Screaming Orange Pumpkins - RR16B - It's tax day again ...

lurker's comment:
Comments from the peanut gallery -
I have a huge widescreen monitor and have to scroll to see detail on those previous screenshots. Another vote for the Imageshack, that one is perfect for me.
Keep on up with the awesome play, guys!

~P.S. Here is a lurker vote for the Ferret team name... that one was fun and filled with alliteration!

Sorry folks, turned rolled to me on the one night I wasn't at home hence the delay. Good to see a lot of engagement.

My inclinations are to follow lymonds site for the settler and vranasm's micro suggestions for rush prep but I need to look at it in the morning when I'm not exhausted. in my time zone (Pacific) I can post a plan tomorrow morning but probably can't play until Saturday morning...if vranasm wants to swap instead of waiting that's fine.

timmy827 said:

Sorry folks, turned rolled to me on the one night I wasn't at home hence the delay. Good to see a lot of engagement.

My inclinations are to follow lymonds site for the settler and vranasm's micro suggestions for rush prep but I need to look at it in the morning when I'm not exhausted. in my time zone (Pacific) I can post a plan tomorrow morning but probably can't play until Saturday morning...if vranasm wants to swap instead of waiting that's fine.

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nah just take your time.

I'd go with SW gold city (didn't notice Willy's settler up north, should read reports more carefully). If we ain't going Gwall we don't need masonry early. Fishing and workboat sounds good if city 2 is sharing corn, probably before worker 2.

We need Worker 2 yesterday. I agree that maybe we should avoid GW for now and head Fish>Pot. GW would be nice, but maybe we capture it. We just won't have the hammers to build it and attack Willie.

I think we could possibly play a game of attack/extort/attack/extort. Always making sure we leave Willie with 1 city and the ability to expand. Depends on the land we don't see yet. Ofc, we must consider Rag as well. Depends on how he encroachs on him. Could try to butter him up and use him for buying and stealing techs. All depends on whether he goes into early rage mode before we befriend him.

Another sly thing I had not thought of until now is once we get Feud, we vassal Rag and have him do some of the teching for us. That is we always have someone to buy techs off of. Willie would be better, but he is just too close. If there is a lot of land to his west, then maybe he can get strong techwise again later. Basically he's just our meat puppet. Despite being FIN, it's hit or miss sometimes just how well Rag techs. We may just vassal them both. Anyway, food for thought....although there's not much food here to help think

lymond said:

We need Worker 2 yesterday.

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I would put my bets that AZ would choose size 3 worker 2, settler with this opening if we so like to mention famous deity players ;-)

But that is past now. I think I didn't had clear enough mind about this initially.

Turnset plan:

Tech: Think I hear consensus (and agree with)
-stopping Masonry now, since axerush rules out having the hammers for Great Wall
-fishing -> Pottery

swtich worker to chopping, grow to size 3 and finish warrior->worker. Start work boat after that in capital. one worker moves to gold after that, other first finishes the mine on the chopped tile then roads to city #2.

Still not sure about settler escort, whether waiting for the fresh warrior from capital, or moving the half-health near Willie.

City #2 (we've agree'd on lymond's "City 2" sign 1NE of the gold right? good with me) starts with a worker first. Why? It will be a few turns before copper connected for vultures, we don't need more warriors, we aren't building a barracks there for rush - can't think of anything else useful immediately. This gets us our 3rd worker while freeing cap for WB and barracks.

Stopping point: probably just 10 turns. I doubt there is a major decision point (unless Willie's settle moves in an unexpected direction and borks our gold city)

Couple of suggestions, timmy:

1) I assume you are doing this, but make sure the chop goes into the worker - you can switch back to the warrior to finish and then complete the worker. Just make sure the chop goes into the worker

2) No to worker in City 2. We want that city to grow. Cap should work south corn until city 2 settles and hopefully to complete Worker 2. Then switch City 2 to corn to grow onto gold.

As far as I'm concerned, City 2 can just start building Vultures straight up. We can eventually start putting chops into vultures here. Might throw in a granary whip later, but not sure when that will happen. As for anymore workers, we will chop, whip or capture them later. 2 is fine for now.

