[SPOILER] Catherine of Maya - Vets - Kylearan

[mostly_harmless]

Turn 29.

No additional espionage points from Whosit, implying that a) he has met another civ and b) he can see our demographics.

Only 2 additional espionage points from Darrell, implying that he has met another civ.

We can now see Darrell's demographics, and he is ahead of us in all but GNP, which is partly due to us being creative.

At C64 the copper mine is finished. The second worker started the mine NW of C64.
Darrell's Bowman advances further NW under cover. I would expect him to move NW-W in the next couple of turns.
Waledac, the eastern Holkan, is moving back towards C64. We will see whether Darrell dares to move his pursuing warrior out of the woods and across the eastern river in a couple of turns.
On the western border, Whosit's scouting warrior "Nothin Doin" approaches the Horse/Corn site. Rustock, the western Holkan, is moving in to scare/intercept.

Screenshot attached.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Just a quick overview:

Darrell's warrior did not pursue us further.
Bowman advances along the hills.

Whosit's warrior retreated.

Axeman started.

Next turn will present the player with some options.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

It is Sunday, and Kylearan should sober up again at some point during this day, I guess.
The game is with him/us since yesterday, though. I took a quick look and it looks quite nice.
However, I will leave it to Kylearan to take over from here on again. Don't want to highjack this from him further.

Good news:
o The Wheel came in, just in time for one of the workers to start roading. Decision where to road is up to Kylearan. I don't know where he wants his 2nd city placed exactly. And I don't have instructions for the next tech. So another reason not to continue on his behalf.
o C64 is size 3 now and the grass hill mine finished, so we don't work any unimproved tiles.
o Settler hammer decay did not occur yet. And with the new mine, the settler can now be finished in 2 turns naturally. Timing nicely with the completion of the northern road, wherever that will go, on the mine or 1N of C64.
o Whosit's warrior is nowhere to be seen.
o Darrell's Bowman did not advance further, but retreated back the way he came. This means, no foreign forces within 3 tiles of C64. The axeman can now wait for the settler and the barracks to finish, I guess. This also means the Holkans could in theory disperse outwards again. Decisions, decisions. That's all left to the captain.

I have not moved any units, so to not gain any advantages on tile scouting, shoudl Kylearan move differently.

One more thing to mention: Whosit's captial now has a granary.

mh

[Kylearan]

Why are we in such a rush to build barracks?

My reasoning is that the next units we build need a promotion: Archers, because I hate garrisons in cities without promotions; and at least one axe with combat 1 to deal with Darrell's bowman. The odds for axes against bowmen aren't that great, so I'd like to increase the odds a bit.

Is that wise to build early barracks in this situation, when instead I could build yet another worker, a settler or unimproved units? I have no idea, but I'm curious to find out.

[Kylearan]

Thanks again m_h for playing! This turn, I started us on Pottery. The mine was finished, and one turn of roading invested on the hill. Our second city should grab horses!

Production was indeed switched to settler to avoid the hammer decay, and the holkan moved towards the horse site to see if there will be any units. We desperately need more units for scouting...so after the settler and the barracks, we should start pumping out some axes and archers. The first axe, together with the other holkan, will try to scare away the bowman so we can *finally* improve the corn. I hate bowmen!

I will post screenshots and more thoughts tomorrow.

[Darkmantle]

The thing you really want is a pair of chariots to get odds on both axes and bowman. That will have to wait for horses though.

[Kylearan]

Sorry that I haven't updated this thread very often in the last few days - I've been very busy. I'll be able to provide more detailed reports again from now on, though.

I've played 1960 BC now, which finally saw us founding a second city, Amiga!



If not for the horses, I would have really loved to found it 1W of its current location: It would have grabbed the sheep and more hills. But I want the horses as soon as possible, and this location also has the advantage of being on a plains hill. It will be only mediocre production-wise, though: It can work one hill and the horses for "real" production tiles, and add to that only some extra hammers from the furs, the hill the city is located on, and any forests I leave. On the plus side, it will have several flood plains which I'll happily cottage.

One of our workers has already built a roads towards it, and will start to irrigate the corn next turn. The city itself starts with building a granary.

Our other worker is busy irrigating the corn at C64, now that Darrell's bowman finally no longer threatens us directly. The bowman has fortified on the forested hill east of our borders, and is basically untouchable for now. I'll have to sacrifice some hammers to get rid of that unit later, nothing I can do about it as far as I can see.

