RBPB3 - Gandhi of the Egyptians

[Krill]

I think Swiss/dsp/Broker and Cull/RefSteel/Maniac_Marshall have contact...they've been sitting in the game, alone for the past half an hour. Probably chatting.

Scrap that, MM has been in game for almost four hours now and hasn't left. That's a little weird, but maybe he just ran to work...? Hopefully he either plays the turn or logs out so someone else can though.

[Krill]

And all diplomatic hell is about to break loose. Just met regoarrarr/sunrise/Darrell/sooooo

[Krill]

Chat with regoarrarr. Normally I try to be on guard with regoarrarr, he of the silver tongue. But I can believe him and sunrise when they say they've decided that pissing me off isn't a smart move. Ironically he is also the team that I'm racing for Theo (via bulb) and possible the Oracle (although I mainly think I'm racing Mali for that). And with 4 more turns to go until I possibly research Poly...just have to hope Sumeria don't research it, everyone else I think will have gone for BW via mining, but Exploit is "stupid" enough to go straight for the Oracle via a religion IMO. According to reg his capital is size 4, so he probably gets Poly next turn, or the turn after, nothing I can do in that race to beat him. Have to hope he went Mining.

(3:08:49 AM) Krill: Hello mate
(3:09:00 AM) Krill: can we hold the diplo in here?
(3:09:15 AM) Krill: easier to copy/paste for the private threads
(3:09:17 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:09:55 AM) regoarrarr: glad to see no workers of ours in range :-)
(3:10:30 AM) Krill: You could always agree to let me in that tech alliance of yours
(3:10:53 AM) Krill:
(3:11:04 AM) regoarrarr: if and when there becomes a tech alliance
(3:11:06 AM) regoarrarr: i'd like you to be in it
(3:11:08 AM) regoarrarr: (seriously)
(3:11:29 AM) regoarrarr: i think that was one of the 2 or 3 bullet points we agreed to in our early game strategy sessions
(3:11:29 AM) Krill: If and when a tech alliance forms that I can fit in, I'd like to be in it.
(3:11:33 AM) Krill: (seriously)
(3:11:43 AM) Krill: What, don;t piss me off?
(3:11:55 AM) regoarrarr: no, it was literally something like "if krill wants to be in our tech alliance, let him in" :-D
(3:12:03 AM) regoarrarr: i'd have to look it up
(3:12:09 AM) regoarrarr: honestly i think that you and us are perfect allies
(3:12:13 AM) regoarrarr: we're both likely to be targeted
(3:12:27 AM) regoarrarr: and as such i think it behooves us to stick together
(3:13:02 AM) Krill: You make a good point
(3:13:30 AM) Krill: Added bonus is that there is a decent chance we become neighbours
(3:13:34 AM) regoarrarr: right
(3:13:49 AM) regoarrarr: so, i don't know how prepared / willing you are to share map-type info at this point
(3:13:55 AM) regoarrarr: i'm willing to lay all we have on the line
(3:13:59 AM) regoarrarr: or at least most
(3:14:45 AM) Krill: I think I'm happy to share all of the map type info I have, save the exact location of my capital relative to yours
(3:15:37 AM) regoarrarr: would some sort of early-ish NAP make you less hseitant to share that?
(3:15:44 AM) regoarrarr: i don't feel like you need to give me exact tiles
(3:15:55 AM) regoarrarr: but i've got a few theories on the map that would be more useful
(3:16:00 AM) regoarrarr: if we knew our approximate relative locations
(3:16:01 AM) Krill: Sufficed to say I'm not an immediate neighbour
(3:16:04 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:16:15 AM) Krill: but now Lobo is no longer present...
(3:16:27 AM) regoarrarr: ah right
(3:16:53 AM) regoarrarr: would he have been one of our neighbors?
(3:16:58 AM) Krill: yeah
(3:17:03 AM) regoarrarr: intriguing
(3:17:09 AM) regoarrarr: okay, so first of all we have met 2 civs other than you
(3:17:13 AM) regoarrarr: ruff, who is to our east
(3:17:21 AM) regoarrarr: and the HRE who is apparently far (30-40 tiles) to our SE
(3:17:52 AM) regoarrarr: the HRE have also met another civ, to our more immediate SE, and that civ (who may even be you for all we know) asked the HRE to not disclose who they were to other civs
(3:18:05 AM) Krill: Well, that's not me
(3:18:15 AM) Krill: I don;t know of any civs in your part of hte world
(3:18:41 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:18:54 AM) Krill: I've only met Dantski, who is to your southwest
(3:18:59 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:19:00 AM) Krill: Lobo would have been to your south
