[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[Rusten]

I think we should just reveal ourselves and get EP spending started (NE-SE). If we make contact now we'll have graphs in 10 turns which helps us make better decisions later. Having a look at the BFC is useful too.

[naufragar]

Sold. And calling it now, that's going to be Babylon. (Could be China but that's not scary enough.)

[naufragar]

Local area man on hot streak:



Anybody want to guess how I knew? Also, I'm mousing over the corn. That body of water is fresh. Not the coast. Confirmed by the dark arts:



Just putting up the info ASAP. Will now write analysis post. (Must spam more.)

[Rusten]

I'm looking forward to all the flying camera usage throughout the game -- seems you're enjoying it. I've created a monster.

[naufragar]

So, Magic Science, Charriu, Chumchu. They’ve got Babylon, which is gosh darn terrifying. When I last did C&D, I said I suspect they got Mining. I hope that’s still true. If they discovered us and pulled back, maybe they decided they wanted Hunting. We’ll know very shortly if they’re going to Archery. That tech bump should be obvious, and I’d expect it EoT 11. I would be surprised, frankly. I don’t think any of them are innocent of a Bowman rush, but I don’t think it’s underway yet.

We need to found our second city for copper. Simple as that. Agg axes still beat bowmen, and chariots are too far out of our way for now. Archers don’t die to bowmen, but we’d get choked to death. (Actually not all the way to death. With double seafood, we’re pretty choke resistant.) MSCC are Cre/Cha, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they plant their second city on the hill the scout’s sitting on. Which means we’re both settling towards each other soon. Feels good to be Aggressive.

I don’t think we want to deviate from our plan. We’re size two and shortly will be in slavery. This means warrior rushes aren’t super scary. We want that second city ASAP for bronze. Desert hill city will be so good because of the peak that can spy on the whole middle area.

Let me do the math on a bowman rush. Assuming they discover us the same turn we discovered them (HUGE assumption. They could already know about us, although I suspect their scout wouldn’t cross the desert immediately.), then they could switch to Hunting-Archery next turn. (Again, assuming their first tech was Mining, not Hunting.) At size one, this would take about 11 turns. By the way, the resource icon is in the way, but know that they are not working that corn. Assuming they grow while teching, they could plop out a couple warriors by the time archery’s done. Assuming size 2 and a couple of warriors, it would take around 4 turns to produce an archer and then 12 to get to us. (Assuming no roads. Babylon does start with Wheel.) We will have a second city by then, so long as the first warrior pair hasn’t kept us off our site. So, executive summary? So long as they don’t send warriors our way  and so long as we do have visible copper we can grab with cap or second city, we should be fine. Should be.

Scout moves S-SE, SE, next?

I'm looking forward to all the flying camera usage throughout the game -- seems you're enjoying it. I've created a monster.

I just think Civ4's a beautiful game.  

[Rusten]

You've always been very good at picturing the worst case (improbable) scenarios, so I guess I'll assume the laissez-faire role for balance. Expecting a very reasonable/cautious player pairing to all-in choke us with bowmen is a big assumption. They've picked Babylon for the granary more than everything. We can discuss settling patterns when more of the map is discovered, but let's not be too cautious. No reason to stray from our planned starting turns at least.

I'm happy to see that most of the area we'd fight for is completely useless, so their creative trait shouldn't be too annoying.

[Rusten]

Did you manually put EP on MSCC? We might run into someone else when it's not our turn and that would be obvious to them if we start doing 2 EP/t.

It goes without saying, but do make sure you select a flood plains again when the work boat finishes. Easy to forget as we don't improve a tile and the city manager won't do it automatically. Accidentally starving 1 pop would be... amusing.

Your suggested scout move sounds good. We can circle back after that one. Most likely move being SW-SW.

[naufragar]

Did you manually put EP on MSCC? We might run into someone else when it's not our turn and that would be obvious to them if we start doing 2 EP/t.

It goes without saying, but do make sure you select a flood plains again when the work boat finishes. Easy to forget as we don't improve a tile and the city manager won't do it automatically. Accidentally starving 1 pop would be... amusing.

Yup. Definitely manually assigned EP so I'd know when the first bowman gets made.

Two flood plains for the extra commerce, right? Then fish+floodplains. (Don't feel compelled to think about micro. I'm pretty sure I've got the plan up until T29.)

And it looks like no one's amazed at my color prediction.

[Rusten]

Did you manually put EP on MSCC? We might run into someone else when it's not our turn and that would be obvious to them if we start doing 2 EP/t.

It goes without saying, but do make sure you select a flood plains again when the work boat finishes. Easy to forget as we don't improve a tile and the city manager won't do it automatically. Accidentally starving 1 pop would be... amusing.

Yup. Definitely manually assigned EP so I'd know when the first bowman gets made.

Two flood plains for the extra commerce, right? Then fish+floodplains. (Don't feel compelled to think about micro. I'm pretty sure I've got the plan up until T29.)

And it looks like no one's amazed at my color prediction.  

I'll bite. You smartly predicted it because Babylon and Japan have similar colors, meaning Commodore was going to switch one of them.

Yeah, fp is strictly better unless I'm missing something obvious.

[naufragar]

I'll bite. You smartly predicted it because Babylon and Japan have similar colors, meaning Commodore was going to switch one of them.

Babylon and China, hence my hedge earlier.