Pb's Adv 45: Hannibal Lecturer? (Ox Uni + Pyr)

[pocketbeetle]

Adv 45: Hannibal’s Muse

Scenario rules:
[b]Scenario:[/b] You may choose [b]any two wonders[/b] to begin the game in Carthage.

• National wonders are OK. Shrines and corporate HQs are not. The Internet is not a wonder, it's a project.
  
• The United Nations is OK. Diplomatic wins choosing the UN in this way will be scored separately from both conventional UN and AP religious wins.
  
• The ApostolicPalace may not be chosen since you do not have a state religion at game start.
  
• For the Oracle, tell the sponsor what free tech you want (only from those available normally at game start.)
  
• The HangingGardens will start your capital at size 2.
  
• Versailles and ForbiddenPalace are OK, even though they normally can't be built in your Palace city.
  
• Please don't choose the Taj Mahal since there's no easy way to start the Golden Age in the worldbuilder. It's not very good on turn 0 anyway.
  

[b]VARIANT RULE:[/b] There are some restrictions on early Great People usage. This is to encourage you to choose your wonders for the wonders you want, not their type of Great Person Points, by leveling the playing field between different Great People. (We're not trying to play The Greatest Person over again.)

• Your first Great Person must settle or start a Golden Age.
  
• You may not rush a wonder with a Great Engineer from Carthage until after 1 AD.
  

Map:
Ring script, tropical setting, standard size, normal speed, 6 AIs, Immortal difficulty.

Leader: Hannibal (Fin/Chm), Cothons = +1 trade routes harbour, Num Cav = naff str 5 anti melee HA.
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Starting position:



Interesting one!
I played a couple of tropical ring games two weeks before this challenge, on epic speed.
Let’s consider what I know.

Thoughts on the map:

• First thing to note is that exploration is easy. The ring script simply creates a square ring of land (of a set thickness) all around the edge of the map, and dots the centre with small islands. Therefore, simply throw out a workboat in either direction, and you can sail around the huge continent.
  
• Contact is easy. You can quickly meet all the AIs, and hence, foreign trade routes are plentiful. No need for Astronomy; barring wars, Sailing links everyone up.
  
• Defense is easy. At any one time, you’re likely to have a maximum of two fronts.
  
• Tropical so Iron working is a priority, note the jungled pigs diagonally NW of start.
  
• Space may be at a premium.
  
• Cities often will be coastal.
  

Thoughts on variant rules:

• First GP must settle or start Golden Age. GAs early on are typically frowned upon, so I’m more likely to settle the GP.
  
• It’s more efficient to focus on one particular area. For instance, go for wonders that boost hammer output and give GE points, then settle the GE for a more effective output. Similarly go Oxford Uni and settle the GSci for an easy +12 beakers.
  
• Does deciding to settle the first GP make a GArt more attractive (high basic output of +3 gld/+12 cult) and hence make a Cultural victory more accessible?
  
• No GE rushing pre-1AD. Bleh. GEs less attractive, no Pyramids without stone.
  

Possible wonder thoughts:

• Massive hammer output: Ironworks + (Three Gorges Dam?).
  GEs can be settled, huge hammer output can be used to steal lots of wonders, or build an army fast. Ironworks would kick in once Ironworking comes in, and allows for hiring of Engineers early, to allow for fast settled GEs. Not sure if 3 Gorges would help or not, gives power, but would this translate to +50% hammers straight away, or need factories? (Turns out you need factories, so it’s useless.)
  Additional downside is large unhealthy, from both power (2) and the Ironworks (2).
  
• Peacenik Trade route teching: GLH + Cothons + ToA/ Wall Street/ Ox Uni.
  Easy to get trade routes as mentioned, could be very powerful. Slightly slow to get rolling however – requires 3 cities + the necessary exploration.
  
• Science output: Some combination of Oxford Uni/ TGLib/ Pyramids
  Pyramids gives Representation which doubles Scientist output from +3 to +6 and gives extra happiness. Oxford Uni gives +100% science output (remember can’t use first GSci for an academy) and importantly lets us hire up to 3 scientists. TGLib ofc gives 2 free scientists, but doesn’t let us hire any more.
  Important thing to note about this combination is it’s up and running from Turn 0.
  
