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Carvings in the Sand; Bob
It's finally time for another (less than perfect) espionage update. This time around I'm starting with Bob since I found his data to be the easiest to read, and will then work way from easiest to most difficult.
Starting techs: Fishing/Mining
0 - found capital
6 - Agriculture
13 - Animal Husbandry
17 - Mysticism
18 - capital size 2
21 - capital size 3
24 - Polytheism (Hinduism founded)
As you can see I've come to the conclusion that it was actually Bob who founded Hinduism. Theoretically it may also have been Timmy, seeing as he also finished a tech in the appropriate turn, but his numbers didn't add up.
I feel very confident I've created a correct summary of what Bob has been doing so far.
He started out by grabbing the needed Worker techs for his food resources, and then decided to have a stab at Hinduism since it was still available (and succeeded). Since he's industrious and now in need of a Great Prophet for a Shrine I figure he may consider building Stonehenge, unless he isn't already working on it. He has built one Worker so far, and possible one or more Warriors. I guess he is just as crippled in terms of scouting as I am at this point, and if he's a neighbour of mine I'm not likely to make contact with him any time soon.
Overall Bob seems to have made some very reasonable play here, and based on what he's been up to so far I say it's a 95% probability he will use his UU only as a deterrent.
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Carvings in the Sand; Twinkle
Starting techs: Hunting/Mining
0 -
1 - found capital
9 - capital size 2
9 - Bronze Working
12 - Fishing (yes, fishing)
17 - Agriculture
21 - The Wheel
25 - Pottery
At first I couldn't make any sense of what Twinkle is doing, but I feel fairly confident that the list I've produced here is adequate. He clearly decided to do a Warrior start (or possibly built a second Scout) before starting a Worker. He may be on his second Worker right now, but I'm not certain. I will know for sure in a few turns depending on whether his capital grow one size or not. Maybe he's doing a settler, even.
His teching is sort of sub-optimal. What he did was get Bronze Working out of the gate and then aimed for Pottery, taking the route through all prereqs. However, I guess one can justify grabbing Fishing for the prereq bonus on Pottery in certain scenarios so it's not necessarily a bad move. (I don't think he needed it to connect a seafood, as the setting for this map appears to be small lakes.)
So what does this tell me? Well, I'm sure his main priority at this point is to get a Copper site up and running, seeing as he have ignored Animal Husbandry up until now. He don't seem to be interested in the religous techs (if he was he would have gone there before Pottery), which makes me think he's either 100% focused on expansion or intends to collect some of the later wonders before Bob gets there. Hanging Gardens and Great Library comes to mind as likely targets. I need to keep an eye on Twinkle since I've been considering a stab at Great Library myself.
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Carvings in the Sand; Timmy
Starting techs: Hunting/Mining
0 -
1 - found capital
6 - Agriculture
10 - Archery
15 - capital size 2
18 - capital size 3
18 - Bronze Working
21 - capital size 4
24 - capital size 2 (2-pop slave)
24 - Animal Husbandry
I got to admit I'm somewhat uncertain of my analysis of Timmy's data overall, but this is what I came up with.
Agriculture, Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry are all very self-explainatory techs. Archery? Not a good move, if it is indeed what he did. Even raging noble barbs are still only noble barbs and there's plenty of time to get a strategic resource online while ignoring Archery.
He did a Worker start and then grew his capital quite rapidly by virtue of connecting a food resource. The slaving is sort of odd prior to having a Granary built, but I'm definitly not say that it has to be a bad move. With the difficulty in mind rushing a second settler surely doesn't hold a lot of negatives, compared to higher difficulties where doing so may actually spell your doom in some cases. I expect his second city to go up in a few turns.
Timmy is probably aiming to REX, and rightfully so I may add. Exp/Cre together with such a tactic makes him into a pretty annoying neighbour for whoever ended up next to him, and I'd rather have either Bob or Twinkle next to me. Timmy will probably set the standard for expansion in this game, so if I can make somewhat comparable progress I will be in good shape once the real benefits of Spiritual kicks in.
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Carvings in the Sand; Moogle
Starting techs: Hunting/Mysticism
0 - found capital
5 - capital size 2
6 - Meditation
9 - capital size 3
10 - Priesthood
13 - Mining
14 - capital size 4
20 - Bronze Working
23 - captial size 5
23 - Fishing
Now this one is kind of a mess. First of all his capital is so large that it opens up a lot of potential for commercial increases due to tile yield. Second of all he's certainly been swapping around the tiles he's working. And third of all I'm struggling to apply the data to any form of reasonable strategy.
Anyway, here's my modest conclusion.
The only explanation I can find for him to grow his capital so large using only a very minor food surplus is that he's working on a wonder. Yes, I'm going to insist on this despite my recent... ahem, lets not talk about that now. 
So which wonder then? As you can see I've thrown Priesthood into the list, which kinda makes sense (read. Oracle). Stonehenge would most likely have been finished by now, and based on my math (yeye, hold the comments) he recently researched Fishing. Why Fishing? Well, I believe Pottery is needed to grab Metal Casting with the Oracle, and Fishing is a cheaper prereq than Agriculture. Am I certain he researched Fishing? Hell no! But I still deserve to be called a genious if I sniffed this one out correctly. 
Is this a good strategy? Metal Casting is a lot of saved beakers, even if it's not an optimal tech for a Highland map, but no, I don't believe that it's a good strategy. Waiting this long to build a Worker is pure crazyness as far as I'm concerned, no matter whether he's building a wonder or not. I don't think Moogle have thrown his game away just yet, but I won't be surprised if he ends up having to work his way out of a hole. I'm starting to think it may actually work to my favour having him as neighbour, though that's a comment made with a lot of scepticism at this point.
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Carvings in the Sand; Scooter
Oh boy, this one is most definitly a mess. Based on the score increases I've reached three potential scenarios:
1) He finished Polytheism on turn 17. I know for sure that didn't happen, so this one is out.
2) He have researched Sailing. Seriously? Nah, that's just ridiculous.
3) He's been swapping his research around as an anti-spy measure.
I've decided to go with 3), and at this point that complicates matters more than I can handle. What I can say for certain is that he have discovered 5 techs and that his capital is size 3 after doing a Worker start. Nevertheless I've given up hope on vaguering a guess as to what his techs may actually be.
Well played, Scooter. But I'm still going to kick your ass.
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Sandover, the Carver
And for comparison purposes, my own data.
Starting techs: The Wheel/Agriculture.
0 - found Sandoria
4 - Hunting
8 - Mining
14 - Animal Husbandry
19 - Sandoria size 2
22 - Sandoria size 3
23 - Bronze Working
24 - Sandoria size 4
The dual Worker start was clearly worth it. Being able to grow while working only improved tiles help a lot
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Just found the save in my inbox (turn 26) but I won't update more today since I've spent quite some time on the espionage already and is about to head out. Operation Catch the Twinkleboy will continue tomorrow!
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"Stonehenge has been built in a far away land."
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Joined: Jun 2004
Thanks for the update :-)
Who do you guess has built the Henge ?
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Moogle, there's no doubt about it. So at least I was half right.
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