RPB3 SPOILERS Bismarck of India (regoarrarr, darrelljs, sooooo, sunrise089)

[sunrise089]

"Ruff draft"

Hi Ruff,

Greetings and well met! Especially because your Aztec tattoos and piercings will be perfect for body paint night at our capital, the hottest spot with the hippest tunes in all of the "online empire building strategy games with your internet friends" universe!

Ok, having chosen an in-your-face theme for our cities and units, we won't force you into reading party-speak in each email. Anyways, India is pleased to meet you. You're our first meeting as well, and we've only explored the area immediately around our capital, so can't really offer you any scouting advice.

Congrats having already built a warrior, or more specifically being blessed with a 2-hammer capital. We'll try not to be too jealous, though with our Exp trait it certainly would have been nice.

Finally, we also agree that close cooperation is useful. As you know, several of the members of our team have worked closely together in past pitboss games, and we know that you have been a good and true friend to Dreylin in RBPBEM1. Plus as RB veterans and potential dogpile targets from the new teams we have even more reason to work together. We are considering heading to alphabet...have you given any thought to your potential tech path around the time alpha is discovered? We certainly welcome any and all ideas about how we could work together technologically. We feel as you do that early military distrust helps no civ, and are open to any sort of agreements that may help us be more comfortable with one another. Last but not least, please chat with us sometime. We can be reached via GChat and email at DJCivilization@gmail.com

Best,

-DJCivilization

[regoarrarr]

I like it sunrise. I might change the 3rd paragraph to something like

Your news of having already built a warrior is very well received! Especially given that we saw that your capital of 99.94 has recently grown to size 2! We (or maybe use some sort of DJ-name for the C&D department) must assume that you have a 2 hammer capital. Or that you're lying to us, but we're sure you would never do such a thing to us!!!! :-)

[regoarrarr]

Okay did a bit of work on the C&D info. I got a little behind on things which can be deadly in such an art. You really need to be on top of things each and every turn. Luckily in the early game there's not a whole lot to track so it isn't as bad.

I was trying to figure out how the tiebreakers were assigned in the demographics screen. I decided to use land area as a test case since a) nearly everyone has the same land area, and b) I have screenshots from when (almost) every team settled.

It wasn't working out but then I realized that I was forgetting that not every team has 21000 land area (3 teams have only 20000 which I am assuming is a lake in the BFC). Those folks are WarriorKnight et.al (Zara of the Ottomans), and 2 of Friendly Kittens, Ruff, and Sleeping Moogle / BobChillingsworth / ManiaMuse (Hannibal of Byzantium).

I believe that it works in reverse civ order and will test my hypothesis here. Civ order is the same as the snake turn order listed, so we very conveniently are #9 (Mr. Nice Guy / Shoot the Moon first, Swiss / Broker / dsp last).

Settling order went as follows (civ)
Mali
Egypt
Korea
Maya / Byzantium / Aztecs
Rome / England / us (India)
HRE / Sumeria
Inca
====turn 1====
Babylon
Carthage / Portugal
Ottomans
====turn 2====
France

Where multiple civs are on the same line, I was unable to get screenshots till after all those civs had settled.

So let's talk land screens.

When we settled, we went to 6th in land area. By the time that we had settled, Mali, Egypt and Korea, and Rome had settled ahead of us (from a reverse civ order) with 9 tiles and England had settled behind us with 9 tiles. Additionally Aztecs and Byzantium had settled ahead of us, and Maya behind us and 1 of those civs had 8 land tiles and 2 had 9. So the only way that we can be 6th is if either Aztecs or Byzantium has the 9, which means Maya must have 9 land tiles in their first ring.

Then HRE and Sumeria settle, both with 9. HRE is ahead of us and Sumeria is behind us, so as expected we drop to 7th.

Inca settle with 9 - they're behind us so we stay 7th.

Carthage, Portugal and Babylon are also behind us - so we stay 7th.

The Ottomans settle next and are ahead of us. We stay at 7th, but that is because we know they only have 8 land tiles (lake in first ring) due to the avg land area only going up 500 (8000/16).

France settled last on T2, and they are behind us, so we stay 7th.


