RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

I believe this would get rounded down...just an fyi. You're welcome to test to confirm but I'm pretty confident it is floored.

It's rounded down for an odd number of base hammers (assuming just the +50% bonus from Industrious), kept the same for an even numer of base hammers. In the case above the base hammer number is 24: 6 from overflow food, 9 from overflow hammers, 9 from city output that turn. Those 24 hammers are then multiplied by the 50% to reach 36. It's probably just the way I wrote it above which was confusing.

You're right though in that for the following three turns, where the base hammer output is 9, the Industrious benefit would round down the total hammers to 13 (not up to 14). I've taken this into account in my calculations (and tested it in the sim).

So basically, I think I've checked it thoroughly in testing, but thanks for the input anyway. Hope you're enjoying the show so far!

[athlete4life10]

Ahh thanks for the explanation. I didn't read your post(s) carefully enough I guess.

[Lord Parkin]

Ahh thanks for the explanation. I didn't read your post(s) carefully enough I guess.

No problem. I don't think I mentioned it specifically in my post anyway, so always good to check up on these things. Mistakes can happen from time to time.

Besides, with all this spam/essay-writing lately I'd be surprised if every post of mine was being carefully read by everyone.

[Lord Parkin]

So, onto turn 1!

I didn't see any objections to moving the Warrior 1NW to follow the line of hills, so I did that.



So, we have Furs (neat) and Silks (meh) nearby. Well, that might be convenient later on... although being Charismatic we won't need the extra happiness for a while, especially if we nab Stonehenge at some point. Unless we reveal something spectacular around those sites at some point in the future, I don't think they'll be a high priority for settling for us.

Anyway, next turn I suggest continuing 1NW along the hills. Senseless, does that sound okay to you?

[Lord Parkin]

I find it interesting that sunrise was the only one not to settle last turn, while everyone else either settled in place or settled 1 flatland tile away from their start. Given that we started on a plains-hill, I'd be quite surprised if everyone else didn't, which leads me to suspect that everyone else probably settled in-place on a plains-hill too. I'm guessing sunrise should have had one of these plains-hills as well (unless the map was a bit unfavourable towards them, which I doubt)... which raises the question, why didn't he settle in place?

He did start with a Scout, so maybe by luck he moved in the perfect direction and revealed a spot of immense value right next to the given start? I'd be hard pressed to see otherwise why he'd want to move from a plains-hill start (assuming he had one). If he's found a spot with significantly more (or better) food resources though, then he may be the one laughing all the way to the end of the game.

Man, I hope we didn't miss anything major to the south of our capital. (Or maybe the NE.) Oh well, a border expansion will soon tell us. At least even if sunrise got something awesome by moving, we know everyone else should be in much the same boat, so maybe later on some of us could work together to stop him if his shifted start gives him a huge advantage. We'll see, anyway.

[Senseless]

Yes, moving the warrior 1 NW sounds fine to me. After that, what are you plans for him? We probably want to keep him in a circular scouting pattern until the second warrior arrives.

[Lord Parkin]

Yes, moving the warrior 1 NW sounds fine to me. After that, what are you plans for him? We probably want to keep him in a circular scouting pattern until the second warrior arrives.

Well, I'm not sure. I think it's highly unlikely anyone has a Warrior closer than 10 turns of travelling time from us. Plus, once our borders expand, we should be able to see three tiles away from our capital in (almost?) every direction. If emergency strikes we can always fast-build a Warrior in 3 turns, so we should be safe either way. But realistically I'd be quite surprised if we see a Warrior within 3 tiles of our capital even at turn 11 - and by turn 12 we'll be safe because we'll have another Warrior built at turn 15 according to our plan anyway.

So it depends what we see when we move onto the hill 1NW next turn, but for now I'm tentatively suggesting we might want to continue in one general direction for a while with our initial Warrior (following the high ground when we can). Heading in one direction for a prolonged period gives us the best odds of finding someone else ASAP, and it's generally the case that the earlier you initiate contact with someone, the better your odds of forming a friendly relationship. (If you meet people too late, they'll sometimes already have formed friends elsewhere and be disinclined to be as friendly with you.)

Now there's no guarantee we'll want to be friends with the first nation we meet, of course (especially if they're too close), but meeting them earlier rather than later is always a better thing regardless. If nothing else we'll have knowledge of exactly where they're located from early on, so we can plan around that. Alternatively, if we end up walking for ages without finding anyone, then that's good information too, because it allows us to structure our expansion accordingly.

