[SPOILERS] scooter's thread: how to finish second

[scooter]

India has always been my favorite leader trait.

Now that's QOTM material.

Make it happen!

You're welcome.

[scooter]

Okay, a few turns happened. First, I knew this was trouble the minute it happened.



Still though, I offered OB. We now have a trade route connection, so surely he'd be interested in OB for trade routes right? Well, he whacked my scout. I accepted peace:



Offered OB:



He rejected for reasons that are truly mystifying to me. I offered a couple turns in a row just in case with similar results. So, let's recap. Regoarrarr:

1) Declared war on me to screw with what tiles I could work
2) Opportunistically killed my scout
3) Refuses to sign OB so that we can BOTH get trade route income from such an arrangement.

This is enough to give him the "Worst Enemy" title to use an AI term. Plus I hate it when poor metagaming goes unpunished. Hopefully I can return the favor to him at some point to the delight of all the lurkers. Anyways, speaking of metagaming:



Not that it mattered yet with no routes between us, but Mr Great Lighthouse is going to have to pay to get routes with me, he won't be getting them for free. I'll still sign for an amount that benefits him more than me, but I don't run a charity. Also, HAHA I'M SCREWED.



To recap:

Ichabod: 4 cities, 3 wonders
scooter: 3 cities, 0 wonders

I mean... If you want to go ahead and mentally eliminate me from contention now, you are welcome to do so. I'm on my way for the 4th city now.



Plan here is simple. I've got the worker in place down there to quickly math-chop this new city a galley. I'm building a follow-up settler to load onto that galley:



I've made a mess of the opening which isn't too surpising given a pretty lacksadasical approach after the first 15T or so. I don't see any reason to clean up this mess though. I figure if you make a mess, might as well make an awesome one.

[Bigger]

haha. the "I hate it when poor metagaming is unpunished" is one of the reasons I like ded-lurking you .

that said, pls stop sucking.

[Commodore]

Why were you trying to OB with Rego anyway?

[Bigger]

Why were you trying to OB with Rego anyway?

commodore isn't so familiar with "trade-routes" so you can understand why he would ask this .

[Commodore]

Why were you trying to OB with Rego anyway?

commodore isn't so familiar with "trade-routes" so you can understand why he would ask this .

Commodore is very very familiar with "war trashing trade route yields" so...

[Bigger]

lol. probably more so than me. but aren't any trade routes better than no trade routes?

[scooter]

So 5ish turns have happened. Regoarrarr actually did sign OB with me after I did all that petulant whining, so I'm just going to imagine it worked because whining is FUN. It's just like map whining - when I give directions to a mapmaker, the perfect balance is to be general enough to not have to think about it too much but specific enough that you leave yourself wiggle room to complain about anything that doesn't work to your favor. Really, all I want in a game is the right to whine about the map. If I've got that, I'm golden. So I got trade routes and hm, maybe this is why he rejected.



That's an island city. I guess that means he has $2 routes everywhere and figured routes to me wouldn't be any better, except maybe in Kosar itself. But whatever, he eventually signed it. It only bumped me up to $2 routes in a couple spots. Jefferson settled:



Galley first here to settle this island - math chop gets me pretty close. I'm going to need to move that galley in such a way as to get advance warning of an incoming galley, as I obviously don't have a warrior in here just yet (soon). Anyways, the most recent turn was t65. I was going to send the next city to the islands, but my settler was going to finish too fast for the galley. I also have excess worker turns available in the north, so I'm doing this instead:



(no, I did not work that bare plains hill - it was fixed)

I'll go straight onto another settler at Woodward which will head south. The south in general:



I also have my first galley in the water.

[scooter]

Why were you trying to OB with Rego anyway?

So I forgot to respond to this - though Bigger basically did. Trade routes! Foreign routes are valuable. Also, I'm about to get to Currency kind of quick, so it's in my interest to make those routes better than $1.

[scooter]

T66 - Ruff showed up and offered OB:



So here's the deal - I've got the trade arrows but no route defogged. I still don't understand how the mechanics worked. Last time I rejected them from Rego in this exact circumstance thinking he would only get routes, but I decided to sign this and see what happens. Hey look!



Score. There's Ruff's island city. Anyways, I settled my 5th city:



That put me on par with the guys with 5 cities. Ichabod though...



Yep, he definitely had 4 cities pretty recently (that shot was taken before I settled Cass but on this same turn). Guess that's the cost of going with the triple-wonder opening - lack of defenders. Demos:



If I understand the trade line properly, that means I'm pulling in more cash from trade routes than anyone else right? Or no, that means I'm getting more money from routes than I'm giving to anyone else. Right? Yeah basically I have no idea how this metric works. It's too early for me to be screwed on turn order for trade routes I guess. GNP:



Given how much culture he has, Ichabod's GNP actually is not very good. Everyone else looks vaguely similar. How's that for some HARD HITTING ANALYSIS.