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

[Cheater Hater]

And by "soon" for the PLT, I mean "after T60"
Unfortunately no turn report right now, since I'm leaving soon for most of the evening--I still can write up a quick preview though:

• I can 1T Sailing with a bit of deficit, but it requires me not to 3-pop whip Caldisla--though honestly, I'm not sure how much I want to do that given other developments--notably, Ancheim isn't in imminent danger of being stolen
  
• AT has settled a new city, and eastway has settled 2 more--and if you're wondering, eastway is still Min power
  
• B4ndit still doesn't want Open Borders--his loss I guess?
  
• The east is developing nicely--plains hill (former) farm will be settled next turn, and same turn I'm thinking I'll 3-pop whip Norende
  

I still want to get the full report up tonight, though probably minus C&D--the problem with putting stuff off is that on weekends the turns pile up quickly

[Cheater Hater]

T60 Report:
Not that much analysis to be done this turn; let's keep it short and sweet:


Here's how my current tech situation is looking--I end up going with Sailing (and I can 1T it by bumping the slider up to 70%), but I'm still not sure where to head next--a lot of that depends on whether I want to actually try for Pyramids or not. If I do, I think I'll do it in Starkfort (since that has the iron, as well as a lot of trees to chop)--I want it for Representation, both for the specialist bonus as well as the happiness. The problem is that even with the chops it'll still take a lot of turns to complete, and I don't think I can afford to spend 10-20 turns on the Pyramids, just to have them stolen with 3 turns left by eastway. Maybe I could pair that Pyramids attempt with an attack on eastway; trying to stretch his forces too thin? Of course, after the failure attacking B4ndit, now I'm going to be gun-shy for the rest of the game


As I mentioned, I couldn't whip Caldisla because it would tank my tech rate too hard, and I couldn't both whip Caldisla and switch to the mine in Hartschild while being able to 1T Sailing. In addition, I think a 2-pop whip is better anyway, since I'll still be able to work most of the good tiles in Caldisla. Everything else is normal--I can 2-pop whip in Norende since the main thing I'll lose is the two scientist, and it has 3 food tiles to grow super-quickly. If I do decide to start Pyramids in Starkfort, I'll have to do so next turn--I'm tempted just to say the heck with it and go for it since it's one of the few ways I can get back into this game.


You can see Isenguard in that shot, yet another city by the over-expanding eastway--it's only defended by 2 chariots
Seriously B4ndit, please attack eastway! You could easily roll over eastway's western cities, to Calembel at least. Heck, if eastway wasn't reactive enough to rush Construction, you might have a decent shot at the capital--heck, according to my analysis eastway doesn't even have Archery yet
I mean, why is B4ndit still building so much military? I've relatively flatlined, and B4ndit is still going up--I guess we're about equal in raw units (I have Math while B4ndit has HR, and thinking about it, one of B4ndit's 6k increases could have been Math himself, since it's 6k like an Axe/HA). Is he waiting for Catapults?

In non-begging analysis, the library's coming along nicely--one of the reasons I forgot about wanting the library is that I get the gold, and it's not just a good tile, it gives me happiness! I need to find some new happy resources--in fact, I might just want to go Calendar next to get the silk and spices I already have.




Let's wrap this up, since there isn't much with the other compass points. I'll settle the new city next turn (one of the eastern cities is Florem, not sure what the other one is or which one is which), Praets are heading to each city site, B4ndit didn't accept open borders, etc.

C&D is coming tomorrow--it might be a package deal with T61 if I get the turn early, but it's good either way--I'll also do the PLT soon hopefully

[Cheater Hater]

Stupid Civ! You're preventing me from spending my whole day drafting with the new Solforge set!
T61 Report:
Early turn today, and despite my whining in the prelude, this is actually a really interesting turn! Let's start with a look at Caldisla, since there's some interesting things there after we finished Sailing:


Hooray, I'm finally getting international trade routes! All of my cities are getting two Twinkletoes trade routes for 2 commerce a piece (except for the new city--that one's getting two eastway 2 commerce trade routes for some reason), except for the one I highlighted--overseas trade? I guess Hammond is on one of the mini-islands? That would partially explain what eastway's been building--he needed a galley to get that trade route. I don't care about the specifics--one free commerce for me

Let's pull back a bit and start the compass points with the capital area:


Yeah, the Pyramids takes just under 48 turns in Starkfort--I'm getting my happiness from Calendar then
Actually speaking of techs, before I whipped/settled the new city and tanked my tech rate temporarily, Calendar was 5 turns, while Construction and Code of Laws were 4 turns--that's interesting considering each tech was 304 beakers. Of course, we know Code of Laws is from known tech bonus, but that means someone almost certainly has Construction as well--I need to check for 4k increases recently, to check if eastway has it (this is why I need to do the soldier point analysis--but Solforge draft!)

