RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Turn 23:

Bob continues onto the land bridge south of luddite. Next turn he'll head 1SW.



Joe moved 1SE to see if there was any food near that other Gold, and... wow, look at this! Corn and Fish, both for the same site? Not bad.



That spot where Joe is at the moment could be a decent city site, although I don't think we'd want it before the Pig-Gold city (especially if we miss Stonehenge). Luckily it's far enough away (3 tiles) that we could found both this city and the Pig-Gold city, which is probably the optimal strategy.

Should Joe head 1SW or 1E next turn?

Over at the capital, a new Warrior was born this turn - Sam! Sam headed 1SE this turn to start exploring to the east of the capital. He'll go 1SE again next turn.



Cow pasture finished, and switched to working this tile (+1 commerce compared to the plains-hill-forest Deer). What shall the Workers do next? I'm thinking finish off the farm 1S of the Cow (2 turns), then start building roads towards the Pig-Gold site if we're all agreed on that for the second city (1 turn per road). Thoughts?

Also, we've got one more unit slot before our potential Settler. Should we build a Warrior or a Scout? Originally we were thinking a Scout for exploration but I'm thinking we might want a bit more home defence - especially if we'll have two cities. Then again, we can build extra Warriors very quickly if needed urgently. Hmm... thoughts? Warrior or Scout?

[Irgy]

With gold, gold, fish, corn & silk in the one city it sure is tempting to settle it first. If you did that, you could even settle the other city 1E of the pigs (since the new site works that gold anyway) to spread the cities out better.

Only reason not to is that it's further away, making it harder to protect and more upkeep. But that is a fairly significant reason.

[Yamps]

I think you have a very odd way of evaluating how good tiles are. 1f/2h isn't bad, especially considering the best we can possibly do for a grassland-hill hammer tile until railroads is 1f/3h anyway.

Why do you think that? Right now, 1f/2h isn't that good compared to other tiles that are available on the map. That's my main point here, it feels wrong to grow the capital right now and to spend food on that while there are many other better tiles available, especially now with another juicy spot you've just revealed.

Uh... you're saying the complete opposite of what I'm thinking. This is definitely not a high food city - at least not compared to any typical map. We have two excellent early hammer resources (the plains-hill-forest Deer and the plains-river Cow), so we're actually quite good for early hammers. The main issue for this city will be getting enough food to work the (many!) hammer tiles available. So to me this is a fairly low-food, high potential production capital. Completely the opposite of what you just said. I'd be interested to hear your logic though, if you want to elaborate.

I mean right now, since you do have 3 food tiles. It goes without question later on, if you want to turn it to a big powerhouse later in the game it will have some food issues.

Well, I haven't done any sims so I could be mistaken with some details. I just wanted to point out this idea of staying at size 3 for some time while grabbing the other spots fast. I've made another more detailed estimate, it looks like 8 turns for SH. This is by looking at the screenshot only, so please forgive if there are some errors:

SH build plan

28 food to grow to size 4, 4 turns needed with 7 food/turn. 13 hammers/turn for SH, 52 hammers.

4 turns at size 4, 16 hammers/turn for another 64 hammers. That's a total of 116 hammers. The remaining 4 hammers should be there from the previous build so it should be done there. 4 turns at 6 food/turn at size 4 will give 24/30 food, almost reaching size 5.


The alternative is to invest 7 food + 9 hammers per turn into another settler and a worker. In 8 turns, that's 128 food and hammer. It would take 10 turns to get them both, not counting any overflow from the previous build.

Well, I've explained my case the best I could so I'll just leave it at that. I'm not sure that SH will pay for those 8 turns of delay...Priests have their benefits, but priest first also means a delayed Academy so it's not so clear. Btw, the new spot you revealed has a great potential for a cottaged capital + Academy. I agree with Irgy that it is very tempting to settle that spot immediately. Do you think it's safe to do so? Hmm...all in all, my gut for this map is to go out right now fast to grab all those spots asap. There are other wonders later on like HG and MoM, SH just feels like a delay...But I'll leave it here, I have no new arguments.

