[PB28 SPOILERS ] Fenn Presents: A Comedy of Errors

[Fenn]

No good for attacking right now:


Mardoc moved his Warrior into a forest, and I only get 33% odds attacking into that. His Worker remained in place and started roading the hill. No chance to snatch the worker or kill the Warrior, so I moved 1NW onto the Deer to scout some more.

Judging from Crop Yield graphs and score increases, I think Mardoc has three cities already. Jowy has whipped several times on the last few turns, so he is probably turning out Settlers or Workers, but I don't know if he knows about this spot, let alone that he'd be in a settling race with Mardoc for it. IMO, antagonizing Mardoc to potentially delay his getting Copper is too much risk for too little reward (for us, at least - I'm sure Jowy would love it...). I doubt that I would have easy copper right next to my capital while Mardoc has to settle up agains Jowy to claim his.

Maybe I'm being too lily-livered with this Shock Warrior, but I don't think aggression is the right idea at this time; I'm thinking of doing a declare war/offer 10T peace number actually.

Next turn when I log in I'll take pictures of the known continent as a whole.

[Cheater Hater]

Yeah, 68% certainly wasn't worth going for it in any case--non-zero change does not equal an endorsement

[Fenn]

Well, I could have sat on the hill he was planning to settle (not that that would have been much more advisable).

Turn 50
We're here already! This game is moving at a very good clip.


To make my intentions clear to him, this turn I declared on Mardoc and immediately offered 10T peace. It also means my scouting warrior is safe from him, for a little while. You can see that Mardoc has three well-named cities; Jowy's on three as well.

Since it's turn 50, a look at our cities:


A worker's chopping the forest to the west of the city tile; once that's done he'll try to hook up the sheep, though a barb's appeared nearby so that might be difficult. I should probably start producing a couple Axemen.



Cholera will grow to Size 3 and net the clams next turn, so it's given back the Wheat and started on the cottage. Working on a cheap EXP Granary since we'll have a lot of growing to do, but afterwards I think I'll start on an Axe for security. With so much food it might be a good place to whip out Settlers too.



Soon we'll have our second Settler. A chop just came in, and I plan to whip the Settler next turn and overflow into either a Granary or another Worker, I haven't decided yet.

Our continent:






We still have a good amount of space between us and the other empires, but the land there is good and will fill up quickly. We have some other landmasses within Work Boat/Galley range that we might want to take a peek at too: are they islands, or somebody else's continent?

[Cheater Hater]

Am I the only one who thinks declaring war to get the 10T peace treaty is a really bad idea? I know what it's trying to do, but I don't like it both on a practical level as well as the meta level (enforced peace treaties need a better implementation; either remove them entirely or just allow in-game NAPs).

How are Mardoc and Jowy so close to one another? Is it just that they both settled towards one another (and the distance would be similar if we settled towards Mardoc/Jowy and vice-versa) or do we just have more space?

[Fenn]

I don't plan to make a habit out of the war/peace cycle, but I thought it was worthwhile as a symbolic gesture in this situation to indicate that I'm not trying to attack him; it's not like he's in a position to attack me.

Judging from the shape of Jowy's borders, and the fact that he didn't road his Silver hill until after Rivia was founded, I'd say that he did settle west. Mardoc's city to the west only has first ring, which makes me think that he settled east. So it seems they did settle on each other, though of course it's possible that they have more backline space behind them that we can't see yet.

[Fenn]

This is worrying:




Guess I'm going to be putting that whip into an Axe then. Oh well. My cities won't go into unhappiness if the Warriors venture out, but I'm not sure how to handle this incursion, tactically speaking. Best case scenario is Plague is if the north barb moves onto the flat plains and the south one onto the flat grass so I can defend on the forest deer hill. More worrying is Leprosy, it has a chop arriving in 2T but isn't connected to the Copper so can only build Warriors.

Oh, and Mardoc didn't accept the peace offer nor send it back, but I'm not too worried for my Warrior, I don't think Mardoc has axes out yet. I'm turning tech to Archery, it'll be a 3-turn despite what the screenshots show, I can turn the slider up for a turn which will be enough to shave a turn off.

[Cheater Hater]

You shouldn't need to waste a whip on an axe, just move the warrior from Cholera into Plague and Plague into Leprosy, assuming you haven't moved this turn. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if you had odds at Leprosy with just the one warrior, but it obviously isn't worth the risk.

[Fenn]

You shouldn't need to waste a whip on an axe, just move the warrior from Cholera into Plague and Plague into Leprosy, assuming you haven't moved this turn. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if you had odds at Leprosy with just the one warrior, but it obviously isn't worth the risk.

I didn't read this in time and neglected to follow your very wise advice; that's my bad. Fortunately, luck smiled on me this time, and our Warrior in Leprosy defeated the two attackers almost flawlessly:



So, now I can continue mostly as normal; the Warrior in Plague is leaving to escort the second Settler, replaced by the Combat 1 Warrior from Cholera. The Barb is being annoying by sitting on our hilled Deer, but I can't imagine him breaking through a C1 defender on a hilled city with 40% cultural defences. Plague itself is growing to Size 4 on a Spearman, and might end up completing it. I used the whip overflow on the Granary after all - I did read your advice in time to not panic on that. Also switching tech back to Writing for now, but Archery is about a turn and a half away if we need it.



Here's the situation in Cholera. The road under the Wheat is done (contrary to the sign), so next turn I'll have it connected to our network. I'm thinking of chopping something in Cholera - maybe a Settler, since the foodhammer count here is pretty good but growth is slow when we're not using Plague's Wheat.

[Cheater Hater]

Did you actually have odds in Leprosy? Check the combat results screen please?

Settler in Cholera seems fine (that would be settling our 5th city, right? Are you settling them in the order from my dotmap?), though I do wonder if a Worker might not be better--how many Workers do you have right now? Maybe chop the Worker and go right into a Settler (possibly with another chop?)?

When do you think you'll be building Libraries, and now that you've already sunk some research into Archery would finishing that delay any of them? Archers are fine for city defense at this point (though I'm glad you started a Spear rather than an Axe if you don't plan on attacking anyone), and if you aren't building a Library the turn you finish Writing it's probably worth the flexibility to finish Archery first.

[Fenn]

Here were the odds in Leprosy:

So, actually pretty good! I still should have rotated the Warriors though.

Currently we have 3 Workers. We are about to have four cities, so yeah it might be a good idea to put a chop into a Worker first. I'm settling them in the order from your dotmap so far, so I'm going to settle City 2 from here:



I plan to have Plague building a Library as soon as Writing finishes, and may have a chop set to come in on that turn as well. Between the Palace, Silver mine and at least one riverside cottage Plague can produce a lot of commerce, but in the other cities Libraries wouldn't be going up that fast (if at all). So I'll probably keep on with Writing for now.

WRT city defence, Spears are better to have on hand than Axes; it's much easier to react to an approaching Axe and whip out an Axe/Archer of your own than it is to react to an approaching Chariot, even with our hilly terrain. Our neighbours are definitely too far away from us for an Axe rush to be anything like a good idea.