• Warmonger route: Pentagon + Heroic Epic HE would give fast start also – workboats count as military units for the +100% bonus.
  
• Cultural route: Putting the late game wonders such Hollywood/ Broadway/ Rock&Roll in the capital makes no sense. Putting the Sistine Chapel in the capital makes a touch more sense, but still not great. Putting The Eiffel Tower in the capital, to get +50% cult output, 2 hireable artists, plus happy cap synergy with Hannibal’s Chm trait -in every city- makes sense. Combine the GM points from this wonder with another merchant wonder, say Wall Street, and the first settled GMer would give +1 food and +12 gold. That’s worth several extra cities early game.
  
• Other options: Early Globe + Kremlin for mass whippings using the excess of food clearly available at starting position. Nat Park? Pure economy using Wall Street + Ox Uni.
  
• Rejected wonders:
  Oracle: Only worthwhile tech to Oracle would be BW, but going the science route would pick this up quickly anyway.
  UN: I imagine you can pretty quickly win via diplomacy, going UN + a hammer building to produce settlers, gift cities to the AI. Doesn’t appeal to me however.
  MoM: Choosing GAs with this could be interesting, but normal speed. I’ll pass.
  Space Elevator: Anyone choosing this is daft
  

Narrowing it down:

The last couple of Advs I’ve gone Conquest. Time for a change.
I like the idea of a Cultural victory with Hannibal. It’s not immediately obvious given the lack of Spiritual trait for cheap temples, but I think the wonder advantage should allow me to overcome this, and Cultural fits the normal speed, possibly slightly cramped map.

The two wonder combinations I should consider therefore are the Cultural one: Eiffel Tower + (Wall Street?), or the Science output one (race for religions, free GArt etc).

Going further into science options:
Pyramids + TGLib = +12bpt (specialists) +8bpt (palace) = 20bpt and +3 happiness
TGLib + Ox Uni = +12bpt (specs) + 16bpt (Palace) + another potential 6-18bpt (1-3 Sci specs) = 34 - 46 bpt.
Pyramids + Ox Uni = 16bpt (palace) + pot 12-36bpt (1-3 Sci specs) = 28 – 52 bpt and +3 happiness.

TGLib + Ox gives a higher base rate of bpt, but given the excess of food on offer at the starting location (Irrigable corn, oasis, flood plain, 2 clams), I think the higher happy cap and comparable bpt from Pyramids + Ox Uni is better.
Hireable scientists can minimise the chance of a GE spawning from the Pyramids if I wish it. Oh and Representation + Ox Uni is a better synergy with a settled GSci also. Yes I like this.

Final indecisions: Oxford Uni vs Wall Street.
Gold is worth more than beakers, particularly early game, due to the late appearance of markets/ grocers vs the early appearance of libraries and academies.
However the variant restriction of no early academy; must be created by second GP while playing a non Philosophical civ) slightly cancels this out. I’m okay with going Oxford Uni over Wall Street.

Conclusion:

Pyramids + Oxford Uni.
Rush for religions, possibly pick them all up.
Grow capital while building workboats, hire Sci specs.
Expand, beeline Sistine and then Eiffel Tower.
Cultural win.

Start:



Hut gives Hunting!



Turn 8 – Meditation -> Poly, found Buddhism.
Meet Ramesses – don’t think I’ve ever played vs him. Spi/Ind hmmm.
No converting/civic changes yet. That comes later, racing for religions and growing capital atm.

Turn 13 – Poly -> Agri (-> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery -> AH -> Writing)
Hindu founded in Carthage also.

Turn 19 – Carthage reaches size 4. Micro for maximum hammers to get first workboat out two turns later.

Turn 22 - Revolt to Representation and Slavery shortly after wboat built, build worker for one turn, then 2 pop whip.
Current exploration: (note I’m being very careful about exploring the whole side of one coast. As soon as Sailing comes in that’ll hopefully be instant trade route to Ramesses)



Turn 33 – AH comes in and shows Horsies in a nice spot, I’ve already got my second/Moai city planned out. Growing Carthage to size 5 then will build settler.
Next turn gives first GP – a GSci. Sucks slightly, was hoping for GEng at 66% odds.
GSci settled to give +1h/9bpt.



Turn 36 – Writing -> Sailing (->Masonry -> Mono -> Priesthood -> CoL -> Maths)
OB with Ramesses.

