regoarrarr Wrote:So how do we pass messages to other civs? Actually one thought that I had over lunch was that since this is a PB game, rather than the previous AI Diplo games which (AFAICT) have all been PBEMs, you might even be able to "coordinate" with another player in-game by passing different messages. I give you a fish, you give me a fish back, we offer open borders, etc. That may not be exactly in the spirit of things for this casual pitboss though - it was just a thought I had.
But here are some thoughts for ways to offer things through the diplo window that could be used to communicate:
* Resource trades, or even better, resource gifts. It doesn't even have to cost us anything - if we have a spare fish, we offer it to another civ to show goodwill. Or if we have corn but not wheat, we trade corn to someone for wheat.
* Unit gifts. At some point we will likely have spare obsolete units (warriors, archers, etc.) - so at one point we just gift the unit to the power we're courting
* Missionaries! So these are units too, so somewhat covered above, but in addition, converting people to "our" faith has benefits. Our shrine will be huge, plus for whatever reason, even though there's no real reason for humans to take stock in the "Brothers and sisters of the faith" bonus, it does seem to happen. I think this is a HUGE pro to the concept of the monk economy.
* Utilizing "countdowns". So say we want to attack Krill in 20 turns, and want to get say Azza on our side. So we offer "War with Krill" for 20g on our side. Then next turn we do "War with Krill" for 19g, etc. Or maybe do it every 5 turns or so. Or maybe we make it "War with Krill" and 20g for 20g, so we don't actually lose tons of gold.
Then there's also unit naming, though again, that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of things. We'll have to try to brainstorm some other ideas to see what we can think of.
I don't think we have all the options that you do when you play the AI. IIRC, you don't get the "stop trading with" or "declare war on" options with human players. So it will be a lot more difficult to convey attacking someone.
I didn't like unit naming; there were times in 23 where I held back on even doing fun naming conventions because I didn't want to influence other people. But I can tell you from experience that running a huge SOD through one power's land to attack another power that the first power is at war with is a great way to indicate friendship
regoarrarr Wrote:My initial thoughts are probably worker first and then Fishing -> BW. The good news with the changes to EXP is that we will get 5 f-h/t on our worker (whereas in the base game we would not). We will also get an extra hammer on our workboats.
And uh.... this capital has a lot of food. We will definitely want to share some with other cities, but it looks like we're on a peninsula, so the only sharing will be the southern clams.
It does look like land W-NW of the pigs. We could always not SIP. Settling on the plains saves a forest but means the fish is orphaned and delays the pigs a turn. Remember we can pasture the pigs just with Hunting, which we already have.
It looks like we are near the islands of a big & small map. So Colossus just went up in value, and possible Great Lighthouse if we're going to be settling a lot of islands. The fog to the north seems to be over water, if I can see the bleeding right, and there is probably an island to the NW. So eventually a city on that island can share the clam & pig, and another city on our starting island can share the southern clam. But as a capital city it may leave stuff to be desired; this looks more like a great Moai, Drafting, or Great Person city location.
Which way do we scout first? Warrior to the NE? That could let us know if moving the settler is worth it. I'm inclined to SIP, unless we see something worth moving for. I agree with your tech path, and that we'd be going worker -> work boat. Let's see, some quick micro would get us:
And then we start a settler at size 3 on turn [strike]14[/strike] 23. Or if we want to build something else we could keep working the pig and hill and do that too. It may be worth while to grow to 4 and then 2-pop whip our settler out.
Edit: lol, just realized all that was figured for quick speed. Well, the beakers were for normal speed. I'll fix and replace
I think SIP probably makes the most sense. I mean, considering according to some (many?) I LOST PB4 on T0 by NOT SIP, I'd hate to make that mistake again
One problem with your micro plan - on T17 we shouldn't farm the plains tile a) because plains farms suck but more importantly b) we don't have Agriculture
I was actually thinking while falling asleep last night (the true sign of a Civ nerd ) that we should go BW first. Yes, that means we delay being able to start the WB, but I bet we finish one first. Remember, our EXP 35% bonus on workboats means even a pre-Math chop of 20h is about enough to finish a boat in 1t (20 * 1.35 = 27 out of the 30h)
I did a real quick first play-through. I played to T39
Tech path was BW, Fishing, Wheel, Mysticism, then half of Polytheism.
Build queue was worker->warrior->WB->worker->WB -> WB -> Settler (I think). Settler born on T35, and founded T38 2S of the southern clams.
Pigs pastured, all the seafood netted, 3 grass mines up and a road almost complete to Gondar. I'm sure it can be improved as I wasn't really trying at this point
Okay so in looking at the starting position generator, well first of all, there is an article on CivFanatics but CivFanatics is down
But what it looks like it does is
a) Add forests
b) Try to get you to 4 resources, with seafood counting as 2/3 resource
c) Add 3 hills
So... judging by the fact that we have all this seafood here, and we do have 3 hills, I would say that it is very likely that our starting position was improved. But since we can only see "3" resources (remember seafood counts as 2/3), and most of the other tiles are either forested or coast, I would say that the odds of there being a resource on that bare plains tile is very high. Ideally it would be copper, but probably better odds of horse.
I did a real quick first play-through. I played to T39
Tech path was BW, Fishing, Wheel, Mysticism, then half of Polytheism.
Build queue was worker->warrior->WB->worker->WB -> WB -> Settler (I think). Settler born on T35, and founded T38 2S of the southern clams.
Pigs pastured, all the seafood netted, 3 grass mines up and a road almost complete to Gondar. I'm sure it can be improved as I wasn't really trying at this point
I'm a fan of BW first after looking at it more. Worker isn't twiddling his thumbs (or "farming the plains" as I like to call it ) in this version and it looks like the first chop times nicely into our first work boat if you chop&mine at once.
I guess I am a little concerned about how we're going to build the Oracle. 3 grass hills is going to get us 15hpt (after IND bonus) and it looks like we'll just have 1 forest left to chop for another 45h (again, after IND bonus). Hopefully we see something more out there to help along.
Also, with the bonuses, this may be crazy but it is possible that we have more seafood north of those hills. That would really be overkill, so hopefully you're right about that plains tile. We could use some copper there to help us build our wonder.
I'll do some sims later today, and I'll probably see if I can improve things with whipping pre-granary (probably not, but that's a ton of food). But it's my great aunt's 99th birthday so I need to join the partying pretty soon.
Well we don't have to chop all those forests - I was just chopping them for lack of anything else to do.
We can save some of them for Oracle and/or Stonehenge. Henge probably isn't that big of a priority since we're gunning for a religion as our method of border popping, but it's an option.
Greetings Bismarcks! I've planted my ded-lurker flag here after some effort in finding this buried thread!
Looks like a decent start so far... would T38 be considered a late/early or avg second? ( i;ll *try* to limit my newb questions to one per post, to help with the spam )
--
Best dating advice on RB: When you can't hide your unit, go in fast and hard. -- Sullla
) that we should go BW first. Yes, that means we delay being able to start the WB, but I bet we finish one first. Remember, our EXP 35% bonus on workboats means even a pre-Math chop of 20h is about enough to finish a boat in 1t (20 * 1.35 = 27 out of the 30h)![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8082680/pb5/Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG)
) in this version and it looks like the first chop times nicely into our first work boat if you chop&mine at once.