Chairmen NobleHelium and Gaspar Demand Your Presence in the Collective

[Gaspar]

Surely he won't mess up his own plan, right?

Have you lurked any of my games before?

[Gaspar]

Okay, so T27 came in or, as I like to call it, the first turn after the NoblePocalypse®.

Some annoying unit rules that I'm sure Seven has memorized meant that after Lewwyn and mackoti made peace, Lewwyn's warrior got bumped to the tile our scout was on last turn, bumping us SE to the grassland tile. Annoying. So we decided to DOW mackoti in an attempt to save our scout and still move forward. Worst case, we now have vision on mackoti's city center tile. Best case, we can continue moving forward. We offered peace to both mackoti and Lewwyn.



Other than that, we revolted slavery, argued a lot and built a NobleRoad®. I even signed it. Settler founds city 2 next turn, last of our opponents. I did go ahead and rename the capital. I live to please the lurkers.



Here's the demo situation.



Ultimately, all kidding aside, we're in a bit of flux right now. The screw up last turn took T41 GLH off the table and leaves us at T43, which I don't believe is fast enough. So we're not sure precisely what to do. Any and all input is appreciated.

[oledavy]

The screw up last turn took T41 GLH off the table and leaves us at T43, which I don't believe is fast enough. So we're not sure precisely what to do. Any and all input is appreciated.

Novice and Spacemanf built the GLH on t39 in PBEM17,

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showp...tcount=217

And that was with FWs, so a t43 competition date still sounds reasonable. Since Mackoti built Stonehenge, he would be very foolish to stunt his growth further by going for the GLH, and I doubt he could even compete for it in the first place. Lewwyn may be gunning for it though, with his early settler he could found a coastal city and chop it out in short order.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but you asked for the input :neenernee

This is from the lurker thread for PBEM3, and Sulla pretty much spells out my general position on early wonders (though there are definitely instances where they are good builds).

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showp...stcount=59

I just don't think the GLH is worth the opportunity cost. There have been examples of it catapulting a player into a really strong position, but there have been plenty of cases where its effects have been negligible and the player was embargoed. This is a high-skill game, so an embargo against the GLH holder is even more likely. The only preceding case of it in a CTON game that I'm aware of is PBEM23, where Mackoti built it, and it certainly didn't win the game for him there.

So, I'll just repeat what I said earlier. I'd advocate building settlers and EXP workers instead. Maintenance isn't that bad on prince, even with a toroidal map, and with Protective Bowmen we'll be practically unassailable for a long time. Any city we plop down we can pretty much hold. Let's build a large territorial empire and leave the shiny wonders to the micro gods.

[Mardoc]

I think at this point, that I agree with oledavy. Go build a ton of cities to put granaries in, and a ton of workers, and whatever walls/bowmen you need. You've got cottages, and it appears to be a small map, so the only reason to stop is when you run into the others.

[Gaspar]

Appreciate the input guys.

Novice and Spacemanf built the GLH on t39 in PBEM17,

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showp...tcount=217

And that was with FWs, so a t43 competition date still sounds reasonable. Since Mackoti built Stonehenge, he would be very foolish to stunt his growth further by going for the GLH, and I doubt he could even compete for it in the first place. Lewwyn may be gunning for it though, with his early settler he could found a coastal city and chop it out in short order.

Well, I think t43 is reasonable but I also think given all the competition every target date for a wonder should be kicked up a bit. I guess I don't necessarily think t43 will fail, but I don't think its possibility for success is strong enough to be worth the risk.

This is from the lurker thread for PBEM3, and Sulla pretty much spells out my general position on early wonders (though there are definitely instances where they are good builds).

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showp...stcount=59

The thing is, I don't actually think too much of the conventional wisdom from that long ago is really all that relevant anymore. We've learned a lot about playing MP at Realms Beyond since then and one of the things that I think has been pretty evident is that every strategy has its own moment.

I just don't think the GLH is worth the opportunity cost. There have been examples of it catapulting a player into a really strong position, but there have been plenty of cases where its effects have been negligible and the player was embargoed. This is a high-skill game, so an embargo against the GLH holder is even more likely. The only preceding case of it in a CTON game that I'm aware of is PBEM23, where Mackoti built it, and it certainly didn't win the game for him there.

I agree that the GLH is strongly overrated. Its still a strong wonder and it is excellent for expansion on a higher expense than normal map like this one.

So, I'll just repeat what I said earlier. I'd advocate building settlers and EXP workers instead. Maintenance isn't that bad on prince, even with a toroidal map, and with Protective Bowmen we'll be practically unassailable for a long time. Any city we plop down we can pretty much hold. Let's build a large territorial empire and leave the shiny wonders to the micro gods.

I think at this point, that I agree with oledavy. Go build a ton of cities to put granaries in, and a ton of workers, and whatever walls/bowmen you need. You've got cottages, and it appears to be a small map, so the only reason to stop is when you run into the others.

To respond to both of these comments - what precisely do you think no7, Lewwyn and mackoti will be doing? There aren't any bad players here. Nobody's going to go for a wonder to the exclusion of all else. Nobody is going to leave themselves short workers, nobody's going to forget to keep expanding. If you leave the shiny wonders to the micro gods, they're just going to have similar sized empires with nice tall buildings that do nice things for them. PBEM24 is a pretty good example that just having the best and fastest start isn't enough - I had 3 cities by this point in that game, where we're just looking to settle our first.

I don't have the answer. And I certainly don't think we can in anyway afford to neglect expansion. But I think we need a little something else to push us ahead. In my mind, the best early something else's are GLH and Mids. But I am very open to other ideas.

[darrelljs]

For early wonders you ideally time it so that all (or at least most) of your chops come in at once. This prevents turning hammers to gold at an inopportune time.

Darrell

[Commodore]

For early wonders you ideally time it so that all (or at least most) of your chops come in at once. This prevents turning hammers to gold at an inopportune time.

Darrell

Or, you could run the failgold economy all the way up to CoL, and then steal the 'mids. It's the funnest option!

[Mardoc]

Well - if you're bound and determined to get a wonder, I still think the Great Lighthouse is the prize of the bunch. There's already a lot of coast, and we're pretty sure there are islands as well. It seems quite possible for there to be 2/3 or more of our cities coastal, and intercontinental at that. I can't see Pyramids competing with it.

[Gaspar]

T29 report:

Adventures in mackotistan:



I was bored, and you were bored, it was a meeting of the minds:



At the worker's nest, tiles improve you:



Demographics, now with 0% more graphics (though we should have Lewwyn's graphs next turn) :

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 30.



Scout checked out mackoti's flood plains after N7 decided not to attack us. I'm pretty sure that's N7's starting warrior at mackoti's area by the way.



Our warrior did some more posturing at home. We need to decide whether to tech Mysticism or Masonry next (or potentially Writing...). I tentatively favor Mysticism so that we can potentially grab a religion soonish.



We need to check our EPs next turn, we probably want to stay at 43 for Lewwyn for a while unless he goes over. Gaspar will post the new graphs later, I hate doing it since I need to crop every image because my resolution is too big. We know N7 founded Buddhism as I expected from the culture graph.