[SPOILER] PBEM21, "Zero to Hero" (Kuro, Pericles' Ottomania)

[Kuro]

The turns are just flying by, eh?

Demographics are the same. We should start seeing some differences shortly, I guess.



Look at thaaaat. That is a disgustingly nice city. 2x happiness resource, 2x food resource and a hell of a lot of forests? That looks delicious to me!

Perhaps more importantly, look at the coast. Unless there's a small land bridge up ahead, we start on a very small island. If we do, The Great Lighthouse becomes supreme and Galley expansion becomes key.

With that forest spot, maybe we should make a run for it anyway if it's avalibile...nothing really special to say here. C&D might just start next turn.

Ciao~

[Kuro]

I get the save and, after being interrupted by real life for a moment, begin to take a look.



As we can see, Jkioan's team has risen 6 points. Normally, it would be consistant with a pop increase, but the top 5 cities shows this is not true.

Such a short time for a tech, then, means it must be Fishing or Hunting. And since they are Holy Rome, and so already start with Hunting. Therefor, they must have researched Fishing!

The Demographics screen is the truly confusing one, though!



SOMEBODY is making 4 hammers, 3 food. If we assume everypme starts pm a plains hill, a fair assumption, this means a food 1, 2 hammer tile. Okay, that's consistant with working the Forested Grassland Hill we all probably own.

But my confusion is: If anyone was building a Worker, wouldn't it show up as 5 hammers, due to the Expansive bonus? Does the Expansive bonus not apply to the demos screen?

If it does apply, that means somebody is making 4 hammers per turn towards something not a Worker. If we combine this with the above thesis...

Jkioan:
T5 - Fishing
Slow building a Work Boat???

...That'd be a really weird descision and waste of Expansive!

If the demos screen doesn't apply the bonus, we can just assume somebody switched to the grassland forest hill with the auto-governer at the end of the turn.

Anyway, moving off C&D, scouting!



Ahahaha. Look at that, Clams again. We just need Crabs and we're set for seafood health, lol.

More importantly, unless there is a 1-tile wide diagonial path above the Clams, my initial idea was almost certainly correct. Mining -> BW -> Fishing -> Sailing path seems almost obvious to go here, maybe Mining -> BW -> Fishing -> Hunting(Ivory, on the river should auto-connect) -> Sailing.

Hm. Alternate map theory: We're all on a small island and the island we see at the start is a large mainland we all have access too.

Nothing left to do this turn, so I end it.

[Kuro]

Hey, this is probably an odd question, but how's my reporting style so far? Not informative enough? Too informative? Not enough emotion? Good?

[SevenSpirits]

Great! I'm enjoying reading your thread.

[Kuro]

Well, that means I'm doing something right, then! =)

So, I've been working on a MM plan, I'm thinking I may go Worker -> Worker -> Settler(-> Work Boat -> Work Boat/Warrior -> Warrior/Galley).


T7 - Mining in, start BW(15 turns)
T12 - Worker in, Capital starts on Worker(12 turns)
Worker goes to farm Corn(4 turns)
T16 - Worker finishes Corn(6 FPT), Worker being build @ 20/60
At 6 FPT(+ 2 hammers from city tile)...

Let me do a calc here.

T16 - 20/60
T17 - 28/60
T18 - 36/60
T19 - 42/60
T20 - 50/60
T21 - 58/60
T22 - 66/60

The Worker finishes on Turn 22.

So T16, the Worker I own goes to mine the unforested Grassland hill(1 turn of movement + 4 turns of mining = 5 turns)

T21 - Mine done, Worker moves into the grassland Forest 1W of the capital
T22 - BW in, Worker #2 in, begin on Settler, which would be done normally in...12 or 13 turns, I'm not sure. I'll just go with 13.
Worker #1 begins chopping the forest it is in(3 turns), Worker #2 moves to the Forest 1S of the capital and then begins chopping(1 movement turn + 3 turns chopping). Research into Fishing(5T)
T25 - Worker #1 finishes chopping, begins farming the tile it's on(4T) because it has nothing better to do yet. Settler gets +20 hammers to it(42/100). Capital expands borders.
T26 - Worker #2 finishes chopping, begins pre-chopping the grassland hill tile(Since I don't need another farm yet for sure). Settler gets +20 hammers to it(70/100)
T27 - Fishing comes in, begin on Sailing(13 turns)
T28 - Worker #2 finishes pre-chopping and begins pre-chopping the hill 1S
T29 - Worker #1 finishes the farm. He'll begin pre-chopping the forest 1S of my new city(2 turns of movement time).
T30 - Settler completes! It heads to 1S of the Gold, which unless I'm missing something gets all of Rice/Gold/Fish/Ivory after one border expansion. 4 turns of travel time. Capital builds a Work Boat until it grows(At 6 FPT, that is 6 + 6 + 6 +6, or 4T)
T31 - Worker #2 finishes pre-chopping and moves to pre-chop the hill 1E of it.
T33 - Both Workers come off of their pre-chopping and cogregate on the Rice tile.
T34 - City is founded, rice is quickly improved by 2x Workers! Capital grows and whips Work Boat.
T35 - Work Boat is made and improved Fish, capital begins on either a garrison Warrior or a scouting Work Boat w/ overflow and works to grow to size 4 ASAP to doublewhip a Galley.

