[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[GermanJoey]

No, your calculation isn't quite right, CH. Clicking the whip four times within a 10 turn period is whipping every 3.33 turns, not every 2.5, assuming the 4th whip happened on the most recent turn. For example, if it is currently turn 20, and you clicked the whip on turns 10, 14, 17, and 20 - four times within a 10 turn period - then the average of your three intervals between the four whips is (4+3+3)/3 = 3.33. Or, in other words, (N-1)/T, where N is the number of whips and T is turns.

(I had more here but I'm probably crossing some people's line for lurkers already so I'll just snip it.)

[scooter]

Here's my final thought for scooter to mull over: ultimately I think it's just more fun to play as the Aztecs.

Yes!!! Whatever else you say about the SA, it's really really fun. I was Aztecs in one of the last pitbosses I played, on another site, and it's so much more fun to be them because of how active it is to whip so much. Plus, you get to thinking that at some point, based on how the population calculation equation works, you've personally slaughtered countless more times as many citizens as you currently have in your empire. Millions upon millions sacrificed to the blood gods... others civs fight because they fear being conquered, but your Aztecs fight because they fear YOU!! The best flavor UB in the game, IMHO.

This I completely agree with. Ottomans sound so boring to me, even though I think they're probably a better choice. I eliminated HRE mostly due to the boring factor. If I was convinced they're close at all, I'll take Aztecs in a heartbeat. If Mackoti kills me because all I've got are regular Muskets, I'm pretty much fine with that.

I guess part of it is wondering what kind of lushness we'll have. I'm imagining Radio from 33. If we have a city or two like that in this game, we could completely break things with the Altar by whipping more or less constantly. It seems obvious that that's what the SA requires. 5T whip cycles aren't good enough to overcome the Hamman, but something tighter than that could be doable if we can manage the food to support it.

I think I've discussed this to death. I'll think about it, and we'll see if Alhazard takes or leaves the Ottomans. He could potentially make this decision very easy.

[Sullla]

For the record, I do think that the math suggests the Ottomans are a slightly better choice here, and I am totally fine with picking them. Aztecs do seem like more fun though.

[scooter]

Alright, I have a few minutes, so I'll talk about something else.



First off, we're going to have anarchy at the start, so it's worth using our explorer turns to make absolutely sure we don't have another Cotton Gin. That said, here's my scattered thoughts assuming we don't find anything crazy in the fog.

* SIP feels fairly obvious even if I can see some decent alternatives. We definitely have to settle something adjacent to the whales to make it work. (It doesn't necessarily have to be the capital, but the other terrain suggests it ought to be.) I can envision a few alternatives where we try to space our cities a little better, but they don't feel good enough to override the extra 1hpt from the plains hill. There's only two tiles (this and 1S) where you can get both riverside (Levee) and adjacent to whales, and this is the better of the two. This is a stronger capital location than 33 due to the lack of water and additional riverside tiles, so getting the most out of the Bureaucap will be a major source of value. The biggest drawback of SIP capital is the lack of forests. More on that below.

* I think we're going to want a couple early cities that are somewhat tightly packed together. It's tempting to take 33 and think "let's not repeat the mistake of settling a meh city too closely," but it's worth recognizing the circumstances are different here. I am pretty convinced in this setup that getting the absolute most science out of your capital is mandatory, and those that don't focus their efforts on it will fall behind. It's the only city that can get to 4+ villages in a reasonable timeframe. So early cities need to consider the ability to grow some cottages for the capital. Basically I think the capital should be growing on cottages and whipping settlers constantly for the first 50T or so, and when it whips off those cottages, ideally another city can pick them up and work them while that happens.

* I think we want forests early. With IMP, non-Bureaucap cities can still easily whip out settlers without too much investment when combined with a chop or two. We have to get a jump on the Spiritual civs, and this seems like the obvious way to do that.

* We don't know yet if the rice or corn on the perimeter are irrigated or not. I don't think it impacts my feelings here, but it's worth noting. The southeast corn is just too surrounded by jungle, and it's nowhere near the cottage river.

With all this in mind, I really like 1N of the Pigs for a second city assuming we SIP. It can share/grow two riverside cottages (admittedly, one of them plains) for the capital plus two non-riverside if those seem like they'll be worth it. It can share the pigs food early, but it does have its own in the rice (fingers crossed that it's irrigated). It's also got a minimum of 5 forests available to chop. It also brings the iron into play a little sooner than the capital would.

The downside is we do want that pigs to be mostly controlled by the capital, and potentially it's a weak city once that happens. THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR. The banana and/or corn area in the south would be a lot more appealing if it weren't filled with worker-intensive jungle.

Obviously this is subject to scouting, but that's where my head is currently on how to tackle this area.

[Sullla]

I was thinking the tile south of the starting point for one city, and also the tile north of the pigs for the other one. A couple thoughts:

* We're in Anarchy on the first turn anyway, so moving a tile south doesn't waste anything.

* Founding on top of the jungle tile allows us to avoid wasting the worker turns to clear it.

* Food analysis: moving south picks up the bananas, although improving them will be a real pain. It gives up the hillside pigs as a tradeoff. However, the northern city basically needs those pigs to avoid being terrible, as it only has a dry rice for food unless there's something else in the fog. I don't think we can do much trading of food resources since that northern city will be so dependent on the pigs. That suggests to me settling for 2 food resources apiece, rather than 1 food resource each and a third shared pigs.

* It brings the forest tile 2 south of the starting radius immediately, rather than having to wait for borders to pop. This allows us to use the starting worker to chop out a worker immediately instead of having to wait for borders to expand. (I think the starting micro will be found T1, whip worker T2, chop completes on worker T3, regrow on wet corn tile. Have to test this of course.)

