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

[Maniac Marshall]

Note, both Pride Rock and Fierias have minimal hammers in an axe that can be whipped in an emergency.

Turn 93
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Fierias Builds Archer (Axe on Hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, Sw Cottage, S Cottage.
Pride Rock builds stable, works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Shared Cottage, Grass Cottage.
Temminck builds worker, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 Cottages
Feng Shui builds grainery, works Farm
Kilrah bilds grainery, works Pigs
Berlioz and Dutchess Road Pigs (complete)
Thomas and Marie move SE-E to a riverside grassland and road (complete)
Oliver chops
Chimeee roads (complete)
Toulouse roads (complete)

Turn 94
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Fierias Builds Archer (Axe on hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, Sw Cottage, S Cottage.
Pride Rock builds stable, works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Shared Cottage, Grass Cottage.
Temminck builds worker, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 Cottages
Feng Shui builds grainery, works Farm
Kilrah bilds grainery, works Pigs
Berlioz and Dutchess move 1N to a grass hill
Thomas and Marie move 1SE to the Dyes and road (complete)
Oliver chops (complete)
Chimee and Toulouse both chop the jungle off the Gems.

Turn 95
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Fierias grows to size 6, builds archer (Axe on hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, Sw Cottage, S Cottage, Farm.
Pride Rock grows to size 6, finishes stable, Starts Chariot (Axe on hold), works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Shared Cottage, Grass Cottage, Grass Mine.
Temminck finishes worker, starts Forge, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 Cottages.
Feng Shui builds grainery, works Dyes
Kilrah, grows to size 2 builds grainery, works Pigs, and Grass Forest.
Berlioz and Dutchess Mine.
Marie Moves E-SE-E to a forest
Thomas Moves E-SE-S to a forest
Oliver moves S to a forest
Chimeee and Toulouse chop jungle
Nala moves NE and roads.

Turn 96
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Fierias builds archer (Axe on hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, Sw Cottage, S Cottage, Farm.
Pride Rock builds Chariot (Axe on hold), works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Grass Farm, Grass Cottage, Grass Mine.
Temminck grows to size 6, builds forge, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 southern cottages and SHARED cottage.
Feng Shui builds grainery, works Farm and Dyes.
Kilrah builds grainery, works Pigs and Grass Mine
Berlioz and Dutchess mine (complete)
Marie Chops
Thomas Chops
Oliver chops
Chimee and Toulouse mine the gems
Nala roads (complete)

Turn 97
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Fierias grows to size 7,builds archer (Axe on hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, SW Cottage, S Cottage, E Cottage, Mine
Pride Rock builds Chariot (Axe on hold) works Cows, horses, FP Farm, Grass Farm, Grass Cottage, Grass Mine.
Temminck builds forge, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 southern cottages and SHARED cottage.
Feng Shui builds grainery, works farm and dyes.
Kilrah builds grainery, works Pigs and grass mine
Berlioz and Dutchess road (complete)
Marie Chops
Thomas Chops
Oliver Chops
Chimee and Toulouse Mine the gems (Complete)
Nala moves to the roaded floodplain by the dies and farms.

Turn 98
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Fierias finishes Archer, starts Holkan (Axe on hold), works Corn, Sheep, Silver, SW Cottage, S Cottage, E Cottage, Mine
Pride Rock grows to size 7, finishes chariot (Axe on hold), starts Settler, works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Grass Farm, Grass Cottage, 2 Grass mines.
Temminck builds forge, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 southern cottages and SHARED cottage.
Feng Shui builds grainery works farm and dyes
Kilrah builds grainery works pigs and mine
Berlioz and Dutchess move to the roaded forest and chop (complete)
Marie Chops (Complete)
Thomas Chops (Complete)
Oliver Chops (Complete)
Chimee and Toulouse join Nala and all 3 farm.

Turn 99
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WE SHOULD BE GETING CIVIL SERVICE THIS TURN. IF SO, WE CAN REVOLT TO BEUROCRACY/ORGANIZED RELIGION. OTHERWISE, FOLLOW THIS.