I think I may have slightly messed up these calcs, though, specifically the pre-chop times. However if I did it right, I should have 2 Workers, 2 cities and a Work Boat used by T35, which doesn't seem bad. It still seems a bit slow to me, though...do you guys think this time is good? I don't see the point of, say, Worker -> Warrior -> Worker/Settler because without a second food resource ASAP we don't get the Settler/second Worker out significantly faster I think and we don't need a garrison Warrior that early. I think going Worker -> Worker -> Settler will get us a similar time for it all, but exchanging a Warrior with a Worker.

What do you guys think on all this? Or did I fuck up the math somewhere anyway?

[Kuro]

Random statistical note:

Second city has 6 forests, for 6 x 30 = 180 hammers post-Maths, and I believe can steal a 7th from Erodan. Alternately, 6 x 20 = 120 hammers pre-Maths, 140 if we steal a 7th.

For wonders, this means we can build:
The Oracle(w/ 10 or 30 hammers in pre-Maths)
Most of The Hanging Gardens
Stonehenge(LOL)
The Great Lighthouse(If it's not gone)
The Great Library(But we need 140 hammers to come from somewhere...)
Most of The Colossus(This might be worth it...)
Half of The Pyramids
Half of The Apollistic Palace

Note that all of those are w/o doublers, for obvious reasons. I doubt we're going to go after many, if any, of those...but it's something to consider going ahead.

[Kuro]

So, I just got the save.

There is something extremely fucking weird going on here lol. I'll have report after I wrap my head around what must be going on.

[Kuro]

Okay, now that I've examined it more throughly, it's actually not very weird at all.

Which is sad because I'd of loved for my opponents to be playing that badly

[Kuro]

So at first, I thought some weird shit was going down, mostly because I thought the Expansive bonus showed up on the Demos screen. Apparantly it does not. Let's get to it, shall we?

Demolishing Demographics:



Okay, so it turns out "The Fuck" was not a proper term for this screenie. OH WELL.

Let's examine what we can know here:
2 players are working 4 production and 2 are working 2 production. I am a 2 producer. This is because if you average two 4s and two 2s, you get a 3 average.
Two players are working 1 food tiles and two are working 3 food tiles. I am working wet Corn(3 food). Therefor, the one two producer must also be working wet Corn or another 3 food 1 commerce tile
2 players are pulling in 19 GNP and 2 players are pulling in 16 GNP. I am pulling in 19 GNP due to being Creative + working a 1 commerce tile. Therefor, somebody else must be working a 1 commerce tile AND a tech which they get a 20% pre-req bonus on.

So 2 players are first building Workers and another opponent is slow building something else.

I would think the slow builder may be Jkioan, as with his Hunting/Mysticism start and -> Fishing, his Worker has nothing to do if he goes Worker first. If he was going Worker first, he'd go Agriculture first.

So we can codify the following...

Jkioan:
T5 - Fishing
Slow building either a Warrior or now a Work Boat

Ellimoogle Carpathia:
Building a Worker

NobleLewwyn:
Building a Worker

In addition, a 20% prereq tech is being worked, so...

Jkioan:
Polytheism
Meditation
Sailing
Archery
Animal Husbandry
Masonry

Ellimoogle Carpathia:
Bronze Working
Sailing
Masonry

NobleLewwyn:
Bronze Working
Masonry

For each person, if they are the Corn worker, they must be getting one of the following techs.

We can strike Masonry from all lists, as we seen no resourcs of that type and it's unlikey that Krill'd give, say, one civ Stone, one civ Marble and the rest NOTHING. Plus, going Masonry first before scouting is asking for trouble.

Carpathia probably isn't going Sailing either, no reason yet. Jkioan wouldn't be going Archery for an isolated start and unless he has Pigs or something as a food resource probably not AH either.

So the best bet, I feel, is that Jkioan went Fishing first and will slow build a Warrior and then a Work Boat(Or Work Boat -> ???) while teching a religion. The other two are researching Agriculture while going Worker first.

If what I said about Jkioan is true, then LOL noob move. With the only Mysticism civ in the game you can afford to go at the least Fishing -> Agriculture -> Religion, if not Fishing -> Agriculture -> Mining -> Religion or even BW in there.

Well, anyway, if my C&D is right or wrong...we'll find out soon enough, I guess.

Now to actually do the one thing I need to do Warrior only has one place to go.



As you can see, confirmed that we are on a small island. There should be space enough for four cities there. Will show dotmap after next turn unfogs that last tile.

Turn ends, Mining comes in. Interestingly enough, looking at BW shows it comes in at 12 turns, not 15(I thought 15 seemed odd, eh!). So my plan is slightly accelerated: I'll get everything done a little earlier in exchange for not getting the grassland mine I was't going to work anyway at my cap. Fine by me!

[Kuro]

> Kuro: Throw darts while waiting for save.

...I get the feeling all of these turns are going to feel as anxious and agonizing while I make an MM plan.

Okay, back to those forests. Let's say I don't want to chop a wonder. What else can I get out of them?

2 Settlers
1 Settler + 1 and a half Workers
3 Workers
4 Galleys(lol)
7 Chariots
5 Chariots + 1 Galley
2 Workers + Granary
1 Settler + Granary + half a Worker
Forge + Settler
Forge + 2 Workers

Personally, I like the 2 Settlers plan: As soon as Maths is in, flash chop out two and send them off on our Galley while heading towards Currency. Thanks to Gold + Scientists, our research rate shouldn't hurt too much when we settle them, but it means stagnating 2nd city.

I really wish I could MM up to then, but IDK how much 2nd city will cost or how fast it can return some commerce.