So either way, I think we'll probably do best if we send the first Warrior off to try to find someone (whether he does or not) - especially since we'll have a second Warrior anyway at turn 15 for scouting closer to our capital in plenty of time for the arrival of our first Settler around turn 33. (And further Warriors at turn 23 and 26, I think.)

What are your thoughts here? Do you think my proposal of going looking for someone is a bit too risky/foolish, or do you agree with it?

[Lord Parkin]

Just having a think about the possible logical ways to arrange ten starting points "fairly" on a map (assuming the X axis is longer than the Y axis, as is standard).

The options that I've come up with so far are:

Code:

* * * * * * * * * * (needs to be cylindrical or toroidal to be fair)

Code:

* * * * *
* * * * * (cylindrical/toroidal for fairness)

Code:

* * * * *
* * * * * (cylindrical/toroidal for fairness)

Code:

*
  *   *
*       *
*       *
  *   *   (flat/toroidal for fairness, could be donut or any 3+ sided layout
    *     - possible but already done before by Krill)

Code:

*       *
  *   *
*   *   *
  *   *   (probably cylindrical with sea around the main landmass for fairness
    *     - similar variants of 5x2 or 10x1 with other "wiggles" possible too)

Code:

* * * *
*     *  (only really close to fair on a flat script, and even then dubious
* * * *  - probably necessary to be an inland sea map type)

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* * *
* * * * (possible, but dubious whether it could be made fair for the middle two
* * *  - would have to be archipelago, lakes, or mountain ranges)

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*
*       *
    *
*       *
    *
*       *
    *     (similar issues to above, and probably too cramped in the Y axis)

Any other possibilities anyone can think of for arranging 10 starts semi-fairly? Any more than 4 players along a line in the Y axis would be too cramped, I think (assuming X>Y dimensions), so rotations of the 5x2 and 10x1 layouts probably wouldn't work.

What does this tell us? Personally, I think the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th layouts are the easiest to balance. Krill's already made a map like the 4th option for a previous Pitboss here, so I think that's less likely to pop up than the other map arrangements. That leaves us with three possibilities, all of which suggesting that we should almost certainly have neighbours in the East and West directions (not necessarily reachable by land though). If the map is flat or cylindrical and we find a top or bottom edge, that'll probably scratch out either the NW/N/NE or SW/S/SE directions for meeting people. Assuming one of those is knocked out, XW/X/XE (X being N or S) seem about equally likely to host nearby civs depending on the map layout, but less likely than the almost-certain W and E directions.

So basically, continuing to head W should be good. If we can head that way for long enough, we should be almost certain to either hit a barrier (sea/lake/mountain), or meet someone. Either of which is good, because it tells us (a) who we have as a neighbour and where they're located, or (b) that we're safe from attack in that direction at least for the early game. (That is unless the map's been designed to be hugely confusing to walk around.) Heading W is as good as E according to this analysis, but our Warrior's already going W at the moment so he may as well continue (a future Warrior exploring E would probably be a good idea though).

Thoughts?

[Lord Parkin]

I guess another possibility is:

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*    *
*    *
  *    *
   *    *
    *    * (or mirror image - either way really needs to be toroidal to be fair)

That'd mean it'd take longer to find someone E-W than N-S. However, I don't think it's as likely as the other four options I pointed out, and heading W would still reveal useful information even if it turns out we have a layout like this one.

[Lord Parkin]

Assuming a two-continent layout, dual donuts could be possible:

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*     * *
*   *  *   *
* *     *    (cylindrical or more likely toroidal would be necessary here)

There are only four ways I can see to evenly (fairly) split 10 players across land masses on a map: everyone on one continent, two continents with 5 players each, five continents with 2 players each, or everyone on their own island. My bet is that either two continents of 5 or everyone on the one continent are more likely. Those two would be the more interesting options to play, anyway. One player per island makes offence very difficult and typically leads to a peace-fest for a lot of the game, while 2 players per island tends to lead to pretty dull and predictable gameplay in a no tech trading game (everyone aims to eliminate the other guy and claim themselves a continent).

So, we can possibly (probably?) expect either 4 or 9 civs to be on the same land mass as us. Not groundbreaking information by any means, but good to know anyway.