Worker 1 should complete road to City 2 after chopping worker. Worker 2 when arrives can chop workboat, mine GH and then proceed to chopping Vultures. Worker 1 will mine/road gold and then start road to Willie.

city 2 won't have access to vultures if you go with your MM.

the chop will need 3 turns and starts counting next turn, so the worker from grass hill will move in 4 turns and could start roading corn t4 or 5 finishing t 6/7 and then we still need another road on one of those forests - t8 + 2/1 (depending on worker team).

city 2 should be settled in 4 turns. 3 turns for move, 4th we settle. seems like 4 turns hole

we just don't have enough worker turns on hand.

I am not in favor of building worker and stalling growth in city 2 if we take the corn immediately, but we have to be somewhat creative.

6F corn means ~9 turns worker means city 2 starts to feed in 14 turns (aka T44)

Maybe worth discussing what we can achieve with workers in next 14 turns. The problem here is theres not much reason to grow to size 2 if we won't have the gold improved in 14 turns.

Capital needs more improvements too. The grass mine has to be finished and then maybe grass farm at lake (8 turns?) or one of those plain hills (4T or 7T)

aaaaah too lazy to calculate it correctly or maybe too tired? (midnight here)

Yeah no easy solutions. I thought I had a good one - since we don't have hunting, hoped that I could start a warrior in city 2, connect it with roads before it finish, and have it convert to a vulture-in-progress - but a WB test shows that doesn't work, you still have the warrior build option until you have both Hunting and BW. (and then the warrior in the queue converts to Spearman).

OK options then: (trying to satisfy the following goals - getting vultures out of city 2 ASAP without wasting hammers on warriors, so worker on the hill chops into worker following by roading for copper connection, getting city 2 to size 2 and working mined gold ASAP).

One is to have city 2 start on a worker but not finish it - we can do that for a few turns before the copper connected, and still have time to grow to 2 on the corn before the gold mine is finished. then hammers into vulture while growing to size 2, then finish worker once size 2, chop like mad. (yeah know lymond suggested just 2 workers and capturing Willems)

Another would be to have the capital start worker now and have city #2 build a warrior first while waiting for the road. Going to mull this over during a run. Any other suggestions welcome.

This game makes my brain hurt.

First, these are the points I think the team is in agreement. Correct me if I am wrong.
1) - Rush the Dutch.
2) - Rush starts after two cities.
3) - Forget the great wall. This is why I picked masonry before our plans changed.
4) - Worker #2 ASAP.
5) - techs path of fishing, then pottery.
These are the high levels items, but it is the details that are killing us.

I am not sure on city #2 location.
One north of proposed site - LKendter
As marked on map - timmy827, vranasm
Not sure on what pigswill, vanatteveldt, lymond think.
Settler can arrive at marked spot or 1N in 2 turns. We don't save any time with either spot.
If we go with the marked spot, then wake up warrior on the hill by wines. Move him south, then onto the hill. He can fog bust the gold hill before the settle moves in two turns. No matter what, I would like to have this warrior be the MP for gold city.

Worker / build plans:
Cancel current mining order, and make it a chop.
Capitol finishes warrior, then a badly needed worker. Make sure chop goes to worker. After the chop, worker #1 builds roads to gold city. We can build workers so fast in Uruk; I would like to build a third worker before barracks. Even with stealing the better corn, we still have a corn and copper hill to
We don't want to leave gold city stuck at size 1, so I agree with no worker from there. My vote is barracks, as more warriors IMO are a waste. I see nothing else practical. Concentrate on pure growth until the gold is mined.
Worker #2 goes toward gold city to help. Worker #3 mines those hills. Uruk should rock for production.

I could have missed a post. There is too much going on for such an early point in the game.

@LK - yeah lots of micro choices. I agree that your numbered list 1-5 are settled.

Darnit this is rattling what I though was consensus. After looking at it again, I agree with LK on moving city #2 1N (sorry I had sort of missed that point earlier with all the posts). Red is the lymond site (he put the sign on), blue is LK's:



Reasons I now favor blue:
-we can move the settler now without waiting for warrior since it's in our borders, settle it a turn sooner
-with the plans to have our current worker chop and then road first, the delay of 5 turns for the border expansion to get gold is not a problem.
-stronger site: gets the FP and grass hills trading away one plains hill and junk plains tiles. we can down the road have this working corn, farmed FP, 4 grass hill mines, 2 plains hill mines (1 on the gold) for another great early/midgame production site. Heroic Epic material (if we can ever buy Literature )
-yeah more overlap with capital but we seem to be anticipating a short game and Uruk is not gonna be a Bureacracy capital anyways, so not a problem.

