[spoilers] AT makes a funny thread title

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn the 17th.  Copper is revealed!!   we have some choices....



The mapmaker gives us awesome sites south, and our copper on a desert to the north.  Nicely done, Commodore

Can we wait till turn 50 for copper? 

one thing that's not obvious is that at the very bottom, that's stone to the west of the scout and gold to the east of the scout.   Also, the scout won 2 battles without a hit. he now has 2 xp. Not giving him a promo yet. I think the scout goes NE, no?

to the east and we meet Krill



Mr Cairo is still size 1 - he clearly went WB first and is still building a worker.  I think everyone else went worker first. 

ruff is the only one who has changed to slavery so far.  

Demos:



As for the oasis - I guess i had never noticed the vision issue with oases, I presume mainly because they are always found in the desert and I always saw around.   Game is 15 years old and I'm still learning basic stuff

[AutomatedTeller]

My init thoughts are that we go settler->settler->quecha to grow->settler, put the 1st one down near the grass oasis and the next one up by the copper.      Tech path is wheel->pottery->fishing, with copper city making workboats for awhile.     Maybe wheel->fishing->pottery to get the bonus for pottery from fishing, I dunno.

City #2 goes quecha->worker->whip->finish quecha->granary. The worker will road and chop and then move to city #4, which goes down near the stone/gold/cow.    City #2 stays on workers.  

I've been thinking about the cap whipping - to get a 2 turn growth, we need the granary, which is 45 hammers.  If we gain 5 hammers per whip cycle, its 9 whip cycles for it to pay back (as opposed to us just staying at size 4, that is).  Might still be well worth it, I'm not sure.    Building a granary in the cap would take 2 turns of building (24 hammers), whip puts in 38 more hammers to 62 for 17 extra hammers, overflowing into a settler, then grow back.    I dunno - might work.

I've attached a new sim that holds all the land we know now and with the events up to turn 17 in.

[AutomatedTeller]

Huh. I can get to 4 cities, with 2 workers, a terrace in the cap and copper hooked up, by turn 40. We would not have much in the way of infrastructure out and we'd almost certainly have to slow down until we got connections to all the cities with more worker turns and military.

Copper city would basically build workboats and military (clams & copper,mainly), a galley when we pick up sailing.

I have no idea if that's the best plan or not, but it's interesting.

[Charriu]

Note that I can see over 1 of those grass oases, but not both.    I will note that the one I can;t see over, the warrior was not originally on a hill - I made that tile a hill in world builder.    this might be an issue in Base BTS in some cases, is what I'm saying.

I don't think that's right.  Look again at your picture:  In the oasis that you "can" see over, all the tiles on the far side are in the fog of war (i.e. in shadow, though not in darkness).  I think what happened is that you first put the warrior on the hill (whence it could see those tiles over the grassland) then added the Oasis, blocking the warrior's view of those tiles again but leaving them revealed because you had seen them before the oasis magically appeared.  (The game does remain active and update vision while you're changing tiles around in WB.)  With the other Warrior, you must have placed the oasis before placing the hill under the Warrior, so there was never a moment when the Warrior was on a hill to see over the grassland without an oasis to block its view, and the tiles stayed completely unrevealed.

In any case, even though the graphics make it look weird, oases have always blocked both vision and movement exactly as though they were forests or jungles.  (Well, at least since BtS; I never played Vanilla or Warlords.)

Just wanted to say RefSteel is totally right. I just tested it in BtS and it's not a bug.

[AutomatedTeller]

Note that I can see over 1 of those grass oases, but not both.    I will note that the one I can;t see over, the warrior was not originally on a hill - I made that tile a hill in world builder.    this might be an issue in Base BTS in some cases, is what I'm saying.

I don't think that's right.  Look again at your picture:  In the oasis that you "can" see over, all the tiles on the far side are in the fog of war (i.e. in shadow, though not in darkness).  I think what happened is that you first put the warrior on the hill (whence it could see those tiles over the grassland) then added the Oasis, blocking the warrior's view of those tiles again but leaving them revealed because you had seen them before the oasis magically appeared.  (The game does remain active and update vision while you're changing tiles around in WB.)  With the other Warrior, you must have placed the oasis before placing the hill under the Warrior, so there was never a moment when the Warrior was on a hill to see over the grassland without an oasis to block its view, and the tiles stayed completely unrevealed.

In any case, even though the graphics make it look weird, oases have always blocked both vision and movement exactly as though they were forests or jungles.  (Well, at least since BtS; I never played Vanilla or Warlords.)

Just wanted to say RefSteel is totally right. I just tested it in BtS and it's not a bug.

Sorry for the mistake!!  learn something new every day, I guess

[AutomatedTeller]

Here is a brief timeline of 3 settlers out by turn 40:

T17 BW in, wheel in 4, quecha in 2
T18 continue. Wheel in 3, quches in 1
T19 continue. Wheel in 2, quecha built, moves N. Stonehenge for a turn
T20 PH mined. Wheel in 1, settler in 6, size 3.
T21 worker to PH, fishing in 5, settler in 5
T22 worker chop, fishing in 4, settler in 4
T24 chop finishes, fishing in 2, settler done.
T25 worker to PH, fishing in 1, settler gets overflow
T27 plant city #2-> (could do worker in 10), research off
T28 research back on, pottery in 5.
T29 settler finishes->workboat, citizens to FP, grow in 4
T31 settle->WB
T32 PH finishes, city 2 to size 2->worker, hunting, research off, city->terrace
T36 Hunting finishes->Meditation, settler in 3, research off
T37 whip worker->quecha
T38 mine finishes
T39 settler finishes.