[adrianj]

That city site just revealed is excellent! I'm going to side with Yamps here about discarding or delaying SH in favour of quickly settling gold/pigs followed by gold/fish/corn.

If aiming for SH, by how many turns is settler #3 delayed?

However, my multiplayer experience is limited. Perhaps expanding out so far from the capital is asking for trouble?

[Senseless]

adrianj:

According to my sims, if we go for straight expansion (settler, settler after growing to size 3) we get settlers at T33 and 39, with a size 3 capital.

If we go for SH, we get SH T36, settler T41, settler T46 if we build a warrior with those 2 turns between when we grow to size 3 and when we finish mysticism.

We can also go for SH, but pre-build a settler for those two turns before mysticism, switching immediately to SH when it becomes available for SH T37, settler T40, settler T45.

Somebody feel free to check my math. In any case, this should give you a rough idea of the timings. For the record, if we're committing to SH, and it seems like we are, the second option seems to be the best.

[Lord Parkin]

Just popping in to apologise for the delay - I've had to shift flats all of a sudden, so have spent the entire last few days packing, moving and unpacking. I've literally had no time for anything else but the bare minimum of playing the turn (certainly not hours of forum posting!), so sorry about the radio silence. I'll post a thorough catch-up once I've unpacked a bit more tomorrow - although due to downtime I think only 2 turns have advanced anyway.

Short version: We've met mackoti. Haven't had time to send him a message yet.

[Lord Parkin]

High time for an update!

First, here's the greeting message I sent to mackoti/Ioan76 a few days ago.

Greetings mackoti and Ioan76,

It's a pleasure to meet you both! I believe our Warriors encoutered one another a turn or two ago. You're the second civ we've met in this game - it'll probably be no surprise to you that luddite was the first civ we met, since you must have encountered him too by now.

In case you're interested, our nation is located a fair distance to the east of our meeting place. I presume your civilization is somewhere to the west? (If you'd rather not say that's fine, I'm just interested.) Either way, it seems we're not immediate neighbours, so there's not much reason for either of us to be interested in aggression towards the other right away. As a result, I think it would benefit us both to agree to a fairly long-term non-aggression pact. What do you think? We're open to your suggestions as to a renegotiation date... does 1000 BC sound reasonable? We're happy to talk longer if you want. Let us know.

As an initial act of goodwill and friendship, we're happy to let you know that - as you may have guessed for Ind/Cha Egypt - we're currently working on an early Stonehenge build. We realise you're unlikely to be going for this wonder anyway - but we thought we'd let you know just in case, so you can save yourself any wasted hammers.

Also, since we're both Industrious civs, it may benefit us both to communicate further about wonder building, if you're interested. It seems that your Roosevelt is the ideal leader for rushing out the Great Lighthouse, so if you're looking to grab this wonder we'd be happy not to contest you for it in return for you not contesting us on some other wonder. The Oracle is another wonder that all the Industrious civs are probably going to be keen on - if you have an interest in this wonder yourself, we may be willing to negotiate a deal here as well, where we don't contest it in return for you not contesting something else. Up to you.

Anyway, that's about all for now, I think. Once again, it's good to meet you, and I hope we'll be able to work out a lasting cooperation that will benefit us both for many years to come.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

P.S. Apologies for the delay in this greeting. Usually I'd make contact earlier, but I've had to shift flats all of a sudden - so I've been frantically packing/moving/unpacking the past few days. Haven't had time for anything forum- or diplomacy-related at all!

My intent with this message was mainly to test the waters for Stonehenge. Mackoti/Ioan76 researched a tech the same turn as I did (turn 28 ), which must have been Mining or Mysticism. Assuming it was Mysticism, they could have been starting on Stonehenge right away at turn 28. I needed to know whether they were going to be competition for the wonder, and I needed to know right away.

The beauty of the message I sent is that the linking in of the non-aggression discussion put a lot of pressure on a quick reply, and this would give me a quick idea of whether or not they'd be competition for Stonehenge. If they weren't considering it, I could expect a quick reply, assuming they weren't complete diplomatic isolationists (which couldn't be the case as luddite mentioned he'd got messages from them). However, if they were intending on going for the wonder, they would really have no logical choice but to ignore my message (or make it abundantly obvious that they were avoiding the question in their reply).