(3:19:24 AM) regoarrarr: about how many tiles is lobo's capital from ours?
(3:19:29 AM) Krill: I'm pretty sure this is a TBG map though
(3:19:44 AM) regoarrarr: i'm not familiar with what that looks like?
(3:19:46 AM) Krill: need to count
(3:19:54 AM) Krill: square map
(3:19:59 AM) regoarrarr: yeah
(3:20:02 AM) Krill: all land
(3:20:04 AM) regoarrarr: obviously you've noted the lack of water
(3:20:05 AM) regoarrarr: right
(3:20:15 AM) Krill: central band of desert and flood plain, probably right to the north of you
(3:20:48 AM) Krill: There is no tundra though, wouldn;t be enough habitable land for 17 teams
(3:21:52 AM) Krill: I think Lobo would have been about 15 tiles south of you
(3:22:26 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:22:41 AM) regoarrarr: so one hypothesis i had about the map, which may or may not line up with it being TBG
(3:22:46 AM) regoarrarr: was that this was a square / rectangle map
(3:22:58 AM) regoarrarr: with every civ placed about 12-16 tiles away from their NSWE neighbors
(3:23:12 AM) regoarrarr: possibly toroidal in nature
(3:23:27 AM) Krill: I can confirm that it is toroidal...
(3:23:31 AM) regoarrarr: oh yeah?
(3:23:36 AM) regoarrarr: from maintenance costs?
(3:23:40 AM) Krill: as per city placements, it's not
(3:24:09 AM) Krill: from the fact that I've walked so many tiles north and still not seen the desert band
(3:24:32 AM) regoarrarr: well, if it's a tbg map
(3:24:39 AM) regoarrarr: are you figuring about 40x40?
(3:24:51 AM) Krill: 64^2
(3:24:54 AM) Krill: huge
(3:26:33 AM) regoarrarr: right
(3:26:36 AM) regoarrarr: that may havev been what i meant
(3:26:38 AM) regoarrarr: 4000 tiles
(3:26:46 AM) regoarrarr: don't know why i thought that meant 40x40
(3:27:03 AM) regoarrarr: (At least the weed smiley should post on the forums when we post it!)
(3:27:16 AM) Krill: yeah
(3:27:35 AM) Krill: So, I take it you haven't set up your new and improved UTA yet?
(3:27:41 AM) regoarrarr: not yet
(3:27:55 AM) Krill: Figured out some sacrifice to get alphabet?
(3:28:00 AM) regoarrarr: you're only the 3rd civ we've met
(3:28:59 AM) Krill: Not like you to have not considered who should research what. Like I would be expecting you to want to bulb Theo with yuor GP
(3:29:10 AM) Krill: which would mean you researching Monotheism
(3:29:16 AM) regoarrarr: we're actually trying to just wing things
(3:29:30 AM) regoarrarr: don't want to get an overwhelming GNP lead, iykwim
(3:29:58 AM) Krill: Kinda ironic considering yuo currently #1 in GNP
(3:30:13 AM) regoarrarr: well that's only due to our 9cpt
(3:30:17 AM) regoarrarr: we were dead last before that
(3:30:50 AM) regoarrarr: someone else is only 1 behind us and 1/3 of our gnp is stonehenge culture!
(3:31:13 AM) Krill: That's intriguing
(3:31:25 AM) Krill: I take it you are doing some proper C&D work?
(3:31:30 AM) regoarrarr: so far
(3:31:34 AM) Krill: I wonder what it would cost me to buy that off you
(3:31:42 AM) regoarrarr: well what do you want to know
(3:31:53 AM) regoarrarr: like i said, i'm a) an open book, b) liek to talk and c) want to be your ally in this game
(3:32:04 AM) regoarrarr: shoudl be easy to ply me
(3:32:04 AM) Krill: Well, let's start with a simple one.
(3:32:15 AM) Krill: What info have you got on me so far?
(3:32:43 AM) regoarrarr: 9/21 land tiles in capital (not that impressive since pretty much everyone does)
(3:33:07 AM) regoarrarr: you had 8 starting health, which probably means river and 8-9 forests
(3:33:13 AM) regoarrarr: you started with a 3 food tile
(3:33:23 AM) regoarrarr: you've researched AH and then Mining
(3:33:38 AM) regoarrarr: and your capital is currently size 2
(3:33:49 AM) regoarrarr: unclear whether you have a 2nd warrior built though id' guess you do
(3:33:53 AM) regoarrarr: that's it
(3:34:54 AM) Krill: OK, just one other question: do you know if anyone is heading for religion right now?
(3:35:01 AM) regoarrarr: i know buddhism was founded
(3:35:07 AM) Krill: Yeah, Ruff got that
(3:35:08 AM) regoarrarr: other than that i have no idea
(3:35:09 AM) regoarrarr: right
(3:36:03 AM) Krill: Something slightly different...are you going for a religion right now?
(3:36:05 AM) regoarrarr: i have not pegged anyone for researching mysticism
(3:36:08 AM) regoarrarr: no
(3:36:18 AM) regoarrarr: but there are obviously 4 other civs that started with myst