Turn 41 – Utica founded in slightly different place, realised from scrolling that previous spot was overlapping with edge of map (must be located South).
New position picks up wheat after border expansion, but means fish South of Carthage now unworkable.



Turn 44 – Jud founded in Utica. Ramesses builds StoneHenge.

Turn 48 – Meet Louis XIV West of Carthage. That’s two Industrious AIs so far.
If I want to land Oracle and GLH, I need to be quick, hence the bulldozing through to CoL instead of going via Currency.

Turn 54 – CoL researched, Confucianism founded in Utica.
Use free missionary to spread to Carthage, and will revolt to OR and Conf soon.



Turn 58 – Maths -> IW (-> Alpha -> Currency -> MC)
Judaism unfortunately spread to Ramesses and he converted, not good for my Confucian civ. Being Spiritual, I imagine Ramesses can be a bit of a zealot also.
Encounter Justinian.

Turn 63 – Oracle built, Civil Service taken (1480 BC =) )
Revolt Bureaucracy in 3 turns (forced timer), Lighthouse -> GLH next.



Turn 69 – Alphabet comes in, trade Archery for Meditation from Louis.

Turn 71 – GLH built. Next turn a GSci spawns in Carthage, used to create an academy.
Encounter Mansa Musa – he starts off annoyed due to the tech trade with his worst enemy, Louis.

Turn 78 – Contact Alexander of Greece.
While on my way to settle Carthage’s third city, the Easternmost flag, I ran smack into Ramesses borders… Guess he got there before me. That’s a bit of a problem, as I now have no copper or iron in my borders. Glad I wasn’t planning to go for a conquer type victory!
Decided to load the settler onto a newly produced galley instead, and settle on the stone, which should help with Moai and Cathedrals.



Turn 82 – Christianity founded in Utica.

Turn 88 – Paper comes in, trade maps to get a decent world map. Looks like Rome is the only civ I haven’t met yet.

Turn 90 – Hippo (Gems) and Kerkouane (Moai) settled.
Going to try and get a settler over to that marble spot in the West also.
I have more workers than military units. :dancing5:



Turn 95 – GSci born, saved for later Golden Ages.

Turn 97 – Leptis (Marble) settled.
Also get a quest: build 7 harbours and 4 caravels. I earlier got a build 7 stables quest, but chose to ignore it. This one is a touch more appealing however – cothons + GLH is a nice combination.
GArt from Music is settled in Kerkouane. Unless plans change, Carthage (capital), Utica (Nat Epic, G Art farm) and Kerkouane (Moai) will be the 3 Legendary cities.
Since it’s so early in the game, I don’t mind settling this GArt.

Turn 104 – Hanging Gdns built.
Convert to Judaism to hopefully keep Ramesses happy.
My large number of trade routes with other civs is resulting in religions leaking out, I haven’t had to time to gift missionaries. As a result Mansa is Hindu, Justinian is Confucian.
Get Barb uprising event, hopefully not near me. Get Waters of life event (+1c) for oasis in my capital.

Turn 110 – MoM built.
Ramesses continues to steal city locations just before my settlers arrive.
Taoism founded in Lepsis (marble city)

Turn 128 – Barb City (Shangian) captured, plus another settled nearby for whale.
Divine right then founded Islam in Shangian.
GEng born in Carthage – saved for future Golden Age.
Ramesses builds AP and gets voted in.



Turn 137 – Sistine built.

Turn 141 – Notre Dame built by Moai city.

Turn 147 – GEng born. Save him for a Broadway type wonder.
Religion spread failures starting to stack up now.

Turn 151 – Quest completed. Wasn’t exactly an amazing reward, but always fun to do
Hermitage built in Utica



Turn 154 – GMer from Economics saved for GAs.
Revolt to Caste and Free Market.
Trade Music and Div Right for Gunpowder from Mali.


The Culture run:

Carthage currently:



Utica (2nd culture city):
It may look a bit underwhelming at the moment, but when Biology comes in, that population will virtually double, and correspondingly, the number of artists.



Kerkouane (3rd culture city):



As you can see, research is currently heading to Astronomy and Sci Method. Hence the mad dash to fit in as many monasteries as possible before they become obsolete!
They’re a cheap and easy +2 culture, doubling to +4 after a certain number of years.

