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

[RefSteel]

Well, if I somehow am responsible for the avoid growth thing, it's pretty much a sure thing that I win the prize for the single biggest screwup since Exploit was still alive.

Exploit's still alive. It's just his civ that bit the dust. I know, I know, I know what you mean. Seriously though, it doesn't matter if it's a crazy bug or a misclick, or who misclicked it if that's what it is. I blame the existence of that button, what it does, and the fact that it's not sufficiently obvious (and it needs to be OVERWHELMINGLY obvious) when it's selected. We'll live.

It really hurts to put so much time and effort into stuff, only to have something like this happen.

Luckily, I was the one who put the time into the HV plan, and I did it with a spreadsheet. 90% of the time investment was in setting the spreadsheet up correctly. The biggest time sink in running the sandbox was waiting for the game to load when I clicked something differently from what we actually did in game, or differently from what I'd planned, or wanted to see what would happen if I changed something.

This game is pretty much the only thing I do anymore. Outside of work, conventions, and spending time with my son, it IS all I do.

I have to be honest, it's pretty much taken over my life to an obsessive/compulsive level.

Remember me telling you in chat a long time ago that one of the reasons I didn't want to be majorly involved was because if I let that happen to me, my OCD would kick in? Well, I had to force myself to stay away last week, and it was all I could manage. The fact that I was both exhausted from almost no sleep, and nowhere near a computer from 7:30AM till sometime afer 2AM every day was probably what made it possible. Hell, I'm kicking myself for not noticing this yesterday, as tired as I was. How tired was I? Well, I slept from 4PM yesterday till Noon today if that's a hint.

Okay, so that sounds BAD! I don't know the best way to combat it, but if you can find a way to take more time off from the game and do other things, please, please do! You've done an unbelievable job in every aspect of the game already, and real-life stuff is just a million times more important. It really, really is. Morgan's a good player, and I'm happy to build plans if he wants them from me, and we can be proud of what we've already achieved. Take some sanity days, or sanity weeks if you need 'em, okay? (Uh, on that note, by the way, I'm pretty much going to be completely offline from Friday evening until sometime on Tuesday, over 4th of July weekend. I'll try to post a new HV microplan before that happens.)

I want to play the "perfect game", even as I know such is far beyond my skill.

It's beyond anyone's skill. This is probably partly my fault, as I love optimizing little things (see my babble about Kilrah's tiles). Uh ... eep. Sorry.

I have people on other teams now telling us we're a favorite to win... and I want to believe that... because I now desperately want us to win...

... I'm not so excited about winning. I don't think we're necessarily favorites either; we'd have to have some kind of plan for how we want to win. I like building civs. I like building cities. I just like building things. Winning? Eh, when we start getting spaceship techs, I'll start thinking about it. (Culture would be interesting if we get a gazillion religions, but if the tech pace doesn't slow down, I don't think it'll be feasible. I don't want to win by any other means, unless it's a legitimate "We've looked at the game leaders, and we all want you to win" UN Diplomatic victory.)

I also know that none of this would have been possible without all the stellar work you've put into this team. You're far more responsible for why this team has done so well than I am, so thank you so much.

Uh ... wow. Thanks! But I don't agree. Diplomacy is a HUGE part of this game, and from a diplomatic standpoint, this is your team. I haven't done any diplo in ages, and I wouldn't have done it the way you did if I had (our styles and goals are quite different). I think your diplomacy is a HUGE part of our success so far in the game ... and that's not even including your instincts for the way the game develops. You have a very strong tendency to be right about things in this game!

But, when you see me getting down on myself for things like this, maybe you know why. If we lose the game by one turn, or because we're short a unit or two, I'll always wonder if this scrrew up was my fault, and wonder if it's this that cost us the game...

Nah, it'll be something loony I did, probably. Or one of the heaven-knows-how-many misclicks or other minor mistakes each and every player on this team has made. (I still remember the time, now like 75 turns ago, when I put a turn of a farm into a tile I was meant to cottage by hitting the "I" key when I meant to "INS" into a city.) Anyway, please, PLEASE don't take the game - and especially winning - too seriously. I'd rather enjoy the game and have fun chatting with Kyan (it's been too long) and others than win. If we can do both, okay. If we can't ... you know, to me, that's okay too.

