[SPOILER] PBEM21, "Zero to Hero" (Kuro, Pericles' Ottomania)

[Kuro]

[17:53] noblehelium: lew can you get on gmail for a sec

Heh, that'll get them talking.

Is this optimal? Possibly. Letting them I know about Henge at the least makes them feel pressured, but it is free info. Of course, that assumes they guess right, which they should.

Is it fun?

Hell yeah.

[Kuro]

Played a FFH AW game with Lew last night. He seems like a pretty cool guy, even if he, like me, had no clue what he was doing.

So, this turn is in and...



You can see here that Jkioan went up 7 points, which as we now know, is consistant with a pop point. So last turn must have been a technology.

We can also see from the Top 5 cities list that no size 4 city grew, so we can confirm Jkioan has the second city and not Ellimoogle.

Jkioan:
T5 - Fishing
T14 - Meditation
T21 - Masonry/Priesthood
Slow built a Work Boat.
T26 - Mining
T27 - Growth Size 4
Building ???
T36 - City
T40 - Writing
T41 - Second city growth

Ellimoogle Carpathia:
T8 - Agriculture
T17 - Growth
T21 - Bronze Working
T22 - Grew
T26 - Mysticism
Built a Worker
Built a not Worker(Probably)
Building a ???(Possibly Worker/Settler)
T33 - Warrior built
T34 - Polytheism
T36 - Growth
T37 - New city?

NobleLewwyn:
T8 - Agriculture
T21 - Bronze Working
Built a Worker
Built a Worker
T before 30 - Mysticism
T30 - Second city
Building a ???
T33 - Unknown Tech(I'm afraid to say I am at wit's end on NobleLewwyn...)
T36 - Stonehenge and pop growth or tech.
T38 - Capital growth

It took me a long time to figure out Jkioan's tech. But then I realized Priesthood was a Writing pre-req and a Code of Laws prereq in turn and that Jkioan is most likely going for the Oracle.

If I had to wager a guess, Jkioan is going for a Code of Laws slingshot, which...doesn't seem useful, although denying NobleLewwyn their Oracle-Forges will be helpful for ME. =)

Anyway...my naming scheme doesn't work for boats, so I figure I'll go without a theme for now and just name it a little reference. Maybe boats can be my "random naming" shtick.



Next turn, it'll actually start defogging things and I'll have something to keep an upd8 watch on, yay!

After that, the Workers moved towards the Ivory and that's about it. One turn is put into the Settler before I put a turn into the Galley and in turn whip that.

Depending on if it's faster to whip the Settler or to hand-built it, Galley overflow will either go to a Scout/Warrior or, well, a Settler.

EOT, Sailing comes in. Even at 80%, Writing would only take 6 turns. I'm thinking of actually grabbing Animal Husbandry next, all things depending. It might delay the Library(I swear I'll do a post figuring all these numbers out!), which would be a nono, but if not then it'd be 4 turns, probably nessecary due to the other continent and is a prereq to Writing and so more valuable before.

[Kuro]

Actually, durr. Thinking about it, I'm going to be chopping out Settlers from Feferi for a while anyway. I won't be getting out a Library until I'm done.

I should be able to go AH -> Writing for a 20% prereq boost, in addition to having all AH resources on the mainland pre-unlocked and revealing Horses for settling.

[mackoti]

why dont you doit like this continue to build the setler until can be double whiped and build a galey in the gold city with chops?

[Kuro]

Easy answer: Would you rather have a Settler a bit sooner and a Galley or 3 Settlers a bit later and a Galley?

Galley is 50 hammers, 2-3 chops worth with slight overflow. Or I could use both of those to either get half the cost of a Settler or to pretty much instantly double whip.

In fact...thinking about it, if I didn't mind not working the Gold much, I could basically do a Settler -> Double Whip cycle at Feferi easy by chopping to get to the 2-whip production point...

[Kuro]

So, I open the save an am greeted with the nice splash screen for discovering Sailing.



After this, I was confronted with a tough descision: AH in 4 or Writing in 6.

The biggest reason this is tough is IDK how fast I'll need Writing and such. All my other options right now are meh(Mysticism, Masonry, Archery), not nessecary(Iron Working) or expensive(Metal Casting).

AH would take 4 turns, but I can go 100% to bump it down to 3. I think I can get away with 80% on 1 or 2 of those and still get it in 3, though.

Writing would take 6 turns, 5 if I went 100%.

So, the question becomes when I think I'll complete a Library. I want at least two Settlers out of Feferi before a Library and all things depending maybe more...so I won't want a Library there yet.

Double Clams/Eridan will be a whip center/Worker-Settler pump. It won't be getting any infra except a Granary for a while. So it won't be building a Library any time soon.

