This game feels very impish

[BRickAstley]

Ah I missed that, sorry.

But yes he's definitely not the greatest, which is why he's such a great watch. Been a fan ever since his early Starcraft "Funday Monday" games

[The Black Sword]

Does anyone have a link regarding barb movement? I want to know if I found my southern settler will the barb NW of Dude Pala turn around and go for it. IIRC it won't, it's already picked it's target city but it doesn't feel worth the risk unless I'm sure. The settler has just been standing around for 4 turns now.

Meanwhile the new barb East of Dude Pala will likely pillage my pig too. 

[The Black Sword]

This round of barbs was finally dealt with, so we can survey the damage.



Southern empire is a mess. We lost 2 warriors, 30h, 2 pillaged 6 yield tiles, also worth about 30h each, and snowball factor of 1 growth in each city that is not going through a granary, 20 food. So 110 food hammers down the drain, because a barb was able to take out 2 warriors on hills in succession. I had a bit of a think if I should have done something differently, I could have played a bit safer but I think the chance of that happening is so slow that this was the best expected value play. I've played a lot of civs games on RB, 1% rolls have to happen eventually I guess.

Both cities are just going to get their granaries and strong tiles up. I should have Sailing by the time they're up to size and they can get me a galley and settler for the islands. I guess the archer will have to head south to deal with the new barbs.



The northern empire on the other hand is moving along very nicely, with a full set of granaries. I had thoughts about building settlers in both Razakus and cubelock and settling the signed spots. With the latest pair of barbs to the east and south I'm not sure I have the units to spare for both anymore. I need to think about what to do instead.The FP cottages in the cap will be going up in the next few turns. I'm not too cut up about the delay, I consider them just an ok investment pre-granary, but now that I have a granary up they're really good.

When we get Writing, Inner Fire will whip a Library and work a pair of scientists. The GP will pop out T71 for a Maths bulb. Given how close that is I don't want to do any more chopping until it comes in. We'll probably continue working the scientists for an Academy on T84 and a golden age T104. I need to build the Library here instead of the capital, so that culture helps me pop 3rd ring borders and reclaim the silver. I should get the silver hooked about T90 now, so Dreylin's Stonehenge build has cost me 30t of the resource. That's a pretty big knock to my tech rate, the extra happiness would most likely have been used to grow onto riverside cottages.

The capital will just slow build a library, it probably makes sense to save gold before the academy and get it completed then. With the low happiness and breakeven rate I'm not sure the early academy is that useful. A Maths bulb is 370 beakers immediately and snowballs quite quickly as I chop some forests.

I have two explorers outs:


Superdeath is just to the west here, so I don't expect to get further than one more ring of cities in that direction. I think this warrior is better off going deep and getting me contacts now, rather than turning around to help garrison. It won't be too long before borders close up and we'd need Alphabet and OBs to get through. He's also continuing to pull superdeath's dog soldier away from me, which is much more than he could have done on the defense.



This guy meanwhile will start circling southeast to pick out more potential city spots, and see if they're contested by anyone. That plains hill is a tempting settle, but I don't think it's time to get on Dreylin's bad side yet. It depends on how much free land there is in this jungle and the islands.

Despite the setbacks I still feel like I'm doing comfortably better than all 3 of my neighbours, so there should be some expansion path later. Looking at the demos I'm still in the top group but I feel I might have been leading before this barb catastrophe.



Random thoughts:

-really happy with Creative so far, definitely think it's done better than IMP would have.

-Rusten got the oracle, so he can shrine his religion. It seems pretty early though, it would be a struggle to get through all those religion techs and get to writing. Maybe he started working his precious metals quite early? Did he have time to get masonry for marble too? 150h for oracle, 103b for priesthood and the best target is probably maths at 430 beakers. Maybe he took Monarchy, then he wouldn't need Writing and the tech would be easy. Anyway, it's early enough that it doesn't feel game-breaking to me.

[Ghostpants]

What deck does "Snow Clones" refer to?

[The Black Sword]

An overload shaman deck that discounts snowfury giant to 0, then copies it with ancestral spirit and the spellstone. I had to look it up too.

[The Black Sword]

Man, barbs are lethal this game.



Met dtay to the NW, he's a city ahead of me, but he's IMP and I'm Cre so hopefully my cities are slightly more productive.

[scooter]

Condolences on the abysmal barbarian luck so far this game.

[BRickAstley]

What deck does "Snow Clones" refer to?

An overload shaman deck that discounts snowfury giant to 0, then copies it with ancestral spirit and the spellstone. I had to look it up too.

Yeah it's all this guys fault for coming in here with his big mouth after watching meme decks/casters

[The Black Sword]

In other hearthstone related news, I got my monthly stats email from blizzard today. I got legend with Dead Man's Hand Warrior last month(generally considered a tier 3 deck) by countering all the paladins on the ladder(one of the top 2 decks). According to blizzard I had a 90% winrate in the matchup. 

[The Black Sword]

I got double moved by superdeath this turn, and it maybe had some impact.



The dog was 2S or 2S 1W of Shudderwock last I saw, he got kicked to the tile when I founded the city. 

Without the double move:
-My settler moves to plains hill, worker completes road, archer moves 1S of wheat.
-his dog moves to the current location.
-if he doesn't declare war I can found the city and I have 2 turns to road the horse tile and thus get the archer into the city.
-If he would have declared war pre-emptively then the double move doesn't have much of an effect. I'd be in a similar situation to my current one.

If it's allowed, I'd like to double move him back. This would allow me to make a similar set of moves but he wouldn't have the option of pre-emptively declaring war. Arguably he already got a similar chance this turn, but the settler is not quite in the same position, so this is a bit of an advantage to me.

Trying to pay attention to peace time double moves in a game of this size is not strictly necessary, but it was a relatively aggressive one from him, moving 2 dog soldiers right up to my borders(there's another N of the cows).

Anyway, I'll PM Ref to see what he thinks. I feel slightly disadvantaged by the current situation but I would feel slightly advantaged if I can double move him back, so I can accept either ruling.