(3:36:24 AM) regoarrarr: (besides ruff and us)
(3:36:50 AM) Krill: hmmm...does that include Lobo?
(3:37:27 AM) regoarrarr: civs that have myst
(3:37:36 AM) regoarrarr: inca, maya, us, byz, hre, aztecs
(3:37:50 AM) regoarrarr: (so how'd i do on my c&d work on you?)
(3:38:12 AM) Krill: Well, I'm about to divulge a bit of information, but I can only really do that if you agree to not give it out to anyone beyond your own team.
(3:38:30 AM) Krill: If you do that then I can answer your question
(3:38:35 AM) regoarrarr: okay
(3:38:38 AM) regoarrarr: i can agree to that
(3:38:44 AM) Krill: Got my techs wrong
(3:38:50 AM) Krill: I went myst
(3:38:55 AM) Krill: I'm currently researching Poly
(3:39:03 AM) regoarrarr: so AH->Myst
(3:39:08 AM) Krill: Yeah
(3:39:16 AM) Krill: so your soldier points is off
(3:39:20 AM) regoarrarr: thanks for the update and i can seal that
(3:39:24 AM) regoarrarr: yeah someone must have built a warrior
(3:39:28 AM) regoarrarr: it's tough with thsi many teams (obviously)
(3:39:39 AM) Krill: Yeah, I decided I wasn't even going to bother
(3:39:55 AM) regoarrarr: in fact just to make my life easier i'm going to go ahead and just give that warrior to you
(3:40:00 AM) regoarrarr: makes mys preadsheet editing easier :-D
(3:40:04 AM) Krill: ha, ok
(3:40:37 AM) Krill: So, provided I got Hinduism, what would it take for me to get you to agree to spread Hinduism to everyone of your cities?
(3:41:06 AM) regoarrarr: i don't know
(3:41:16 AM) regoarrarr: that's probably not a question i can really answer off the cuff w/o consulting
(3:41:23 AM) regoarrarr: ruff has offered to sell us some buddhist missionaries
(3:41:25 AM) regoarrarr: as well
(3:41:32 AM) Krill: Eh, I'm offering to give them away
(3:42:06 AM) regoarrarr: well, as i have told ruff, it's odd that even though there's no rational reason, it does seme like oftentimes there is a real human-human "we care for our brothers and sisters of the faith" bonus
(3:42:27 AM) regoarrarr: and given i think we are natural allies
(3:42:31 AM) regoarrarr: it seems like we could work something out
(3:42:41 AM) regoarrarr: especially if you're providing the msisionaries
(3:42:47 AM) regoarrarr: i know that's kind of a vague / cheap answer
(3:42:53 AM) regoarrarr: but i don't know what else i can say this early on
(3:43:03 AM) Krill: ok. Well, the more gold I get via the shrine, the more gold I can give back to a tech alliance
(3:43:12 AM) regoarrarr: right i think we've boths een how well that can work
(3:43:27 AM) Krill: True
(3:43:39 AM) Krill: And obviuosly I can get a very early shrine without any difficulty
(3:44:05 AM) regoarrarr: so like i said i don't know of anyone that has researched myst, but there are 4 other civs (sumeria, babylon, ottomans and frane) that researched techs right around the same time as you that i pegged as mining that could be myst
(3:44:59 AM) Krill: Hopefully they are all going for BW
(3:44:59 AM) regoarrarr: also HRE last researched a tech on T22, same as when you did myst
(3:45:16 AM) regoarrarr: well Mining makes the most sense for most of those folks (it's all the people that started ag/wheel and went AH)
(3:45:30 AM) regoarrarr: only a truly "sub-optimal" player would go Myst there :-D
(3:45:38 AM) Krill: Well, I did say...
(3:45:40 AM) Krill:
(3:45:42 AM) regoarrarr: yeah i know
(3:47:49 AM) Krill: Wll, I'm absolutely knackered. 4am here, preparing for working nights over the weekend.
(3:47:53 AM) Krill: So I'm off to sleep
(3:48:06 AM) Krill: you kow my gmaill addy, new.mail.storage@gmail.com
(3:48:08 AM) regoarrarr: ok ttyl
(3:48:10 AM) regoarrarr: yeah
(3:48:14 AM) regoarrarr: our diplo is a little shaky this game
(3:48:15 AM) Krill: what's yours though?
(3:48:16 AM) regoarrarr: as far as emails
(3:48:26 AM) regoarrarr: we are DJCivilization@gmail.com
(3:48:32 AM) regoarrarr: but it's probably best to hit up sunrise or I on GChat
(3:48:43 AM) Krill: ok
(3:48:45 AM) regoarrarr: as we're still trying to figure out who/how/when we will be doing emails
(3:49:15 AM) Krill: Always a pain...
(3:49:31 AM) Krill: the larger teams really seem to just be playing this as a demogame
(3:49:43 AM) regoarrarr: yeah it can be useful to just be a team of one, in a lot of respects
(3:50:32 AM) Krill: Yeah, but it gets boring when you have no one to talk to. That's the problem with the early game.
(3:50:36 AM) Krill: oh well, off to bed...
(3:50:41 AM) Krill: ttyl

