Cheater Hater's PBEM58 Thread (with a surprise post lead!)

[SevenSpirits]

Since stone and marble have been removed from the map, this will be one of the only quarries we'll see on this map most likely. However, it doesn't appear to be adding anything to the tile--is it just here for fun, or will there be more pre-placed improvements that actually do something?

Quarries not on resources don't change the yields, but you can pillage them for gold. (But scouts can't pillage.)

I don't know about a reference, but if you turn on tile yields (ctrl-Y or a button near the minimap) you'll see better information. I'd recommend that - it makes it easier to spot when there are things on a tile. I like having resource bubbles on too, and those are especially nice for screenshots.

(What's with that glitch with my city picture? Is it always like that and I just haven't noticed, or did something weird happen?)

That seems unusual. Maybe your capital happens to be exactly in the top right corner of the map, where it wraps? (This wouldn't have any actual impact on the game, but it can make the graphics a bit glitchy sometimes.)

That results in the 19 expected, but doesn't explain how someone would get 21--either they somehow are working a 5 commerce tile, they settled on a 2 commerce tile (increased to 3 via Financial), or one of the traits is affecting it somehow (and only the 2 culture from Creative would do so, correct?). Settling on a 2 (3) commerce tile makes the most sense--would settling on a riverside gems or incense work for that? (This is where the tile value list would be helpful )

In less-complicated GNP results, the worst GNP of 17 is much easier to explain--14 from the Palace, 2 from the city/free beaker, and 1 from the riverside food resource they're working.

There is one more potential source of GNP which you are missing. When you have a tech selected that has one or more arrow prerequisites, each of those arrows gives a +20% boost to teching. That bonus shows up in GNP. At the beginning of the game when people are producing 10 beakers per turn or just a bit more, this ends up being a common source of +2 GNP.

Soldiers I can't really tell anything from--I think Wheel giving soldier points is the discrepancy, but I don't know what each tech/unit gives for soldier points (again, a resource would be helpful )

I always search for "Civ IV demographics" and find this when I need to look something up. Careful: it has values for both BTS and for other versions of Civ IV, and they are different.

Does Land Area not include water tiles? If so, that means everyone started inland, with the one lake tile in the first ring (or possibly coastal only on a corner).

Yeah, land area doesn't count water. I don't think there's any measure in the game of number of controlled water tiles.

Nice report!

[NobleHelium]

That seems unusual. Maybe your capital happens to be exactly in the top right corner of the map, where it wraps?

Yeah, that's correct.

[Cheater Hater]

Thanks SevenSpirits

I forgot prerequisites matter, even at this point with only the first few techs. I'm too tired to think about which techs would be researched so that matters (I think can only be Animal Husbandry or Pottery right now, but I'm not sure), but I'll update that stuff in my C&D post tomorrow.

I'll also need to remember to turn on tile yields and resource bubbles when I get the turn back--that's the one problem with PBEM, you can't do things right away when you think of/are told about them

The city picture wasn't a big deal, just something I noticed--it might even be gone tomorrow

[Cheater Hater]

(Note to self: don't promise dates for reports/updates--though if I finish the C&D update soon, it'll still be today...)
T2 Report:
Not much here, just a scout move:


Most notably, the plains hill south of the scout looks like a really good spot for a city, even with half the fat cross still fogged--3 flood plains, 2 food resources, whales much later, incense to hook up in the third ring--we'll see what happens, since I'm guessing the settler won't show up until after the workboat at the very least (and depending on how paranoid I am, I should at least have a couple warriors out by then )

Demos are obviously unchanged, though I still took a picture for archival purposes--is there a way to make a whole Dropbox folder public so all my PBEM pictures are visible without me having to spam the thread with them?

[SevenSpirits]

https://www.dropbox.com/enable_public_folder

But I warn you, most people won't bother to look at pictures if they aren't embedded. BUT - if you have a public folder with all your pics in it, you can just copy any paste-paste-paste the link to one picture in the forum and modify the end (the filename part). So it does make it quite a bit easier IMO.

[Cheater Hater]

T3 Report:
Another start move, and more good terrain:


Another money quarry, but there's also a hamlet, meaning that there are meaningful preplaced improvements around. The city sitting on the plains hill is probably an even better city than the one on the previous hill, but if I move it 1SE I can fit both cities in without losing any of the meaningful tiles (plus it looks like there might be a floodplain SE of the gold hill )

Also, my city borders expanded, revealing more terrain:


Jungle to my north? Hopefully that means I'm not scouting in the wrong direction with regard to meeting other civs (or maybe it means I'm going in the right direction with regards to good land, and the second part certainly seems true )
Also, a grassland hill farm? Can you even irrigate a hill tile? (since you can't build farms on hills normally I think) Regardless, it doesn't look like that tile will do anything until Civil Service at the earliest, so more free pillage money! At this point it might be worth it to build a warrior or two just for the pillaging of useless improvements
(Is there a guide to pillaging rewards anywhere? I know you get more for pillaging cottages and the like, but I don't know how much you get for normal improvements.)

