[Spoiler PB62] Vanrober in a new chapter learning from Miguelito

[Miguelito]

I know its not usually recomended to spend 2 workers in the same activity, so maybe moving 1 towards the deer and the other to farm the capitol FP? Should i stop makign the farm for the second city with both workers?

Why would you not want to have 2 workers teaming up? I do it all the time. If I want to build two cottages, teaming the workers gets me the first cottage 2 turns earlier and the second at the same time. It's different when it leads to a lot of turns lost moving. But especially connecting food resources I want to do with at least two workers in a team, usually.

In this particular case you splitting them up could to be correct though, because Hydrogen needs more improved tiles really urgently and Helium less so, but we still want that deer online.

In the capital you are working a grass forest over a floodplain. I would usually not do that: Even without a granary you convert food to hammers at a rate greater than 1:1, and the FP gives you an extra commerce. I stopped myself from changing the tile because you may have had a plan with it.

You are quite correct about us missing the chariot peril, maybe you want to put 5 hammers into a spear to be at least able to whip if need be?

Mjmd as of last turn had BW and revolted instantly to slavery. But you had played before him and missed it thus. But that's good, he's playing a standard game and nothing indicates a rush.

I noted that the map is a torus. I used to believe that Commodore doesn't do these, my faith is shattered. That leaves everybody else even closer, and we clearly have no safe backlines. Will make for an intense if stressful game.Possibly we'll have an Mjmd border north and south. Sadly with skirmishers he is really hard to attack before knights (also because he's a decent player of course). Are we allowed to attack Cyrus of Mongolia with horchers?

I also played a bit with colours:


First off, Mjmd's city has to be on that plains tile because of the culture on the grassland tile W of the wheat.
The 2 pink dots are excellent city sites with good defensive potential, which have the unfortunate effect of pinkdotting Mjmd (the one on the gold principally). Seeing how close everybody is, I feel tempted once more to do this, but the tilting potential remains immense, and probably it's wiser to stay away from it.
The green dots are, I hope, more reasonable. The other "3" that you marked feels pretty weak for a 3rd city because it's so low on food. The other one I like more, but Fabled and Mjmd will like it less. Interestingly, if we found it, Mjmd can't place a city on the row 3 tiles S of his cap.
I like the greendotted "4" better for 3rd city, because it brings in actual foodhammers and gets started much faster. The other "4" also works, we don't really want to work that silver mine a lot anyways, although the happy would be welcome for whipping more. The wheat farm should complete the turn we found the city.
I put another green dot in the south, which seems less of a priority. There is a fogged tile that I suspect could be a tundra or ice FP which we should check,

[vanrober]

My point of that forest tile was getting the axe faster while growing in the same amount of turns, i think im switching into settler before finishing the axe and making OF into the axe and then granary, but maybe you had another thought?
we should have time enopugh to change it before mjmd i guess


About the dots, i like both options, i felt like going settling on gold makes sense, but you are right that messing with mjmd might not be the smarter play. So then greendot for sure?

Farm in floodplains or choping out some units?

[Miguelito]

I'm I'm favour of the fp farm yes.

Consider greendot 4 for 3rd city. I feel it's much stronger for expansion . Of course the drawback is that it claims no land on the border, but we have several options for that.
Or go the fun route and settle on the gold

An extra food now may enable a faster growth after the whip, but sometimes you want that one direct hammer. But in general my thinking is 1f=1.2h for a whip 4->2 without a granary, and with one it's 1f = 2.14h e.g. for whipping 6->3. And then there's the extra coin.

[vanrober]

Okey

Thanks. Changed it snippign from mjmd, he had to run fast and holded right the time you posted, crazy.

So now it looks like this:

   

Btw my luck is screwed in this game, at least didnt lose it at 0,8odds....

   

Demos look good!

   

So do you agree with whipign the settler into the axe and granary? For the second city in 2 turns i was thinking on changing into worker and whip it into the axe granary too, how you feel about it?

[Miguelito]

Where do we found next? If on 4, can we cover the settler with a unit? Or... we can see all the tiles where an animal could threaten him, right?

And independently, we probably want to start farming already for the 3rd city, either the wheat for 4 or an FP for 3. So I fear we need to postpone that capital FP farm for now.

Yes to axes and granaries next, with 5 hammers into a spear maybe so we can react in an emergency.

