[SPOILERS] - Gandhi of Mali - Krill

[Krill]

On a map this tight, it depends a lot on what happens with the strategic resources. I can see the game lasting past Lib for a little bit pretty much no matter what: even if someone were to get choked into the ground and another player rushed, at this difficulty level and with barbs on I can't really see anyone getting a huge early game advantage.

[Krill]

FWIW, I've run a sim out for myself and for what Cyneheard will likely run, and I'm fairly happy with what I can accomplish. I'm not even sure if my start would actually be that much worse by T40, though it is likely riskier (but I got CG3 skirms which give +10% against melee units, so whatever, not like it's that risky).

[Krill]

Other thing is that my capital can do a couple of different things: it's not a great Bureaucracy site, but it does have 5 grasslands, 3 river grasslands and 1 river plain that could be cottaged. It's really better suited to early game GP generation: at size 8 it can work 5 specs, and I have enough happy available by t25 to grow to size 7.

I need to consider the need of an early granary: this is vanilla BtS, lots of slaving is the best way to produce things, like the library I'm gonna need, the two settlers...potentially the 4-6 workers I want for this game. That has rather large effect on the game, as I also need to consider the priorities of Hunting, AH, Archery, BW and now Pottery. I have already worked out that Agri>Fishing the right choice if I'm going with "Balls to the Wall" plan.

Getting Pottery before I can build the granary isn't really useful, though slaving isn't bad with this much food, and BW shows copper, which might be available at the cap considering the game type. That suggests BW>Pottery.

Skirmishers are only 16 hammers, 6 more than warriors and a hell of a lot more useful. I know I need AH for figuring out how to plant for horses (which also might be at the capital), and Hunting makes that cheaper, and I need Hunting for that furs, so Hunting is by no means a bad tech to research. It's also one of the only ways to increase research speed on this start (short of working coast and the crab, and the crab is getting worked no matter what), so I don't actually mind using the worker to camp the furs after the wheat. Yes that delays hooking the cow, but +8fpt on quick is plenty, and AH delays BW and slaving, and getting BW earlier due to the extra commerce might actually be economically more efficient.

So, Agri>Fishing>Hunting>BW>AH isn't a bad starting plan. Archery can be slotted in as needed, so that's actually fairly safe, and the worker can always mine some of the grass hills (at size 7 the capital likely works crab/cow/wheat/furs/3mines for 15hpt and +6fpt, and turns the wheat into a spec as needed).

[Krill]

The Skirm by the corn and pigs moves onto the forest hill next turn. then moves back to the capital. The skirm near the gold moves 23 then back to the capital as well. The warrior is going to do a really wide circle around the capital looking for viable city location. I have no interest in finding other people and trying to fail choke them with a warrior when they have 2 archers.

[Krill]

Also, someone should be able to look at that screenshot and say exactly what MM mistake I made on T0, and explain why in a grand total of 2 sentences...

[Krill]

OK, the mistake was I should have gone Fishing>Agri, the commerce from working the crab lets Agri be researched the same turn the worker is finished.

I currently have the save, and I'm sitting on it while I repatch CIV. I've had to transfer over 500GB of files from my HD to multiple storage sources, then reinstall windows. So now I'm currently setting up a bunch of basic programs (Pidgin, VLC etc) as well as playing a bunch of turns on a game I don't actually have installed on this machine...

[Krill]

FWIW, I'm looking at this land and I'm seriously considering a CV attempt as a troll win. Partly because I want 2 GA down early anyway to bomb cities for safety, but it seems fun...

[Krill]

Pictures next turn. Maybe. I'm back to doing the MM in my head, I don't think we can use a sim when we have to worry about units coming out of the fog. But I'm taking Hunting third with Archery a possible fourth depending on if I get screwed around with chokers. Actually, either way I think it's worth it...I would like 4 skirms in Cyneheards land...

BTW, turned out I could get Fishing the turn I finished the worker because of hte known tech bonus, so the error didn't cost me a wasted turn of production.

[Krill]

Commodore, gotta be honest: this map is seriously screwing with my head, trying to remember the locations of resources that I've discovered in one segment of the mirror and applying that knowledge to another segment...

[Krill]

We played a bit of a blitz sessions yesterday, 7 turns over 15 or so hours, which is good considering the constraints the four of us have over a weekend.

This is from slightly before the start of the blitz. I'd realised the map was a mirror map at this point, and that I could settle for a pigs/corn/wheat city next to my western/eastern neighbour, instead of that city next to Cyneheard, so I started to move my skirms over there to hold the land.

This is a picture of the capital finishing the wb. I think I've done OK economically, Cyneheard had to throw out a warrior early, and I think that slowed him down a bit. Worker first with no warriors also helped out a lot.

Jump forward a few turns and you see the capital at size 4, and the skirms in position to slow any movement by scooter to settle his triple food city. Scooter is a really good opponent for me to have over there, his UU is explicitly worse than mine, costing more, and not getting defensive boni in cities or on hills and requires he build spears to protect him from chariots, but I can take out both of those units with skirms. I want to settle 1S of the pigs, and culture bomb the city ASAP. I plan to slave that settler immediately after finishing BW and overflowing out 2 skims in 2 turns.

And this is music to my ears, scooter grew to size 4 really fast and I feared he was going to throw down a really quick second city and screw me over, but henge isn't a problem, culturally, provided I can get a GA to bomb quickly.

And Cynheard started to rain on my parade. I need to be careful now, if he tries to choke me with both of those warriors, I'll have problems getting the second city settled asap. I can't lose my capital, I can slave out 2 skirms with 1 pop easily enough and regrow to size 4 at the same time, losing minimal hammers. The main p[roblem is what to do with the worker, as I won't be able to move him 6 back to the capital and he can't really road...

Oh. That's what the worker can be doing. The capitals borders pop before I can even hook the copper, but the copper will be connected immediately due to the river and coastal tiles within borders. Axes will make short work of the warriors...