Okay so that stays the same till the demographics change on T3. Max goes from 9000 to 21000, and global land area increases 16K, which is consistent with 2 civs going from 9-21. Let me check but I am going to assume that we have 2 creative civs that settled on the first turn.....

CHECK! Sury of England and Kublai of Rome. One ahead of us and one behind us, which matches our drop from 7th to 8th.

Turn 4, max stays at 21K, but global land area increases 36K. That would be Willem of Portugal, Pericles of Babylon and Zara of the Ottomans, our 3 creative civs that settled on T1. We were ahead of all 3 of those civs, the first 2 due to reverse turn order and Zara due to them only having 8000 land, but now we are behind all of them and drop from 8th to 11th.

T5 our borders expand (along with the other non-creative T0 settlers) to 21000 and we move up to 6th. We're behind Mali, either Aztec / Byzantium, Korea, HRE, Rome and Egypt. NOTE - something's off here as I think we should be 7th since those 6 civs should all have 21K land tiles and be ahead of us, but I don't currently have time to figure that out.

T6 the only non-Creative T1 settler (Pacal) pops borders, and T7 Elizabeth of France pops borders, both with a 12K land increase.

So there are 3 civs with 20K land points (Ottomans, France, and one of Aztecs / Babylon) and everyone else has 21K.

I'm pretty sure my hypothesis is correct, but I can't figure out why that ONE data point is messed up. Still though I'm very excited to have finally figured out how the tiebreakers work - I had looked all over for that information but never seemed to find it. It will be very useful early on when there are so many categories that are tied (GNP, land, soldiers, etc) in trying to figure out which of the 16 civs built a warrior, etc.

Stay tuned for more!

[darrelljs]

Interesting info rego. Can you tell from solider points somehow if Ruff did indeed build a Warrior?

Sunrise, I'm okay with your draft with or without rego's addition (although I'd personally add rego's addition in).

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

I'm still figuring stuff out. I *think* that he probably did. I think that he probably worked a 2/1/0 tile for 8 turns, finishing the warrior, with 16/22 in the box, and then 2 turns of a 3/0/X tile to grow on T10.

I'll do some more work here in a bit

[darrelljs]

Darrell

[Speaker]

online empire building strategy games with your internet friends

Hey. You steal my phrases without giving credit? That's plagiarism, my friend of the internet variety!

[sunrise089]

Hey. You steal my phrases without giving credit? That's plagiarism, my friend of the internet variety!

It's true - all Speaker.

[regoarrarr]

Okay - so some more demographic information. We're going to start with Soldier count.

Based on starting techs and scout / warrior, the average power for everyone is 4625. This is probably the only time in the game that we can definitively state what power each civ has. I have all the numbers but won't bother you with them. Basically anyone that starts with Mining, Hunting or a Warrior gets 2000 points, and anyone that starts with The Wheel gets 4000 points. Most civs start with 4000 (7 civs including us) or 6000 (6 civs), while 3 start with only 2000 (the 2 Hunting starters and TANK, who start with Ag / Myst and a quechua) and one starts with 8000 (Mali who start with Mining, Wheel and a warrior)

Okay so this number stayed constant through the first 6 turns, and we got our first change on T7, when the average went up from 4625 to 4750, signifying an increase of 2000 soldier points for someone.

Now before yesterday we would have simply had to guess on that one. But now that we know the way that the tiebreakers work, we might be able to narrow it down a bit more. We remained in 10th place. We're behind the Mali, the 6 civs that have 6000 soldier points, and the 2 civs with 4000 that are "ahead" of us (Korea and Rome) in tiebreaker (by being behind us in Civ order).

