[68] Miguelito's famous last words, and Amicalola's sighs

[Tarkeel]

Apparently with AW we don't get city count, which makes sense as there is no diplo window.

That's the separate "city count tied to espionage" option that was voted for, which makes sense when there's no diplo/city-trading and scoring.

yes but normally you would get the count once you get graphs on the player, but given that there's no trade window here it apparently was disabled altogether. I suspect this is original BUG, in the spirit of not giving information that wouldn't be attainable otherwise.

I missed that you got graphs. It should give you the citycount then actually, it hasn't been tied to city trading earlier. There was a game with city-count tied to espionage where you could just open the diplo screen and count instead...

[Miguelito]

Against all my worse instincts, I did not kill this scout. yuris please take the hint that we are not enemies, for the time being. Tbh I'm also not sure what XP on a warrior would be good for.
Our farmer's gambit of not building an axe earlier seems to work out. Two axes would still be dangerour though. Thoth whipped recently but surely that was a settler? What is confusing me is that they still leave the corn unimproved. I am worrying a bit that they go for chariots (we have no Hunting yet). So far no AH though. They could found on top of horse and whip the first chariot the turn after, that would hurt, but maybe still be survivable, and it would be a pretty huge investment from them. Should we get Hunting though before finishing Myst-Meditation for peace of mind?

[Miguelito]

We're still being left alone, neat. I figure that before the next city we probably want at least 3 axes on hand? After the first one I started the next to get it I've 5h, but now switched to barracks to build that first in a quick 4 turns. The thing is, against Comm's dogs just plain Agg axes will not be enough. With shock we'll still struggle (moreso as he also gets the cheap rax), but I feel that it's required in order to at least try to compete.
Thoth has gold mined, and the horse happens to be right beside. Fingers crossed we get through with no hunting while our treasury runs low as we finish Meditation (oh well he's probably just researching IW... ).

Thoughts?

[Miguelito]

F6 tells me somebody has chariots


So I know that I will see a hammer on the horse if it Thoth has AH and has it in his territory. It is in his territory because Cre, but Stalin me doesn't know that. Should the hammer show up or not? Same thing with Comm, although he would have to settle towards his rear to claim horse. Seems unlikely. Best case of course would be yuri putting our neighbours under pressure.
Fwiw the gold had ceased to say requires mine last turn.

I think even finishing Meditation first we can hold against a chariot and axe, although it would be costly. Hunting is a 3, maybe 2 turn tech.

[Amicalola]

F6 tells me somebody has chariots


So I know that I will see a hammer on the horse if it Thoth has AH and has it in his territory. It is in his territory because Cre, but Stalin me doesn't know that. Should the hammer show up or not? Same thing with Comm, although he would have to settle towards his rear to claim horse. Seems unlikely. Best case of course would be yuri putting our neighbours under pressure.
Fwiw the gold had ceased to say requires mine last turn.

I think even finishing Meditation first we can hold against a chariot and axe, although it would be costly. Hunting is a 3, maybe 2 turn tech.

I don't think we'd see the hammer in that case, but I'm not certain. I would vote for getting Hunting just in case. Too many games have been lost over greed when non-greed is also non-crippling (myself being very guilty ).

Edit: Which city do you want next?

[Tarkeel]

So I know that I will see a hammer on the horse if it Thoth has AH and has it in his territory. It is in his territory because Cre, but Stalin me doesn't know that. Should the hammer show up or not? Same thing with Comm, although he would have to settle towards his rear to claim horse. Seems unlikely. Best case of course would be yuri putting our neighbours under pressure.
Fwiw the gold had ceased to say requires mine last turn.

Hammer would only show up if Thoth has AH and you know the culture of the tile.

[Miguelito]

Thanks Tarkeel, the "and" was the part that I was missing. Argh why did yuri kill the scout

Amica, I think we finish meditation, but then get Hunting asap for peace of mind. I don't know what other pressing tech needs there are even. Pottery to keep the worker busy, but with gold (and fur if needed) cottages have little hurry imo. And I think we would get our 4 cities down before granaries.

My next dot on the list would be blue. Ivory is the prize, although the food layout is bad for Commodore.
We could also consider yellow our 1N, so Comm doesn't claim that fish. The latter would be quite strong but very annoying for Commodore, and he has the dogs. Also both yellow dots lack foodsharing. So I feel blue is sensible. It also should get started so we can do Oracle there a while later.
Either way, I want the barracks and at least one axe more before sending out the settler. Is that overcautious?

What would your preference be?

Another question is what next for the worker, now that the mine and TR are finished. My sense is 1 chop into the settler or a possible emergency, then prepare the road to the next city?

[Amicalola]

I was also going to suggest blue, so that's good.

Definitely sold on barracks + axe before settling. I wonder if we want Masonry quite early, too - Walls would be very strong against both praets and dogs before catapults. Well, that's my suspicion, I could definitely be wrong. Anything that disincentivises attacking us seems great. I like the southern yellow dot more for the same reason.

I would also chop with the worker. We want a WB at one point, but are you waiting because of happiness issues?

[Miguelito]

Barracks and axe done, and next turn we put 40h into the settler Now the question is, do we dare to settle blue with just one shock axe (and a warrior scouting). Comm was following our warrior at the sugar with a dog, but turned back before reaching our border, probably sensing a trap that I in fact was setting up.
Trouble is, the C1 dog still wins against our shock axe. That reverses though with 5% fortify bonus.
More trouble is, Comm has a barracks in his capital as well. We need a number more of shock axes.

Walls might be good, yes. Not sure how much Hastur needs them, as the holy city culture will give 40% bonus anyways very soon. The same goes for blue dot, if we pull off Oracle soon (although masonry->walls is probably faster than that).
The fundamental problem with walls of course is that they don't stop our neighbours from ravaging our farms and mines. But Masonry is on the way to Constru anyways, and that seems to be our beeline goal pretty clearly, doesn't it? Constru or Machinery bulb can keep us safe from dogs and mostly so from praets, and the former should be much faster. We could even discuss oracling Constru...?

First WB is due for whipping, I see no more intelligent way to go about it. We need two more in fact, but also shock axes, as mentioned, and units, and another settler, and then granaries and more untis (WB will fit in, sure. Building the one for the cap in Hastur might make sense, to make full use of the cap barracks).
I'm not feeling happiness constraints yet with the gold, and we have the furs in reserve (they're exposed though, and we need a second worker for .them)

[Miguelito]

And again I'm a bit unsure about what to research next. Priesthood already? Pottery because that's what you do? Sailing, to keep our freshly whipped nets* and maybe even harass Thoth?

* Is it maybe a smart idea to send the new workboat in Hastur to the capital, instead of just netting the fish in front of it? That way we'd have warning time. Fwiw nobody has Sailing yet.