[Spoilers] Pindicator accepts his fate

[pindicator]

Good to have a couple of options, but we still have a few more tiles to unfog in the area. I generally think that the city needs in the center of the isthmus to take advantage of being CRE and gaining control of the majority of the center land tiles, and both the suggestions do exactly that.

This has me rethinking how fast that first settler comes out. Perhaps instead of growing to 3 it would be better to delay Agriculture and go straight for Mining/BW and build the settler at size 2 with only a single warrior done.

[Commodore]

Hunting->Archery, settler at size 2 with an archer out?

I'm a fan of 1NE of the deer too, just fyi. But that's kind of ceding a fair bit of land. *really* hope the scout survives to swing south and find out if there's somebody down there too.

Elkad's move (2-3 tiles, presumably) might have played a merry hell with his neighbors.

[Commodore]

Or the sheep hill...

Sadistic map; 220+ tiles per player, a site 4 tiles away is an absurd pink dot.

I'm actually serious on the sheep hill settle idea. If you can get a settler there with half a movement point turn 27, I'm pretty sure you could lock that whole border down. Not like the hill sheep are needed for food in Lushtopia: The Map O' Duels. Doubling (trippling?) down further, you could continue to rashly ignore Agriculture and BW and instead go for AH to hook deer and find some nice chariot-pullers. Remember, as India your chariots can be 4-movers...

This setup is Prisoner's Dilemma: The Game, all being played out for the entertainment of The Watchers. You have to assume aggression from Nyles and he's got to assume you assume aggression from Nyles, etc. Either you're all in here packed like sardines or this is a land-heavy replay of PB16. Won by, oh yeah, Seven Spirits who successfully rushed his duel buddy early.

I'm not saying any of this to get you down. Adapt and overcome; Suryavarman of India is the best tight dueler/triueler combo in the field, and Nyles isn't a pushover newbie but he's not one of Korne's Chosen, either. This is a game you can win, definitely.

[Commodore]

So uh...

[pindicator]

Lots of stuff, lots of options. Before I get to cities, I think we want the scout to go SW-W next turn and not to the hill - it looks like there's a bit of a peninsula down there, and while I'm ready to cede that to Nyles at this point I still want to know what's down there before I definitively do so.

I think I'm leaning towards the Pink dot at this point, but I haven't quite written off going all in on the Neon. What I like about settling on the sheep is we're not entirely cutting him off: he could settle between the 2 cows, but he would be set on flatland and he wouldn't be claiming any tiles there with a cow. No, he'd settle south in that case, probably south of the plains cow. But that still works for me because he has to get a border pop to even fight for the deer tile.

If there happens to be good stuff south/southwest of the plains cow then it might not be enough of a concession and I will then be more tempted by the all-in play...

[pindicator]

Turn 007

Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to cross off map theory #3



Thoughts? I don't know if I want to explore much to the south before swinging the scout back around to look at the lands southeast of the capital.

[Commodore]

Makes me *really* curious about what's south of your capital. I'd say SW, SE then double back?

[pindicator]

Turn 008

Reasonably confident that Nyles and Ichabod both finished Mining this last turn. So keep in mind our neighbor is most likely teching BW now and should finish that tech somewhere around t23.

Turns out there isn't too much land to be had down south:



I don't think scouting farther west is going to add any information that would change our minds so I'm apt to just call it good at this point. Next turn I'll take a peek at the coast on my way back east and then we'll swing eastward.

One more really big piece of info from this turn:



Looks like things are very cramped.

Also, I need to figure out what I'm going to do for a tech after Hunting. Options as I see them:

1) Archery straight away. This is the most aggressive in the short term but will delay BW in the long term. Keep in mind that the timing doesn't work for getting an archer out before a settler (assuming we're making the settler at size 2).
2) Mining -> BW straight away. Potentially will cause an issue of running out of worker turns depending on where city #2 goes; but it does fit nicely with Neon Pink dot as most the food at that location can be activated with Hunting
3) Agriculture -> AH straight away. Would be quicker than #2 and allows us to grow the capital a little more, but chariots v bronze doesn't seem all to appealing honestly.
4) Normal: Agriculture -> Mining -> BW. Slower BW and this line would be only worth it if we think that we need to get 2 warriors out before the first settler.

[Commodore]

Well, sheephill or Neon will need AH (remember, deer=AH)...what about ignoring Agriculture anyway and going directly for AH?

Really nervous to see who is south of you; if Nicolae, who went south with his scout, met someone else that means everyone is indeed ~10 tiles from each other.

[pindicator]

Maybe we have Borsche to our south and he simply hasn't played enough turns for his scout to reach us yet