This isn't quite a blueprint. I think that wheel->fishing->pottery is right. After that, I don't know what's next - I picked hunting, but meditation might be better.

It might be that wheel->fishing->meditation->pottery is best, too.

Also, I'm not sure the 3rd settler is best at that point - it might be that we need a worker to road to new cities so we can move military units more efficiently, but we can figure that out as we go. I'm sure we'll need more infra when we get city #4 out in any case.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn the 18th, where the overall shape of the world seems to take shape

The east scout moves and finds who I think is GKC:



I'm guessing we are 3 across, both north and south, and it goes:

AT - Mr Cairo - GKC
SD - Ruff - Krill

SD probably went east with his scout.   

2 things: 
A)  I'll have the scout make contact with GKC and then send him back west, along the jungle line. 
B)  Mr Cairo got screwed on 2nd city sites.  There is no food within 3 tiles of his cap border.   I suspect he's going to end up with that cow, because it's a fairly low priority for us. 

Closer to home:



I'm debating what route the scout takes - I suspect the land to our east is a peninsula that we basically own.  If SD was there, we'd have met him by now, I'm sure.    Either that fish is part of it or is an island, either of which is fine with me.

Yellow lines are the scout plan - gets us visibility on all the tiles that our 2nd city might get, and gets us over to scout the west area.   I'd like to know that that area is ours before we decide what to do with the south.

I marked 5 sites for city #2.    A, B and C get founded 3 turns after the settler is made.  D and E take an additional turn.  D&E have the advantage of getting us the gold.  B has the advantage of not using a forest.  A is cheaper than the others, at least in the short term.  C has an additional hill?   E also gets the stone when culture hits 100 - we can maybe time meditation to hit right after we plant, which gives it 5 culture before the terrace and the stone in 20 turns or less.   I think A, but both B, D & E are interesting in different ways.

If we want to try D or E, we should try the pink scout line, to be sure we have visibility on everything.

Edit: Now I'm thinking we should go pink, anyway and check to see how far away whoever is south is. Oasis/cow/gold is very strong and we are gonna need commerce. If SD (I assume) is quite a ways, then it's safe. If he's close, that might be a dangerous plant.

Demos

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm now thinking that I need to scout pink, but actually go further south and find whoever is south of us and see if D is an aggressive plant or not. Like I said, I think we are north of Superdeath and he does have a history of aggression. I dunno if I'll be scared off, but I'll want some backup, at least.

One other thing from the demos:

It looks like Mr Cairo has not researched BW yet. Lowest soldier is 5K and last turn it was 4K and Mr Cairo just grew. He started with fishing and agri, so I think he's researched mining and hunting (he does have that cow) and is nearly to BW.

Question - can barbs spawn on specials? I'm trying to figure out if I need to plant a warrior on the copper hill N of the capital to keep a barb from spawning on the silk or not. I think city #3 has to go there and I'd hate to delay it playing a dance with a bear or something.

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn the 19th, where it is found that AT is bad at prognostication

Looks like our other nearest neighbor is not Superdeath, but rather Ruff.   I am guessing superdeath is where he should be... on the other side of the continent from us  



It looks like my only real chance to get the gold is to plant on space D.   I'm not sure that Ruff currently knows about the gold, but I am absolutely sure he will when he sends his scout down that way.  Maybe he'll go look at the rest of my peninsula, I dunno.   I'll be settling in 9 turns if I settle there.   I have a couple of turns, because I think that if I plant on D, I'll want to try to get buddhism there.  

I almost certainly need to send a quecha down that way.  I'll also need to connect it soon and send a spear and an axe down there.  

One thing that is interesting is that that inland sea is not big enough to make boats on, though it would not be hard for me to put a city on it and fort a way through there.  I'm not positive ruffs capital is coastal there, but it might be boatable.

This is where I think that mr Cairo will settle - one of the circles first and the rectangle 2nd.  



Those are bad settling spots for us. It means land access to both those ivories will be cut off and we'll have to get a galley just to get a city to the northern one. Lack of early luxuries might end up being a problem.

Our demos suck, I presume mainly because I don't have any seafood connected.    We are 4 or 5 in everything.  Of course, that doesn't really matter at this point. 

I had planned on sending my quecha up to barb bust up north, but I think I'm going to turn him around down south.  I cannot plant a city and then let ruff walk up to it with a warrior and take it - or with a protective archer.  


My scout is going to check out ruffs city - he really has to - hopefully, ruffs copper is on the other side and he prioritizes that.   IMP may really help us, cause we can get 2 settlers out very fast, so I can go for a non-copper site.

[AutomatedTeller]

My plan, right now, is to D (the spot 2N of the gold) and to research meditation, timed to finish as close as possible to the settling. Meditation is a pretty expensive tech now, but

1) I don't need fishing or hunting quite yet
2) I do want a religion and I want temples, so meditation is a good one
3) Getting the culture into 2nd city means I'll cut ruff off from that west peninsula, and maybe claim the stone as ours.

the downside is that its kind of aggressive to put in down in D and Ruff might react militarily. But man - that's basically a 2nd capital site and it leaves the wet corn for another city. 11 forests + stone = pyramids, at least to me.

That city would found on T27, which is 8 turns from now. I do want wheel before meditation, so I guess I'll do med right after wheel. It won't land for a little while after. This is postponing pottery by a fair amount.

one nice thing: the 10% off for cities for IMP comes into effect with a city at D and one north of the copper - raw expenses are 5.01, which normally rounds down to 5. But for IMP, they are 4.5, which rounds down to 4. Not bad.

I think the cap builds a worker after that, maybe two, before the next settler. We are gonna need some roads to hook various cities and move military around. Also, I think the WB build in the cap becomes a quecha.