[Krill]

Then:

(3:53:29 AM) regoarrarr: who was it that you have met already?
(3:53:36 AM) Krill: Dantski, to your SW
(3:53:41 AM) regoarrarr: ah right
(3:53:48 AM) Krill: about 12 tiles away
(3:53:54 AM) Krill: ish, not sure off the top of my head
(3:53:59 AM) Krill: maybe more
(3:54:03 AM) regoarrarr: ok
(3:54:35 AM) Krill: quick question.
(3:54:59 AM) Krill: What was the last tech Sumeria discovered?
(3:55:04 AM) Krill: what turn.
(3:55:22 AM) regoarrarr: T22
(3:55:25 AM) regoarrarr: Mining (or Myst)
(3:55:29 AM) Krill: ...
(3:55:32 AM) regoarrarr: right
(3:55:40 AM) Krill: I'm just wondering if he went straight for ph for Zigguruts
(3:55:49 AM) Krill: and via a religion
(3:55:58 AM) regoarrarr: could be
(3:56:07 AM) Krill: is his capital size 2?
(3:56:09 AM) regoarrarr: can you speed up by 1t?
(3:56:14 AM) Krill: I don;t think so
(3:56:20 AM) regoarrarr: size 4
(3:57:04 AM) Krill: He is FIN, he probably makes more commerce than me, if his sheep is next to he river.
(3:57:34 AM) regoarrarr: could be
(3:57:42 AM) regoarrarr: you can always hope he went for med
(3:57:59 AM) regoarrarr: ah nm budd was founded t12
(3:58:06 AM) Krill: oh via med
(3:58:09 AM) Krill: *or
(3:58:35 AM) Krill: religion is too big a plus to ignore for 36 beakers
(3:58:47 AM) regoarrarr: right i was thinking med wasn't founded till after he started
(3:58:56 AM) regoarrarr: but you're right that's unlikely he'd have gone via med

[Krill]

Mutski have founded their second city, named Lisbon. Interesting start, must have chopped it out the settler, and they stayed at size 1 all the time, so they either have 1 or 2 workers...probably 2? Makes more sense to chop out the second worker, because it always pays itself back by the time the settler is produced.