Fierias builds Holkan (Axe on Hold) works Corn, Sheep, Silver, SW Cottage, S Cottage, E Cottage, Mine
Pride Rock builds settler (Axe on Hold), Works Cows, Horses, FP Farm, Grass Farm, 2 Grass Mines and Grass Cottage.
Temminck grows to size 7, builds forge, works Gold, Rice, Copper, 2 southern cottages and SHARED cottage, new farm.
Feng Shui finishes grainery, works farm and dyes, builds Barracks??
Kilrah finishes grainery, builds Monestary.
Berlioz and Dutches move to the wines and, uhh, whine.
Marie and Thomas
Oliver moves S-SE to the jungle.
Chimee, Toulouse, and Nala Farm (complete)

[RefSteel]

The fastest it will be done with a double chop is on T98, Size 2. with 16/24 in the food box.

The fastest it will be done with a single chop is T99, Size 2, with 19/24 in the food box.

Sorry 'bout that - I misunderstood what you wrote. Believe it or not, it actually might have been better to delay improving the pigs tile to get the granary faster, but it's not a game-breaking difference, and I was too late saying anything anyway. Burning a forest (and worker turns) to get 3 extra food would be crazy, so your way is obviously better.

I'm and idiot when it comes to this game

I'm not sure if this means that you're down on yourself because of getting too little sleep, that I've been communicating really poorly, that I've been talking too much today, or all three. It's one of 'em if anything, because you're obviously brilliant, in this game and otherwise.

On HR, Caste, etc: I think we agree. (See also immediately above.)

Also note there's a multiple-endpoints effect there. If a city has a 2% chance per turn of getting religion, and goes 200 turns without it, that's a fairly small (but not prohibitive) chance, 1.7%. (1 - .98^200). But then if you have 20 cities total, the aggregate chance that one of them never gets auto-spread is 34%, well within possibility. Stated less quantitatively, we notice the exceptions, not the usual cases.

Good point. It doesn't appear at first glance to apply to M_H's Prague or my Piker's Peak, but in truth it absolutely does: For various reasons, all my other cities in the game in question got missionaries early on, so Piker's Peak was the only one I was watching for auto-spread (Prague was a similar case, being M_H's second city) but: 1) There are LOTS of opportunities for low-probability events to occur. We notice the ones that do. The only reason to focus on religion spread is that it happened to be the case where a long-odds event happened in that game. 2) LOTS of games of Civ have been played and reported here, many of them with cities waiting patiently for religion spreads and receiving them. I remember Prague (and my own not-reported-here game) because it's unusual, but there are plenty of cases where religion DID spread naturally, which I'm forgetting or ignoring.

Oh, as regards green, I've considered that possibility, though I'd be more worried about the Aztecs coming for the city than Mali.

True - I mentioned Mali because (especially if we built both green and purple) they'd be in a Pal vs. Banana position with regard to several of our cities, but with green sticking out on its own and no production centers nearby, Mali would by no means be the only (or greatest) threat to green city.

I know you want that Iron city settled soon, but, I'm concerned about yellow. That will be an awesome commerce city, and the site is way more at risk than the Iron site.

You're right. PR's next border pop will get the iron resource itself into our borders faster than the iron city would anyway, and we're not expecting an attack, especially from that direction, any time soon.

Once the cities grow up some, and we have a few more units, we'll build another couple of settlers. Right now our military is stretched thin as it is without 2 more cities to defend...

Not to mention our workers. By the way, I like your Yellow location a lot. I can see the argument for 1E, but riverside is nice for a number of reasons.

All right, off to sleep (and then finish my Imperium 28 report!)

[Maniac Marshall]

I'm not sure if this means that you're down on yourself because of getting too little sleep, that I've been communicating really poorly, that I've been talking too much today, or all three. It's one of 'em if anything, because you're obviously brilliant, in this game and otherwise.

Merely stating stating a fact actually

True - I mentioned Mali because (especially if we built both green and purple) they'd be in a Pal vs. Banana position with regard to several of our cities, but with green sticking out on its own and no production centers nearby, Mali would by no means be the only (or greatest) threat to green city.

I still want that city, but I'm not going to pink dot settle the thing. I don't think one south on the stone/spices city matters much (either that or it overlapped Mali's gem city) but I'll look into it.

You're right. PR's next border pop will get the iron resource itself into our borders faster than the iron city would anyway, and we're not expecting an attack, especially from that direction, any time soon.

That's still 20ish turns off, and we DO want that site, but I can't see Krill or Carthage "pink dotting" it. I CAN see someone placing a city that screws up yellow/beige, so I propose to settle Yellow, then (Ref)Steel Kittens, then Beige. In 3 or so turns, do take a look in game though. I've mostly unfogged our north (Finally!) and I would like you to propose a dotmap of that area when it's done.

