[spoilers] - Pindicator makes America great again!

[scooter]

Writing this out for my own benefit and maybe yours. Settler is due out EoT29, so we need a city site picked out at least a few turns before that. Let's call it T25. You just played T4. So if we were to head home now, it would be 2S of Trump on T8 assuming the tile 1E of the pfh is flatland. Actually, let's be conservative and say T9. From there, let's take this picture:



and assume the scout goes from 2S of Trump NW-NW-W-NW to put it 1W of the peak on T13. Then let's say it follows along the "coastline" walking entirely on what are water tiles in that picture (but are likely actual land tiles) - so NE-NE and then E a bunch of times. Let's say they're all forest/jungle/hill so we can only go 1 tile at a time. That would take it from its current location to 2N of the dyes by EoT20, which I think is plenty of time to possibly change gears if we find something awesome up there.

So the question is then - does that leave enough wiggle room for us to burn 1 more turn going south (and 1 more returning) in order to totally verify that it's a peninsula, or do we definitely want to head back now given that timeline?

My thoughts in here so as not to put my finger on the mental scales before you've thought about it:

I lean ever-so-slightly towards heading back immediately because I agree with your reasoning. I figure it's almost certainly a peninsula, and even if we find a fish way down there, it's not like we're going to heavily prioritize backfilling when there's still the possibility of neighbors north of us.

Another thing to consider: if there IS a neighbor immediately north and close by, early aggression may be necessary since we'd be boxed in in that case. The sooner we know if that's necessary, the better. For all we know we're in the PB8 Commodore position of some continent. The land sure has been snaky so far, so more choke points wouldn't shock me.

[pindicator]

I was going to say that we should move one more turn south to explore the end of the peninsula -- or at least, what I suspect is the end of it. But hearing you advocate for turning around changed my mind. What really are we gaining by exploring down another turn? We give up 2 turns on the scout (one to move, one to return), and the information we get seems like it will have a very small chance of being immediately useful.

So with the new turn, I started moving the scout back. Hugged the east coast and found a clam E-NE of the gold. Right now it looks like a decent city location ether N or E of the gold.

[pindicator]

Messed around a little with building Stonehenge in the sandbox.




t49 seems a little slow. I could go all-in to speed it up, or build it in the capital, but that would slow down development even more.

[scooter]

It is a little slow, but then again I think everything is going to be a little slow with the low-food starts. We'll know for sure when cities start to pop up: if we're way behind we know we got shafted on the start, and if we're middle of the pack we'll know everything will run later than usual.

As for Stonehenge, there are 3 creative players - Mackoti, Harry, Commodore. That leaves us just 4 possible competitors for the wonder: The Black Sword, OT4E, Really Evil Muffin, 2MetraNinja. The good news is that's not too bad. The bad news is that we haven't found any stone, and I think it's highly likely the mapmakers did not balance stone. "Lightly edited" purposely leaves lots of room for interpretation, but if I were in charge, I would assume the players want strategic resources to fall where they may.

So for now, let's assume there's no stone around. If you target Henge, the trick then may be to figure out a plan that exposes you the least to accidentally turning forests into failgold. I don't know what the odds are of one of those 4 opponents having stone close enough to hook it up and use it in time for Henge, but I don't think they're necessarily high enough to write the whole plan off entirely. May be worth taking a step back to figure out how much we care about other targets, and then figure out if Henge fits into that.


Big Picture

What's the best longterm plan given this map setup? Or what strategies are stronger or weaker than normal based on what we're seeing (water-heavy, low-food, cottage-averse map) and what our opponents strategies will likely be? This should help us narrow down what some targets are. Here's my first stab at it, but I want to hear what you think sounds weak/strong too.

Stronger than Usual
This list is in no particular order, I'm just rattling them off as they come to mind.

1) The Great Lighthouse: This may be the home run play here. A host of reasons why it's stronger than average:
*Water heavy map means lots of cities will be coastal.
*Food-poor map means there will be less cottages (or specialists) than normal, which means getting commerce via other means will be key.
*We're IMP, which means settler spam is easy for us, and coastal settler spam is the ideal plan for GLH because cities pay for themselves more easily with GLH.
*None of our opponents are Industrious OR Organized (lighthouse bonus), so that at least levels the playing field a bit.
*IMP means a bonus to custom houses which are more useful than normal in these circumstances.

The downside: our opponents are smart, and 1, 2, and 4 all apply to them too.

2) The Hanging Gardens: We're IMP, and that's about all there is to it. We're likely to be ahead of the pack on cities, so HG will be valuable to us sooner. Also, population is harder to come by on food-poor map.

3) Circumnavigation: Obvious.