Hippo, missionary pump, hence all the workshops:



All other cities are producing basic infrastructure or temples/missionaries.

Turn 160 – Astronomy comes in -> Chemistry to superpowered workshops.
Give in to Rome’s demand for tribute – Divine Right, which gives me +5 relations (+4 trade, +1 tribute), allowing me to Open Borders with him.

Turn 162 – Really good turn for getting religions in!
Utica now has all 7, Kerkouane lacks Confucianism, Carthage lacks two: Islam and Taoism
Chemistry -> slow teching Sci Method ( -> Liberalism)

Turn 172 – Liberalise Physics -> Biology (-> Communism -> Electricity)
Get an interesting event near one of my smallest cities for +3 population.



A GEng was born to compliment the free GSci, a shame, had equal odds of GArt.

That means Carthage now has 3 GE, 2 GSci, 1 GMer, with a GSpy to come soon from Communism.
Taj completes in 2 turns, then after that I’ll blow all of those GP on Golden Ages = in total 4 MoM powered GAs, leaving 1 GE left over to instant Broadway. I reckon my nice little GP farm will be able to produce a few GArtists from that

Building a Customs house in Bureaucracy powered Carthage has allowed it to break the 200 base commerce mark – 47 coins from trade routes alone.

Turn 175 – Taj built last turn for 12 turns of GA.
Biology came in this turn, giving Utica a surplus of +5 food while working 7 artists.
I’ll eventually windmill/farm the remaining tiles to try and squeeze more food out of it.
Spamming muskets in support cities to try and get a small Citizen’s Defense Force.



Turn 180 – GArt 1 born.
Annoyingly Ramesses beat me to Versailles. I was building it in Kerkouane with 3 turns left, would have liked the +10 culture. Oh well.



42 turns of GA left. It’s a hard life being Hannibal, tum-te-tum.

Turn 184 – Electricity (+1c windmills) -> Replaceable Parts (+1h windmills) -> Radio
Carthagian protest groups spring up, concerned by the sudden appearance of huge windmill farms coating much of the countryside.

Still can’t get the last religion into Kerkouane.
Estimate I’m on my 8th Confu missionary.

Turn 190 – Success!

Turn 192 – Radio -> Rifling -> Mass Media.
GArtist 2 born.
Eiffel Tower GE’d in Kerkouane for 880/1250 hammers. Slightly unusual, but with my lack of Iron (or Copper), it makes sense to GE the more expensive Eiffel Tower, getting +6 culture into the city that needs it most and putting broadcast towers everywhere.

Muskets being spammed, Jewish missionaries being sent over to Mansa Musa to try and get him to convert, temples and religions spreading.

Turn 195 – GArt 3 born.

Turn 199 – Mass Media complete, research shut down.
Eiffel Tower built.

Revolt Free Speech and Universal Suffrage (to maintain capital hammers and allow rushing of buildings, Representation science/happiness no longer matters).

Switching to 100% culture gives the following at -179gpt deficit:
Carthage: +1050 cpt (34 turns to legendary)
Utica: +750 cpt (55)
Kerkouane: +500 cpt (90)

As expected, Kerkouane is lagging behind, but those numbers will be decreasing as more and more cathedrals are stuffed into the cities.

All other cities are producing Rifles, temples or missionaries.



Turn 204 – Those numbers are now 21/40/63 turns.
Mali doesn’t like the ensuing cultural battle, and starts trying to send over spies. However I’ve got spies in most cities now, and will probably do a counter espionage mission against him soon.

GMer born in Kerkouane, blech. Send him off to visit an AI capital, gold for deficit funding would be useful.

Turn 208 – Mansa demands Physics. 10 turns of guaranteed no war did you say? Yeah sure!

Turn 210 – GArt 4 born, GMer cashed in for 2700 gold.
Culture turns left: 13/31/46.
Since I’m rushing a lot with gold, currently building Kremlin in a support city, double speed with stone.
AP vote gives me the option of assigning a Malinese culturally pressed city to Carthagian Empire.



Next turn the vote is passed (Ramesses + Hannibal = entire Jewish religion virtually), but Mansa chooses to defy.
Not a problem, enjoy that +5 unhappiness penalty sucker. And guess who made sure to spread Judaism to Mansa’s 3 biggest cities? Yup that’s right, me.