Not to mention our workers. By the way, I like your Yellow location a lot. I can see the argument for 1E, but riverside is nice for a number of reasons.

Actually, if we moved it I think I'd favor 1NE, which does overlap beige, but is still riverside, on a hill, and gets the sugar which we could trade.

All right, off to sleep (and then finish my Imperium 28 report!)

You know, the worst part of running this team is that I've had to completely bail off the MoO stuff

OK, now, new material. We REALLY should look into getting our first great person. I'm thinking we want 2 scientists as our first GP. We want an academy in the capital first (Buroc bonus) and then in Temminck.

I propose I go back and look over that micro plan and think about running the scientists out of Temminck. I don't think we have the food to do it from anywhere else. Let me know what you think.

[Cull]

OK, now, new material. We REALLY should look into getting our first great person. I'm thinking we want 2 scientists as our first GP. We want an academy in the capital first (Buroc bonus) and then in Temminck.

I propose I go back and look over that micro plan and think about running the scientists out of Temminck. I don't think we have the food to do it from anywhere else. Let me know what you think.

Agreed.

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn 93 is in the books. We now have Currency from Babs and CoL and 100g from Krill to keep us going.

Mach ETA dropped from 15-13-11 turns since T91. I actually think we can get it by turn 102 if we try. I now wish we'd started a turn or two earlier, we might havew gotten it done the same time as Carthage getting CS. Oh well.

IF we can get it by T101-102, I think we should delay the revolts... although, the revolt to beuro might "pay for itself" as far as getting it done the same turn, I dono. Guess we'll have to try to sim it.

BTW, I'm 99.1% sure there isn't, but is there any way to give yourself gold in the worldbuilder?

[Maniac Marshall]

From out of nowhere, here is a lurker friendly update =)

Here is an overview of our empire:



Here's all that land we've unfoged to our north:



Yes, the shot is slightly borked. Not going to take the time to re-shoot it, sorry. I'm tempted to try to dotmap that area, but I think we should wait 2-3 turns and see whats in the fog.

Demographically, we're doing just so-so. Hopefully if we lay off the whip, that will change shortly.



Here's a look at our cities.

Fierias is slowly building an archer while growing back and working cottages:



Pride Rock is growing back as well, building a Stable. It will be chopped to completeion next turn.



Temminck is building a worker, working off that whip anger. I think after it grows to size 6, I'll set it on a scientist or two to try to get that first great scientist out.



Feng Shui is slowly building a grainery, working that farm. It'll get more FP farms to work soon. Probably thinking FP Farm, Dyes, FP Farm, Gems, FP Farm, Spices as the first tiles for it to work.



And then there is Kilrah. You know, I could have gotten the grainery done on the SAME turn with a single chop as a double, but, for some reason I was fixated on roading the pigs while we were on the tile, rather than wasting turns to come back. That may have been the right decision, maybe not, dono, but I did it. Once we can get the rice online, this city can become a hammer mecca.



Heres Our finances:



And finally, here's our military.



BTW: The count is now 28 warriors and 4 axes killed...

[Maniac Marshall]

Well, simmed it out. The ETA for Mach is Turn 103 if we revolt on T99, or Turn 102 otherwise. We probably could have started research 2 turn earlier, though not more than that. That would have probably gotten it done 2 turns earlier, though maybe not. We were working hammers out the ass those 2 turns.

[RefSteel]

Looking good. If you want comments on microplanning, they follow in this message. If you don't, skip to the more important message that follows. If you do read on, remember that I'm more than capable of being wrong and/or crazy. Also remember that optimizing our micro is worth a finite quantity of real life time. Don't spend hours squeezing blood from a turnip, even if it's to do what I'm suggesting (or prove I'm loony).

Based on your screenshots, Temminck doesn't need to work off its whip anger: It has two pop of happy space right now, and when it gets close to the cap, it can start a ball-of-string court, 3-pop whip it, and wind up with MORE space to grow than it had before adding the new whip unhappy. We've got lots of spare happy, and our cities are built to grow like weeds. In general, once granaries are up, I much prefer to get Workers via the whip than via slow-build, except in rather special circumstances. If we need more workers to avoid working unimproved tiles, I'd whip them out of the cities that would otherwise wind up working those unimproved tiles (if it would be one of the new cities, I'd reassign workers from our core cities TO the new cities until core cities are the ones that would end up on unimproved tiles instead). PR should also probably never work that plains hill mine until it hits size 10-11, except when working off whip anger.