4) Prioritizing Astronomy heavily: Also obvious, but it bears thinking about. Crashing our economy in pursuit of snapping up land with IMP could prove to be a pyrrhic victory if one of our opponents use their smaller land + better eco to race up the tree to Astro, and then come wreck us. Mackoti has done this to some poor sap in an RB game roughly 15 times.

5) Working Mines: See Slavery section below. Also, the land just seems hilly.

6) Serfdom: Worker speed is now 75% faster. Decent chance from fog-gazing that we're near a big jungle strip that will require lots of worker turns to handle. Also see Slavery section below.

7) Bulbing: Commerce will be scarcer than normal, so the advantage gained from a bulbed tech should hold longer than normal. I'm anticipating a slow-moving game unless our land just sucks worse than everyone else.

8) Monk Economy: This does not really care about being food/commerce poor - its bonuses are all per-city bonuses. This also goes nicely with IMP due to the per-city part. There's also 0 Spiritual opponents, so while you obviously don't need to be SPI to leverage religion, it does lower the incentive for people to compete for monk wonders a notch or two. This could potentially leave a lot of the monk targets a little more open than normal.


Weaker than Usual
1) The Pyramids and/or specialists: I just don't think there will be enough food to run lots of specialists. We've also got 4 luxuries available already combined with cities that don't have a super high population ceiling due to lack of food, so the extra happy from Representation is weaker than normal too.

2) Slavery: RtR already nerfs it, and the low food situation means re-growth after slavery will be slower than normal. Still obviously useful for awhile, but if the pattern holds, we may be settling a lot of 3-4F surplus cities which are kind of non-ideal to whip.

3) Aggression: There are no soft opponents in this game, which is unusual for a game of this size. Most Pitboss winners got their lead by gobbling up a weak neighbor and riding the land advantage, but this tactic will be weaker than normal because this field has amazingly good depth - the weakest players here are all quite good and no slouches militarily. Opportunistic piling on is obviously another story, but in general aggression is less likely to pay dividends.

4) Drafting: See Aggression. Also the low-food comments apply here. A little unfortunate since our UU is draftable.

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Alright, that's my stab at a list. Agree/disagree with anything in particular, and/or do you have anything to add to the list?

[pindicator]

It is a little slow, but then again I think everything is going to be a little slow with the low-food starts. We'll know for sure when cities start to pop up: if we're way behind we know we got shafted on the start, and if we're middle of the pack we'll know everything will run later than usual.

As for Stonehenge, there are 3 creative players - Mackoti, Harry, Commodore. That leaves us just 4 possible competitors for the wonder: The Black Sword, OT4E, Really Evil Muffin, 2MetraNinja. The good news is that's not too bad. The bad news is that we haven't found any stone, and I think it's highly likely the mapmakers did not balance stone. "Lightly edited" purposely leaves lots of room for interpretation, but if I were in charge, I would assume the players want strategic resources to fall where they may.

So for now, let's assume there's no stone around. If you target Henge, the trick then may be to figure out a plan that exposes you the least to accidentally turning forests into failgold. I don't know what the odds are of one of those 4 opponents having stone close enough to hook it up and use it in time for Henge, but I don't think they're necessarily high enough to write the whole plan off entirely. May be worth taking a step back to figure out how much we care about other targets, and then figure out if Henge fits into that.

Fair point about the food-poor start slowing everything down.

One thing to add to your assessment is that there are 2 players that start with Mysticism: OT4E and REM. OT4E is PRO Inca, so I really doubt he's going to make a big push for Stonehenge; he's got his border pops covered with cheap Terraces. REM seems to be the most likely to go for Henge of all our opponents: starts with Mysticism, is PHI, so if he is figuring on some kind of early shrine + religion plan then that all kind of fits in place for him.

I'm not certain if the AGG players will emphasize it or not: i think it will boil down to a matter of personal taste for each of them. TBS has combined Stonehenge and Joao before, in PB19 I believe -- the one where I got to be in the middle of a cylindrical map and got impi rushed with my copper placed halfway between Zulu and myself, and of which I will forever be bitter because I never got to play with CHA numids which was the entire reason I wanted to play that game

Where was I? Oh yeah, TBS may want to emphasize Stonehenge since he's IMP - but he's also AGG with Ikhandas, so maybe he won't. I wouldn't target Henge in his situation, so I'll put him down for a no lean. And that leaves REM and 2metraninja as the only serious competition, IMO. 2metra might go for it, but again - he's also AGG and I'd build cheap barracks over monuments every time I'm not playing Egypt.

As far as mitigation goes, the sandbox I used to get the picture above has 1 chop coming in on t45, and then on t49 we chop 3 more to finish the wonder. So minimal risk in that regard. I guess if we see the wonder go on t49 we chop out a settler or worker instead.