Turn 213 – Egyptian city of Byblos revolts to join Carthage.
2 free riflemen and 40 commerce from trade routes later, cultural turns left are 10/26/43.



Turn 214 – Justinian beats me on to the Kremlin by 2 turns.
Fire off a few GArts in the weaker two cities at 4k culture each. 1 GArt left, another GP coming out of Carthage in 5 turns which has a 60%ish chance of being a GArt.

Culture:
Carthage - 35k, 1900 cpt, 9 turns.
Utica - 26.5k, 1100 cpt, 21 turns.
Kerkouane – 22k, 950 cpt, 30 turns.

Mines/workshops terraformed to windmills/farms around Kerkouane – all necessary buildings and cathedrals completed.
Revolt to pacificism and hire more artists.

Turn 217 – Sigh. GEng born in Carthage :rolleyes:
GE’d Broadway into Kerkouane, and fire off the sole remaining GArt there also.

Next GArt will be born in Utica in 6 turns.
Cultural numbers: 5/14/18, of which the last one will decrease thanks to Broadway.
However 48turn GA ends in 5 turns, so may increase slightly.
All three cities starving under the weight of their artists



Turn 221 – Fiddling around with micro, realise Kerkouane can produce a (hopefully) GArt before Utica with some serious starvation, and then Utica can blast another GArt out.

Necessary to do this, as both Kerkouane and Utica have around 12 turns left til Legendary. ie if use GArt on only one of them, then I’ll be stuck waiting for the other to reach 50k culture slowly.
So bye bye pop 21 Kerkouane.



Turn 222 – Lol. Another AP vote came up, I chose “reassign Mali city to Carthage” again.
This time Mansi didn’t defy

Carthage went Legendary also.



Turn 227 – Kerkouane pops a GArt, and uses it.
Utica does the starvation shuffle also, and will pop a GArt next turn.



Turn 228 – William Shakespeare born.

Turn 229 – [b]Culture victory 1595AD, 90k score[/b]








Closing thoughts:

First of all, I regret going Oxford Uni + Pyramids.
Why?
Not because they were weak/ a mistake. I definitely think they were a better combination that Ox Uni + TGLib, and I was both pleased and surprised that my pick was a unique one. But the main reason, was that going with such a power combination made the game less fun than it could have been.
I found myself wishing at the end that I’d gone Pentagon domination or something more off the wall.

I did consider the Kremlin, possibly in combination with the Globe, but was guilty like many of not properly thinking through their benefits.
As noted in one report I read, this may possibly be because they don’t immediately lend themselves to an obvious path to victory, whereas Eiffel Tower and Oxford Uni do.

Looking back, my start was unusual and definitely open to criticism. I was racing to found both Bud and Hindu, on Immortal, using a non Mysticism start civ. For that I needed commerce, which thanks to Ox Uni was worth double. So I allowed Carthage to grow using the 2x clams and oasis tiles while building a workboat. Would I have been better off just getting the worker out asap? Not sure.

Compared to THawk’s cultural win, mine was slower at 1595AD, despite us both Oracling Civil Service within roughly the same timeframe. That to me says I probably should look into shutting down research earlier, rather than going to Mass Media. Something for me to consider.

Regarding the Mediterranean theme of AI arrangement, I picked up on Ramesses of Egypt being Cathage’s Eastern neighbour, but Mansa put me off (Historically Mali was South of Carthage, in this game he was N/NW). If it had been Isabella then possibly I would have figured it out. But equally, there’s no way I’m going to complain about not having a warmonger like Isabella in the game, particularly when I was going for a peaceful cultural victory!

Lastly, I never even considered building any of the Aesthetic wonders (Pathenon/TGLib/ToA etc) as the research rate was simply too fast. They'd have obsoleted within a very short amount of time.

As always, thankyou to the sponsor. =)

[T-hawk]

Nice, someone did do the move of using a research wonder to power through Mysticism and grab not one early religion, but both! You didn't hire a scientist for that, though, right, since you didn't take Rep till a bit later? I'd guess you worked the oasis?

cothons + GLH is a nice combination.

Is it? I figured that the GLH would already use up all the foreign cities, and the Cothon would just add domestic routes. I built Cothons pretty late. Did you look at the details of this?

