[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[pindicator]

064

We almost lost a 99.5% fight to the barb spear, which would have certainly torpedoed our game:

It's been a long time since I've been to the Grand Canyon and Mather Point.  So long that this is not my photo, I don't know what happened to the pictures I took back in college.  But Grand Canyon seemed like a good fit for this river valley.

Instead I was debating whether or not to delay founding our next city, on account of our vulture now being way too weak to do any good.  I decided to go ahead anyway.


Now we are building Oracle and will hopefully chop it out and land Metal Casting.  Again, more interested in the shrine and GP pts than the tech here.

We have graphs on Amicalola now.  It's been slow going because Bing continues to put 2 EP/turn into us, so we've been matching that to keep graphs on him.













Also, somebody is really taking off in crop yield:

[Mjmd]

Good thing for the free shock; that was a close fight.

[pindicator]

066

What the F...




That's gotta be Plemo, right? From his reputation I half expected him to come in here and steam roll, but this is just a sensational start. He's been beating down on Tarkeel as well as expanding. Victoria is such a strong leader for snowballing too.

Anyway, we're stumbling about back home, as I forget that cities need garrisons:




That's going to cost a turn on the next settler out of Palouse.

The galley is chopped out here and we are going to load up a warrior next turn to scout out the gold. To make sure i don't repeat my mistake at Palouse I think I'm going to pull my warrior back from Bing. He's served his purpose anyway:




Bing, I am sorry but that is a horrible spot to settle. If you were CRE then it would be at least defensible. But you have zero food until borders pop. I get wanting to box me out of the area but I'm just going to put a city north of the silk now and forever be able to hit you with 2-movers at the time of my choosing. Also, this is just your 4th city. You need to worry about growth here still. Put that thing 1 tile west and you have a great spot that can share the wheat and work the tile first-ring. The pig can go to a fishing village.

Anyway, I'm a lot less concerned about Bing now. Near term he's showing he just wants to lock down a border. Long term he's crippling himself.

[pindicator]

069

Well, I screwed up and then the game felt sorry for me. Now I might get greedy with it.




That's last turn, where I was all ready to finish the Oracle with a chop - only to see the chop come in and us still short. The error in my planning? I had written in the Oracle as 120h - I guess I mixed it up with Stonehenge in my head? And so when we were at 96h and chopped the last forest in now we're looking at 125/150. Worse: we can only get to 12hpt and so the best we can hope for would be to sit at 149/150 in 2 turns.

So I was pretty down on myself for it. We haven't seen anyone finish Oracle yet but we can't be the only one on it, and every turn that goes by makes it more and more likely someone grabs it ahead of us.




We got out on the island last turn as well, our warrior confirming there is only enough spot for one city there. It looks very hand-made, but it also looks very nice: a city right in the center where that hut is would be fantastic and the stone there seems to be begging us to build Moai there.

And this turn we used the warrior to pop the hut:




If I was better with memes I would do something about "we have Oracle at home" with this. But maybe the game just is feeling bad for my bad planning. In any case, that's Monarchy we snagged from the hut.

And now ... do we get greedy? Feudalism needs Writing and we are unfortunately 6-7 turns away from Writing still. So I doubt we are going to be greedy. Instead we will whip the Oracle to completion next turn and then start building units to account for the emerging target on our back.




We are #1 in score now. Were before we popped the free tech.

I need to figure out what to do with Cispus Pass after the Oracle whip next turn now. We definitely want to get units out of there but we still need to get the temple after and hire a priest specialist.

[Mjmd]

Monarchy from a warrior is very nice luck.

[Krill]

You jammy bastard.

Part of me thinks you should go for Feud and if you lose Oracle that would simply even out the Karma. As it stands now it feels like you deserve to lose five 70% battles in a row to make up for that, or never generate a high odds GP etc...

[Thoth]

"It's better to be lucky than good"

[Qgqqqqq]

If you don't take Feudalism, what would you take?

Also, this is what you always dream of with a late game hut, but it feels like it never happens. Congratulations!

[pindicator]

Boring old Metal Casting has been the play.

Funny enough, Writing would have been a more exciting pop for us because it would have opened up Code of Laws or Theology for the Oracle. (Hitru has been pushing for a second shrined religion, in order to take advantage of the high player count.)

[pindicator]

070

So while it was very tempting to greed out Feudalism -- such a play if it were to work -- in the end we're playing it safe and whipping Oracle this turn.




We're also whipping almost every other city in our core: the capital whips out its settler, destined for the gold island (klops, your city name suggestion is about to be used here), and a worker out of Finisterra to help improve the gold city. We'll be looking at loading both new units next turn and then unloading on that central forest t72. Sheep improved by t76 and then gold connected t82.

Meanwhile the chops you see coming in are used for the overflow into granaries for both cities. Then we finally start making some tile improvements. I have never really played a start like this and I don't think I will again: too much chopping and not enough improvement. I said to Hitru that it feels like we are too far out over our skis when it comes to tile improvements and new cities.

Speaking of which, Palouse is starting the settler for the gems city in the north and God's Thumb building the worker to help out up there. We only have 1 worker for all the north right now.