The 30/30 food thing is expected behavior if Avoid Growth is turned on. Any extra food in the box beyond its capacity gets truncated

Avoid Growth was put into the game as an answer to the late-game situation when a city has an odd number of food, so it could not reach a stable size; it would grow then lose -1 food every turn and eventually starve. But ironically, that's actually the right thing to do in that situation; you may as well use the N+1th citizen while you have him; even if he's temporary, that's still more productivity than never having him.

Also it's usually not even right to avoid growth into unhappiness or unhealthiness. Just let the city grow, and when you do add happiness, the citizen is already born and ready to work. Or just whip him.

The one time Avoid Growth is correct is if a city will grow into unhappiness by a margin of 0 or 1 extra food. Then it's correct to click Avoid Growth for just that turn, which avoids losing 2 food to the angry citizen on the next turn.

Excellent analysis! I wrote that clicking that it's a button that just shoots your city in the foot 95+% of the time, but it would also have been true if I'd written 99.99+%. I don't have a gripe with whoever it was who accidentally clicked that button. It happens. I'm mostly unhappy with that button for existing.

Let's remember that Civ is first meant for interactive play, not for static screenshots. But that can be modded anyway. And Civ still does do a great job of displaying lots of information in each image; compare it to trying to report on Diablo or Guild Wars where you can only mouseover one object at a time.

Oh, absolutely. I probably came off as more critical than I meant to. I'm not a huge fan of the interface, partly for this reason (needing to mouse-over different things means I can't see both mouse-over-able things simultaneously on the screen, which even dynamically is more significant - to me at least - than you might think) but there are lots of good things about it too; it could certainly be a lot worse.

You should always have a little emotional detachment from your games, you cannot have total control over other people/teams therefore there is always the possiblity that 20 Currisiers will pile across the borders from a direction you'd never have conceived, razing every city till your no more.

Game is down btw.

Heh. Indeed, emotional detachment is a good thing - even if nothing goes wrong. It IS just a game!

I hear what your saying, and it's not as though I'm going to jump from the nearest tall building if 500 Cavs pour into our sleepy little civ a month from now, but I've never been good at the whole emotional detachment thing, unfortunately, which is a big part of why I no longer play lots of empire building over weeks or months games, even though I was pretty good at them. I get too involved. I care too much.

SP games of Civ or MoO don't cause this sort of problem for me, but they are also a lot less satisfying than competing against real people.

At some point in a few weeks, I'll probably need to take a few days off to recharge again, and I know when war does break out I'll want you to handle it, Morgan, as I know you're better at that sort of thing than I am. I also, certinally, want any suggestions you have.

I second the desire for suggestions from Morgan. I also third and fourth it. (I'm a writer, so you can blame the third and fourth on characters I invented, or assume I have multiple personalities.)

I've taken a bit ill (yes, I know, sleep, health, etc.) and with the game down anyway, I'm going to try to get to bed early tonite.

Get well soon! I'm a little under the weather myself, but it's nothing severe, fortunately.

[Morgan]

I'll be honest, there is nothing I can add right now you have both covered every aspect incredibly well. If war does come to our shores i'll probably have some input ( but i doubt i'll get word in edgeways )

I've got things covered this weekend if the game returns, you both have a nice weekend relaxing weekend celebrating your independence from us evil Brits. ( if you want PM your cell phone number and i'll promise to ring if anything happens )

[RefSteel]

Quick notes/thoughts:

Hukawng Valley doesn't need another fp farm after all. What it DOES need is a plains river farm (note that there's a plain with a complete road and one turn of farming already on it) by turn 139. I believe we can get a settler out of HV (complete and ready to move while we start something else) on turn 143 (one turn later than in the previous version of the plan) and a second out of Fierias on turn 146 (again, complete and ready to move that turn) - two turns earlier than we'd planned to have one out of HV. The capital would also get an aqueduct and either a Hindu Missionary or a Theater (more on this later - much later though) prior to the settler, which would be a one-turn build. The main problem would be that we'd be delaying workers. If we're willing to delay the last settler, Fierias can instead build Missionary-Worker-Worker after U Sankore, completing on turns 142, 143, and 144, respectively.

I'll talk about the rest of the empire when I know more about it.....

[RefSteel]

( but i doubt i'll get word in edgeways )

Uh ... I talk too much, obviously.

I've got things covered this weekend if the game returns, you both have a nice weekend relaxing weekend celebrating your independence from us evil Brits.

Heh. You know that silly list of world leaders you get when you finish a game of Civ4? Augustus Caesar (I wouldn't put him first) through Dan Quayle (obviously a joke)? One of the names I think is most misplaced is Henry VIII. It would be far more appropriate to give his low-ranking spot to George III, whose most notable act was "losing" the American colonies!

