[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[NobleHelium]

Apparently it's already turn 45? What the hell, I thought it was only like turn 42.

Anyhow, as I'm sure all the lurkers know already, we held the turn to wait for a response from Jkioan. The result?

[size="7"]NO DEAL[/size]

That Deal or No Deal game show is the dumbest game show ever created by the way. The concept itself is okay as a game, I just can't believe that people are willing to watch some guy and his friends & family yell for an hour.

Basically I offered them gold to not compete for it, and they couldn't come up with a number that they'd be willing to accept that wasn't so ludicrous that we'd be willing to go for it. I imagine it'd be something on the order of 500-600g. So yeah. Race it is. We'll be going for the EOT 52 build. I'll catch up on the turn reports shortly, I promise.

[NobleHelium]

Okay, turn 44.



Ellimist got a tech. It's a no-power tech. Kuro got land points! That's about it. Sorry about the flimsiness.

Turn 45.



Kuro's capital grew back to 3, and he got a tech worth 2k power, as well as another warrior. Also, as an addendum, Kuro built a warrior on turn 43, since his power went up 1k while he simultaneously lost 2 pop, and he didn't get a tech.

Anyhow, about the Oracle again, I wouldn't be surprised if we get it. I didn't realize it was already turn 45. If they were close to finishing it (say 3 turns), I doubt they would have bothered negotiating at all. Anyway, since the target date is seven turns away, it shouldn't hurt us too much even if we fail to get it. Obviously in hindsight we shouldn't be bothered negotiating and alerting them to the competition, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Reminders for next turn: start building ORACLE, keep going until either we win or lose. SKIP THE WORK BOAT, no point in whipping it since most of the whip will be for the boat itself. Not sure what I was thinking there planning to whip that. Turn off tech. Start tech on HUNTING. Swap Hydrogen to SETTLER, work the newly built COTTAGE.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 46. I've realized that our thread is actually pretty damn boring, because all you see is demographics screenshot after demographics screenshot. But we can't actually explore anything and the island looks the same every turn, so I'm not sure what you'd gain from seeing a screenshot of it. I did however spam a bunch of signs this turn, as I am wont to do:



We also got this:





Demographics look absolutely terrible. So those posts in the lurker thread are either saying that we'll barely beat Jkioan to the Oracle or laughing at how we'll fall hopelessly behind. I actually feel like we've done something fundamentally wrong, like not planting next to that rice...I saw that spot between the forests and it looked like a gimme though. Next to the rice would have wasted a forest. Shrug, I don't know. Hopefully the next six turns will pass quickly so I can stop fretting over the Oracle.

Kuro has grown his second (!) city to size 4, but not his capital. Jkioan has researched Wheel, and will be getting Pottery next, obviously. Pottery will take them 3-4 turns, based upon that 40 GNP guess and comparing to our Pottery research rate at 36 GNP. They have more culture (than we had at the time) so less research, plus we had gold saved up. They may need to save gold for a turn (or they may be running breakeven). So obviously they will not be finishing Oracle before then, although they could finish it on the same turn as Pottery.

Knowing the map as it is, Louis would have been a stronger choice. We could then still found on that nice nook between the forests and get access to the rice in five turns (faster than we built Stonehenge), and save forests for Oracle and be guaranteed it. We would have researched Priesthood before Pottery, and probably taken Meditation once we knew both religions would be taken. The one turn delay didn't matter with our actual build, other than taking additional beakers. The other problem is that we've basically not used the EXP bonus for workers, and only used it for granaries. And CRE's library bonus is basically the same in that respect.

Reminders for next turn are written in the signs, but the main thing is to remember to CANCEL the worker action in the south after putting one turn into the cottage. Keep the warriors awake in case we forget. And turn tech back on.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 47 this morning before going to work. Normally I would not do that, since I am very rushed in the mornings and the chance of a mistake is rather high. But I am desperately itching to get these Oracle turns over with, preferably by the end of the weekend if possible. And Lewwyn is busy with real life stuff and to a lesser extent his other games.



Demos are still terrible but at least there's something interesting going on now. Kuro grew his capital to 4, and EMC grew their capital to 6. Now the interesting part is that we now have an EP lead on Jkioan. That means they have met their other neighbor. No information as to who that is, but interesting to know. It has been only 6 turns since we made contact, and on a Donut Small map I estimated ~12 turns to make contact. So either they built two scout boats (I hope so, lol) or their other neighbor built one and found them.

