[Spoilers] Adrien and Mardoc relax and play civ

[AdrienIer]

Perhaps the forward cities toward Sumeria could have been delayed slightly while neither strat resource was hooked? Could have settled the horse/deer for city 4 or 5 instead.

Maybe, but what's the point of taking Julius if we don't rush the contested spots (especially when they're on our side) ?

[Mardoc]

Besides, honestly Jowy shouldn't know that we're copperless. The only way he saw our copper tile is if he managed to scout there before we met him, somehow going right past our capital. I don't remember him seeing our copper city location, for that matter. And if we had copper, we could have two axes instead of archers, and two axes can defend a hill against two vultures any day of the week.

So this is the combination of bad copper location and overaggressive Jowy that's doing for us, not either on its own.

Edit: And! And we still might get away with it, given sufficient luck or cautiousness on Jowy's side.

[Krill]

Simply put rush archery and play it as an all in the moment you believe someone is camping your copper. Access to horse and AGG/PRO modulate this but the all in is how you think of it.

[GermanJoey]

Also, Commodore, if we lose to this, I'm blaming you for unequal copper distribution. If Jowy had to settle for his copper, we'd have had 5-10 more turns before seeing Vultures. If we had ours somewhere definitely first-ring in an expansion city, we could be whipping axes instead of archers and be secure that way as well.

Your copper is just as close to your capital as his is to his capital, and just as much "backlines" as is his is too. Before the game started, I checked the map over for balance in such excruciating detail that I think it made Commodore really uncomfortable. There's certainly a few curveballs in this map (e.g. you might have noticed something about hills...) but I felt like it was very legitimately fair for all players, and this is coming from a guy infamous for bitching about maps like crazy.

By the way, I have no idea how much of the map he can see or what he knows (he hasn't been updating much), but if he has revealed your copper tiles at any point he can check to see if the resource is connected by hovering his mouse over the greyed-out tile. If it says "needs mine" then it is not mined, and if it says "needs route" then its mined but not connected to your trade route via a river or road.

[Mardoc]

Your copper is just as close to your capital as his is to his capital, and just as much "backlines" as is his is too.

That's not true. His is in 3rd ring capital's culture; there is no way he could fail to have it in culture. Ours would require 5th ring in the capital. Or more realistically, we had to settle for it, and we happened to settle that direction before Bronze came in. Look at the screenshot: first ring copper requires a sad city. We'd still have done that if we knew we had to, but we settled here too early.

I acknowledge that ours is basically 'backlines', I'm in no worry about it getting cut unless/until we're losing for other reasons.




Granted, we probably should have skipped the granary and skipped trying for Buddhism and just rushed a Monument. Thought we had enough time to get the granary first, and we were wrong about that.

[Krill]

As right as you are regarding culture levels it doesn't get much sympathy tbh, not with the second copper positoning and plays you could make for them. Could you have copper hooked by now? Yes. Could you have copper hooked even though you blind screwed yourself with second city placement? Yes. Could you hook horse? Yes. Really archery doesn't come into it except the number of hills is really fucking high. Sumeria makes it much more interesting. AGG, well...

[GermanJoey]

You think 1NE of the copper is a sad city? It shares pigs with your capital and picks up two new food resources second-ring. That is an extremely good spot dude...

edit: Oh I see, you settled right before you had copper revealed. That really sucks. Still, that's 30 turns to expand borders, and going past T60 without either strat resource hooked and *then* settling directly towards someone is pretty crazy. I mean, its not like Jowy's 3rd-ring copper came with a mine and a road connecting it.

[The Black Sword]

Maybe, but what's the point of taking Julius if we don't rush the contested spots (especially when they're on our side) ?

1 city to settle for a strat resource will hardly delay much. Besides Julius is pretty well-balanced, he does fine with fair borders.

[Mardoc]

As right as you are regarding culture levels it doesn't get much sympathy tbh, not with the second copper positoning and plays you could make for them.

Huh? You mean the exact place we're currently fighting? Because I was trying to hook copper?

Could you have copper hooked by now? Yes. Could you have copper hooked even though you blind screwed yourself with second city placement? Yes. Could you hook horse? Yes. Really archery doesn't come into it except the number of hills is really fucking high. Sumeria makes it much more interesting. AGG, well...

This is pretty much true, though . Wasn't paranoid enough, thought war would wait. It's still a dumb move on Jowy's part, we're still going to wreck him, just a little more paranoia would have let us retain a chance.

You think 1NE of the copper is a sad city? It shares pigs with your capital and picks up two new food resources second-ring. That is an extremely good spot dude...

Second ring food doesn't count until T50 at minimum. Clams don't count until T80 at minimum, not when every other good site is landlocked. If I knew that was the best way to get the copper, I'd still have done it, but without vision, not so much.

[GermanJoey]

Second ring food doesnt count until T50... ok, sure, but you still had the capital's pigs for food. Hell, you could even give back the pigs at size 2 and work the copper + a grasshill mine to put 16hpt into settlers at city size 2. And there's also a spot 1S of the copper that gets 1st-ring deer and second-ring pigs to the south. It sucks that you missed it first-ring with your plant, but as far as map balance goes, I can't agree with you; that copper spot is fine. Besides, if you're gonna complain about Commodore screwing you on copper, you're gonna at least need to do as good as this for me to have any sympathy:

when your neighbors have spots like this:

And besides, its not like you had capital copper that you moved away from on T0...