(Notice, by the way, that there are no women on the list, nor any Asian leaders. Taking one of my favorites of those who don't appear in the game, I nominate Shotoku of Japan for a spot high up on the list, but probably not in the top five. Using the same criteria, I'd maybe throw Marie Antoinette further down on the list near her husband, and ... uh ..... I seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked.)

[Maniac Marshall]

I'd love to tell you more about our empire, but the game is down and there's been not a peep from anyone (at least in THIS IT thread) about when it might return.

The one settler, we for sure need asap for Savannah. The other one, I'm not so sure of anymore. Byz Bob tells me he's gearing that city we'd overlap with for aculture war with an Indian city over 3 floodplains... Yeah, I don't see us waging a culture war with it for 1 FP and a mountian. In fact, it might be better to just move it. I'd provide pictures, but, uhh, the game is down...

Also, I've been chatting a bit with Warrior Knight, and I'm beginning to smell a rat. He's told me multiple times (how nice it is for us) that we don't need a large military yet... (he has our graphs now btw) Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but it makes me wonder if he's trying to set us up for a cav rush... something to think about anyhow.

Morgan, one thing you absolutely can and I hope will do is suggest what units we should build, and where we should station them.

When the game comes back up, we have a warrior who was sentrying in the north that should now be redundant. With Carthage's new city, there should be nowhere left for barbs to spawn near him. I suggest he could be pulled back to MP somewhere. NOT Red Dwarf, as it CAN still get menaced by barbs.
That city should have a "real" defender, and a 2nd barb killing unit too. It WOULD be nice, however, if we could reposition that crossbow somewhere in the south and maybe put a different unit there.

BTW: I've put a Monastery up for build in Kilrah. It's "3 turns" but it grows next turn. If the new citizen and one other citizen as well work those plains hills the following turn, we can get it in 2 and get back to military. I suggest we preserve the 3 remaining forests there for chopping into a national wonder of some sort. We'll have RP shortly and can boost them by a hammer temporarily with a lumber mill.

I'm much sicker today than I was yesterday. I'm going to try to go to sleep now...

[RefSteel]

I'd love to tell you more about our empire, but the game is down and there's been not a peep from anyone (at least in THIS IT thread) about when it might return.

Game's back up now, but don't feel like you have to give me comprehensive data about the empire. I don't have time to do anything with it! (And will be away from this evening until sometime on Tuesday anyway.)

The one settler, we for sure need asap for Savannah.

Okay. I found a way to speed it back up by a turn. Note that you should DISREGARD what I said about the floodplain and the plains farm however; if the workers are where I think they are, it might be a good idea for them to put a turn apiece into such a farm just because that's the way the movement seems to work out, but what we actually need is a FARM on the LAST HV FLOODPLAIN by Turn 139. If we wish to cottage over it later, that'll be okay, but right now, we need as much food as we can get, to make up for the "Avoid Growth" period. (The seventh farm will mean we can actually regrow WHILE building a settler, due to massive food surplus.)

The other one, I'm not so sure of anymore. Byz Bob tells me he's gearing that city we'd overlap with for aculture war with an Indian city over 3 floodplains... Yeah, I don't see us waging a culture war with it for 1 FP and a mountian. In fact, it might be better to just move it. I'd provide pictures, but, uhh, the game is down...

There are pictures upthread someplace anyway. Let's see ... ah: here. Do you think this makes it worth moving the city to the site that gets bananas in its second ring? (The one you marked as "Health City?") At all events, if Byz is going to be (competently) fighting a (serious) culture war down there, we ARE going to want to plant our city quickly, to make absolutely sure we keep the tiles that are 2nd ring for us and 3rd ring for Byz. (Note it should only be a "serious" culture war if India takes it seriously and puts their city into culture-war mode too.)

Also, I've been chatting a bit with Warrior Knight, and I'm beginning to smell a rat. He's told me multiple times (how nice it is for us) that we don't need a large military yet... (he has our graphs now btw) Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but it makes me wonder if he's trying to set us up for a cav rush... something to think about anyhow.

What do you suggest we do differently if that's the case? If the concern is specifically a Cav rush, any units we build right now should probably be Cats (and maybe Cuiraiosities to go all F2 on any enemy siege that threaten) and we should make sure our empire is prepared to whip and/or draft a gazillion Aggressive Rifles when the tech comes in.

