory/Deer. Capital runs 5 merchants for 2T, then 4 for the third turn, popping a GM EoT18 while dumping a few hammers into a settler. City2 gets a 3rd worker via chop at size 2.

* T19 bulb CS, revolt to Slavery/Bureau

* T20 whip settler from capital.



There are a bunch of uncertain parts to this plan, so it's still WIP. For example, if someone generates an Artist to bulb Music, I won't beat them, which would make the beakers feel somewhat wasted, but I'm pretty sure I win that race in any other scenario. The question is what to even do with the Artist, which is less clear, so I'm not 100% committed to that. This plan also leaves the second city to sort of fend for itself in favor of growing the capital lightning fast. It's possible for example to get that Deer improved with the starting worker and only cost myself a couple turns to my Merchant, and I need to figure out if that's a good trade or not. There's also a chance I settle the hill 2S of the Wheat instead if my scout finds a second food over that way, which would make my worker movements easier given that I really want to improve that Wheat the second it's in my borders. There's a slight chance I ought to settle there regardless given that it would be nice to share the Wheat while the Merchant is being birthed, so that's another thing I need to check.


The basic bet here is that fast Bureau is worthwhile. The capital has both strong commerce and early hammers, so it pays for itself incredibly fast. My eyeballing of this is that it results in getting into Bureau something like 20-something turns faster than slow-teching, which is a lot of commerce/production, not to mention it also puts you in the pole position on Music. Also, having that early tech speed boost then lets me get reckless with expansion afterwards and just sort of go wild with IMP.

[scooter]

Didn't see anything interesting in the fog after moving scouts, so we're off.





We are indeed going to rerun the Bluey episode naming scheme. It was a bit wasted on PB74 which I mentally checked out of almost immediately. I played this particular turn with my 18 month old on my lap, and her favorite character is Bingo, who has an episode named after her, so it was the right choice. She is just starting to talk, and pronounces Bingo as "ung-la" which is the best. So, Bingo it is for the capital. Revolted to Caste/HR.





The immediate area. If my southeast scout had found a food, I likely would have planted over there instead in order to also share the Wheat, but I came up empty, so my second settler went over by the Deer and will plant next turn. No real surprises here. I'm still figuring out some specifics on my planning. One thing that's weird is having both food to improve and forests to chop on T0. In general though, chopping at the capital pre-Bureau seems very wrong, so I don't think I'll be chopping before then.





I wonder why there's a soldier disrepancy here? We all have the same techs, but someone has 1k more soldiers than everyone else. That's not a mistake, right?

[Zed-F]

What do we know about the map shape, and potential neighbors by land and sea? I assume we know whether this is mirrored?

[Tarkeel]

I wonder why there's a soldier disrepancy here? We all have the same techs, but someone has 1k more soldiers than everyone else. That's not a mistake, right?

I think I know why, and if so it's not a mistake.

[Zed-F]

Your capital is building merchants. One of the nice things about colorless GP points from your UB is they can easily make things that are harder to get a lot of colored GP for, like engineers. Any thoughts on whether that’s something you’d want to pursue for your second or a future city and what you’d target?

[scooter]

I wonder why there's a soldier disrepancy here? We all have the same techs, but someone has 1k more soldiers than everyone else. That's not a mistake, right?

I think I know why, and if so it's not a mistake.

I figured it out after consulting the C&D article.

1000 soldiers- Trading Post, Shale Plant, Totem Pole

Never noticed some UBs contribute soldier points.

[scooter]

What do we know about the map shape, and potential neighbors by land and sea? I assume we know whether this is mirrored?

This is starting to look fairly Donut-y, albeit a pretty modified one. But I would bet one dollar Donut is the base from what I can see so far, which I think will make sense with the below screenshots. As for mirroring, I'm just sort of assuming this is Tarkeel Mirroring which means 85% mirrored including the most important parts, but subtle variations in each area. (I think this approach is generally pretty good, FWIW.)





Can see it a bit here which was an earlier turn today. Also I named my second city The Creek as it seemed like the right choice for a river bed. Note the barbarian city where it seems our horses are located?





This is an interesting setup. Locking Horses behing Longbow on a Hill is a bold choice, so bold that it makes me wonder if there's other horses elsewhere, and I've simply missed them. However, this definitely looks like there was serious concern about Horcher rushes. I think I'm glad I didn't pick Mongolia, as I would have at least wanted to have the option. Speaking of Mongolia.





Not really high on my preferred neighbor list! I assume then the barb city marks a midpoint between players. I expect I'll find a similar one in the other direction. The longbows really do make it challenging as you cannot simply sword/axe rush the cities. I mean, I guess you could, but you would likely need at least 5 of them to be confident of victory, and that's assuming the cities don't add more units, which they definitely might with pre-improved tiles.

[GT]

Good luck with Bluey 2.0

[Tarkeel]

The Yellow Castle is the original Lego Castle with hinged walls and mounted knights.

[scooter]

Neighbor luck: very bad in this game. Also note this barb city apparently has a pasture on a Corn tile??





Well it appears the horse options are island or barbarian capture.

Good luck with Bluey 2.0

Thanks! Looking forward to swinging by your PB74 thread as soon as I'm allowed.

The Yellow Castle is the original Lego Castle with hinged walls and mounted knights.

I was actually wondering about the name, so thanks for explaining. I was pretty sure Yellow Castle was not a real barbarian city name, but I wasn't sure the significance if it was something you named yourself. Never was a Lego kid myself growing up, but it doesn't surprise me that a mapmaker was.