Running scientists out of Temminck definitely looks like a good idea to me - assuming our workers are too busy to build more FP cottages for it. I think what I'd do with it would be to start it on a forge to let it grow another pop, which will take the Shared Village™ back from PR. Its next pop unit would probably be a scientist, followed by another, depending on the timing of whip unhappiness, worker actions, etc. Augh - too many variables. I really need to get caught up on this game. (Fat chance though.) I'm stumbling in the dark in trying to comment on the microplan, and I have literally no idea what's going on diplomatically.

[RefSteel]

[Warning: I said this would be more important than the previous message, but now that I've written it out, I suspect it of mainly just being more important to me. It's kind of a wall of text too, so ... sorry. There's nothing really about strategy here, and certainly not about tactics, so feel free to skip to say the last two (short) paragraphs, which seem to contain the meat.]

Okay, goals for the game.

Remember, the following are my thoughts only. I not only signed up to be just a lurker/advisor, I've been actually giving this game the amount of time I realistically can sustain on it lately - to whit, not enough to catch up, and arguably not enough to keep up even if I started caught up completely. I'm trying to get up to speed, but I don't know if I'll be able to do so. I pushed things back as much as I could early on, and I can't and won't continue to sacrifice hours a day (for months!) of real life time for this (or any) game. So I'm not dictating what Must or even Should Be Done here; I'm just getting discussion started and explaining my perspective on the game.

I wrote somewhere above in answer to my own question about broad goals for the game, "Simple answer is, enjoy a game of Civ with a bunch of people at RB." I shouldn't have done that, because it sounds like an obvious cliche when I don't explain it. I don't mean "have fun" - that's obvious, yeah, for which reason what I kind of mean by choosing goals here is "how do we want to play this so that we'll continue to have fun with the game"? My goal is to enjoy the game with our fellow players - meaning, as much as possible, I'd like to help them enjoy the game too. I'd like to catch up in no small part just to be able to talk to other players and know what I'm talking about with respect to the game. I love that we traded Metal Casting to practically every civ in the galaxy. (I'm guessing HRE, Ottos, 'tecs and Inca didn't get it though, which is okay. I don't mean we should just gift techs willy-nilly to everybody.) I love that we're still thinking about ways to break up the new alliance structure the way we broke up the old one, and working with people on both sides to make it happen. (Right? I think?) The truth is, this game is going to consist of a series of alliances that shift continuously until we wind up with two in a long-term stalemate - or until the game ends, whichever comes first - but at least it's fun to try and keep things shaken up enough that anyone can catch on with somebody.

Civ is a zero-sum game in many ways, and there's no way everyone can get what they want; Rome wanted to play with their aggressive Praets, and I was rooting for them in a big way ... but they couldn't have used those Praets effectively without smashing another hard-built civ to pieces, so I'm left hoping they enjoyed what they did manage to accomplish without destroying anybody. I was sorry to hear of France's demise, but not surprised by the time it happened. I'd love to have Morgan join our team if the players as a whole would let him (I doubt it unfortunately) both because we could use another player and because it would give him a chance to get some more enjoyment out of this game. As for me, if I were playing alone, I'd have no special desire for my civ to win (though I'd try, within the bounds of what I consider honorable and fun-for-me-and-others play) - and I wouldn't even want to be kingmaker. I know others on this team have an opinion, but if I had to choose between Krill and rego/sunrise/darrell/sooooo winning, I wouldn't choose; I'd play my game, and - silly as it sounds to say it - let the best civ win. (Yeah, even if that civ is mine, but come on.)

I'm not sure if I'm expressing this very clearly. I may just be throwing a bunch of words at an idea that words can't serve (or at least not the ones I can throw together at half past midnight on this particular Tuesday). I guess it's this: My intention with this game going forward is to set my priorities thus:

1) More Important Stuff. I've got real-life commitments, responsibilities to this site's Orion community, and other personal stuff that simply has to take precedence over this game. I signed up as a lurker/advisor maybe-occasional-sub, knowing my schedule would be crazy, and knowing that I couldn't devote hours a day to the game. I nevertheless spent ungodly amounts of time on it early on, which was fun, but can't continue. To the extent my input was helpful, hopefully it's helped to get us into a good position to achieve whatever the team's goals may be.

2) See Priority 1.

