HidingKneel and myself are now up to four cities, while Mardoc is at three and GT still only has two. I'm becoming more concerned about her falling behind, which isn't really good for anybody. Yet.
She's in a strange combination of civics, which I think is a big part of her problems. Aristocracy favors an expansive strategy, and gtAngel is not expanding. Right now she doesn't have either Sanitation or Agrarianism and would probably have been better off to stay in godking. In addition, Pacifism plus Apprenticeship is giving a massive -30% to unit production at a very inconvenient time for it, and pacifism is probably only giving her +1 GPP per turn anyway(from 3 to 4 on one specialist, it'd be very odd to be using more than one with a crop yield of 22 and farms that only yield two food.)
Actually, now that I've written this out, I might just tell it to her. Maybe if I do, she'll take more interest in the game and I'll start getting the turn earlier than midnight again.
(I'm in the same civics as HidingKneel, except with Aristocracy instead of GK.)
Over the past few turns, my heroic explorer scout captured two of the monuments that were wandering around to my east:
The governors have arrived and people are upset about it, but alcohol will solve everything.
I revealed Trapeze last turn and knew where High Wire had to be, so I now have vision on all three balseraph cities.
Tactically, I like what I see. His road network is well developed and he's not prioritizing coastal cities yet. It's too early to know whether I can catch him off guard, but I'll need galleys and moroi at a minimum.
Also, I don't want to complain, but...
Why are my gems 11 spaces away from where my settler started when Mardoc's are 5?
(I'm assuming the gold wasn't originally there, considering it's the only source I've found on the entire map so far.)
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
My response to your map question will probably have to wait until later.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(June 2nd, 2013, 09:05)Merovech Wrote: My response to your map question will probably have to wait until later.
Well, I think it's been conclusively demonstrated that even mirrored maps can include significant imbalances. FFH is inherently unfair/imbalanced, and the entire game is about it.
From what I can see of the map, it seems that my desert area (with gems-incense-oasis-reagents) is just further away than Mardoc's is. Things could be a lot worse than that, and I do see a number of terrain advantages available to myself as well.
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
(June 2nd, 2013, 21:50)Ellimist Wrote: From what I can see of the map, it seems that my desert area (with gems-incense-oasis-reagents) is just further away than Mardoc's is. [snip] I do see a number of terrain advantages available to myself as well.
That is my opinion, too.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Yeah. Her civics are definitely working at cross purposes there:
Aristocracy: convert extra food into commerce.
Pacifism: convert extra food into great people faster.
Conquest: convert extra food into units.
And the -1 hammer/city from Apprenticeship with no Nationhood is painful (speaking from experience, since I made that mistake for ten long turns in the pitboss game).
The food penalty also means that she can't afford to work many hammer tiles, and then she gets -30% hammers on top of that. I'm not sure what to do about GT's lack of development; I'd really rather attack Mardoc first. OTOH, my cities have all been settled in GT's direction so far so I guess eventually conquering her makes sense. If I wait for vampires it will probably be pretty cheap too.
On turn 78, HK founded Fellowship of Leaves and received a great commander. The GC wasn't from military strategy, so I'm not sure which event he got it from. The following turn, he activated his worldspell to fight the invisible mistform menace.
This turn, gtAngel got an event that added a lot of unhappiness, presumably the harpy event that gives a great Bard. (This turn, the approval rating for one of my opponents dropped from 52 to 44.) I'm assuming she'll use it for a drama-sanitation bulb, but IMO it's a pretty steep price for that with only two cities.
My own development is coming along but encountering barbarian interference. I'm pretty solidly in the lead for GNP and have a small lead over Mardoc for hammers. I have several luxuries coming online in the near future, and should be able to get some offshore colonies started as well.
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
My combat 5 griffon spent a half dozen turns dancing around with the barb griffon NW of Mardoc's lands. I was trying to remain 3 spaces away from it until it moved closer so that I could attack it. This didn't exactly work out as planned, and eventually I moved to a forest hill 2 spaces away from it.