So the current vote is
lymond, vranasm for red. Also pigswill (although he mentioned it as alternative to something in the northwest, maybe not distinguishing between these two dotes...if you see this please clarify)
LK, timmy for blue

vanatteveldt, know you're busy with RL right now but since we are split closely, weighing in on just the city location would be helpful. Unless you agree with LK and me and put the vote at 3-3

Also I really advocate swapping capital to worker now instead of warrior (along with city #2 building warrior first while growing). Putting current overflow into worker more useful, with our current worker plans once city #2 takes one corn we will only have 2 improved tiles for cap to work until worker #2 done.

Sigh, putting this off till tonight at least. The semi-competitve nature is really brining out the micro fiends in us (not a complaint, just observation )

timmy827 said:

-we can move the settler now without waiting for warrior since it's in our borders, settle it a turn sooner

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If the warrior moves first the second turn, we can see gold hill clear. The question is will be bust enough fog turn 2 to be safe. Can a barb pop up and move the same turn?

timmy827 said:

Also I really advocate swapping capital to worker now instead of warrior

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What is your reasoning for this?
I like size 3 now before the worker. Plus it gets the badly needed MP for Uruk. I would like to keep at least one warrior exploring, rather then having to recall the second one home for MP duty.
Any thoughts on 2 more workers from Uruk? If we are going 2 workers, then size 3 really pays off.

timmy827 said:

The semi-competitive nature is really bringing out the micro fiends in us (not a complaint, just observation )

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IMO it is the horrid map - we have so little slack that I don't feel we can afford a mistake early on and pull of the rush. I normally don't find my self spending this much time to discuss the BC time frame.
However, I think not having this set optimal will make a huge difference on our finish.

the thing I don't like is that the blue spot will steal tiles from capital AND future burea spot if we will agree on settling city for those 3 flood plains, wines and grass hills (after razing that new willie city)

sometimes i settle in straight line cities too, but generally try to avoid if the overlap doesn't bring back much and i don't really think the flood plain and couple grass hills has enough strength especially if i count with another city on the line capital-->west coast or slightly above.

another thing is that red makes better block of southern area against barbs and future pigs+ivory spot

will get the gold and another grass hill first ring, but agree with the mention that those 5 turns are not critical, because we clearly missplayed the start with only 1 worker before settler

About the worker size 2

the argument is actually not that way off. The city 2 will take over the corn right away and that means we will have only 2 improved tiles in capital and won't have another one, well basically until worker 2 finished

We need some warrior Military police thus I don't see building warrior in city 2 for few turns as wasted (no reason to use 35H for task that 15H one can do).

we need couple of fogbusters for south (let's say that will be those 2 warriors in our north west) and 2 warriors for military police (uruk and city 2 obv.)

Sorry for longish post, but I think we have to get out thoughts a bit more to be on same page...

Agree with LK's points 1-5 of course. That's current consensus. The execution is making headache and is a bit lacking.

I'll concede for the blue site. I like the red for the land coverage, but the blue dot city can help work a cottaged flood plain once we get a city there, so there is some benefit there.

LK's points seem in line with my earlier thoughts, so I'm in agreement.

Might as well build a warrior in City 2 until it is connected.

Not sure on worker 3 until we chop out a workboat.

As for the map, I don't think it's worth complaining about it. It is what it is and the other team is playing the some map. We just have to make the most of what we have. At least we have decent production potential and commerce in our first couple of cities. Should allow us to take Willie easily.

Definitely worker at size 3. Pointless not to add the copper tile to the equation. That is just a waste.

We should switch to slavery during the settler move. Probably wait till after cap grows to size 3 so as not to delay it.

^^ hmm I wonder how I would make out of all the thoughts some valid turnset plan since there is ton of things that don't time well and some in conflict.

oh and btw L in the argument about size 2 worker I caclulated with copper... we have exactly 3 tile improvements around capital. 1 of them will go to city 2 at the point of settling

I understand it would be pretty boring to make, but either we trust timmy to make the best or we should put some timeline in some spreadsheet.

because I have a feeling until we see the turn times and worker moves directly in spreadsheet everyone somehow magically can make more improvements in less time then my experience tells me.