The capital doesn't need one for a long time.

Therefor, I can delay Writing to let AH come in, allowing me to maximize the 20% research bonus.

Whipping a Galley is the plan in Erodan anyway, but the real question is whether growing + double whipping the Settler will be faster than hand growing. I'll do calcs on that in 2T, which is when the Galley finishes and I can soundly see all numbers.

Feferi will complete a Warrior in 4T, both to alleviate military penalty and because nothing else is worth building. I could put some hammers into a Granary, but right now, that seems a waste due to how fast the city grows.

The USS Thunderchild begins it's bold mission to go where no Work Boat has gone before...



Mmmm. Delicious flood plains. If I can go put some cottages over there, combined with the Gold, I should be able to keep expansion rate up well.

Nothing changed on the demoscreen, save for someone having 25 GNP(Running lower research, I presume) and the fact my GNP is 45 to second place's 35. We seem to be doing well so far.

Oh, also, it doesn't matter at this point in the game obv...but I do enjoy being in first place, hehe.

Anyway, turn over.

[Kuro]

Oh jeez, the score changes!



Jkioan: 115 -> 134(19!)
Ellimoogle: 115 -> 128(13)
NobleLewwyn: 118 -> 124(6)

Lewwyn's score is easy to guess, as there is now a Size 3 city founded in 2760 BC on the City Screen: Their second city grew a third pop, I guess.

Jkioan's is a lot harder to place. 19 points, to me, would indicate building a wonder or something, like the Oracle: But the Oracle has yet to show up on screens!

However, that might just be a weird delay thing. Otherwise, he got 7 + 6 + 6 points, which either means he got two pop growths and a tech or...yeah, that's it.

Biggest issue:



Only one size 4 city grew, so both Ellimoogle and Jkioan didn't grow. HOWEVER...

If Ellimoogle FOUNDED a new city, they could get the pop either way and explain why they haven't grown.



Pop figures certainly match up, with that huge pop figure being Jkioan...wait.

Minmum is 22000, which is a Size 3 + a Size 1...and we know it's not Noble, because he has a Size 3...

So does Ellimoogle have the Size 3 capital? But that doesn't make a lot of sense...

Blah. I'm confused. It does prove everyone has 2 cities minimum, though.

We can probably assume the tech would be Pottery, though. Because it was a fairly long tech(34 -> 43. 9T) and the Sailing soldier increase didn't pop up. Of course, this all changes if the next turn has the Oracle for 2280 BC(Jkioan or Ellimoogle could of gotten it).

On to the game...



The USS Thunderchild reveals another flood plains and a grassland hill. Area will probably be a top priority.

Feferi will now grow in 4T. Warrior in 3T, Ivory camped in 2T. 1T of a Granary will be done before Feferi turns into a Settler, which will be chopped either to whipping or just plain to completion.

Galley whipped at Erodan. 15 hammers should be the overflow, which will be put into a Settler, then I will either grow to whipping or plain build it, depending on which is faster.

[spacemanmf]

What about land points?

[Kuro]

I can actually easily see how long the Settler would be.

Next turn, I won't grow because I have to put a turn into the Settler for overflow either way. That'll put it at 29/100, so I'd need to either trip whip or grow to Size 4 and then put in 11 production. Or I can product it in 7T from scratch(6T if we don't count the first turn).

Scenario 1: Double Whip

Growth in 1T
Food Growth: 26
Food Overflow: I forget if food overflows. If it does, we have 8 food overflow
Growth: I should still have +9 food, I believe. 9 + 9 + 9 = 27, so 3T of growth.
Production Needed: 2T, I believe

So double whipping produces it in 5T, which is strictly better than producing it from scratch. There's also no way growing to Size 6 can complete it faster. This will also run out half of the Galley-whip's whip timer.

For 3T of production, there are four options:

I can put it into a Scout, to scout out the island
I can put it into a Warrior, to reduce capital unhappiness
I can put it into a Work Boat, to make my second city grow even faster
I can put it into a Granary, to whip more efficiently.

I think the Warrior is right out. Our capital is liable to be double whipping Settlers, building Workers and other stuff so it won't need that happiness. And I'd rather 1T/2T the Warrior with overflow.

Scout would be useful. It'd let me check to make sure all my cities sites are good on the other continent...very useful.

Work Boat would mean I only have to whip Eridan once and it'd grow faster. Hm.

Granary is probably not happening, but a viable option. But when I can grow so fast...

Odds are, I'm going Scout.

Land points are possible...but I'm not sure that it works? Land Points would have to give 6 points for it to make sense here...hm...

[Kuro]

I can't write a report ATM, but this is the only thing important with NobleLewwyn's score increase + more scouting.