RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Total number of views seems like a much better indicator of interest. There's no compelling reason to divide it by # of posts.
For example, while I find [certain player you rate highly]'s writing and play to be interesting to read about, I'd be even more interested if he posted more. [Different player, you rate lower]'s style is also quite interesting, and this is bolstered by his frequent updates.

Yeah, fair point. I was just bored so checking out the theoretical number of views per post out of interest. Of course, other factors probably influence this... I'm not sure whether each page loaded by the same person counts as a separate view, or everything viewed from one thread while logged in counts as a single view. I guess the former, in which case the number of views per post may be much lower than what I came up with earlier.

(I didn't think it would probably be spoilerish to include the names of mentioned players, but since I'm discussing the spoiler threads extra care was taken.)

Nah, it's fine. By the way, on a completely unrelated note, I presume from your username that you're an Animorphs fan? I loved that book series when I was younger.

[Ellimist]

Indeed. I was wondering if anyone would catch the reference. I read the series through elementary and middle school. I picked this name for Civ because I think my playstyle is similar to Ellimist/Toomin's... I can get caught up with trying to do something grand and get beaten by somebody who is focused on the victory side of things. A "brilliant loser," though I make no claims to brilliance.

"Life is either tragedy or comedy. Usually it's your choice."

[Lord Parkin]

Indeed. I was wondering if anyone would catch the reference. I read the series through elementary and middle school.

Cool, same here. I guess we must be must be about the same age. (Just checked your profile... exactly the same age right now actually. )

I actually never realised until a browsing Wikipedia a while ago that the original author didn't even write half of the series. I guess ghostwriting isn't that uncommon, but it still surprised me a bit.

Saw a couple of episodes of the TV adaption while the book series was in full hype... found it rather lame and low-budget, didn't bother to keep watching. Figured they could have made quite a neat adaption with the right budget, but I guess they missed their window. Funny as these days it seems almost every popular kids' book series gets turned into a movie (or movies).

I picked this name for Civ because I think my playstyle is similar to Ellimist/Toomin's... I can get caught up with trying to do something grand and get beaten by somebody who is focused on the victory side of things. A "brilliant loser," though I make no claims to brilliance.

Fair enough. I hope that in the case of this game I won't be one to get so caught up in the details as to lose the big picture. We'll see, I guess.

[Lord Parkin]

Our Settler continues moving towards the Copper city, and will arrive at the site next turn (founding on turn 62). One of our Workers builds 1 turn into a road towards the new site - he'll build 1 turn into another road next turn, then start hooking up the Corn as soon as the city's founded (with the help of the other Worker).

Still at 0% research, saving up enough to get Writing at 100%. (Also leaves us open to any last minute changes of plan on tech path should we desire.)



Second Gold mine hooked up, now working it at Evermore. Nice improvement to our economy, brings us up from ~50% at break even to ~70%. We're #2 in GNP right now (behind Luddite, according to him), and are actually #1 if we switch to 100%. (Though culture's still playing a factor there.)

The Fish at Evermore will be hooked up next turn, just as it grows. We'll switch it to building a Worker at that point, unless there are any alternative suggestions. We're a bit short on them at the moment, so it seems the logical choice for a build. Not much sense continuing to grow the city if we're working unimproved tiles, after all.



James the Scout has found a Clam and Cow resource, potentially allowing for a reasonable city spot after Iron Working. Nothing of particularly high priority, though.

Still no land route through to the east discovered. Looks like we might actually end up meeting our eastern neighbour for the first time not by heading east, but by our Warrior exploring west across the whole map.

[Lord Parkin]

Had a long chat with Luddite. Key points:

- He bizzarely didn't found his Gold city on the choke point to his south as I expected he would, meaning that he now requires a border expansion to hook up the resource (according to him).

- Hinduism was founded in his Oracle city (which is not his Gold city), meaning that his borders didn't expand quickly at his Gold city.

- He already knew about Mackoti's attempt at the Pyramids. Told him about SleepingMoogle's interest in the Hanging Gardens.

- Apparently Luddite's still planning on building the Temple of Artemis along with the Colossus. He also implied that he's intending on grabbing the Great Library with his Great Engineer. He asked if that was ok, said I wasn't that pleased about missing both TOA and Great Library (but doubt there's much I can do). He tried to suggest we build the Parthenon as an alternative... might be an idea later, but not first in the priority list. Certainly doesn't measure up to the Great Library, anyway.

- He did mention the Mausoleum as an option. Though it's a while away, it's a very nice wonder, and it'd be awesome if we could grab it. Hopefully we can use diplomacy to our advantage there to up our chances at getting it.

- He also suggested we tried to build the Hanging Gardens as it'd benefit us quite a lot. I said we might consider it but I wasn't sure we could realistically beat SleepingMoogle. (In reality, I'm more confident about our chances at HG, especially since we'll still have all our forests due to not attempting the Pyramids anymore. Only thing I'm unsure about is that SleepingMoogle's lower city count will probably get him to the key techs first, and getting the tech first is half of the battle in a wonder race. Of course, he doesn't know he might be in a race right now, at least not with us, which may work to our advantage if we decide to go for it.)

