[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Fintourist]

Turn 44

The Christmas time has caused here a ISDG-like 72h turn tempo, which is of course understandable. Anyways, I received finally a new turn last night that I can report.

Domestic news:

- Settler for the third city has now 71/100 hammers in the box. Unfortunately there is no sensible way to finish it before T47. I do not want to 1-whip my capital down to size 2.

- I have now 2 workers chopping for capital and 1 worker chopping for 'Henge. If I lose the 'Henge, which is even pretty likely, I will maybe regret some of my actions: It hurts to delay improving corn at RG (even though its not fresh) and the pig-gold-cow-clam city would have probably been a great 2nd city especially if I could have counted on getting Hinduism. However, current approach enables even slight chances on getting henge and improving fish + growing cottages is of course valuable as well.

- Sareln moved next to my warrior, but I decided to spare it. I hope this gets me some goodwill and Sareln chooses someone else as a target for his preats.. Maybe I do not get any benefits for my "mercy" but killing scouts that have already seen my borders does not bring much benefits either.

- Priesthood finished, next up Writing.



Hydra has now size 4 & 2 cities. Sareln has done some heavy whipping and is currently down to cities with sizes 2 & 1.

Overall I think that my game will go something like this:
I will trail a bit in expansion against my EXP & IMP opponents, but my research will be competitive despite the lower population. I guess that leads to a typical vertical vs. horizontal situation. Main questions will be a) how good I can keep up with the expansion, b) can I build up a research lead that brings me significant benefits c) can I get enough production in place so that I can answer military threats.

[Fintourist]

Turn 45

Finally, finally a new turn. And it brought kind of bad news: Sareln retreated his scout, but Azza's warrior appeared near my borders. I evaluate Azza as a kind of opponent, who tends to try a warrior-choke, if I give him a chance. Better not to..

Additionally, my scout ran into Hydra's warrior, let's see if he returns the favor and leaves me alive. I could use my scout as a sentry in the near future.

Domestically, capital puts one turn into granary. That does not delay settler nor granary builds, but speeds up the growth a little.



Azza whipped his capital. I assume for the next settler.

[Fintourist]

Turn 46

After another long wait new turn arrived and it was also an interesing one. Domestically I whipped my 4th worker, other workers chopped and next turn I will finish the settler for my 3rd city.

Azza came closer with his warrior:



I basically had two options:

1. Move my 2nd warrior (the one on forest) towards him and try to intimidate him so that he would turn around.
2. Leave him where he is (Azza should not see him) and not show my all cards immediately.

I finally chose the 2nd option. If Azza proceeds and moves next to my warrior-worker pair I'm probably forced to declare and kill his warrior. I should have good odds for doing that. Anyway, I hope that he does not become aggressive.

Viqsi settled the city number 3 and is the leader in expansion. Well done. Her challenge will be teching, currently she is 3 techs behind me and Sareln.

Btw, Sareln did tech Meditation couple of turns ago. I have no idea how I missed the "Buddhism has been founded.." notification. I think he just teched Priesthood. I hope that he will concentrate on chopping the Oracle..

Hydra left my scout alive, for now. Good fellow

[Fintourist]

Turn 47

8 days passed since the last turn, but finally a new turn arrived. I hope that the delays are now over and the game starts moving. Otherwise I'll be extremely disappointed..

Anyways, Azza aggressively moved closer to my borders, which gave me 3 options:
1. Attack.
2. Proceed with my micro plan, but stay in place, which gives Azza ~40 % shot to kill my worker.
3. Retreat with my worker, which delays my settler and take care of Azza later.

In hindsight, I should have declared last turn and offered immediate peace. Enforced peace would have been ok. However, I played too quickly and did not consider that and as one says..

"So it begins:"



And so it ends:



Azza won the first coin flip, but my 2nd warrior cleaned up with 99.9 % odds. I offered him peace, we'll see whether he accepts. As you can see in the above screenshot, I currently have all my four workers in chopping duties, which finished my 3rd settler. Additionally, this was the first turn, where I really put hammers into Stonehenge (37/120). From now on losing the wonder will really start to hurt.

Sareln grew his second city to size 3. He has achieved a nice growth speed with the cheap granaries.. My demos could be looking better. Top in GNP, Average in Food and dead last in Production. However, 4 workers, 3rd city and granary (next turn) in capital will improve the situation.

Nobody has any kind of military at the moment and I will try to put the minimum amount of hammers into soldiers as long as there is no real danger. I wish I had destroyed Azza's warrior without losses..

My scout is pretty squeezed in the map centre. I cross my fingers that he survives back to home and can serve as a sentry..

[Fintourist]

Turn 48

Yeah, this time I had to wait only 2,5 days.. Anyways, the new turn eventually arrived and I played it after enjoying couple of those "one too many" beers..

Domestically everything is proceeding as planned. Settler is on its way to the next city site and I finished the granary in the capital. It is time to start growing.. I also finished Writing and I believe that I will start teching towards Mathematics. Other options are Sailing, Masonry+Monotheism, Iron Working and Metal Casting. I can't really use any of those techs in the coming turns, but I guess it's nice to start gathering those beakers..



Azza, unsurprisingly, did not accept my peace offer. Maybe he wants to show me that killing choking warriors is not allowed.. Anyways, I will offer peace next time when it brings something concrete such as trade routes. Additionally he started harrasing my scout in the map centre. I should have kept him invisible to Azza.. I decided to move next to Viqsi's warrior. We'll see if she wants to remain friendly..