Despite the fact that griffons receive defensive bonuses (I have no clue why this is), my griffon only managed to barely defeat his less experienced cousin. So now he's down to 10 HP and it will take him nine turns to fully heal outside of friendly territory.
No biggie. At least I didn't lose the unit.
My other griffon has been exploring the coast to the east of Mardoc, and has located the borders of Mardoc's newest city. I'm planning to keep him mostly or totally out of sight and keep an eye out for boats. Eventually Mardoc will send one of them out to explore this direction, and maybe I'll get a chance to anonymously kill it.
My cities have mostly focused on infrastructure lately while they grow. The two newer cities are using dancing bears to expand their borders and building governor's manors, while the two older cities get bigger. Nubia is going to resume building a settler once it reaches size 9, I'm hoping to make it the OO holy city.
I caught some luck with the map. I was sending a workboat to Acaia for the fish, instead I'll be able to connect pearls on T84. Workers at my new city will also finish connecting dye on T84, so my cities will get a nice little happiness boost.
Things have been accelerating pretty rapidly, overall. The Calabim economic advantages are gaining momentum, and I expect that to improve even more when my first island city is founded on T90. The plan right now is for the settler to finish at eot86 and load onto a boat on t88 with a bear that will be used for culture. The settler will land on t89, found the city on t90, and borders will pop at eot91. This will allow it to work both fish and crab, with workboats improving them on t92 and t93.
This city will add +1 commerce to each of my other cities simply by existing, and it shouldn't be hard to get basic infrastructure in place once I can adopt slavery. I'll research OO next to claim the holy city, but probably wait to adopt the religion for a bit. I'll prioritize Philosophy when I have a few island cities that need help getting set up; a governor's manor can be whipped cheaply(2-3 pop).
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
So Message from the Deep will not be my next tech, because I got an event.
I may be too late to get the drama bard. Two of my opponents have Festivals already and I'm pretty sure gtAngel got the same event recently, but I'll go ahead and try for it by rushing Festivals. If I can bulb drama, I'll receive another artist and can either use it for Sanitation or save it for a golden age.
This was also perfect timing for this event. That city had JUST finished a governor's manor and had some extra happiness available anyway, so only one citizen is actually prevented from working and I get five extra hammers for it instead. (Next turn this city will take some food tiles back from Prespur, I'm not going to let it starve.)
Things are looking very very good. I'm now #1 in all three major demographics, and almost caught up to Mardoc for population(with 28 to his 30,) and solidly ahead of HidingKneel who is in a golden age but just had to fight off some mistforms with his worldspell.
1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4
Mardoc is still in Godking and it's holding him back. I think he's suffering something of a "curse of riches" where he's relying on all those high-commerce resources and didn't prioritize Code of Laws. At this rate, I'll keep pulling ahead of him until he adopts Aristocracy, and maybe even then if I can get enough island trade routes online.
As of right now, Mardoc definitely has Festivals as well as either HK or GT. gtAngel has not improved her Silk yet, and I don't think anyone discovered Festivals last turn, so that would rule out GT. She might still beat me though, and bulbing sanitation would be exactly what is needed to turn her momentum around. Her culture graph doesn't show any bard-influenced changes, so she hasn't used a harpy bard yet, but it's also possible that she received a lot of unhappiness from another source.
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
No idea why it hadn't been claimed yet by the earlier harpy event. gtAngel's GNP is the only demographic she's keeping up with, so festivals shouldn't have been a problem.
I've really had some astonishing great person luck this game, with the lair sage, 75g engineer(not used yet), and now a harpy bard. I also managed to open five graveyards, and from what I've seen there were only ten on the map(two in the vicinity of each player.)
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EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth
![[Image: T77flavor.jpg]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84822082/FFH25/T77flavor.jpg)
![[Image: T77events.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84822082/FFH25/T77events.JPG)
![[Image: T79tree.jpg]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84822082/FFH25/T79tree.jpg)