* Moving a tile south also brings the marble into play rather than having to wait for 100 (err 90) culture to get the borders to pop the third ring. Might be useful to have.

* Of course, it gives up the ivory tile, but Holy City culture will pop the third ring quickly in the religious city, and both of the cities we're discussing will have the ivory in the third ring. Since plains ivory is a fairly weak tile in terms of direct yield, it's not imperative to have this in our borders.

What we really need to do is move the explorer to the pigs hill on the first turn to get a sense for what's up there. Depending on what we see, that may throw everything else out of whack. We may even want to make the northern city the capital and the southern city the second city, since there are more forests up there to chop. (Since forge + Bureaucracy makes 1 forest chop = 1 worker at the capital, it's very nice to have a lot of forests available.) Based on what we have now though, I tentatively like 1 south of the start and 1 north of the pigs.

[David Corperial]

* SIP feels fairly obvious even if I can see some decent alternatives. We definitely have to settle something adjacent to the whales to make it work. (It doesn't necessarily have to be the capital, but the other terrain suggests it ought to be.) I can envision a few alternatives where we try to space our cities a little better, but they don't feel good enough to override the extra 1hpt from the plains hill. There's only two tiles (this and 1S) where you can get both riverside (Levee) and adjacent to whales, and this is the better of the two. This is a stronger capital location than 33 due to the lack of water and additional riverside tiles, so getting the most out of the Bureaucap will be a major source of value. The biggest drawback of SIP capital is the lack of forests. More on that below.

Don't forget Scooter, 2s of SIP also is levee and whales compatible, while that might not be anything special, who knows what's on that first fog level south, so don't forget this spot.

[Sullla]

Ottomans

Scooter called it!

Last chance for us to discuss any other civ options that we might like. I think I still favor the Aztecs the most, with the Ottomans off the board. What other options might we consider? I think we prefer Aztecs over Holy Roman Empire and its rathauses (although that wouldn't be bad either). France is also still available, although I don't know that France synergizes very well with the strategy we've been thinking about. Other possibilities (Mali/mints, China/cho-ko-nus, Mongolia/gers) all seem to be notably weaker options.

Thoughts?

[Dp101]

Go Aztecs, seems to be the strongest economic option. Everything else is too slow (Civs from industrial game go here) or not good enough (HRE courthouse replacement). Side note, kind of disappointed you two didn't go for Frederick, because even though he is a weaker option he would mean that the same team would wind up playing Germany with an Aztec leader and then follow it with playing the Aztecs with a German leader.

[Cheater Hater]

@GJ: My math was whipping on T0, T2, T5, and T7 for my "4 in 10 turns" description--I guess if you whip on T10 that's technically 5 in 10 turns, but that fifth whip is on T11 so...

I still don't get why you would choose Aztecs over Ottomans when Ottomans are almost strictly better, but Alhazard make that decision easy for us

Moving on to settling decisions, I like moving 1NW for the capital, then putting a city 1SE of the whales (probably the second city, but I'm not sure of that). The thing I don't like about SIP is that our worker doesn't have much to do at the start, only improving the plains horses rather than a food tile or hooking up the iron. We also have more forests and more riverside tiles (though most of them won't have cottages). The city 1SE of the whales also looks good--it hooks up the whales, irrigates the corn, and gets an ivory, and that's just what we can see. After that there's probably a city in the NE (1N or 2N of the corner ivory) and something in the SW (1S of the Marble doesn't seem awful, though it's choked by jungle), but those obviously require more scouting to solidify and prioritize.

Looking at the other suggested maps:
scooter: SIP, 1N of pigs: I don't like that second spot without a lot of good land in the fog. The main thing it has is a lot of forests, but that requires a lot of worker labor to take advantage of early. It also seems a little too tightly packed in.

Sullla: 1S, 1N of pigs: I don't mind the 1S slot--its main weakness is the lack of early resource improvements (like SIP), but this is a better spot for cottages. However, that's made worse by the lack of food (though it's not like it's a food-poor spot, just with hard to access food). Again, the spot 1N of the pigs needs a lot of fog help to be good.

David: The 2S of SIP spot is interesting--maybe it's better than my 1SE of whales spot? I feel like it needs a lot of fog help though.

[scooter]

I still don't get why you would choose Aztecs over Ottomans when Ottomans are almost strictly better, but Alhazard make that decision easy for us

FWIW, the fun factor does matter to me quite a bit. The more I enjoy a game, the better I play. If two civs or leaders are relatively close in power, the one that sounds more fun will always be my choice. Whether or not Ottomans/Aztecs ARE close was a different discussion, but yeah, Alhazard settled it as I half suspected.

-------

Yeah I'm going to go Aztecs. The other civs:

* HRE: I think there's a very good chance they'll prove to be a slightly better choice, but they're boring.

* France: Less inspiring without Aggressive. Genghis of France gets me excited. Julius, not as much.

* China: CKNs are always really great, but like any experienced Civ player accustomed to ancient era I've played them or seen them played 50 million times. I'll spare you all and myself.

* Mali: I shouldn't have called HRE boring, because this pick leaves me without a stronger word to describe them.

* Russia: I suspect the game will be mostly won or lost before Cossacks come on the scene, and it'll definitely be won or lost before Labs.

* Spain: I had to google search to remember what Conqs were even good at. I always forget about them. They're a lot better than I remembered - enough that I'm feeling silly for not even considering them. (I think Cuirs will be a very important unit in this setup.) So if someone wants to make a last-ditch case for this, go for it. I doubt I'll change my mind at this stage.


If this map is as lush as 33, the Altar will be very, very good. If it's less so, I'll probably regret not taking HRE. Anyway, fun first. I'm going to hold off officially submitting the pick until Mackoti locks his in just in case I change my mind for the 5,000th time.