RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Dr. Nomadic]

Okay, now I should REALLY post a report on my current solo game.

[Speaker]

Also agree. I see that your third city does not go to the east near the gold. Any reason for this? Because of defensibility?

Blue Dot will actually be a stronger site initially, as it can work the Horse and Cow before the border expands. It also works better with our limited workers (we'll have 4 for 3 cities which is a bit low) because it is close to our capital.

But don't fret! We'll get a 4th city for Pink Dot soon enough! It'll most likely be chopped out of Antietam as soon as the borders pop, and planted around turn 57 or so.

[Speaker]

Meh, the turn flipped over shortly after I got to work. Sullla, are you able to get to it today? If not, I'll get it tonight.

[Speaker]

11/24/09 7:18 am Dantski Score decreased to 79

Dantski slaved something, and it looks like just a 1-pop slave, based on the score drop. You guessed on turn 35 that he was building a settler. Do you think it was maybe a worker instead, since he couldn't have 1-pop slaved a settler this quickly? Or was it a 2-pop slave?

[Sullla]

It's definitely a one-pop slave. I don't see how it could be a settler, even with the Imperialistic whipping bonus. This was the Dantski build track so far again:

(T0) Settle Timbuktu

(T1) Timbuktu 1/22 food, Warrior 3/15 [1 food, 3 shields]

(T2) Timbuktu 2/22 food, Warrior 6/15

(T3) Timbuktu 3/22 food, Warrior 9/15

(T4) Timbuktu 4/22 food, Warrior 12/15

(T5) Timbuktu 6/22 food, Warrior 14/15 [2 food, 2 shields]
Time warrior to complete on T6, the same turn Fishing tech is discovered.

(T6) Timbuktu 8/22 food, Work Boat 1/30 [Warrior 16/15]

(T7) Timbuktu 12/22 food, Work Boat 2/30 [3 food, 1 shield]
Max food while growing to size 2.

(T8) Timbuktu 15/22 food, Work Boat 3/30

(T9) Timbuktu 18/22 food, Work Boat 4/30

(T10) Timbuktu 21/22 food, Work Boat 5/30

(T11) Timbuktu 2/24 food [SIZE 2], Work Boat 6/30

(T12) Timbuktu 4/24 food, Work Boat 9/30 [2 food, 3 shields]
Max shields (I guess?) at size 2.

(T13) Timbuktu 6/24 food, Work Boat 12/30

(T14) Timbuktu 8/24 food, Work Boat 15/30

(T15) Timbuktu 10/24 food, Work Boat 18/30

(T16) Timbuktu 12/24 food, Work Boat 21/30

(T17) Timbuktu 14/24 food, Work Boat 24/30

(T18) Timbuktu 16/24 food, Work Boat 27/30

(T19) Timbuktu 18/24 food, Skirmisher 0/25 [Work Boat 30/30]
Archery research done, skirmisher started for uncertain reasons. Really want defense, I guess.

(T20) Timbuktu 22/24 food, Skirmisher 3/25 [4 food, 3 shields]

(T21) Timbuktu 2/26 food [SIZE 3], Skirmisher 6/25

(T22) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 8/60 [Skirmisher 6/25] [5 food, 3 shields]

(T23) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 16/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T24) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 24/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T25) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 32/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T26) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 40/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T27) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 48/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T28) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Worker 56/60 [Skirmisher 6/25]

(T29) Timbuktu 2/26 food, Skirmisher 12/25 [Worker 64/60]

(T30) Timbuktu 7/26 food, Skirmisher 15/25

(T31) Timbuktu 12/26 food, Skirmisher 18/25
Revolt to Slavery civic

(T32) Timbuktu 12/26 food, Skirmisher 18/25

(T33) Timbuktu 17/26 food, Skirmisher 21/25

(T34) Timbuktu 22/26 food, Skirmisher 24/25

(T35) Timbuktu 1/28 food [SIZE 4], Settler 2/100 [Skirmisher 27/25]

(T36) Timbuktu 1/28 food, Settler 14/100 [3 food, 6 shields -> 9 shields]

(T37) Timbuktu 1/28 food, Settler 26/100

(T38) Timbuktu 1/28 food, Settler 38/100

T6 warrior
T11 size 2
T12 Hunting
T19 Archery
T21 size 3
T31 BW
T35 skirmisher, size 4

OK, I think I see what happened. If Dantski chopped a forest into his settler (30 shields with Imperialistic bonus), then he could indeed whip it to completion this turn with one pop. That would make the last two turns look like this:

(T37) Timbuktu 1/28 food, Settler 26/100 -> 56/100 [chop]

(T38) Timbuktu 1/26 food [SIZE 3], Settler 68/100 -> 113/100 [whip]

Of course, Dantski just knocked his capital down to size 3, and he still only has a single worker for his two cities. But I think this is the most logical way of explaining things.

