Luddite/Pindicator

[pindicator]

So I've been thinking about our initial goals. I mean, we've got the goal: we want to do a rapid land grab, leveraging our traits and the Zulu UB to grab more land and improve it faster. I've just been thinking about how to best implement that goal.

Instead of focusing on getting our first settler out, I'm trying to expand my sandbox tests to be how fast we can get 4 settlers out. Or better, what's the most amount of settlers and workers I can get out by turn... let's say 40 (while still defending barbs)!

I'm going to wait a few turns to get more scouting info in -- probably right around where we get that first worker done -- and then I'm going to update the sandbox and try to get that done in ernest. So stay tuned, more planning to come...

[pindicator]

Turn 1



Seeing the gold mine gave me pause, but there isn't anything down there worth altering our plans for. I think I will send the warrior around the southern coast: SW a few turns and depending what he sees he'll either check that out or he'll loop back around to fog the area around the gold mine. The scout ... either is going to go NW-NE or NW-W. Probably NW-W. He's already scouted out a good city cite 1N of his current spot, and we really need to get eyes inland so we can find that great city site that let's us claim territory and have a great 2nd city. Or should we send him N-N? I suppose those forests could always be a land bridge towards another player.



Demos are in and everybody else has settled their city, like us. And look, we have 8000 land tiles too ... so I guess demos don't count the city square when they calculate land tiles and I forgot this. Well, that doesn't mean the starts are identical, else how to explain fierce getting a 2f 2h tile with his first citizen. I'll ponder over these a bit more...

[Commodore]

Heh, I think it's kosher for me to reiterate; starts, while similar, are not mirrored or identical, so please don't kill yourself on the C&D there.

[pindicator]

Ah, it didn't cause me much stress. The biggest cause of grief is that I used to know how all these demo numbers played out and now I can't remember how to calculate them. I just went to bed rather than fussing over the numbers last night. But I like crunching numbers While there isn't much going on in the beginning it feels like a game within a game, getting all the info about the start as possible. And really, is there any information you can glean from the demo screen this early in the game that is going to make you change your strategy? Not that I can think of: we are going to grab as many quality tiles as possible as quickly as possible, and I don't think figuring out who is working what tile on turn 2 is going to change that.

[luddite]

I agree- doing analysis of the demos is a fun minigame, but it's hard to imagine how it would change any of our decisions. All you really need to is roughly estimate where you are relative to everyone else in growth, research, and power.

[pindicator]

We be up again. If you can play it in the next few hours got for it, I'm going to be a little busy until about 10pm

Edit: Back from karaoke and got it

[pindicator]

Turn 2

Not much on the scouting front. I went NE -> NW with the scout, and confirmed that there is no land bridge to the NE. The warrior continued SW and saw more green lands but no special bonus tiles.

Demos!


Mackoti founded his capital last turn, just like the rest of us. This is pretty neat, because we can assume everybody is working the same tiles and compare rival average over the last two turns to tell exactly what mackoti is getting.

Actually, it is pretty difficult to glean anything from GNP right now, except for Fierce. Because the average value is rounded down, global rival GNP was anywhere between 70-74 on turn 1 and 90-94 on turn 2. So Mackoti can have anywhere between 16 (90 - 74) to 21 (rival max) GNP, which tells us nothing new But we can tell a bit about our rival max value of 21. It is a creative civ working a 1 commerce tile and researching a technology with 1 tech pre-req. My guess? I'm pegging this civ as Sian & Ichabod; creative civs are between them and Louis since this came in before mackoti had settled, and the only tech Yuris can research with a pre-req is a religious tech - or masonry i suppose. So I'm writing in Team Sichabod as teching Animal Husbandry first.

Finally, I couldn't think of any way to get a bunch of city names by using the Terminator as a reference. But I did find this

[pindicator]

So Luddite and I had a chat and we're going to name our cities after Arnold Schwarzenegger films that I linked to in the last post. I'm not sure what to do with workers yet: maybe after names of characters he's played? Or supporting actors/actresses in said films? Lots of fun to be had with this one!

Anyway, what to name the capital? Nothing stands out. Maybe Raw Deal just for a little gamesmanship?

Anyway, next turn is in. I'll hold off on naming anything quite yet -- but I do know what our password will be: I'll be back

[pindicator]

I'm now quadruple posting. Someone want to help break this vicious cycle?

Turn 3



The warrior continues his southwest odyssey. I was about ready to turn him around and then I noticed that the water on the far side is another ocean. So I think I'll send him SW a few more turns and try to scope out the far side before swinging back to the capital and defogging the southeast. The scout will continue along the north. But it looks like we have some kind of snaky continents thing going on, so the great lighthouse could be a strong wonder. We'd have to work to make it fit with the expansion plans, however, so maybe it isn't the right wonder for us.

Here be demos.



Oh, and I forgot to add the password. Will do that next turn. But I may not be able to play tomorrow night, so you may get to sneak in and play, partner!

[luddite]

Hmm, maybe we really misjudged the shape of the land. I had assumed that we were on the east coast, with most of the land over in the west. But maybe there's land connections northeast and southeast. We'll have to think hard about where to settle the first city.