3) See Priority 1.

4) See ... okay, this goes on for a while, but a joke can be taken too far, even to make a serious point. Let me see if I can drag myself back on topic here.

There are lots of tactics and strategies that are optimal for victory or achieving a strong position but are really annoying to everyone else in the game. The easiest example is intentionally letting the turn roll and/or playing as nearly last as possible every turn when you can't play first. There are plenty of other cases though. In general, if I'm going to succeed in the game, I want to do so via actions to which another player can say, "Wow - that was brilliantly done!" Krill oracling Alpha is an example of getting ahead via excellent play. I don't want to succeed through actions that is likely to ruin the game for lots of other players - for instance, by taking advantage of rules disputes, by mocking or provoking people into ill-conceived attacks, by generally lying, cheating (or skating on the edge of cheating between the "letter" and the "spirit" of the law) or otherwise behaving in an underhanded fashion. A brilliant sneak-attack, well executed, can be cool; an unprovoked NAPstab (trusting you to keep your NAP, even to the extent of not defending their workers and cities is not provocation) for advantage really isn't. In my opinion. Anyway.

Apologies for rambling. My point is kind of that I like setting goals with more than just my own civ in mind. (Lotsa words to boil down into that, eh?) But it's fun to have just-our-civ goals too.

On the other hand, given the schedule crunch coming up, unless Cull can take the helm in a big way, maybe our goal should be "finding someone else for the team." Should we post a "Replacement needed for RPB3" thread in the main Civ forum - or on CF even?

[Maniac Marshall]

Based on your screenshots, Temminck doesn't need to work off its whip anger:

It's already worked off 1 anger, and we've had a new happy maker (dyes) hooked up since it started the worker. In fact, it had an unhappy citizen for one turn, so yeah, it did need to work off some anger at the time the worker was started, and we did need the worker. You're correct that it's fine now though. it's fine now.

when it gets close to the cap, it can start a ball-of-string court

Actually, forges are better winse we have gold, silver, and gems. Thats 3 happyness AND hammers =)

In general, once granaries are up, I much prefer to get Workers via the whip than via slow-build, except in rather special circumstances.

Agreed. I felt that this was one of those circumstances. The worker was started right before the city was going to grow into unhappyness, and it's still got 1 extra anger for 7 more turns.

If we need more workers to avoid working unimproved tiles, I'd whip them out of the cities that would otherwise wind up working those unimproved tiles

The plan in Temminck is to work a scientist for now to get us a great person.

PR should also probably never work that plains hill mine until it hits size 10-11, except when working off whip anger.

Agree it shouldn't for units, but it was very handy to work it a couple turns to get the forge done and only needing to double instead of tripple whip. If building a building it's a useful option for 1-3 turns if it saves a pop from the whip and/or gets it done faster.

Running scientists out of Temminck definitely looks like a good idea to me - assuming our workers are too busy to build more FP cottages for it. I think what I'd do with it would be to start it on a forge to let it grow another pop, which will take the Shared Village™ back from PR. Its next pop unit would probably be a scientist <snip>

We're 100% agreed on this.

As regards your second message, what I've basically been doing is trying to set us up for the middle-end game by getting us into a position of tech superiority. I'm trying to make NO enemies along the way, and the hope woule be that if we can't win, then one of our good friends (Babylon, Byz, England, or India) can. I'm trying to do all this while not lying to anyone. So far, I've been able to do just that. I dono if I can do that forever, but I intend to try.

I'm going to take this opportunity to comment on something.

Some other teams, England in particular, have commented to me several times that you shouldn't even try to be friends with everyone. The selling of Monarchy to Byz was an example of why it's a bad idea... They got 200 gold from it because they were not trying to be friends with them.

From a purely pecuniary angle, yeah, that's true. Playing every angle to your advantage to get ahead is one way to play the game, but, there's another. By keeping our word and giving MC to Rome, Portugal, India and Byz, we earned their favor. By telling Portugal to forget the beaker difference of Sailing vs MC when they offered to make up the difference, we earned their favor. They'll not be so quick to attack us as they would others all things being equal.

That's not saying you should sell your soul or be someone's doormat, or consistently give things away for far below their value, nor is this sort of thing a magic shield of invulnerability, but it's still a useful tactic imho. By making deals where you're not counting every beaker like a mizer, you DO gain diplomatic favor, and while there will be exceptions, most players won't forget this sort of thing.