I'll get to the turn shortly, finishing breakfast at the moment. (Yay, no classes to teach today due to Thanksgiving!)

[Speaker]

Ah, yes, chopping and then slaving. That makes sense. Actually, it would be a really slick play if he put the overflow into another settler, so the 13 would actually become 16.25. Then again, he'd still have just 1 worker, and 1 worker for 3 cities is pretty

[Sullla]

Ha, yeah that would be pretty silly. It's a major reason why Imperialistic isn't a top tier trait - yeah, you get the settlers done faster, but how does that help you if they just work unimproved tiles? Expansive is much better in most situations.

Turn 38:



- Chamberlain moved north and found yet another lion. Good thing we're in a forest, so we should win easily, but it's slow progress moving north to scout Jowy's capital. On the plus side, if we win we're only 1XP away from Woody II.

- Newly christened warrior Jubal Early moved to the coast and found what looks like a river mouth down there (which I stupidly didn't capture in the above shot, argh). He should move SE next turn onto the hill, for some good visibility. We need to keep Jubal relatively close to our cities, because our workers will need protection when they go to road towards city #3. (What we'll probably do is have Pickett guard city #3, while Jubal Early moves north and takes over protection of Antietam.)

- Workers follow the plan, another turn into the farm at Antietam, one turn into a forest chop. We complete the chop next turn with both workers. Speaker, one minor mistake in your development plan: the monument completes on T40 even without borrowing the grassland hill mine from Gettysburg, so we don't need to do a tile swap next turn. And swapping this turn will not speed up the completion date, since we have to wait for that chop.

- Jowy and Dantski both got techs this turn. Dantski's was one without Soldier points (we can view this because he is the "rival best" in total power), so I have made a logical guess that he took Agriculture tech; Dantski was the only team in the game who was still lacking Agriculture. Jowy could have grabbed any number of things, so I'm going to wait until next turn to make a guess. We can see if his Soldier count increased next turn, and that allows me to make a much better guess of what the tech was.

And that's pretty much it. I'm interested to see what Speaker can come up with if he takes a crack at the latest proposed development plan. In my unbiased opinion, I think what I have is pretty good.

[Speaker]

Ha, yeah that would be pretty silly. It's a major reason why Imperialistic isn't a top tier trait - yeah, you get the settlers done faster, but how does that help you if they just work unimproved tiles? Expansive is much better in most situations.

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. You build way more workers than settlers in most games. Expansive also has the extra health, and the production bonus to the most useful building in the game (Granary). Imperialistic gives you faster great generals? Expansive is easily the best trait in the game in most circumstances. Only Financial, in a game that is expected to go all the way to the Future era, is even close. Interestingly, Imperialistic is much more powerful in later era starts in BtS, since Settlers cost increasingly more hammers to build. In a Future era game, on Quick speed, they cost 300 or so hammers, while workers cost just 36, so the 25% bonus is very useful.

- Chamberlain moved north and found yet another lion. Good thing we're in a forest, so we should win easily, but it's slow progress moving north to scout Jowy's capital. On the plus side, if we win we're only 1XP away from Woody II.

Nice. Hopefully we won't lose too many HP so we don't have to waste more turns healing.

- Workers follow the plan, another turn into the farm at Antietam, one turn into a forest chop. We complete the chop next turn with both workers. Speaker, one minor mistake in your development plan: the monument completes on T40 even without borrowing the grassland hill mine from Gettysburg, so we don't need to do a tile swap next turn. And swapping this turn will not speed up the completion date, since we have to wait for that chop.

Alright. Sorry about the mistake. I need to figure out a better way to organize it when I lay out the turns. Using Notepad, where every line was the same color, didn't work well for me. Next time, I'll try Excel with some color coding, to keep things straight.

And that's pretty much it. I'm interested to see what Speaker can come up with if he takes a crack at the latest proposed development plan. In my unbiased opinion, I think what I have is pretty good.

I'll give it a look when I get home from work.

[Jabah]

Do you have trade routes between your cities -can't remember the rules, you have river-lake connection all within your border- (trying to understand how you have 15 bpt for research and can't manage)

[Kristian95]

from the screenshot you can see that both their cities have the trade route symbol above the city name, hence they are connected via the river and lake