[LURKERS] PB27 Map & Lurking: Walking in a :weed: wonderland

[GermanJoey]

Oh man, I really like the idea of settling on the copper. That is definitely what he should do 100%, what a great idea. The big advantage there is a.) as you say, its a perfect border city with Joao, and b.) it precludes him from actually having to mine+road the tundra, which is a total of 8 worker turns. IMHO that's the worst part of the copper situation as it is... for example, if he settles it with second borders, it's a 18-22 turn hookup from the time the second city is settled, assuming he doesn't have a chop for the barracks ready the moment that city is settled. So that's like, settle T30 and get copper T50ish? Terrible. OTOH if he settles right on it he gets it instantly. I think settling for the 4th city is even better than the 3rd, because TheWannabe wouldn't realize quickly that Krill doesn't have a copper available, considering they just made contact this turn, and the bottleneck to actually getting copper connected down there will actually be the road network. (requires 8 total worker turns to road to that spot from the capital, assuming he has 1 city in between and doesn't have to road over forests). I think the best "settle on copper with 3rd city" plan is to settle 4S of capital with city #2, and then on top of copper with city #3. With the 4 city plan, he can 3S1E or 4S1E with city #2, and then 5S2W with city #3, and then on top of copper with city #4.

By the way, here's a full-spoiler view of the Krill/TheWannabe copper situation. It's cropped to a 14x21 area around their capitals so it won't spoil anything else. http://media.rhizzone.net/civ/pb27_krill_wannabe.html (you can click on the bar that says "Map Info" above the map to toggle tiles types, FYI) Krill has horses and iron nearby and in the direction of TheWannabe; OTOH, TheWannabe has a fantastic copper spot 3T to his north, but horses are a bit farther at 5T to the west. I wouldn't expect TWB (which is what I'm calling him now ) to get horses hooked before T45 or so, I think. So, Krill should be fine as long as he doesn't completely punt on copper.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Picture contest. Today's caption is:

HAK: Oracle before settler.

I couldn't find Riker shoving his entire stack in on a dead draw\bluff so this will have to do.

Contest winner gets an imaginary prize.

[wetbandit]

"Smithers, whats this nonsense about IND Sumeria?"

[GermanJoey]

I've been wondering about that too... the Oracle fell at >T70 in the 5 most recent-ending PB games, PB18 (T74), PB22 (T74 IIRC), PB25 (T77), PB26 (T70 IIRC?) and PB28 (T80) and yet, here in PB27... we have two guys planning to pump it out by T32?? what the heck.

oracle before first settler can't possibly be good for ultra-slow Alex of Maya, even if he were to land it... what's the idea there, get the early shrine and then use an early forge to land the mids, so your three cities at T100 can each work a pair of fancy Rep specialists?

[MindyMcCready]

I've been wondering about that too... the Oracle fell at >T70 in the 5 most recent-ending PB games, PB18 (T74), PB22 (T74 IIRC), PB25 (T77), PB26 (T70 IIRC?) and PB28 (T80) and yet, here in PB27... we have two guys planning to pump it out by T32?? what the heck.

oracle before first settler can't possibly be good for ultra-slow Alex of Maya, even if he were to land it... what's the idea there, get the early shrine and then use an early forge to land the mids, so your three cities at T100 can each work a pair of fancy Rep specialists?

:LOL: Who else is going for Oracle?

Yeah, I don't get that at all. I don't really want to slam the guy but HAK doesn't seem to calculate rate of return. We discussed this stuff nearly endlessly in PB25 (me catching him building zero return stuff ALL.THE.TIME.) but for whatever reason a 120H forge is better than a 100H settler that's gobbling up high yield tiles. I'm biting my tongue until it hurts.

[GermanJoey]

I've been wondering about that too... the Oracle fell at >T70 in the 5 most recent-ending PB games, PB18 (T74), PB22 (T74 IIRC), PB25 (T77), PB26 (T70 IIRC?) and PB28 (T80) and yet, here in PB27... we have two guys planning to pump it out by T32?? what the heck.

oracle before first settler can't possibly be good for ultra-slow Alex of Maya, even if he were to land it... what's the idea there, get the early shrine and then use an early forge to land the mids, so your three cities at T100 can each work a pair of fancy Rep specialists?

:LOL: Who else is going for Oracle?

Yeah, I don't get that at all. I don't really want to slam the guy but HAK doesn't seem to calculate rate of return. We discussed this stuff nearly endlessly in PB25 (me catching him building zero return stuff ALL.THE.TIME.) but for whatever reason a 120H forge is better than a 100H settler that's gobbling up high yield tiles. I'm biting my tongue until it hurts.

dtay, Imp/Ind Sumeria, the most "HEY Y'ALL I'M BEELINING ORACLE" combo possible, heh. I don't think HAK has realized that he needs Pottery to actually take Metalcasting from the Oracle... he's gonna be stuck with Monarchy I think.

also, we got one heck of a second city site from Grimace, who very carefully managed to avoid grabbing both first-ring food AND first-ring copper.

[wetbandit]

I think Grimace wanted to split off his food from the capital, which, I don't know if that's a better play to grow the second city that way in a vaccum without simming it. With Gavagai and 4Str Skirms on the border, it's a huge risk that I wouldn't want to run.

[asdfion]

So that's a T35 Oracle plan from HAK vs T37 from dtay?

[MindyMcCready]

dtay, Imp/Ind Sumeria, the most "HEY Y'ALL I'M BEELINING ORACLE" combo possible, heh. I don't think HAK has realized that he needs Pottery to actually take Metalcasting from the Oracle... he's gonna be stuck with Monarchy I think.

:LOL: Oh, that's what that Smithers post was about.

also, we got one heck of a second city site from Grimace, who very carefully managed to avoid grabbing both first-ring food AND first-ring copper.

I think Grimace wanted to split off his food from the capital, which, I don't know if that's a better play to grow the second city that way in a vaccum without simming it. With Gavagai and 4Str Skirms on the border, it's a huge risk that I wouldn't want to run.

Output wise, Grimace could have gone 3N2E of his capital for shared sheep + first ring pigs, wheat and second ring gems + a river connection. His worker was already in the area as well. For security, 3E1S would have shared food and given 1st ring copper.

It's pretty ugly no matter his rationale.

As an SP-only player I can't get used to how lush these maps are. It makes REXing over dominant. Why build cottages when you can just work more gems and gold? The map-maker gets beaten up less this way?

[wetbandit]

I think Grimace wanted to split off his food from the capital, which, I don't know if that's a better play to grow the second city that way in a vaccum without simming it. With Gavagai and 4Str Skirms on the border, it's a huge risk that I wouldn't want to run.

Output wise, Grimace could have gone 3N2E of his capital for shared sheep + first ring pigs, wheat and second ring gems + a river connection. His worker was already in the area as well. For security, 3E1S would have shared food and given 1st ring copper.

It's pretty ugly no matter his rationale.

As an SP-only player I can't get used to how lush these maps are. It makes REXing over dominant. Why build cottages when you can just work more gems and gold? The map-maker gets beaten up less this way?

That's fair WRT alternate locations for Grimace.

My two cents on the relative lushness of maps is that it enables faster starts which enables, in turn, more interesting decisions (or even more decisions what with faster development) in the first 1-50 turns, when there could be not much to do otherwise. It makes sense given that we are talking about 4-8 weeks of real time.