Morgan, one thing you absolutely can and I hope will do is suggest what units we should build, and where we should station them.

Also, anything at all as far as most of our empire is concerned. The reason I was asking about the rest of the empire above is that I want to make sure we get theaters in a timely manner, in hopes of building the globe ASAP; I'm not planning on creating detailed plans for everyone and everything! Also, just because I suggest something doesn't mean I'm right, or that it's the best thing to do!

When the game comes back up, we have a warrior who was sentrying in the north that should now be redundant. With Carthage's new city, there should be nowhere left for barbs to spawn near him. I suggest he could be pulled back to MP somewhere. NOT Red Dwarf, as it CAN still get menaced by barbs.

Smithsonian, maybe? (Or is it already defended?) It's still small for now, but it's going to be growing QUICKLY.

BTW: I've put a Monastery up for build in Kilrah.

I'd replace it with a temple. The Monastery may not pay for its own hammers before going obsolete, and Kilrah is our HE city, so that doesn't seem like the place to give up hammers for beakers. I don't see building any more monasteries unless a city wants a bunch of culture. A temple, on the other hand, is very worthwhile, I believe; way more hammers over the course of the game, and trading hammers in this era for hammers in the era of rifles, cavs, and more, seems like a good thing to me.

I suggest we preserve the 3 remaining forests there for chopping into a national wonder of some sort.

Which wonder would we build there? Note however that the forests will also help with health, of course. (I think. Civ's rounding mechanics are annoying.) And of course lumbermills help make them worthwhile anyway.

I'm much sicker today than I was yesterday. I'm going to try to go to sleep now...

I hope you feel better soon!

[RefSteel]

Okay, here are my three specific, updated plans:


Fierias:
[EDIT: Image updated.]


It has all the improved tiles it needs for now.


Hukawng Valley:
[EDIT: Image ALSO updated]


Note it doesn't need a plains tile farmed until T146 (and another T147).


Finally, so you don't have to search upthread...

Smithsonian Park:



Its worker actions will be repeated below.

[RefSteel]

Next few turns of worker actions around Smithsonian Park:

Turn 140:

Smithsonian grows to size 5!! It builds a forge, working both pigs and all three floodplains.

Toulouse moves 1S to a floodplain, farms, and CANCELS orders.

Berlioz and Nala farm and CANCEL orders.

----------

Turn 141:

Smithsonian grows to size 6!!! It builds a forge, working both pigs, all three floodplains, and a grassland forest.

Toulouse and Berlioz farm; complete.

Nala moves 1E to a floodplain, farms, and CANCELS orders.

----------

Turn 142:

Smithsonian builds a forge, working both pigs, all three floodplains, and a grassland forest.

Toulouse and Berlioz move 1E to a floodplain, farm, and CANCEL orders.

Nala farms and CANCELS orders.


----------

Turn 143:

Smithsonian grows to size 7, and builds a forge, working both pigs, all three floodplains, and both grassland forests.

All three Workers farm; complete.

----------

Turn 144:

Smithsonian grows to size 8! It builds a forge, working both pigs, all three floodplains, both grassland forests, and an unimproved river grassland.

Toulouse and Berlioz move 2S to a pre-farmed river grassland and farm.

Nala moves 1N-1NE to a plains hill and mines.

----------

Turn 145:

Smithsonian grows to size 9!! It builds a forge, WHIPS it for 2 pop, and works both pigs, all three floodplains, and both grassland forests.

Toulouse and Berlioz farm; complete.

Nala mines.

----------

Turn 146:

Smithsonian regrows to size 8, and builds a library, working both pigs, all three floodplains, the grass farm, and both grassland forests.

Toulouse moves 1N-1NE-1N-1NE to a grass forest.

Berlioz moves 1N-2NE to another grass forest.

Nala mines.

----------

Turn 147:

Smithsonian regrows to size 9! It builds a library, working both pigs, all three floodplains, a grass farm, both grassland forests, and its northern plains hill.

Toulouse chops.

Berlioz chops.

Nala mines; complete.

----------

Turn 148:

Smithsonian grows to size 10!! It builds a library and WHIPS it for 2 pop, then works both pigs, all three floodplains, both grassland forests, and its plains hill mine.

Toulouse chops.

Berlioz chops.

Nala moves 1S to a plains tile and farms.

----------

Turn 149:

Smithsonian builds the National Epic, working both pigs, all three floodplains, the grassland farm, and the plains hill mine, and an Engineer specialist.