Demos unchanged, so no need to post that--next turn people could start getting techs (I researched Agriculture at EOT, for instance), or possibly growing their cities if they didn't go worker-first, so I'll probably post demos next turn (even if they're unchanged).

[YossarianLives]

(Is there a guide to pillaging rewards anywhere? I know you get more for pillaging cottages and the like, but I don't know how much you get for normal improvements.)

I don't know how accurate this is, but found this from a Google search. You can click on each improvement individually and the wiki page includes pillaging value. It says you get about 5 gold from quarries and farms.

[NobleHelium]

Average pillaging value of improvements are in the 'pedia.

[Cheater Hater]

Thanks SevenSpirits/NobleHelium for the pillage value help
T4 Report:
So we researched Agriculture, and are moving on to Bronze Working as I planned--I could have moved to Animal Husbandry, but considering I don't need either immediately for improvements, the flexibility of chops is more valuable--and considering I'm probably going to Animal Husbandry next regardless, there won't be that many improvements between researching Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry

Scout move!


Yeah, the addition of the second wheat makes the grassland spot much better than the plains hill spot--I'll probably even settle that first over the coastal hill spot (though both are worth settling).

You'll also notice that Twinkletoes got the same score bump we got, up to 40--which we'll discuss in the upcoming C&D post for the turn.

[Cheater Hater]

T4 C&D:
Since we (and Twinkletoes) are researching new techs, we should see how the demos look now that we're researching Bronze Working:


Wait--how do I have 21 GNP now? As everyone watching the thread probably knew (and couldn't tell me), I misunderstood arrow prerequisites--I thought to get the bonus a tech had to have 2 arrows pointing to it, but apparently the bonus applies to techs with only 1 arrow as well. For comparison, here's the demos screen with me researching Wheel, just for comparison:


That means that I'll have to redo the GNP C&D, although not much has changed from the original C&D post--I'm jumping to 21 from 19 by researching Bronze Working, and Twinkletoes jumped from 17 to 19 by researching a tech with arrow bonus.

I don't feel like going through the details of the C&D (as most of stuff is determined by the new arrow techs and the stuff discussed in the last C&D post, but here are the highlights:

• Twinkletoes researched Mining or Mysticism last turn (Fishing and Hunting would have finished earlier since they're cheaper, and Mining makes more sense)
  
• eastway is probably researching Bronze Working instead of Masonry (or Sailing )
  
• The mystery second place is not Twinkletoes; it could be AT researching Bronze Working (or Masonry ), or either AT or B4ndit researching Animal Husbandry or Pottery
  
• Twinkletoes could research any of the four techs above assuming Mining was researched (probably Bronze Working considering researching Mining first), or could be going for a religion.
  
• Fifth place is still researching a tech--they could not be researching anything but Agriculture/Wheel (since Twinkletoes completed Mining this turn at the same beaker rate), and since B4ndit has both of those techs already, it must be AT researching Wheel!
  

Therefore, our GNP rankings are a lot clearer right now, assuming I have everything right:
1. 21 (eastway: working lake clams/crabs, researching BW?, techs=Fishing/Mining)
2. 21 (Cheater Hater: working lake clams, researching BW, techs=Agriculture/Fishing/Mining)
3. 19 (Twinkletoes: working (riverside) 3-food tile, researching BW?, techs=Agriculture/Wheel/Mining?)
4. 19 (B4ndit: working (riverside) 3-food tile, researching AH?, techs=Agriculture/Wheel)
5. 17 (AT: working riverside 3-food tile, researching Wheel, techs=Agriculture/Mining)

Unfortunately, Soldiers can't confirm if Twinkletoes researched Mining, since the average hasn't changed

Land Area increased by a lot, but we're still all tied--that means each start is inland (likely with the lake crabs/clams)

Next turn we'd see city growth if anyone didn't go Worker-first (most likely eastway going workboat-first), along with possibly more techs.

A couple things I can't find readily that would help my C&D efforts:

• How are costs modified on Quick? I think it's 66% for most things (culture victory being a notable exception), but I'm not sure and can't find it for sure.
  
• How is score affected by things? For example, I believe the 6 points for both me and Twinkletoes is an Ancient tech, but I'm not sure about that, as well as everything else.