[spoilers] DTG thinks filthy casuals are ruining Realms Beyond

[Ruff_Hi]

Here are some interesting findings after a long and drawn out counting exercise ...
- the cow / pig grassland hill is 6 tiles north of NC Elkad
- it is equidistant between ourselves and 'white' (who?) Nicolae Carpathia ... 9 tiles
- both us and white have an equal claim to it (equally pink dot-ish)
- NC Elkad moving on it will effectively split his empire with both us and white Nicolae Carpathia applying pressure between his cities ... thus I don't see NC Elkad moving that way

I think we should look for a unit out of white Nicolae Carpathia's 2nd city ... that is what I would do if I was making a move on that grassland hill.

Edit: Thx for the correction and the other civ's / player's name.

[picklepikkl]

Quick correction: White is Nicolae Carpathia. Yellow is Elkad.

But yes, I fundamentally agree with your analysis. One thing I would add, though, is that we already have our two cities linked up via road, whereas our scouting revealed no such network from NC. In other words, we already have an advantage in terms of what is needed before a plant there becomes defensible.

[DTG]

The Pig/Cow/Fur will be too far for Elkad, but I think there's a chance he will try to settle one of these two locations and initially share his capital's Cow:



The Plains Hill 4N of his capital would invalidate any Grass Hill plant, unfortunately, and I think it's a more likely city spot than 3N1E.

However, if he does settle there then he's dooming his game. Unless there's a hidden Copper or Horse, it just doesn't offer enough in terms of new resources, and we *should* win any culture wars for the Pigs and Fur. In fact, given that no-one will want to settle 1W of the Cow for a long time, this scenario wouldn't be so bad.

[picklepikkl]

Christ on a cracker, gsorel just conquered a city of Borsche's. That lends credence to the "greenline was lazy and grouped players by the snake pick" theory.

I think it's safe to say that Impis are really, really good in this start situation. Let's hope Gawdzak is able to check gsorel from full runaway status.

[DTG]

See, that's why you research Archery...

On our end, things are less interesting. Elkad has roaded the tile 1N of his capital and 2-pop whipped a Settler:


The Forest growth was 1S2W of Syllepsis, on the Grass Hill.

With the whip and road, I think he's going to settle 4N of his capital. Which, as I said before, isn't too bad if we can control the Pigs from our own Plains Hill.

By the way, do you want to whack NC's Warrior if it moves onto the Cow next turn? :




I think it will retreat, now that he has visibility on Syllepsis. But if he wants to be passive-aggressive and hug our borders, then I'd favor attacking.

[picklepikkl]

Yeah, I want to whack it if it moves onto flatland, but I don't think it will; he sees the road, so he knows we can bring a 1-mover out of the fog to attack.

Also, if he just fortifies there, it's going to be a pain to dislodge him, and he'll be able to take shots at Settlers moving along the north coast. Argh; if so, let's hope that whatever Elkad is doing with his own Settler distracts NC from harassing us.

[DTG]

NC fortified his Warrior in place. I moved a Quecha and Archer in position to attack next turn, although I am not sure that it will be worth it. We can cover our Workers and Settler fairly easily, but doing so would leave Syllepsis a little exposed.

Pic:

[picklepikkl]

Leaving Syllepsis exposed isn't the worst thing in the world -- Elkad can't gain visibility on our city tile from outside our borders, so my expectation of harassment from the southwest is very low. Hopefully NC will decide to go impose aggravation costs on someone else, now that he sees what we've got.

Setting that aside for the moment: if Elkad settles in such a way as to block the grass hill city, where are we sending our second settler? The corn/ivory/seafood site to our east?

[DTG]

Leaving Syllepsis exposed isn't the worst thing in the world -- Elkad can't gain visibility on our city tile from outside our borders, so my expectation of harassment from the southwest is very low. Hopefully NC will decide to go impose aggravation costs on someone else, now that he sees what we've got.

Setting that aside for the moment: if Elkad settles in such a way as to block the grass hill city, where are we sending our second settler? The corn/ivory/seafood site to our east?

Corn/Ivory/Seafood would work best. However, the fourth city will be the first to drain our economy, so we'll need enough Workers and possibly a defender in place to set it up quickly. It's harder with Corn/Ivory than the Pigs/Fur/Cow would have been.

[picklepikkl]

Jeez, Borsche down. Those Impis must have gotten pretty lucky -- don't warriors have city defense bonus? And from the tech thread, NC is annoyed.

Well, I guess we'll see from the score screen if gsorel goes full runaway. Nothing we can do about it from here.

Popped into the game, saw an Elkad settler pair heading up. That's frustrating; maybe we want to delay Syllepsis's settler, get out another Worker first, so we can support the corn/ivory site? We might even want to settle that first; the plains hill site has no food other than Oasis until border expand or Animal Husbandry. But hey, we got a free religion spread into our capital!