RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

Thanks so much, Sullla! And yeah, that is definitely strange behavior by the forum software. No wonder I didn't figure it out! The original typo was my mistake. I ... uh ... misclicked while remoting in. (Actually rushing to create the thread before the place whose wireless network I was using closed for the day, if I remember correctly. The two-syllable names starting with Ma which are their own collective and adjective forms got muddled as I was typing ... and I'd been thinking about Rags of Mali because I was amused by the idea of a Mining/Wheel civ whose leader looked like a dwarf.)

ALSO: We've played the turn (we were almost last!) - borders popped, Yalara moved SE, I figured out what mapscript we're playing on while working on my sandbox even before I logged into the game(!) ... there's just a huge amount of data to process, and I haven't eaten yet today! I'll get an update up when I can.

Maniac, if you can play in 15-16 hours, that's great news. If you can't, don't worry about it; depending on Cull's schedule, we might be last to play (maybe even two turns in a row) but we'll make it.

[RefSteel]

Okay, I claimed to know what mapscript Sullla used to build this thing. How'd I figure it out? Well, I was trying to update my sandbox last night, fog-gazing as best I could, and I noticed what looked like a lot of desert to the south, fortunately with our lovely rivers turning parts of it into floodplains, sort of like the Nile in Egypt. Well. I got Civ4 pretty recently, and when I found out I'd be able to actually get a copy and get it to play, I wanted to plan out scenarios for my first few SP games. One of the first things I did was to check out Sirian's old guide to different mapscripts over at Civfanatics to see which ones would be most interesting as intros to the game. (You might want to have a look at it yourself - it only includes the scripts that were packaged with the original game, a fact I didn't realize at the time, but it's still pretty neat.) I wound up going with Fractal for my first game just because it was the default, and Custom Continents for the second (which is on hold at the moment because of this game) but I read about 'em all. And one of them had this line, which stuck in my memory: "Nile-Style Rivers: There are always four rivers, running randomly from south to north." Okay, no, it didn't. I had to look it up just now. All that stuck in my memory was "Nile-Style Rivers." That was enough for me. I started up an SP game with a Huge Oasis map, founded a city with no water tiles, and checked out the victory conditions screen. I had 0.20% of the land area in the game. A hundred or so more sea tiles by random chance or map editing, and that figure would be exactly where it is in our game. So I opened up world builder, and ... saaaaay ... does this kind of terrain look familiar to anybody?



So, how much does this tell us? Well, based on the desert I'm seeing, we're either in the northern portion of the map (north of the desert, south of the sea) - probably one of those closer to the desert overall - or on a specially-made start in the middle of the desert region (I wouldn't put it past Sullla to create some of these to spread the teams out more, but we can't count on it.) The desert isn't exactly a no-man's land; the "Niles" and scattered resources create corridors of floodplains habitability, and oases, scattered plains tiles, and jungle=grassland allow further "desert" settling. The map should be interesting, in any event.

By default, the mapscript has more fertile land in the south but more/better resources in the north. This might mean we're in trouble, because the mapmakers surely balanced the resources, at least around the capitals, but probably didn't spend the time and effort to make the fertility even out. On the other hand, if there are 9 teams in the south and 8 in the north, that might balance things. (Plus, they likely ONLY balanced the strat resources and whatever was close to the capital.) I'm also going to go out on a limb and guess the wrap is toroidal (Oasis normally has no wrap) so that everyone has equal access to the sea. In fact, I expect the sea will be a bit wider (accounting for the extra .02% on the demo screen) with some interesting resources on astro-only islands or something. I don't think there'll be any galley-reachable islands unless all the teams are ~~equidistant from the sea, but it's possible. Anything else? Oh: Distance between teams. If nobody's start got moved around, there'll be ~15ish tiles between starts on whichever side has 8 teams (sadly, that's the south in the map I generated) and RBP2-like separation on the "crowded" half. (Probably us, or anyway we have to assume it is). If some of the starts got moved into the desert, then there's plenty of time before people start making contact. I guess we can hope for this, except that an in-desert start would put some teams too far away from the sea, and create other balance issues for the game.

Overall - I think it's a pretty neat choice for a mapscript, and if our mapmakers managed to balance things right (and considering the braintrust responsible, I'll bet they did an awfully good job!) it should be a really, really fun game. Carthage and Portugal may be screaming right now (maybe, but maybe not; see below) but I'll bet they find something to make them happy before too long. Uh, as long as starts weren't created for THEM in mid-desert!

And just to round out the speculation, random notes from a glance at the Demographics screen:

First, I was being dumb. Yes, you need two coast tiles in your BFC for a coastal capital, but only one in your first ring. We won't know if everyone's landlocked until Morgan's borders pop on turn 7. We do know that no one spent turns moving to a coastal location, since the "rival worst" now has 9 land tiles. [EDIT: And I'm STILL wrong! Willem, for instance, moved before founding, and since he's CRE, his borders nevertheless popped on turn 4. So Portugal might well have moved to found a coastal capital.]