I never recieved any reply to my message, despite sending multiple reminders in-game about the email which they can't possibly have missed. Thus, I concluded that they were almost certainly making an attempt for Stonehenge. As a result, I shifted around our build queue to put Stonehenge first and the Settler second. Rather annoying and inefficient (really wish we'd just gone for the quickest turn 27 plan now!), but better than the alternative of likely losing Stonehenge after all this planning.

Given that they didn't grow to size 3 until turn 31 (last turn), and assuming an identical capital, there's no way they can possibly finish Stonehenge before turn 36 (more likely turn 37) if my calculations are right. On the other hand, we can easily finish it at turn 35 if we want. This is what I'm aiming for at present.

To be honest it's rather silly of them to waste their hammers challenging Ind/Cha Egypt to Stonehenge (if that's what they're doing), and it's annoying that it effectively forces us to waste hammers as well, but ah well. I guess an alternative possibility is that they're not going for Stonehenge at all, and this silence on their part is a calculated ploy to get us to waste our time rushing out the wonder before we need it. I really don't see what's in it for them if that's the case though - they just make an enemy out of a newly met civ for no reason.

[Lord Parkin]

What does the map look like after a few turns' more exploration? Check it out below.

Here's the area south of luddite's capital. Bob is currently heading generally north-west, hoping to run into mackoti's borders and let us figure out how far away from us he is. (Still assuming a 5x2 layout, so expecting to find mackoti's capital ~15-25 tiles west of luddite's and at about the same latitude. Of course, given the maze-like geography so far, we might be going the wrong way about finding them - but we won't know until we try.)



This is what's south of us. Joe the Warrior is exploring down there, as well as a recently built Scout (James Cook). Nice to see Gems as well as the Gold, and plenty of food to boot! There's certainly some good city sites nearer the centre of the map. I'm hoping to run into our southern neighbour at some point, though I'm not expecting to see borders for a while yet (assuming ~25-40 tiles between N-S players).



Sam discovered that the south-east of our capital is entirely coast, so no land bridge connections down there. He'll head back towards the capital next.



Finally, Max revealed that while there's one land bridge to the north-east of our capital, it's blocked off by a peak. No risk of anyone attacking us through there before Galleys. Of course, it means it'll be harder to meet our eastern neighbour as well.



Max is heading in the direction of the capital at the moment, but will probably veer north-west soon. It's still possible that there's a connection to the east further up north, plus it'd be good to explore around that Fur site, so let's see what we find.

[Lord Parkin]

With gold, gold, fish, corn & silk in the one city it sure is tempting to settle it first. If you did that, you could even settle the other city 1E of the pigs (since the new site works that gold anyway) to spread the cities out better.

Only reason not to is that it's further away, making it harder to protect and more upkeep. But that is a fairly significant reason.

Actually I think the bigger factor is whether or not we have free border expansions. If we don't (if Adlain sneaks Stonehenge out from under us, for instance), then that city site is not as good as the Pig-Gold to settle first, since it doesn't get access to the Gold for a while. Also bear in mind that we need Fishing to get the Fish resource, and Bronze Working is still very high on the priority list.

Why do you think that? Right now, 1f/2h isn't that good compared to other tiles that are available on the map. That's my main point here, it feels wrong to grow the capital right now and to spend food on that while there are many other better tiles available, especially now with another juicy spot you've just revealed.

Huh? You're talking about two different cities. We're better off to grow all our cities and use new tiles, even if they're not quite "optimal". But yes, growing the capital means we delay settling new cities, if this is what you meant. Can't be helped now that mackoti's silence has forced us into a Stonehenge rush though. Hey, at least we'll have an extra hammer + commerce when we build future Settlers and Workers. Not ideal, but oh well, we're stuck with the Stonehenge rush now. (Darned mackoti and his stubborn lack of a reply. )

I mean right now, since you do have 3 food tiles. It goes without question later on, if you want to turn it to a big powerhouse later in the game it will have some food issues.