- Luddite did seem slightly concerned about his rate of expansion, and wondered whether he should be building so many wonders. I encouraged that thought a bit... after all, the less wonders he has, the better for us. (Probably the better for him too if it's stifling his expansion, I guess.)

Those were the main things, I think. Probably forgot a few points, but that's the gist of it.

[Lord Parkin]

Still at 0% research - tested it thoroughly in my sim, and there's no way to get to Writing before turn 66 (unless we delay founding city #5, but that's just silly), so may as well wait until next turn to go back to 100%.

Forest chopped at the capital, and another Worker will be produced next turn. After that it's onto the Settler for city #6, which will be produced on turn 66 and found on turn 67.

Road prebuilding continues towards the Copper city. Next turn we'll found the city, and then we'll start hooking up the Corn. Then it'll be onto the Copper, which will be mined on turn 69 and hooked up to the empire on turn 70.



Evermore reached size 3, so switched production from the Granary to a Worker (produced at turn 67). After that, we'll finish off the Warrior we've got almost done there before the hammers decay, and go back to finishing off the Granary with the help of forest chops from the new Worker while the city grows.

Workers have completed a road to the second Gold, and will connect Felidae up to the rest of the empire next turn. Then they'll connect the Deer and get into position to start hooking up the Gems as soon as the borders expand there (on turn 68 ).



Down south, our Scout has revealed another Fish resource. Could be handy for a city somewhere around there - we'll have to decide once we can see more of the tiles over the next few turns.

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, so looking towards a potential Hanging Gardens build... I think we need to focus completely on Maths and Masonry to be sure we're in with a chance, since we know SleepingMoogle is intending on going for the wonder too. Skipping Sailing for a while shouldn't be too much of a problem - we're unlikely to have trade routes with foreign nations for most of that time anyway, so it won't be a big loss.

So, what are the numbers? From my sim, I've determined that if we head straight for Maths after Writing, we can get it on turn 78-79. Masonry can be finished on turn 81, so the Aqueduct can be started then. If we work on growing the capital from turn 66 onwards (after the Settler for city #6 is finished), we can get it to size 8-9 by the time we need to start on the Aqueduct, with 3 riverside grassland cottages, a settled Great Prophet, a Granary and a Library.

We'll also have Maths by this time, so our four 16 hammer chops become four 24 hammer chops, and our four 13 hammer chops become four 20 hammer chops. The Aqueduct (100 hammers) is built with no bonuses, and the Hanging Gardens (300 hammers) is built with the 50% Industrious bonus (so effective price is really ~200 base hammers). That's ~300 base hammers required in total.

Chops can give us up to 176 base hammers, meaning the minimum number of base hammers that require manual building is ~124. Assuming an initial 17-23 base hammers per turn over the course of the build, we're looking at 6-8 turns to build the Aqueduct + HG from scratch after Masonry. So the theoretical earliest build time is around turn 87. Of course, this would require major Worker redistribution, which would hurt all our other cities. A realistic build time without hurting our other cities would be the early 90's. We can certainly easily manage it before turn 95.

Turn 95 is 500 BC, which seems quite reasonable for the Hanging Gardens. So I think we should be in with a pretty darned good chance at it, if we focus on this plan. I guess the next thing is to work out how to maximise the number of cities we have by turn ~90. Probably 8-10 is a reasonable expectation, though 10 might be a bit of a stretch. We want to found them all (#7 and beyond) after we get Masonry I think, so as not to slow down our research rate and delay HG any further. After Masonry though, we can (within limits) go wild with city founding in the ~10 turn interval before HG.

I'm starting to feel pretty confident about our plan to try for the Hanging Gardens, all in all. Any lurker comments or suggestions are welcome.

[Ilios]

I'm starting to feel pretty confident about our plan to try for the Hanging Gardens, all in all. Any lurker comments or suggestions are welcome.

I am pleased that you are confident.

[Lord Parkin]

I am pleased that you are confident.

Sounds like you know something I don't. Or at least you want it to sound that way.

[Lord Parkin]

Message from SleepingMoogle.

Greetings Lord Parkin,

Some good news: I will be able to open my borders next turn. If you still wish to pass through, I will be happy to accomodate you, under the provision that you pass through and don't go off exploring my lands. Regoarrar has a scout somewhere in the area to the southwest of your Warrior's current position if I'm not mistaken (as does Adlain if you wish to meet him?), or failing that, the connection to the Zulus can be found in that direction as well, so there's no real need to travel north. ;-)

Pleasant dreams,
-SleepingMoogle
Patriarch of the first tribe of Somnus

One thing indirectly revealed is that SleepingMoogle is 4 turns ahead of us in research on Writing (and potentially the race to Maths/Masonry for the Hanging Gardens). However, I'm reasonably sure that we have a better economy than him (or at least we will over the next few turns), so I reckon we should be able to catch up. Plus if we get our forest chops ready, we should still be able to get HG out first. Hopefully, anyway.