Second, someone is making 21 commerce to our 17. Since we're now working the 1-commerce sheep, there are only three possibilities I can think of:
1) Willem (Cre/Fin) is working a 2-commerce tile (3 for him or other FIN civs like us)
2) Someone else with Cre is working an Oasis (you get 3 commerce for those naturally, right?)
3) ... or somebody's made contact, and espionage points count toward GNP.

[EDIT: What does this demoscreen info tell us? Pretty much absolutely nothing useful without a lot of further work to form a better picture of the overall game. And what about the distance between capitals I was noting? Well, there's no coast to follow here - at least for us - so contact is actually likely to take longer than in RBP2 in most cases even if the starts are equally close. I don't want to gamble on that though, especially since scouting units might end up following the desert as though it were coast - not wanting to explore the sandy expanses, but not wanting to miss resources at/near the edge.]

[RefSteel]

Uhhh ... and apparently when I said "we were almost last," I didn't know what I was talking about. I could've sworn I checked civstats this morning and saw only Ruff and us still to play ... but now when I look at it, it says Ilios and Swiss haven't finished their turns either ... even though both logged in earlier in the turn. Curious, that.

Maniac: I'd love to see the pictures and find out why they're topical! But more importantly, enjoy the rest of your vacation!

[McClure]

An unintended consequence of delaying that silver until ironworking is the threat that the JUNGLE can spread too!

If I'm reading the tiles correctly, you don't have to fear a Jungle spread in your BFC. Jungle (or forests) can't spread on a resource tile (Corn and Sheep). The other tiles bordering the silver are all plains and jungle can only spread to grassland tiles.

[RefSteel]

If I'm reading the tiles correctly, you don't have to fear a Jungle spread in your BFC. Jungle (or forests) can't spread on a resource tile (Corn and Sheep). The other tiles bordering the silver are all plains and jungle can only spread to grassland tiles.

Maniac tells me the jungle could spread on resources (pig and rice) that can normally occur in jungle (unless he's thinking of Vanilla or Warlords and it changed in Beyond the Sword) but that doesn't apply here anyway. The tile I'm worried about is the grass hill 1S of the jungle. That tile is quite important, and I know jungle can spread there (until it's mined) because it did in one of my sandbox test games! (Only one of 'em, so thankfully the chances seem to be fairly low.)

[RefSteel]

By the way: I'd like our next move to be 1SE onto the floodplains. Still shouldn't see any barbs, but it's shielded by river on three sides just in case, and the next move would be onto a defensive tile. The move would leave one tile in fog, but fog-gazing says it's a plains forest, and I don't expect to see anything crazy like fur or game there, and there's a chance we might find a hill to reveal it as we go anyway.

Note if we're going to play it risky and just let the black dots sit (risking elimination if a warrior comes up that way too soon) while we look for neighbors, we should move SW onto the gold hill to reveal as many tiles as possible en route to doubling back ~~WNW. I still don't like this plan, as I'd rather know what's around our capital so we can make an informed decision when the settler comes out, late or soon.

Also, if the turn doesn't roll in the next half an hour or so, I won't be able to play until Saturday night PST - should be soon enough to not miss the turn, but we'd be cutting it close if the turn rolls just over an hour from now! If either of you has the chance to play in the meantime, please do. (Hopefully, Maniac can play tonight, assuming the turn has rolled by then, since it sounds like Cull isn't often available to play on weekends.)

[Cull]

1SE sounds fine to me. Seeing as only meatbalz has left to play, I should be able to play morning est when the turn has already begin

[Maniac Marshall]

By the way: I'd like our next move to be 1SE onto the floodplains. Still shouldn't see any barbs, but it's shielded by river on three sides just in case, and the next move would be onto a defensive tile. The move would leave one tile in fog, but fog-gazing says it's a plains forest, and I don't expect to see anything crazy like fur or game there, and there's a chance we might find a hill to reveal it as we go anyway.

Note if we're going to play it risky and just let the black dots sit (risking elimination if a warrior comes up that way too soon) while we look for neighbors, we should move SW onto the gold hill to reveal as many tiles as possible en route to doubling back ~~WNW. I still don't like this plan, as I'd rather know what's around our capital so we can make an informed decision when the settler comes out, late or soon.

Also, if the turn doesn't roll in the next half an hour or so, I won't be able to play until Saturday night PST - should be soon enough to not miss the turn, but we'd be cutting it close if the turn rolls just over an hour from now! If either of you has the chance to play in the meantime, please do. (Hopefully, Maniac can play tonight, assuming the turn has rolled by then, since it sounds like Cull isn't often available to play on weekends.)

[Maniac Marshall]

OMGWTF A Maniac post that includes not quoted material in the message area?!

Yep. That's the good news. The bad news is that I can't play from this location since I can't connect up a civ capable computer here.

The good news is that it doesn't matter because meatbalz hasn't ended the turn anyhow. The better news is that I SHOULD be able to log into the game for the first time in about 20 hours, though if someone can get the turn before then, go ahead and play it of course.

Very tired, going to bed. Wish me luck driving through the snow and ice of Tennessee/Kentucky tomorrow.

[Cull]

Moved warrior 1sw as planned. Also ended turn