I will do proper C&D when I have cleared out my head, but the main news was that Azza settled his 3rd city. I'm top in research, but have low food and production stats. I will write more of the situation when the game reaches T50.

[Fintourist]

Turn 49

A quick update this time since nothing magical happened. I will elaborate my thoughts more as we hit T50. Main points were:

- My settler reached the site for my 3rd city.
- Hydra settled his 3rd city.
- Viqsi grew his cap to size 5 and Sareln his 2nd city to size 4.
- Azza continued harrassing my scout in the map centre.
- Viqsi and Azza completed non-military techs. There are several possibilites at this point..

[Old Harry]

What? Two turns in two days? What's going on?

[Fintourist]

Turn 50 & State of the World

I can only guess what's happening, but the game has picked up a mind-blowing turn per day pace! Anyways Turn 50 was a big turn for Ottomans while the 3rd city, "Chip 'n' Charge" was settled:



This city will be amazing. The road was finished before I settled, which means that I received one beaker from trade route immediately. Pig will be pastured in two turns and because my capital popped its borders I can improve cows immediately afterwards.

Settling the city also revealed a fur resource nearby. I considered starting a work boat, but I sticked with my plans and go with the granary. It will still be a while before I settle any island cities. Currently the C&C has no defenses, but because I believe that nobody has researched Sailing I should be safe for now.



I grew my capital to size 4, it will reach size 5 in two turns thanks to the full granary. RG has now the first half of the 'Henge ready. I still don't believe that I will get the wonder. I expect Sareln to land it within couple of turns. But still trying to build it is worth the risk and I feel I have to go for it. Now with ~60 hammers in the box the die is already cast..


Overall situation:

First of all EOT 50 demos (Hydra is the only one that has not played yet):



I'm all the time top in GNP and very low in production. I believe that the rival best in GNP is Sareln researching Writing, but that is just a guess. Viqsi is the leader in production. I believe she is working a couple of mines. My crop yield ranking has been varying a lot. I was leading 8 turns ago, dead last 2 turns ago and now I'm in the middle of the pack. All in all it's a bit early to say how am I standing with expansion. I'll get pop growths in T51 and T52 as well and probably look good for couple of turns.

Here is again the illustration of the overall situation:



I'm a leader in research but don't shine in expansion. I estimate that I'm around 100 beakers ahead of Sareln, who is second in tech, but have 300+ beaker edge over Viqsi, who just finished her 8th tech.

Regarding expansion: Sareln is the only one with two cities, but especially if he settles next turn or soon his 3rd city, he will be in great shape. Viqsi has never whipped her cities and Hydra has done only a single whip. I would be interested to see how many workers they have running around.

Azza seems to be the last one in my overall estimation. He has currenly only 4 pop points in his 3 cities. Although again I have to say that it's too early to say anything conclusive. Lurkers would be able to jump between threads and compare this overall picture with other factors such as number of workers and wonder production if they want to get a better estimate of the current situation.

As Viqsi joked in the banter thread, she is leading the scoreboard. Obviously the main reason for that is that she is creative and has received land points for her 100 culture border expansion, but also that she is the only one who has received land points for the second city:



Total Score (EOT50):
Viqsi 191
Sareln 152
Fintourist 150
Hydra 136
Azza 129

My Opening:
I'm having a hard time analyzing my own opening. Am I doing ok, am I completely screwed already? It is very difficult to estimate how my decisions will impact my long-term development. Here is the list of my top controversial decisions.

1. SIP (not settling next to fish)
Reasoning: I felt that my start did not offer a competitive plant next to the lake and I disliked slower WB start.
+ I evaluated that my expansion was in good shape after the first ~35 turns despite not having EXP/IMP traits
- I had to wait long before I got that 6-food tile
- I was forced to settle another city next to fish if I wanted to improve it

2. I chose the site next to fish and not the pig-gold-cow-clam site as the 2nd city
+ Closer to capital (shared riverside cottages, easier to bring enough worker turns)
+ Enough forests for chopping Stonehenge
- Weaker/less resources than the pig city

3. Going for the Stonehenge
+ It would be awesome
- Delayed pig-gold city
- Corn not improved (delayed growth)
- 5 forests chopped
- Delayed Granary
Overall I have not done huge sacrifices for getting the wonder, which might well cost me it.

4. Chopping forests and working cottages instead of mines
+ In the short-term I have been able to get pretty fast workers, settlers and a granary
+ I have already worked ~20 turns worth of financial riverside cottages and a couple of hamlet turns.
- If I finish henge, I have chopped over 10 forests without having Maths
- I have not that many tile improvements in place and have to be efficient with my workers in the coming turns. It won't be easy and there will probably be some turns where I work an unimproved tile
- Cottages only bring 2 foodhammers. Commerce is not that valuable in the early game.

5. Declaring to Azza, not building any military, not settling for copper or horses yet
+ Hammers are going for economic development and my micro plans are still going as planned
+ I believe Hydra is the military leader with a total of 3 warriors..
- Azza might want to revenge me
- I will be vulnerable in the short-term


So, I try to keep thinking, learning and improving. Therefore, critique and comments are warmly welcome and appreciated. I guess it's time to start working with a new micro plan.

[Commodore]

Not sure how much critique us hyper-spoiled lurkers can offer, but I really appreciate this report!

[Old Harry]

And us unspoilt lurkers can't really judge. I think I'd have made a different original settling decision, but probably not better! If you make sure you beat the pants off the others then all the decisions were the right call...

Fingers crossed for Stonehenge.