RB Pitboss #1 Spoilers - Joai of the Incans - Krill/Memphus

[Krill]

There might at some point be spoiler info in this thread, just not right now...



OK? So supposedly you aren't supposed to read anymroe, but I don't really care tbh.

Poll results:

Results of poll 1: Teams
*sunrise089
*Krill + memphus
*Broker33
*ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF
*shadyforce
*regoarrarr + Danski
*Dreylin + kalin
*Imhotep
*mostly_harmless + Kodii
*Ruff
*dsplaisted + Fenton Denton Smith

Result of poll 2: Timer
18 hours

Result of poll 3: Restricted or Unrestricted leaders
Unrestricted

Result of poll 4: Duplicate civs and leaders
No duplicates

Result of poll 5: Civ/leader selection
MP/Fantasy sports style "snake pick." One random player will pick a civ or leader first, then we will head down the list of players and back up.

Result of poll 6: Game Speed
Normal

Result of poll 7: Difficulty
Noble

Result of poll 8: Huts
No huts

Result of poll 9: Barbarians
Normal barbarians

Result of poll 10: Random events
No random events

Result of poll 11: Tech trading
No tech brokering

Result of poll 12: Double moves
Double moves prohibited*

Result of poll 13: Last-minute changing of builds and techs
Last-minute changes prohibited**

* (a) - All settler moves that result in ending a turn in neutral territory must occur 9 hours (in-game) after the last movement of that settler, if applicable.
(b) - Any civilization declaring war must wait 9 hours from the war declaration to move any military units.
© - During a war all units in enemy or neutral territory, and all units in friendly territory that are capable of attacking or defending versus enemy units at any point during the turn must wait at least 9 hours following any previous move before they may move again.
(d) - When in doubt, act in good faith.

** (a) - Act in good faith to not power-game the espionage system.
(b) - Last-minute changing of builds and techs is discouraged. Changes of techs or builds during the last three hours of a turn will be considered acting in bad faith if they take place with any frequency. Habitual changing of builds or techs with less than nine hours of a turn remaining will also be considered acting in bad faith.

Result of poll 14: Contact with other teams
No contact until in-game contact.

Result of poll 15: Screenshot/map trades
Only after paper tech is discovered

[Krill]

http://i554.photobucket.com/albums/jj417...mapt44.jpg

So, anyone going to guess why I took this combo? Or is it too obvious?

The start is below. I'm slightly annoyed at getting the fish, because I was originally planning on starting with fishing and agriculture instead of myst and agriculture. Myst is a dead tech for me (and most people), as I'm going to be chopping out the terraces to expand my borders, and I'm planning on getting the cities down fast enough so that I can compete with the CRE civs. I think that the capital is going to be settled in place after moving the Q SE, and then depending on if another food res is found the fat cross a worker might be built. More likely to grow to size 2 if not, throw out a quick WB, then build a slow WB to explore with while growing, then double whip a worker, overflow into a second worker, and chop every forest around.

There are no plans to be tech leaders; really it's hard to get more than 3 teams together in an alliance to tech, so I'm happy to play tech slow and aim to have a large production to expand with, and trade with the slower teams.

[sooooo]

If I were playing I'd have done the same as you: chose Inca and then an espansive civ on the way back.

Probably I'd have chosen pacal because I suspected a water map with the 11 teams. Is imperialistic really that good?

[Krill]

Memphus made the point that the start is on the weaker side of decent; still playable, certainly, but not powerful. If there is a grain resource adjacent to the river then I'd rate this highly as I can go worker first using the plains hill for a 12 turn worker.

The capital looks to be best as a production city; I can only see the silks and 2 riverside grasslands, whereas there are atleast 6 grass hills and the plains hill, and all the hammers can go through the EXP and IMP boni. If I really luck out and find some happy res...yum. I'm probably not going to go for the pyramids unless I find stone insanely close and get out a really early settler eg t25, so I'll have to aim for hed rule soon. There is the outside chance Oracle it, but tbh I think a fair few people are going to be heading that way.

I also count 8 forests, which is 160 base hammers; I'm aiming for all of them to be invested by t45 in workers and settlers. The number of forests in my land is probably never going to be higher than 10 tbh...

[Krill]

Originally I was going to choose Izzy, and see if I could abuse Serfdom, Caste and Slavery, but I thought with EXP that would be overkill; if I need workers I'll build them, maybe even sell them to others for stuff, same with settlers later on.