Looked at the numbers for Polytheism. I'm pretty sure that France, Ottomans and Babylon don't want to go for a religion early on as BW and mining is much better (according to orthodox thinking), so it's just Sumeria and Exploit that I have to worry about.

Hopefully, since Sumeria has a size 4 capital, they researched Mining to BW, to get out a settler at a decent speed (because chopping was unavailable), but I won't find out for another 3 turns. I'm certain that I can get Hinduism in my second city before he can get a second city out if he plans to land Hinduism in there himself, but if he wants to get Hinduism in his capital, he'll research it one turn before I can (provided he got a plains sheep on a river, the extra 1 commerce just beats me...)

Oh well, I should find out what has hapened by Monday morning.

[Krill]

I think I have to point out that the prime aim of CIV as a strategy game has not been achieved. That aim is that there should never be "One correct decision". In this game, and most games at that, BW is a lynchpin tech, allowing alot of extra production via slavery and chopping, and providing a strategic resource in copper which is arguably the best in the ancient era. It really needs to be toned down again.

Perhaps chopping trees should be moved up to something like Compass, jungle chopping is moved down to BW.

[spacemanmf]

And maybe reduce the number of hammers produced from slaving.

[shadyforce]

Agree, BW is easily the most powerful tech in the entire game.

[novice]

I think I have to point out that the prime aim of CIV as a strategy game has not been achieved. That aim is that there should never be "One correct decision". In this game, and most games at that, BW is a lynchpin tech, allowing alot of extra production via slavery and chopping, and providing a strategic resource in copper which is arguably the best in the ancient era. It really needs to be toned down again.

Perhaps chopping trees should be moved up to something like Compass, jungle chopping is moved down to BW.

Well I would think that theoretically, there will almost always be "One correct decision" for any situation, so the goal of the game is to provide a ruleset where this decision varies a lot from one common situation to the next.

Thus the deciding factors in finding the "correct decision" need to be tied up to what varies from one game to the next, and the most common variable is of course the map.

The power of slavery is already dependent on how food-rich a map is, but:
1. Most players (especially you, Krill) prefer food rich maps for a variety of reasons and in such a case slavery will always be powerful.
2. A map needs to be very food poor for slavery to be ineffective.

I don't know, maybe spaceman's suggestion of reducing the number of hammers produced from slaving could help. But it feels like one of those cases where that will just move the equilibrium slightly, and players will quickly figure out what the new "correct decision" always is.

Another possibility is to attack the synergy between slavery and hereditary rule, for example altering the slavery civic so that it negates the effect of hereditary rule.

[Krill]

Well I would think that theoretically, there will almost always be "One correct decision" for any situation, so the goal of the game is to provide a ruleset where this decision varies a lot from one common situation to the next.

Thus the deciding factors in finding the "correct decision" need to be tied up to what varies from one game to the next, and the most common variable is of course the map.

The power of slavery is already dependent on how food-rich a map is, but:
1. Most players (especially you, Krill) prefer food rich maps for a variety of reasons and in such a case slavery will always be powerful.
2. A map needs to be very food poor for slavery to be ineffective.

I don't know, maybe spaceman's suggestion of reducing the number of hammers produced from slaving could help. But it feels like one of those cases where that will just move the equilibrium slightly, and players will quickly figure out what the new "correct decision" always is.

Another possibility is to attack the synergy between slavery and hereditary rule, for example altering the slavery civic so that it negates the effect of hereditary rule.

I'll try to get round to answering this more fully when my brain isn't dead, but one simple point I can make:

ALL strategies work better with more food, not just slavery. For instance, I only had 1 unirrigated rice (second city) and 1 plains cow (capital) in the MP game the other night. Didn't matter what I did, the outcome was always that I'd die at some point. The more food you have the faster you can grow onto cottages, onto hills, to work specialists, to slave...I actually think that slavery is kinda overrated, for instance we didn't use slavery in the MTDG on CFC, and both kept up in expansion with Joao and kept up in tech on the short end of a 3v2. At least, we did until I left and no one had a clue what to do any more. All that a lack of food does is slow the game down and decrease the strategy in the game.

The problem ultimately arises from needing horizontal growth, which is powered by hammers, which is only readily available via chopping and slavery, which come from the same tech, or mines, which come from the prerequisite.