[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

Well, I wrote about the what, how, and when, but I never really explained why I am considering building the Oracle.

There are five ways to pop borders right now. As I said last night, I'd build it simply to pop the borders in WTF? because with marble Oracle costs about 80 base hammers and pops the borders after 2 turns. Barracks costs 60 hammers but gives 1 cpt, and I don't need the barracks for about 20 or so turns IMO. The monument costs 30 hammers but does nothing but pop the borders. The other options are to build a monastery in DF, then a missionary and spread religion, which would take too long and leave me without a strategic resource, or to hope for a random religion spread.

Hoping to luck out isn't an acceptable strategic choice IMO, so that one can be disregarded straight away. The monastery wouldn't be completed for at least 15 turns, and then the missionary would take a further 8 turns, 2 turns to get to WTF? and then a further 10 turns to pop borders means the borders wouldn't pop for 30 turns. That's just too slow. So religion isn't something I can plan for.

So the Oracle is a reasonable build to pop the borders, but if someone else built it, how quickly could I build a barracks or a monument? Well, as I'm expecting to chop 3 forests anyway, it isn't difficult to chop them earlier to build the barracks, and I'm dumping hammers into a barracks anyway whilst growing (because I'm currently paying for units already so don't want to build any more). So the Oracle plan wouldn't negatively affect popping the borders.

What I haven't considered which other players would go for it. There are three IND leaders, Ceil with Louis, regicator with Bismark, and scozed with Stalin. The last two have already built wonders, so they are likely to focus on growth for a little bit. But they are still going to be interested in getting MC early for their cheap forges. Scozed also have a holy city, and if they were the team that built the Mids, then the Oracle would maybe give them a GP for their shrine. I'd much rather slow them down and use the Oracle GP for a shrine for my holy city (this is one of the reasons why I continually built Henge in previous games).

The free tech isn't strictly a free tech for me, as I need to tech masonry. Adjusting for base beakers, if I were to take Monarchy which is 483 adjusted or about 400 base, I'd only be getting 310 base beakers for free. MC is better, at about 510 base beakers. But still, that's a lot of research for me at this stage of the game. If the Mids player gets it, they are going to have an even bigger lead to try to snowball from. No where near enough to win the game with tech trading on, but they would have cheap forges, rep and a large beaker lead. It's in my interests to stop them from having that advantage.

So the "Why?" is a combination of all of these reasons. If I focussed just on my own needs, then it might not actually be worth it to build the Oracle, but when the effects on the other players are taken into account, it becomes more important to try to take the wonder.

To put his in the context of current metagame discussion...your own growth isn't always what needs to be measured, or maximised. Sometimes screwing over other players is more important.

[darrelljs]

I think The Oracle is a good play with Marble for sure, but more for the tech than the border pop .

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Actually thinking about it the best way to pop WTF's borders is a free buddhism spread.

Darrell

[Krill]

I need to rename this thread to "Anyone volunteers to troll Krill?"

I write 2100 words explaining a decision in depth, and Darrell writes 21 words saying "whatever".

[Krill]

This game, it trolls me.

Hello Azza. Azza found me last turn, becaue my espionage points reallocated themselves to him. But Azza did not put any EP on me, which means he has met someone else, and checking F4 shows it isn't Ceil.

Troll...

OK, some basic MM. This city can finish the granary in 6 turns without a slave, it works the plains hill this turn, then the silk for 2 turns to grow to size 3, then the pig, plains hill and grass farm at size 3 for 3 turns to finish with no overflow, and 15 food in the box. It would still let the granary save 13 food in the granary though. But if I slave the granary this turn, I will have about 19 food in the box, and about 12 hammers towards another build, though I lose about 4 commerce from not working tiles after those 6 turns. So the slave it is:

Anyone seen the funny side of these two screenshots yet?

I finished a worker last turn, and now I***8217;m having fun paying for it. This is why I want to build the barracks next in WTF? I don***8217;t want to pay for any more units, workers and settlers stop growth, monuments are junk leaving the barracks as the only viable build.

I have my first cottage down, yay, only taken me 60 turns. I slightly screwed up the MM, the worker on the forest chopped for 1 more turn, but I thought before I played hte turn that it was one turn from finishing the chop. Wasn***8217;t so, so I carry on with the chop because if the Oracle falls this turn, I can just complete the chop into the barracks and then carry on with the road down to the gold city.

Comment on Oracle though. What I wrote was why I should go for it now. I would be very much surprised if I get it. Someone's probably going to pick it up in the next 5 turns, and if they do, whatever. I'll explain why in a later post...if you guys can stomach another 2K word essay.

[novice]

Actually thinking about it the best way to pop WTF's borders is a free buddhism spread.

Darrell

I guess Krill finally realized this too.

[Krill]

I actually wrote the post 321 after playing the turn...and seeing the free spread. And told Darrell, so he proceeded to troll me...

I suppose it is better to be lucky than good.

Question for Seven: Darrell said he thought there was a bug in the religion spread code, as usually it happens a lot, or not at all. Do you know of any generally weird stuff in that code that would need fixing?

[SevenSpirits]

I actually wrote the post 321 after playing the turn...and seeing the free spread. And told Darrell, so he proceeded to troll me...

I suppose it is better to be lucky than good.

Question for Seven: Darrell said he thought there was a bug in the religion spread code, as usually it happens a lot, or not at all. Do you know of any generally weird stuff in that code that would need fixing?

Nope, I don't think it's buggy. If Darrell means it tends to happen a lot in some games and not a lot in others, that doesn't surprise me as the probability is dependent on the distance of the city compared with the greatest possible distance on that map. So it's map-dependent. Smaller size and more wrap directions mean less spreading. Normal speed might mean 50% more spreading too, I forget. If that doesn't explain his experience then it's probably just randomness. Lots of independent improbable events will do that to you.

[Krill]

Yeah, I thought as much, but I haven't code dived in that area. Either way, I've got to admit I'm happy with the free spread.

Thanks for the info

[darrelljs]

My "evidence" is purely anecdotal.

Darrell