1595 AD for culture is excellent. Sounds like the late research paid off more than I might have expected. Yes my game was faster, but I had spoiler map and neighbor knowledge and what I still think is a stronger wonder in the Kremlin. Actually I think my Kremlin-rushbuy phase may have made for most of the time difference, since other than that we expanded and built at just about the same pace. You did better with Great Artists too.

And Windmills are the best hill improvement in the time between Rep Parts and Railroad, and sometimes are the best even after that if you need food/commerce more than hammers.

Thanks for the report! You're fast becoming an RB regular whose reports I always look forward to reading.

[Jabah]

Nicely played

except the small little thing :

Turn 41 – Utica founded in slightly different place, realised from scrolling that previous spot was overlapping with edge of map (must be located South).
New position picks up wheat after border expansion, but means fish South of Carthage now unworkable.

1W of Horse (1NE of fish) is perfectly legal, 3tiles away from both cities ...

[The Reverend Doctor]

I don't think I've ever seen an Oracle build that got to choose from such expensive techs!

Good game/read.

[pocketbeetle]

Nice, someone did do the move of using a research wonder to power through Mysticism and grab not one early religion, but both! You didn't hire a scientist for that, though, right, since you didn't take Rep till a bit later? I'd guess you worked the oasis?

Yeah, and that's why I think the start is up for criticism.
I relied on the commerce yields from the oasis/clams/floodplain, and only after landing both religions did I switch to Rep and start running specialists.
Oxford Uni doubles the commerce yields from tiles, so it's a little less sinful than normal, but even so...

As such, someone less bothered about landing Bud+Hindu could easily start faster.

There were some good side effects of the world being religionless however.
Namely slowing down the AIs, giving them lower happy caps and no access to OR (slowed down Oracle and GLH dates).
It also meant that my earliest AI trade partner, was one of the strongest, keeping my East border safe (while aggressive Rome's first religion was Taoism from a trade route spread.)

Is it? I figured that the GLH would already use up all the foreign cities, and the Cothon would just add domestic routes. I built Cothons pretty late. Did you look at the details of this?

Anecdotally, I'd say it was beneficial, particularly in this game.

Because the AIs (Ramesses/Justinian/Mansa) spread well, while I stayed at ~8 cities (culture) for most of the game, only the smallest cities were not getting full foreign routes. Even then, the island stone city gave a nice intercontinental bonus.

The more important effect was that it top loaded the trade route commerce into Carthage and the other two culture cities, where thanks to Oxford Uni, the Academy, and later the cathedrals, it could be used most efficiently.
As mentioned I had nearly 50 raw commerce in Carthage coming from trade routes alone, and that's without intercontinental since we we were all on the same landmass.

The +50% bonus for another 1-2c increase on each GLH route was great also.

1595 AD for culture is excellent. Sounds like the late research paid off more than I might have expected. Yes my game was faster, but I had spoiler map and neighbor knowledge and what I still think is a stronger wonder in the Kremlin. Actually I think my Kremlin-rushbuy phase may have made for most of the time difference, since other than that we expanded and built at just about the same pace. You did better with Great Artists too.

Yeah, part of my slowdown was missionary spread.
The Kremlin might have helped by being able to get the temples up faster, allowing more missionaries to be produced by support cities.
I did end up rush golding in several cities, despite missing the Kremlin.

I'm also starting to lean away from the popular view that GArts 95% of the time should be bombed when going for a culture victory.
GArts gave 4k culture in this game. Compare that to my weakest city by endgame, Kerkouane at 950cp/t, and it's not that impressive.

I'm really glad I settled the first GArt there, and will definitely keep in mind other options when I try going for another culture victory.

1W of Horse (1NE of fish) is perfectly legal, 3tiles away from both cities ...

Yeah sorry, I used the term 'unworkable' a bit loosely there.

What I meant was, because Carthage and Utica were going to be my top culture cities, using all of their tiles, a city near the fish would only get 2-3 land tiles and some coast. For me that wasn't enough, even for a filler city.

Maybe I rejected it a bit too quickly, but ofc for culture small is always beautiful.

Thanks for the report! You're fast becoming an RB regular whose reports I always look forward to reading.

Nicely played

I don't think I've ever seen an Oracle build that got to choose from such expensive techs!
Good game/read.

Thanks

Now it's my turn to go read reports, looks like there's been a pretty big response to this event!