RBPB4 Postgame Thread

[Krill]

There certainly was a decent shot that a) there would be seafood at our new capital city, and b) there would be more islands / continents to boost GLH.

Explain these assumptions please.

[regoarrarr]

Explain these assumptions please.

What - assuming that they were possible?

[Krill]

What - assuming that they were possible?

You're assuming that I'd give you a viable coastal start, and extra food out of sight of your capital so you could luck into a better capital. I learnt from the last time that happened.

[Sullla]

Given only the information your team had at the start of the game... yes, I still think it was a silly move. You moved AWAY from triple food bonus + plains hill start. You're just not going to do better than that for a capital. Again, you moved blindly into the fog, away from triple food resources, in the hopes that 1) you would have seafood present 2) that Great Lighthouse would be strong on this map 3) that you could even build the Great Lighthouse at all. Those are some pretty big assumptions to make.

It feels like an insanely risky and unnecessary gamble to me... especially since I thought you had a really strong leader/civ pair for a normal game (aside from this being Huge and wrecking Impi rush). Well, it's not something I would have done unless there was no choice, which wasn't really the case on Turn 0. When you make big gambles, it either goes very good or very bad.

[regoarrarr]

You're assuming that I'd give you a viable coastal start, and extra food out of sight of your capital so you could luck into a better capital. I learnt from the last time that happened.

I don't think we thought we would get a better capital. I think we knew we'd have a worse capital city overall, but we were hoping the GLH would make up for it

It feels like an insanely risky and unnecessary gamble to me... especially since I thought you had a really strong leader/civ pair for a normal game (aside from this being Huge and wrecking Impi rush). Well, it's not something I would have done unless there was no choice, which wasn't really the case on Turn 0. When you make big gambles, it either goes very good or very bad.

Yeah. I have talked about it before. If you assume that sunrise and I were "above average" Civ players (whatever that means), then it probably wasn't the best move.

Still, from your PB2 thread

most players will assume that since this is a long game, they don't want to do anything risky at the very start. So by doing the opposite play, you can really get ahead!

and

This game is going to take up a lot of our time. I'd much prefer to spend that time in a position of strength, not scratching and clawing. So I always play Ironmen/Epic/FFA-type games with a risky opening. If I die, so be it.

Though I know you're talking about going worker first versus what I'm talking about, the concept still applies IMO.

Let's say with 10 players, we have a 10% chance of winning the game (or maybe 12 or 15 if we're "above average"). So playing risky gives us a wider standard deviation. If it goes well, we have a 20% chance. If it goes poorly we have a 1% chance. (Numbers totally made up).

Again, I think you make some fair points, and I'm not excited about our first 50 turns. But I feel like (if not by you, then by some) that we are getting hammered for decisions based on hindsight or lurker omniscience.

And if you guys keep going, you're going to make me read the beginnings of our thread. Do you know how many posts there are?!?!?!?

[regoarrarr]

This was our known land after we moved our scout (spoilered because it's big)

Here's what I said (post #42)

So why are we dithering about settling? Well we're actually pondering not settling in place.

I looked at the demographics and average land area is 9000 which means that everyone has settled for all land (likely in place).

But with coast on west and south, we are wondering if this is an archipelago map. Obviously an archi map is bad for our particular leader / civ, so we could potentially mitigate that with a move to the coast.

It's kind of like being industrious - if lots of people are Ind - it's not that valuable, but if you're the ONLY one, it can be a fairly big benefit.

If this IS an archi map, getting a leg up on things like circumnav bonus and the Great Lighthouse is pretty huge.

Sunrise pointed out that only folks with a scout would be able to confirm that both bodies of water are coast (the standard opening pic, if they are all the same / similar) shows the outline of water but you can't confirm if it's a lake or coast.

Only WarlordDr and Nakor / Gaspar also start with Hunting and scouts.

Again, turned out to be a bad move. You can certainly argue it was an overly risky move as Sullla said, and I don't think I can disagree. But I still think that it's defensible.

[Ioan76]

Interesting discussions.

From my perspective : Mackoti made a poor leader/civ choice at begining but despite this the game was pretty interesting until the nightmare-vultures appeared.

Still shocked by their effectiveness anyway ... but this is. Thanks to all for the game - learned alot.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Again, turned out to be a bad move. You can certainly argue it was an overly risky move as Sullla said, and I don't think I can disagree. But I still think that it's defensible.

Here is why I don't think it was defensible, even without lurker knowledge:

1) The original capital was very strong. So strong that I would need a DEFINITE better location to move.

2) You moved straight south. That means there were only two possible tiles where seafood could appear that would be in your BFC. Two! And if there was no seafood on either, you were probably screwed.

Atleast if you had moved S-SE there would've been 5 unrevealed tiles for seafood to appear. Even then I still wouldn't have made the move but at least you would've increased your chance of revealing seafood by 250%.

[scooter]

Here is why I don't think it was defensible, even without lurker knowledge:

1) The original capital was very strong. So strong that I would need a DEFINITE better location to move.

2) You moved straight south. That means there were only two possible tiles where seafood could appear that would be in your BFC. Two! And if there was no seafood on either, you were probably screwed.

Atleast if you had moved S-SW there would've been 5 unrevealed tiles for seafood to appear. Even then I still wouldn't have made the move but at least you would've increased your chance of revealing seafood by 250%.

I would strongly agree with this post. When you have a plains hill on a river + 2 forest deer + cow... You need a really good reason to move. Simple analysis would say that the reward of finding a better spot is minimal (are you really going to find something *way* better? Deer for a Hunting civ is better than seafood anyways), while the risk was enormous. If I was your teammate, I'd have been yelling to settle in place. Someone made a comment in the lurker thread that it seemed like you guys just thought too hard about it rather than making the obvious play. There's a reason no one else moved.

[regoarrarr]

I would strongly agree with this post. When you have a plains hill on a river + 2 forest deer + cow... You need a really good reason to move. Simple analysis would say that the reward of finding a better spot is minimal (are you really going to find something *way* better? Deer for a Hunting civ is better than seafood anyways), while the risk was enormous.

Yeah I guess I could see that.

There's a reason no one else moved.

Well, the main reason is that only 2 other folks had a scout start, and when you settled early, you didn't have the info that every other civ had settled in place

If I was your teammate, I'd have been yelling to settle in place. Someone made a comment in the lurker thread that it seemed like you guys just thought too hard about it rather than making the obvious play.

So what you doin for PB6?