Toulouse chops; complete.

Berlioz chops; complete.

Nala farms.

----------

Turn 150:

Smithsonian grows to size 9 and completes the National Epic!

[RefSteel]

And finally:

Please let me know if you find it non-intuitive or confusing to try to read the spreadsheets, the text worker plans, or both. Everyone thinks about these things in different ways, and my goal is to write such plans as I have in the form that's easiest for people to actually use.

One really important thing about reading the spreadsheets:

If at any time any of the spreadsheets disagree with the game, please, please let me know. If you think it's just a miscalculation, it means I need to fix my miscalculation and recalculate. If you think it doesn't make a difference, I still need to know in case whatever mistake of mine led to it has a bigger impact later. No matter what reason might exist for not mentioning it, please IGNORE that reason, and say, "Hey, it shouldn't matter, but your health space is off by one" or "You're crazy; the city is size 5, not size 6," or whatever it is.

[Maniac Marshall]

Game's back up now, but don't feel like you have to give me comprehensive data about the empire. I don't have time to do anything with it! (And will be away from this evening until sometime on Tuesday anyway.)

I'll do this on Sunday then.

Okay. I found a way to speed it back up by a turn. Note that you should DISREGARD what I said about the floodplain and the plains farm however; if the workers are where I think they are, it might be a good idea for them to put a turn apiece into such a farm just because that's the way the movement seems to work out, but what we actually need is a FARM on the LAST HV FLOODPLAIN by Turn 139. If we wish to cottage over it later, that'll be okay, but right now, we need as much food as we can get, to make up for the "Avoid Growth" period. (The seventh farm will mean we can actually regrow WHILE building a settler, due to massive food surplus.)

I think we can do that. I pulled a 3rd worker down to help, but misclicked farm not road with him last turn

There are pictures upthread someplace anyway. Let's see ... ah: here. Do you think this makes it worth moving the city to the site that gets bananas in its second ring? (The one you marked as "Health City?") At all events, if Byz is going to be (competently) fighting a (serious) culture war down there, we ARE going to want to plant our city quickly, to make absolutely sure we keep the tiles that are 2nd ring for us and 3rd ring for Byz. (Note it should only be a "serious" culture war if India takes it seriously and puts their city into culture-war mode too.)

I just don't know. I HATE moving any city OFF a river with levee's looming, especially one that has hills... you know, that could be a really productive site...

What do you suggest we do differently if that's the case? If the concern is specifically a Cav rush, any units we build right now should probably be Cats (and maybe Cuiraiosities to go all F2 on any enemy siege that threaten) and we should make sure our empire is prepared to whip and/or draft a gazillion Aggressive Rifles when the tech comes in.

I think we should build some cats, a few pikes to kill curies or knights... Their ENTIRE stack won't be Cavs. I think we need to keep our next great person for a golden age so we can revolt to nationalism to draft w/o losing a turn in case of emergency.

Also, anything at all as far as most of our empire is concerned. The reason I was asking about the rest of the empire above is that I want to make sure we get theaters in a timely manner, in hopes of building the globe ASAP; I'm not planning on creating detailed plans for everyone and everything! Also, just because I suggest something doesn't mean I'm right, or that it's the best thing to do!

Oh I agree with this, but especially military...

Smithsonian, maybe? (Or is it already defended?) It's still small for now, but it's going to be growing QUICKLY.

Smiths is guarded by a mace atm. Perhaps we could shift the mace to replace the crossbow.

I'd replace it with a temple. The Monastery may not pay for its own hammers before going obsolete, and Kilrah is our HE city, so that doesn't seem like the place to give up hammers for beakers.

I'm pretty sure we'll get the hammers back if we build it NOW, and it's a convenient 2 turn build.

I don't see building any more monasteries unless a city wants a bunch of culture. A temple, on the other hand, is very worthwhile, I believe; way more hammers over the course of the game, and trading hammers in this era for hammers in the era of rifles, cavs, and more, seems like a good thing to me.

No worries, we'll be building these.

Which wonder would we build there? Note however that the forests will also help with health, of course. (I think. Civ's rounding mechanics are annoying.) And of course lumbermills help make them worthwhile anyway.

I dono. Rushmore? Even if we don't, lumber mills are fine tiles for it in the near term.

I hope you feel better soon!

I'm a little better today. With a day off Sunday, hopefully I'll be good to go by Monday.