Also, we are indeed three tiles off the edge of the map horizontally:

[NobleHelium]

Just checked and we only need to run deficit food for ONE turn, right when the chop comes in at 51, to be able to whip at 52.

Also, I was thinking about the prospects of Jkioan building the Oracle in their capital vs their second city, and they grew to 5 on their turn 42. 5->6 is a 30-food box, and they would have a 7 food surplus from working 2 grass mines, the corn, the fish, and a grass forest or whatever. It's been four turns since they grew, so they have at least 28 food in the box if they are building Oracle. So that means if they grow next turn, they're most likely building it in the capital. It's going to be close, since they can do a 3-pop slave and potentially had three forests to chop, which is exactly equal to our 2 forest chops and 2-pop staggered slaving. We each have two mines that give three hammers. We have the IND bonus on our mines, but our chop doesn't really come in early enough to use it (as evidenced by the fact that we don't even need to work both mines for two turns). So if they got started earlier and used all three chops in the capital for it, it's looking like we'll lose.

Hmm. They settled their second city turn 41. They got BW EOT 36 and Priesthood EOT 39. So they could very well have built the settler turn 39 and then started building the Oracle on turn 40. And the first chop would have completed during turn 39 (or 38 if they used two workers), assuming they had a worker on the forest when BW completed. Not looking good. The only plus side is that they couldn't have been working the second mine until the forest got chopped. I'm definitely wishing we hadn't talked to them about it, since I'm sure they'll slave it as soon as possible now, whereas they might not have otherwise. Still, not necessarily a bad decision at the time. Too bad I didn't do this thinking earlier before we talked to them.

[NobleHelium]

So yeah. We = owned. EMC built the Oracle. I thought they might have been going for it too.

On the plus side, we can now use the chop on a work boat. And no need to send the other worker to chop for now I guess, we can chop that for a granary in Lithium. I wouldn't say we're too hurt (but the useless slave still hurts) by the hammers we sunk into the Oracle (a 1-pop whip basically), but researching Priesthood for largely nothing is pretty crappy. Polytheism is useless currently obviously, but if we get Judaism it won't be so bad. Obviously we would have researched more useful techs first. At least Priesthood makes Writing really cheap.

[NobleHelium]

So yeah, let's hold the turn for a while, I need sleep and then seriously consider what we should be doing with that southern worker (as well as the build queue in Hydrogen post-settler) now that there's no need to chop.

[NobleHelium]

Okay, so I finally managed to catch Lewwyn to teach me how to play , and we changed a lot of things around. Right now the island looks like this, on turn 48:



We got our compensation money which turns out to be about 9 turns of maintenance once we build Lithium. We whipped the settler this turn and overflowed into the work boat. After that we'll build a warrior before starting the galley. As you can see we swapped over to Sailing since that's far more appropriate for the new build order. We'll probably put 1-2 chops into the galley which will complete it in a relatively reasonable timeframe.



So yeah, EMC chopped out the Oracle in their second city. I guess my estimate of "a lot of forests" was correct. They'll use the prophet points for a shrine most likely. They also got a tech, along with a 2k power increase. Probably Sailing, possibly AH or a warrior. Jkioan's capital grew to 6 as expected.

[NobleHelium]

Time for another tech roundup.

Kuro
Agriculture (0), Wheel (0), Mining (6), Bronze Working (18), Fishing (23), Hunting (29), Pottery? (36), Some Tech [coincided with a 2k power increase] (41)

Ellimist
Fishing (0), Mining (0), Agriculture (7), Bronze Working (20), Mysticism (25), Polytheism (33), Priesthood (38), Wheel (42), Pottery (44), Some Tech [coincided with a 2k power increase] (48)

Jkaen
Hunting (0), Mysticism (0), Fishing (4), Meditation (13), Agriculture (20), Mining (25), Bronze Working (35), Priesthood (39), Wheel (45)

Us
Wheel (0), Mining (0), Agriculture (7), Bronze Working (20), Mysticism (27), Fishing (32), Pottery (35), Polytheism (42), Priesthood (45), Sailing (due 52)

[NobleHelium]

So it occurs to me that the power this turn is 30k, 22k, and 21k. Last turn it was 30k, 21k, and 20k. The 21k was EMC. So it's actually Jkioan who got the 2k power increase (from a warrior, since his pop is 151k which is 150k (size 6) + 1k (size 1)), and EMC researched a no-power tech. Maybe that's Pottery and they got something else on turn 44. Next turn presumably their power will go up to at least 25k, from getting Metal Casting from the Oracle.