Cyneheard's PBEM10 Thread

[Cyneheard]

T1 Posts:

Hm. Interesting. So, I get choices for city #2 if I want it to be along the southern coast. Either corn/fish or fish/pigs. Looks like I'm going to be sharing a TON of tiles between cities...this is going to encourage very careful MM on my part, that's for sure.



Demogs:

Wait...only Gilgamesh (ad hoc) has settled in place? He's working a 2/1/1 tile, and +2 for creative, and +2 for researching a tech with a pre-req. Being Sumeria (Agri/Wheel), that's either Pottery or AH. My guess? AH.



I will be doing a Sullla-esque demographics excel file, posting it periodically here.

[Cyneheard]

Demogs says my rivals have an average of 4800 soldier points, or 24000 total.

QSH of Russia:
Hunting = 2k
Mining = 2k
Scout = 0k.
Total: 4k.

Boudica of Arabia:
Mysticism = 0k
The Wheel = 4k
Warrior = 2k
Total: 6k

Gilgamesh of Greece:
Hunting = 2k
Fishing = 0k
Scout = 0k
Total: 2k

Napoleon of the Netherlands:
Agriculture = 0k
Fishing = 0k
Warrior = 2k
Total: 2k

Genghis of Sumeria:
Agriculture = 0k
The Wheel = 4k
Warrior = 2k
Total: 6k

4+6+2+2+6 = 20k, not 24k. There are two possibilities:
1) The mapmaker gave someone the wrong starting techs (Possible)
More likely: 2) The mapmaker gave everyone a warrior start.

If it's 1, then something needs to be done about it.
If it's 2, then something should probably be done about it; we didn't decide to play this way. Lurkers, go figure it out. And report to the IT thread if you decide to do anything, or ask us to decide to do something.

But, frankly, NOT having the proper starting units and techs is a problem. And it's turn 1, we can still fix it.

[Cyneheard]

Well, ok, so everyone gets a warrior start. Not the end of the world, since we're almost certainly on our own islands.

Everyone has now settled.



I wish to register a complaint. At least two of my five opponents are getting 7 food+hammers per turn: 5 food/2 hammers, and 3 food/4 hammers. Now, let's look at my land:



The only way I could possibly have that situation was if I had chosen to settle on the pigs. Um, this is a high-food map, but not THAT high food. Banana, sugar, sure, I could settle on those. So, clearly, we've got some weird type of balance going on, or someone was given plains hills that were accessible with just 1t of movement.

[scooter]

or someone was given plains hills that were accessible with just 1t of movement.

You do, right? 2 tiles NW. Or am I misunderstanding you?

[Cyneheard]

Heh. Oops, missed that one. I think a non-coastal start's better, but you're right, there is one there.

[Cyneheard]

T4 just played.

Demographics:



There are 5 opponents, with 91 land tiles between them. Everyone has expanded their borders. Everyone has a triangle, that much is obvious. It's too clearly edited. I'm going to assume that everyone has a fat southern base, and a short northern one, until proven otherwise. This is almost certainly incorrect...but I'm not going to try to reorient myself without any data.
Ad Hoc, Gilgamesh: Settled in place, T0. This was already known.
1 player moved 2NW or 2NE, 12 land tiles.
1 player moved a knight's move north, so 2N1W or 1E, or 1N and 2W or E, for 16 land tiles.
The other 2 players spent a turn moving, but still have a 21-land tile BFC. So, 1 tile in any direction, or 1S and up to 2 E or W.

There are 619 land tiles on this map (mouse over one's score: very easy way to do that). My island holds 64 of them, assuming that this is a triangle, as seems very likely. So the 6 of us speak for 384/619 = 62% of the map's land already.

My surroundings, as of now:


Land ho! Not surprising, that there's land to the south.

Egregious signs of map editing:
Plains corn (dry, too).
Plains incense.

Time to go run some tests of what I want my tech path to be. Worker --> Worker --> Settler is the current plan, but that may become Worker --> Worker --> Warrior --> Whip A Settler. Imperialistic for the win!

[Bobchillingworth]

Incense sometimes appears naturally on plains tiles :neenernee

[SevenSpirits]

Incense sometimes appears naturally on plains tiles :neenernee

I think it just appears on desert naturally, but after your starting settler is placed, bad terrain in your BFC is converted to plains.

[Cyneheard]

The start normalizer takes effect at your settler's starting location, not at where the settler actually settles, but that sounds right, Seven. The incense was outside my starting BFC, so that wouldn't apply in this case.

However, the other reason why this map was clearly hand-drawn:
Look at the plains/grass alignment. It's a checkerboard (and there's a goof: 1SE of my settler is grassland, as is 1S and 1S2E). So, looks like my land tiles are going to average 1-1.2 food/tile before counting food res. Interesting. PB2 this is not. Still working on my sim, so report later on that.

[Cyneheard]

Ok, two tests complete. Ran both through around T30.

Test 1: Hunting --> AH --> BW --> Wheel --> Pottery. Wheel/Pottery are pretty obvious, since I need some granaries, especially to feed the whip cycles for settlers that I'm going to do as many as this 64-tile triangle of land will let me.
Went Worker --> Worker --> Warrior (size 3) --> 1t into a warrior (size 4) --> Settler, whip for 2 pop (so, spent a turn in revolt before then), then straight into another settler. T30, I'd finished both settlers, and if I settle the corn/fish spot to my south, I'll have a chop into the work boat, getting that work boat to 16/20.

Test 2: Went BW --> AH --> Hunting --> Wheel --> Pottery: I could not afford the delay of improving the pigs and sheep by waiting for Hunting, so this hurt my tech pace slightly. My basic rule was this: If I had an extra source of hammers coming in, then I worked the settler. Otherwise, the warrior. Got 2 settlers out T30, as well, and same pacing on the work boat (although by natural growth), but I was able to work the furs more by getting city #2 up sooner (corn/fish on the plains hill can work the furs tile); also had plenty of warriors floating around to serve as garrisons when needed, saving hammers in the long run. The commerce boost that provides, and getting city #2 growing faster, makes me think that this is the way I want to go.

So, 2 workers, while going Agri --> BW, it is. If I'd thought about it ahead of time, Hunting --> AH from the beginning may have been the stronger option.