[PB81] naufragar is a rock. He is an iiiiiiiiiisland.

[Tarkeel]

The only painful thing is that if the gold city becomes my naval hub, I'll have to kill two grasslands for eastern and western canal forts. (I love Civ4 maps. They create so much to think about. Thanks, Tarkeel!)

Pseudo-edit: Actually have to test it. I might be able to get away with a fort 1N3E of the gold city spot without killing one grassland.

You know I love some early dotmap speculation, so you're welcome!

And yes, if you settle W of the eastern cow, the plains NW of that city can form a canal thanks to the lake.

[naufragar]

    DAMN IT!!!   


I'm cut off from the rest of the continent by a Creative player. And this Creative player just so happens to be TBS. He can read a map. He knows that I can only expand through him, so we're natural enemies. So much for any political maneuverability. Nuts. 

At least it looks like there's land to his south, so maybe he doesn't need to expand right into my teeth?


Well, I am playing Boudica...

[naufragar]

We are even more locked in a duel than I first thought:


Other than that, nothing's happening (which is good). Everybody's racing to get their first settlers out.

[naufragar]

We are just white-knuckling our way through the opening.


We'll be settling our Copper with our 3rd city. If TBS moves quickly, he can axe rush me dead, but he'd have to be very quick. Well, it's a doable plan, and I have to assume that anything possible TBS can figure out. Plus he must know this is a duel setup.

I just wasn't going to pull my settler back for two turns so I could cannibalize my capital's food. T44 is my copper hookup. Let's see how fast TBS can move.

Who knows? Maybe he trusts the American Library for dominance. Maybe he doesn't want to let Boudica live. The course is set now.

[naufragar]

  I'm going to freaking scream.   


Did I skip last turn? No, PBSpy tells me I played. I didn't do either of the things I needed to do. I worked the lake clam for a turn rather than the stone, so my workboat is going to be a turn delayed, and I forgot to revolt to Slavery last turn. 

Holy smokes. I'm in a desperate race against TBS of America and I'm making sloppy mistakes.  Man, that's frustrating.

As far as I can tell from fog clues, TBS did not settle on the copper, which should mean that he can't get a Bronze unit to me fast enough. Still uneasy.

Giraflorens landed Stonehenge. He's Industrious India, so that makes a lot of sense. TBS met somebody else. No idea where, but I hope to meet this new friend eventually.


Pseudo-edit: Fog scrying also tells me that TBS had his second city's pig resource improved by the time he settled it. Elegant. Compare my own screw-up.

[naufragar]

One more for the annals of pointless micromanagement:



Do we move the scout to the hill jungle or fortify him in place? Short answer: we hold him in place for the healing and the fortification bonus. This way his odds of surviving are 74.5% as opposed to 71.6%. Of course, none of this matters because we all know bears don't respect combat odds. (I respect Amica's thread about barriers to entry. Please don't spend time out of your life calculating these percentages so your scout has a +3% chance of surviving the bear.)


Btw, TBS and I have equal EP spending. He hadn't met someone else. He just lost a turn of EP generation to anarchy.

[naufragar]

Well, this is a nice gift:



And the turn pace has been excellent. I'm as happy as can be expected. (Gosh darn duel setup against TBS. )

[naufragar]

Nothing new in Portugal (now renamed The Brotherhood), but PBSpy tells me that Mjmd took a city off of Superdeath! If that was SD’s copper city, he could be eliminated before t50!

For what it’s worth, this confirms the continent breakdown. Mjmd, superdeath, tbs, and I all share one. I wonder what continent SD thought he’d be on. Cataphracts against vets doesn’t seem to be a smooth road.

We’re not happy to see Mjmd profiting so early. It’s going to make me (and TBS) have a steep uphill climb.

[naufragar]

Hello, barbs.


This was a little worrying. I moved the spear that was going to defend my copper against chariot rushes to defend against the barb. I moved the warrior out to be able to double up in the copper city, just in case. Moved my odds of surviving the barb warrior from ~88% to 99%, and I don't think TBS is going to chariot rush me.

In my beginner's guide, I didn't mention a couple of scouting tricks. For example, by using the "move-to" command, you can figure out the map dimensions:






We're right up against the pole but TBS has more room to expand to his south. Notice that we've found the eastern edge of our continent. That means Mjmd is in the west and can safely expand into what would've been Superdeath's lands, and TBS and I can only reach him by a one-tile isthmus. That's freaking terrible. I played a game like this before (PB45), in which one player killed another early and was otherwise isolated from everyone else, so they could grow at their leisure and none of the other players could even contest them. It felt terrible because everyone else plays, essentially, a meaningless game while waiting for that isolated player to advance to whatever advantage they feel will seal the game for themselves. Oh well.

[Tarkeel]

In my beginner's guide, I didn't mention a couple of scouting tricks. For example, by using the "move-to" command, you can figure out the map dimensions:

That one is quite handy, but in many cases you can just ask the mapmaker.