C64 will finish the axe this turn. I've decided to complete it before the barracks after all, because a) hammer decay will strike again otherwise, and b) I feel much more secure with at least one axe around, now that we have a second city. C64 will complete the barracks next.

I've moved our warrior out of C64 to scout the southern shores before returning back to the city. Since there's no clear site where to plant our next city, I'd like to have some more map info and finally have the units to do so.

Research-wise, I've started us on Writing next, and will then probably shut down research until C64 has a library. I don't desperately need more techs right now, so I feel I can afford this.


Now that we have a second city, the next two posts will contain some musings about the past and the future, plus some more screenshots.

[Kylearan]

Here are some more screenshots. First, the demographics:



We are below average in all important categories except GNP, which (if I understand this correctly) is skewed because of us being creative. Not good!

We also have graph visibility on Whosit and Darrell now, so here are the two most important graphs: Crop yield and Power.





Our crop yield is very bad compared to both of my neighbours, which is a direct result of not being able to irrigate the corn for so long - more about that in my next post. Power is okay though; With the axe finished next turn, at least I feel safe militarily.

[Kylearan]

Now that we have founded our second city, it is time for a first retrospection post: How did the opening moves go for us? Not very good, I'm adraid. The demographics suggest we are among the last to found our second city, and our two neighbours are ahead of us in crop yield, power and manufactured goods.

How did that happen? Well, that's a direct result of Darrell being so close to us and sending his warrior in the "right" direction to find us so quickly. The warrior first forced us to delay our worker to build a warrior of our own. Then, it forced us to build a holkan before our second worker - and using chops for it, which had been intended for the second worker! The warrior, and then the bowman, also prevented us from irrigating the corn for a very, very long time. I don't think I've ever waited for so long before improving a food resource at my capital! This slowed down our initial development tremendously.

However, I don't see much what I could have done differently to prevent this, as I don't have a real counter unit to his bowmen in the beginning. Maybe the only mistake on our part was that I could have irrigated the corn during the short timeframe when our first holkan chased Darrell's warrior until he met Darrel's bowman. But then his bowman could have pillaged the corn easily, so I don't think it would have changed much except trading some lost worker turns for only a couple of turns of extra food - although I have to admit I don't know that.

If we have read espionage points correctly, both Darrell and Whosit have not been slowed down by their other neighbours like I have been. I'm really curious to learn after the game why Whosit was so far away from us compared to Darrell. I hope I don't come across as whining, though - I'm only trying to state the facts as I see them. It will be fun trying to catch up!

The other major thing that happened during the opening was me losing the scouting warrior to Whosit's kamikaze warrior. That has been a mistake entirely on my part! Sure, Whosit won a coin flip that could have easily gone the other way as well, but I could have avoided that coin flip had I moved through the forests. I should have known that Whosit is the kind of player taking this kind of risk - fortune favors the bold, it seems!

[Kylearan]

So, what are our plans for the future? Here are my thoughts.

Medium term

* Found two other cities ASAP. Where? I don't know yet; there's no clear winning site like it had been for Amiga, our second city.

[INDENT]- 1NE of the eastern corn is a nice production site: Corn, sheep, lots of hills to work. It's awfully far away for an always war game, though. There are no resources SW of C64 to be seen, so I don't see a better site closer yet. That's why I've sent the warrior scouting to see if at least some seafood is there that warrants founding a city closer to C64.[/INDENT]
[INDENT]- Another option would be at the cows and the wheat SE of C64, either directly between them (weak production!) or 1N (better production, but no longer coastal). Somehow both options are a bit unsatisfying; again, maybe the scouting warrior will reveal some sea food for better options[/INDENT]
[INDENT]- Somewhere NW of C64 - need more map info for that. [/INDENT]

* Generate a great scientist for an early academy. Maybe Amiga can build a cheap library after the granary and hire two scientists, although that would mean not growing cottages.

* Send a chariot/holkan/axe stack over to Darrell and/or Whosit to cause some trouble. Not sure yet if I really want to divert hammers for such a risky adventure instead of investing these hammers into my economy instead, which would be more my instinct.

* Research: Shut down research after Writing, then once a library is built, beeline to Construction for cheap ballcourts (and catapults, of course). Not sure yet which techs to divert to during the beeline: Horseback Riding maybe. That also means I won't get a religion for the time being.

* Wonders: I don't feel like chasing wonders at the moment.


Short term

* Connect horses, get a chariot out.

* Get out 1-2 archers.

* Use these units for scouting and sentry purposes - need more map intel!

* Get out another settler and worker.