As for the other stuff, let me think big picture for a bit and I'll get back to you

[scooter]

I'm not certain if the AGG players will emphasize it or not

I actually completely forgot about the culture/barracks change in RtR. So yeah, I think Stonehenge is pretty much just us or REM. I think that makes it an even more attractive option with that in mind, particularly if we do decide to go down the monk economy route.

[pindicator]

Turn 006

PB19 flashbacks awaited me:




Oh hell no. I've seen this script before, I know what happens next. That bear is going to move S or SE next turn and just trap our scout. No way is it going to cooperate. If anything it's going to sucker me into moving to defensive terrain, take a calculated risk, and then BAM, kill me with RNG. Then we can't scout the zulu neighbor right next door to us, and then we have no idea he is going to impi rush us because he saw our borders in the fog and decided to neglect contact and spam impi, and then we're going to find that our copper is halfway between us and him, and then it's going to be game over, t50 elimination. PB19 redux, here we come!

And then I realized that this is Monarch, and don't we get the first barb kill for free on Monarch? (Edit: No we don't )

Let's move on to something more pleasant, like C&D: Starts are not mirrored and probably vastly different. Which is exactly what we asked for, but again, it's always hard to know for certain what your interpretation of a thing is and how it varies from the mapmakers. Anyway, the reason I say this is because I realized this turn that 1 of Commodore, Old Harry, or Mackoti had an inland, non-coastal start, bordering a lake and not coast. I know this because rival best land area was at 8k on turn 0, and then at 20k on turn 3. So it has to be one of the CRE civs, and unless you can show me how someone can have 20 tiles in their expanded BFC and be coastal, then they're inland (or 1 tile off the coast like we planted).

Speaking of land area, everybody who planted T1 had their borders pop (me, OT4E, 2metraninja). One of OT4E and 2metra are also inland, and the other is coastal, but no idea to tell which is which. Edit: Black Sword could possibly be in that mix as well, but I'm 99% sure he's inland. I'll know for certain next turn.

Also, REM discovered a tech this turn. I know it has to be a first-column tech, because my tech is #4 overall at 17 and the lowest possible GNP that the CRE civs can be is 18 (4 culture, 4 ep, 8 commerce from palace, 1 commerce from city center, 1 free beaker for having a city). He also couldn't have more commerce than me, so at most he has 10 commerce, meaning 11bpt. 6 turns, so 66 beakers max. Fishing is the only technology that is in the first column and is 66 beakers or less. So REM opened Fishing, meaning he definitely is coastal.

[pindicator]

Turn 008

I'm starting to think that this bear is not your regular wildlife animal, but a spy sent to attack the American way of life!




Because every real American knows that Bears and Communists go hand in hand:



I sent the scout SW to the desert hill. Not taking the chance, I'd rather waste scout turns.

Edit: We got Mining at end of turn, set sails for Bronze Working. Mackoti also got Mining at end of turn. Also, somebody opened work boat first, and that somebody has a 2h plant. I suppose if somebody with fishing moved to a 2h plant and then built a work boat with a 3h pfh they could have built a work boat by eot 6, hooked it up on turn 7, which is when I noticed this. Regardless, as of t7, the best crop yield was 6 (tied with me) and the worst opponent mfg was 2. So somebody on a plains hill plant went work boat first and hooked up their clams/crabs on t7, maybe t6 even. Oh, EXP gives a bonus to work boat production -- I had forgotten that! But our only EXP player didn't start with Fishing, so never mind that.

How much does this matter? Not one bit.

[pindicator]

Turns 9 & 10

Goddamn bear is maknig perfect moves to keep my scout from advancing. We're dancing back and forth, and I'm still on that desert hill.

Tech updates: Commodore finished Agriculture, Black Sword went Mining, and 2metra completed Hunting.

[pindicator]

Turn 012

THIS GOD DAMN BEAR




We've been dancing back and forth for FOUR turns now. I looked at other options, and unless I want to try and retreat to the plains forested hill and lose even more turns ... So I fortified in place, but even that is a losing proposition: the bear is 3 strength, my scout is 1 with +100% for vs. animals, +50% for forest, +5% for fortified ... and +20(?)% vs animals in Monarchy IIRC. So 3 vs 2.75

Never playing with barbs in MP, because shit like this has screwed me over in my last 2 games now.

Scooter, I'm tilting a bit with how frustrating this is. Do I stay fortified and take the chance or do I run back to the plains forested hill and see if that either (1) gives me better terrain to defend if the bear is indeed gunning for me, or (2) resets it's movement somehow so that it will stop doing PERFECT BLOCKING MOVES and my scout can try and sneak by?