So, someone went up 2000 points. We know it's not the Mali, as global max stayed at 8000. And since we remained in 10th place, it could only be someone who was already ahead of us, or one of the civs with 2000 points that is behind us (so we would beat them now by tiebreaker). The only civ that is behind us with 2000 is the TANKs, but we know it can't be them (see T8 discussion below). Nobody got a score increase on T7, so it has to be someone that built a warrior. Seems odd, but it must have been someone that started with a warrior. So it is kind of a guess. For now, I'm going to just assign it to Korea. So much for my "boasting" about being able to narrow the civ down

Okay - T8 we moved up to 5062 average soldier points, an increase of 5000 soldier points. This one is actually easy, for a change. Minimum soldier points moved up from 2000 to 3000 points. We also saw the TANKs get 2 score points, signifying that their capital grew from size 1 to 2, which also gives 1000 soldier points. And since they are now the minimum, at 3000, we know that the other 2 2000 increases (still no techs) were the 2 Hunting civs building a warrior (a wise move for civs that start with scouts). So @sunrise - if you haven't sent the letter, you can take out the part about the 2 hammer plant, unless you want to leave it in to make us seem dumber than we actually are. He doesn't have a 2 hammer plant and does have a warrior.

This is also consistent with us dropping from 10th to 12th in the rankings, as 2 civs that are "ahead" of us moved from 2000 -> 4000, and now beat us on tiebreaker.

T9 we see our first tech, by the TANKs. We see the global soldier count increase 4000 points, and the minimum go from 3000 to 4000. So 2000 of the increase is the TANKs researching Mining (Hunting is only 72 beakers compared to 90 for Mining, so it wouldn't have taken till T9). They are probably on their way to Bronze Working.

We dropped from 12th to 13th, which is consistent with the TANKs now being ahead of us at 5000. So the other increase was a warrior build by a civ that is already ahead of us, but not Mali. I'm going to just guess Kysit's Periwinkles of Babylon.

T10 was interesting as we saw a DROP in soldier count of 1000. Due to score increase, we know that Ruff moved up from 4000 to 5000 by virtue of his capital growing to size 2. So somebody LOST a warrior, which could be due to some sort of aggression but is probably due to a barb. We remain 13th, so it has to be somebody that we were already ahead of, or a civ that was already ahead of us in soldier points (6 or 8K) and is ahead of us in the tiebreaker. I'm going to give it to the Ottomans.

T10 also saw 3 techs researched, and at 108 beakers, and no soldier points, Agriculture makes the most (only?) sense. Conveniently enough, none of the 3 civs (Byz, HRE or Mali) start with Agriculture

T11 was the shot that @darrell just posted up-thread. Thanks for snapping that darrell!!! We see that global soldier average went from 5250 to 5312, signifying a global increase of 1000 soldier points, which is consistent with HRE growing to size 2, as evidenced by their 2 point score increase. Maya, England, and Korea all researched techs this turn, and with no tech soldier points, I'm going to put them all on Agriculture also, and chalk up the difference to perhaps the 3 from T10 working a 1 commerce tile in the capital vs. these 3 not. Really the only other techs that it could be would be Archery or the Wheel (Priesthood but nobody has the pre-reqs) and both those techs give soldier points.

[regoarrarr]

So there are a few C&D type items that I think merit some more investigation, but let's start first with what should prove to be a very interesting question: What is everyone else researching?

Obviously 7 civs have already researched a starting tech, and we know that we are researching Bronze Working. But that leaves 9 other civs that have not researched something. Here they are, with their starting techs

Carthage (Fish/Min)
Portugal (Fish/Min)
France (Ag/Wheel)
Babylon (Ag/Wheel)
Sumeria (Ag/Wheel)
Egypt (Ag/Wheel)
Rome (Fish/Min)
Ottomans (Ag/Wheel)
Ruff (Hunt/Myst)

So 3 civs with Fishing / Mining, 4 civs with Agriculture and Wheel, and Ruff, the lone boy with Hunting and Mysticism.

The possible tech choices:
Bronze Working (216 beakers)
Religion (144 or 180)
Pottery (144)
Animal Husbandry (180)
Sailing (180) - yikes if anyone is doing that!
Masonry (144) - ditto.

Ruff is the only one that could be going after a religion, and if he isn't, then once again we are not going to have anyone chasing early religion. I'd have to say that my guess would be that the 3 civs that start with Mining are going after Bronze Working, as we are.

I suspect that the 5 Ag/Wheel civs are going after either Animal Husbandry or Pottery. Krill going after early war chariots could spell trouble for someone