IMP isn't really that impressive a trait unless it's really pushed to the limit; the main problem is that with cheap settlers, workers are ignored, so city development is drastically slowed. But when each new city is complemented by 2 cheap workers, and a cheap granary that can be chopped to speed growth so more workers can be slaved...it just the snowball effect, but faster. It's really not easy to keep up with Joai in expansion without sacrificing something (and that something is usually cottage growth).

IMP isn't IMO a first tier trait, it's much more a support trait, but with EXP the sheer growth just lets one overpower everyone else. And I get the feeling I'm going to get gang up one, so I think I'm going to need every edge I can get.

I dunno about FIN. Used properly it can be real nice, if you cottage everything, but what if you don't get cottageable land? Same problem with PHI, what if you lack food? Both of them require that the start be good to really abuse them, and with Sullla designing the map I'm preparing to deal with a couple of major strategic problems due to weird (and not necessarily balanced) map design.

[Krill]

Now, I should probably explain how me nad Memphus are going to play this: since it's an 18 hour turn timer neither of us could reasonably cover a single turn, but tegether we'll be able to. We'll be discussing everything in chat about possibly moves, plans diplo etc, so we'll be able to turn around quickly should any new opportunities occur.

That said, we've both agreed that we aren't going to play a "normal" game here. We're going to play the riskier, more insane strategies that we can come up with, so long as they are not obviously suboptimal. It's all about being entertaining, and unpredictable.

So, that said, we were considering going settler first. Not normally wise, due to lack of worker improvements, but we lack fishing, we might not have anything for a worker to, and we are 2 techs away from chops and slaving. The settler would take 17 turns, meaning that we would have time to get BW before hitting size 2 and slaving out a worker in the cap. The second city could build a few Q while growing to size 2 and then slave out a worker as well; the aim would be something along the lines of 2 workers, 2 cities, and atleast 4 worker turns of improvement by that point to be viable.

Personally, I'm leaning away from it, but depending on what gets uncovered and research times...

[Sullla]

First off, I'm definitely amused by the SANCTA guys taking Joao, the Cavaleiros leader.

You guys have a ton of hill tiles, a fish resource, and a possible freshwater lake off to the west (3 food post-lighthouse). And of course about a million forests to chop. Seems like a pretty decent start to me, if not the absolute top tier.

Oh, and thanks for the backhanded mention of "with Sullla designing the map I'm preparing to deal with a couple of major strategic problems due to weird (and not necessarily balanced) map design." Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.

[Krill]

A ton of hills and a possible fresh water lake does not an awesome city site make. Food is key. Food is the key to everything.

We don't start with fishing, and are EXP, so a fish tile is automatically worse than, say, an irrigated rice, especially as we start with agriculture. Inland lakes are pretty naff considering they need a 60 hammer improvement for 1 commerce compared to 5 worker turns on river grasslands to irrigate for the food (or cottage for the commerce). That is not a jab at map design; at least, it shouldn't be (personally I would have designed the map before knowing what leaders and tech each player would have to remove any chance, or accusal, of bias then edited the worldbuilder file to have the correct leaders and civs). It is a simple statement of fact that the start isn't brilliant for us.

A great start would be a double food resource and multiple hills, along with the forests and river. The ability to grow faster and hence slave sooner is worth alot of forests, especially as slaving doesn't need worker turns investing.

So this is an absolute measurement of how good a start is; I have not drawn any comparisons to others starts, nor have I metagamed about surrounding lands, just straight up explained what this start allows.

If you want me to explain the strategic problems to you I will do it through PM. Obviously you couldn't reply but I can explain how and why the problems occured and what the effect is.

[Krill]

Capital.



plan is Q>WB (stop at size 2)>something (grow to 4)> slave out worker for 2 pop> overflow into worker.

[Krill]

After discussing the start with Memphus we both feel that it's horrendously slow; it takes way too long to get a second city up and running using any "normal" start. So, the new plan is to build a worker using the plains hil until fishing is researched, then build a work boat, and then finish the worker while using hte fish. The worker will irrigate a grassland then possibly mine a hill.

Research past Fishing is tentatively aimed at BW, but hunting is a possibility to camp the eles after the mine instead of BW; it delays the start of chops and hence delays getting out another worker. While slavery was looked at it doesn't seem to be useful for long term growth, so they'll likely be relegated to being chopped at size 1 in new cities.