[vanrober]

Im afraid of losing the gold dot or the copper dot to fabled or mjmd and not being able to settle a decent city around there. So eventhough its slower im leaning to it, if you are fine with that reasoning. If that copper is bings he will settle there his 3rd city i guess, this way we could really screw him.

Settling o gold will screw mjmd, those floodplains will be king with his FIN, so screwing him a bit might makes sense too, but ofc, he is much more dangerous.

About unit to settle, we could move the warriors we have towards that spot, the gold one is not really doing anything, mjmd is not rushing

[Miguelito]

We can't really lose the gold. Mjmd would have to settle it first ring, 4 tiles from our capital, on a floodplain. The other way would be for Fabled to settle on the copper or N or S of it, but then he'd jump the pig, also vey unlikely.

The copper can be lost long term if Fabled settles next to it (leaving the pigs in 2nd ring). If you want to go for confrontation against him it could make sense to settle next to it or on top (but he might as well have a capital copper like we had; actually that's very likely). As I said, I expect him to be the weakest player in the field (and I don't think JR4 is excessively active as a dedlurker either, but I don't really know). On the other hand, he's Cyrus of Mongolia, and there's a lot of desert between us and him, so not really attractive as a very early target.

Let's see Mjmd: I get that you want to not straight up make him our mortal enemy, and I should agree with you (although, from a lurker position it's always easier to call for blood ). So we want to cede him at least some of the floodplains. Now that is complicated by how he placed his 2nd city. He can either settle 2N or 2N1E of the gold, or a crazy aggressive city in the middle of our capitals, on flatland, adjacent to our culture (we would have to burn that). Now if we settle the greendot "3" 2E of gold, we invalidate the two "sane" spots and either provoque him to settle forward, or begrudge him because he still gets none of the FP.
The other "3" is really really low on food. If we farm both FP (one can be done before settling), while working the 2 mines it has just 3 food surplus at size 5 if working both mines. That's pretty anemic. If we cottage the FP the city will have trouble to even reach that size. And then Mjmd will settle the FP and oasis first ring, and the city will stall at size 3! It's terrible.
So if we want to appease Mjmd, I think we should cede him the eastern FP completely and go back to our early plan of settling 2N of the wheat, which is a very good foodhammer spot and has excellent defenses as well. We can try to claim the western FP with your "5" spot, although it is pretty hard to defend. If you want to play ball, settle on the gold (and whip a spear )

[vanrober]

Okey lets go for the 2N wheat position, 5 position has to be done though wif we do that spot, we cannot have our bare capitol between mjmd and us.
 And thats the reason i thought gold city was smarter, easy to defend, and claiming good land too, im afraid of being too nice with mjmd and then he stabbing me afterwards :/

[Miguelito]

Yes, that could happen.

Ftr I'm not strictly against settling on gold. It's a high risk play, but for a dedlurker that is fun. It is you however who has to keep playing if it goes wrong, so I don't want to be the culprit of your misery.
So it's really up to you if you want to take the risk and the stress that is entailed.
Also note though that the gold city is not really a fast starter and needs lots of worker labour, compared to wheat 2N.

[vanrober]

Yes,  that could happen.

Ftr I'm not strictly against settling on gold. It's a high risk play,  but for a dedlurker that is fun. It is you however who has to keep playing if it goes wrong,  so I don't want to be the culprit of your misery. 
So it's really up to you if you want to take the risk and the stress that is entailed.
Also note though that the gold city is not really a fast starter and needs lots of worker labour,  compared to wheat 2N.

Like i completely see that, i know the gold city is slower, much more, i wont have 5fh tile anymore, i wont have 2 hammers when settling (not sure of this, i would need to sim it out). The only advantage is having a defensive cityy between out capitols, since otherwise i wont have any. Also making him lose all the floodplains when he is FIn sounds like a good play to me. I dont know how is his north, but my south is bare tundra land, with 1 or 2 floodplains in total, so getting north and getting the wheat afterwards kind of mkes sense to my brain.

The only problem i see is my skill over Mjmd's. So if i go gold i think i will just put EPs in him for the rest of the game, until i see his cities, and trying to get OB to settle 18951092470124 units in his empire XD.

My heart wants me to settle there, and my brain is scared, if that makes sense


And btw, i loved your spanish signs, i didnt tell you, but they were funny! Just a small correction, in spanish plains is called "llanura" instead of planicie, although "planicie" exists.