Re: city X (on the wines, the "Bureau spot")

I don't see this being a lynchpin. FP and river are nice but it needs one strong food bonus and 3 cottageable grasslands replacing the desert hills to really be strong Bureau spot...it will be a solid enough city but I would be surprised if Amsterdam wasn't better.

Even disregarding our red vs. blue discussion, with the current setter I would move city X 1W, to the hill the wounded warrior is on now. It loses the freshwater health but gains the desert gold south of Willie's worker, which is not in Amsterdam's fat cross and looks hard to work otherwise with all the desert south of it.

One other question before I play - who to focus EP on? I would guess Willie if we plan on serial extortion (believe we do) but obviously Ragnar if we think we are wiping out Willie.

Re: map - I don't get what is so bad about it. yes dearth of food to our south (though it's not explored completely yet) but there are decent city sites in view. Willie is quite close and settling towards us, but we have an axeman UU and copper at the capital so that's quite alright.

timmy827 said:

city X 1W, to the hill the wounded warrior is on now.

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I did mention that above.

I think EPs on Rag are fine considering we are likely to cripple Willie for some time.

I'd go with blue spot.

Minor micro point: work 2 corn 1 turn, work corn+copper 1 turn. After 2 turns grow to pop 3 and complete warrior switch to worker T3. Maybe whip worker T7 once fishing is in, overflow to WB, grow on clam+corn then add copper. The sooner we connect the 2 cities the sooner golden corn can start on vultures.

Report:

lymond said:

I did mention that above.

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Sorry, getting easy to miss stuff with the discussion volume.
Thanks for patience everyone.

Played 7.5 turns, (wanted to punt on worker decisions...see below)
Settled blue dot.
Willie was actually going for something near our red/blue dots, he turned around and went here instead:

This is great. We can definintely bypass this clunker and send Vultures straight to Amsterdam when we rush.

I reversed myself (again) and did finish the warrior in Uruk first and grow to 3 before worker. Basically because needed the extra time to tech Fishing, otherwise couldn't overflow into WB and think that is more immediately useful than Barracks. pigswill - interesting suggestion on Slavery but I declined to revolt, basically same reason -> couldn't actually whip the worker out faster and still have overflow into WB...also wanted 2nd worker out before anarchy turn.

WB is done, Barracks as placeholder (see below)

I used both workers to road to Eridu. Thinking was that if I didn't it would finish the 1st warrior before the copper road. I may have goofed, could have worked the FP after border pop to delay warrior...sorry if that was an error.


Other odds and ends:
Two new AIs, good news for our variant:

the two warriors outside our borders are in what I think are good spawnbusting spots. Adjust if needed, be aware the southern one is a little under full health (but in a strong spot, jungle hill with river shielding from some directions too).

We can't tech writing but watch for Willie doing it...check every few turns to see if he will do open borders, would be good to know if Amsterdam is on a hill.
--------
More worker decisions so I stopped after 8 turns, and with the workers umoved for this turn:



Things I think are certain:
Eridu finishes its warrior then goes nonstop vultures

Points to consider:
-I assume the yield from the gold is more important than the happy, which would favor sending one worker straight to mine it without roading first. However looks like Eridu is gonna stagnate at size 3 and will want another mine, roading first means we have faster access to the PH 1S of Eridu when that time comes.
-other worker presumably goes to capital but dunno his use, is it better to finish that grass hill mine or straight chop?

-I also dunno on a 3rd worker. Tempted to do that in Uruk right now, perhaps with both workers chopping the roaded forest tile (make sure it stays assigned to Uruk so the chop goes there). Assume if we don't do a 3rd worker, Uruk is Barracks->Vultures.

-Pottery mostly done, although I don't think we actually will make use of it immeidately. If we consider adopting slavery and whipping the capital, Hunting first (ivory happy) may make sense...although we then lose ability to build warriors...we have 4 counting the one due in Eridu, dunno if we want to hold onto that option anymore.

Roster:
Roster:
lymond
LKendter
timmy827
vranasm (up)
pigswill(on deck)
vanatteveldt