Luckily we can farm (and have already built one, as you can see in the screenshots - although it's not used yet). That'll fix food issues, although we may want to just have a smaller city and cottage more instead. Or take the best of both worlds, and use the farms to grow to our happiness cap before building cottages over them to maximise commerce. I guess we'll probably end up doing something like that.

I'm not sure that SH will pay for those 8 turns of delay...Priests have their benefits, but priest first also means a delayed Academy so it's not so clear.

It's only 7 turns of delay, and we're a size larger when we begin our next builds, so it probably works out as only 6 turns overall. As for the Academy issue, we'll just have to make sure to do our best to get one out ASAP despite the increased GPP thresholds. I do think that the commerce (and hammer) benefit from Priests outweigh the Academy bonus for much of the early game though, since it allows faster expansion without breaking the bank.

Btw, the new spot you revealed has a great potential for a cottaged capital + Academy.

That could be a possibility... guess we'll have to see.

I agree with Irgy that it is very tempting to settle that spot immediately. Do you think it's safe to do so?

I'm pretty sure it's safe to do so. Only question is if it's sensible to do so. If we get Stonehenge, maybe - we'll have to work it out when/if we get the wonder (double Gold vs Pig-Gold). If we don't get Stonehenge, Pig-Gold is definitely superior for an early city.

Hmm...all in all, my gut for this map is to go out right now fast to grab all those spots asap. There are other wonders later on like HG and MoM, SH just feels like a delay...But I'll leave it here, I have no new arguments.

I don't disagree with you (except about Stonehenge, heh). After the wonder we'll definitely go into a crazy expansion push and grab as many of these luscious new sites we've found as quickly as we can.

[Lord Parkin]

That city site just revealed is excellent! I'm going to side with Yamps here about discarding or delaying SH in favour of quickly settling gold/pigs followed by gold/fish/corn.

A bit late now sorry, but we'll definitely grab that city site early on, especially if we nab Stonehenge (which I'm reasonably confident of - Adlain seems to be the only wildcard at this point).

If aiming for SH, by how many turns is settler #3 delayed?

About 6 turns. Our second Settler will be delayed by about 6 turns too thanks to the suboptimal play resulting from mackoti's silence, but that can't be helped now, unfortunately. (To think that if we hadn't met him, we wouldn't have needed to even worry about this... darn these mind games of mine. )

However, my multiplayer experience is limited. Perhaps expanding out so far from the capital is asking for trouble?

Usually yes, but this map has an exceptionally high land-to-player ratio. Every player has quite a huge amount of land to themselves, so I don't think we need to worry at all about offending anyone by claiming the double-Gold site (and probably the Gems site too). They're closest to us, after all.

adrianj:

According to my sims, if we go for straight expansion (settler, settler after growing to size 3) we get settlers at T33 and 39, with a size 3 capital.

The original plan was the T33 Settler followed by Stonehenge followed by (probably) another Settler. That was before mackoti screwed things up by playing with my head.

If we go for SH, we get SH T36, settler T41, settler T46 if we build a warrior with those 2 turns between when we grow to size 3 and when we finish mysticism.

This is now the plan we're pretty much stuck with, with a couple of minor tweaks - Stonehenge comes in at turn 35, and we might get out the Settlers a turn earlier too. Still awfully late for the second city - I'm kicking myself for not going for the earlier Stonehenge plan, and still not sure I did the right thing by switching into "rush mode" after mackoti's silence... but that's the position we're in at the moment, like it or not.

We can also go for SH, but pre-build a settler for those two turns before mysticism, switching immediately to SH when it becomes available for SH T37, settler T40, settler T45.

Hmm, darn, why didn't I think of prebuilding the Settler. Built the Scout instead. Ah well, it should help us to meet new civs faster.

Somebody feel free to check my math. In any case, this should give you a rough idea of the timings. For the record, if we're committing to SH, and it seems like we are, the second option seems to be the best.

Yeah, actually with the third option we might not have managed a turn 35 Stonehenge, which could potentially have caused problems (or maybe I'm just paranoid ). Perhaps the rush-build of Stonehenge wasn't such a move after all. Guess we won't know until we get it (and/or get a long-overdue message from mackoti).