In non-tech moves, I did the two settler whips (2-pop and 3-pop in Caldisla and Norende respectively), so those will both be settled soon--the second east city will be a couple turns just because of all the forest/jungle in the way, so it won't tank that fast at least

In the north, Starkfort completed the granary, moved to a library (not the Pyramids, as discussed earlier)--and after I took the picture, I moved the axe in Starkfort south--why was that? Whatever, it can't be that big of a deal. On to the south:


Not that much happening here--Hartschild is completing the library, the axe is getting ready to defend Ancheim--and an archer is moving north. Lots of weird troop movements today--ALERT, ALERT, we are interrupting the compass points with news from Carthage of a great person!


So yeah, Stonehenge finally produced its prophet; I assume it's going to make the Buddhist shrine (though it could be the Confucian shrine; I don't know how much Buddhism has spread). But wait...
Isenguard: 2 Chariots (plus Spear outside)
Elgarest: Axe+Spear
Brithombar: Nothing (Spear outside)
Calembel: Warrior (visible when Archer finishes scout move)
Okay, I'm dropping the pretenses: I'm taking Brimthobar sometime in the next 10-15 turns. Caldisla, Norende, and Hartschild are moving to Praet builds next turn, Starkfort's axe is moving south, Caldisla's Praet is moving south (to be replaced by the archer I'm moving north), and I possibly could add Hartchild's axe as well (though I think that needs to stay for defense, since Elgarest is the only place that has a halfway-decent defense, and could counter-attack easily). The one thing I'm really worried about is my tech rate tanking even more--it's actually not that bad when Caldisla's running at full strength, and I have another Academy coming soon, though I'm not sure where I should put that--maybe it could go in the new city even?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled compass points, starting with the east:


I actually named my city when I settled it! Welcome to Miasma Woods--it's actually nearly paying for itself already with the 4 commerce from trade routes (though the increased maintenance everywhere else means it's still currently a drain unfortunately ). I'm building a granary right now, then I'm not sure--if I don't put the Academy there I need a library, but if so I could build anything--an archer (to free up the Praet), a worker (since I need more, and there's a lot of tiles I need improved quickly), or the library (since it's still a commerce city).


Not that exciting--we can see a new AT city (Blood Money), but not much else. Since I didn't mention it anywhere else, Twinkletoes founded a new city this turn (Pentos), but no other cities were founded this turn.

I really need to get the C&D done, but I don't know if it'll happen for a while--I need to play and "report" my PB18 turn, and then I'm assuming T62's going to show up again today--and in addition, I'm kinda busy today :/

[Cheater Hater]

T60-T61 C&D:
Now I need to ramp up my C&D efforts--and I think my Solforge heater may be ending, so I can try to do some of the C&D analysis here, starting with T60:


61: 514

• eastway gained 49 points--the simplest explanation is 7 pop points, and that's not out of the ordinary--H and I were founded, E, C, and A grew, and D was 1-pop whipped, so that's 28 points accounted for, leaving the 21--ancient tech+6 tiles? (TBC)
  
• AT gained 35 points (460->495)--likely 5 pop points: Blood Money founded, Say My Name, Ozzy, and Full Measure grew, and I guess ABQ grew as well
  
• Twinkletoes gained 17 points--provided here for reference only
  
• B4ndit gained 7 points: Ankara or Edirne grew, I guess
  

Now to soldier points: 26k total increase, 6k Max increase, 10k Min increase--that looks like eastway finally decided to research IW or HR--the graph can help with that:


Oh, right--we have a ton of pop increases to account for with that (TBC)

Now to T61:


Surprisingly, only one change: AT gained 19 points: a Classical tech and a pop point (Felina)

Now to soldier points: 18k total increase, Max unchanged, 4k Min increase. Graph time!


Looks like AT's tech was a 10k one, though I'm not sure--otherwise it's chariots from eastway/Twinkletoes I guess.

No PLT today--more on that in the next post.

[Cheater Hater]

In my PB18 thread, Celiazul posted about C&D possibly being anti-productive if the goal is to have fun--at this point I agree and disagree. I get that the detailed C&D isn't the most fun part of the game, but for me, it's a puzzle I like--if you look back when I was first figuring out how to translate scores and solider points, you can see how much I was able to figure things out--it was a was to actually accomplish something when I wasn't doing much.

Still, as we look at the C&D I'm doing, I've dropped a lot of it--if you remember, I was trying to use land area points, population points, and even GNP to figure out what techs were being researched. Not only have I dropped that, I've even dropped Twinkletoes from the score analysis completely, while the only things I've really added have been the land points in the score, and the only reason I need those is because I can't really do score stuff without it, and the score tells me the most information (other than soldier points).

The one thing I can't get around is that I feel like I'm leaving things on the table by not doing my C&D--there's so much information that the demos and score gives you, and I feel like I should be doing all I can to figure things out (especially since I'm behind due to my ill-fated occupation of Peace). Still, I understand its place, and that's why I'm not doing it in PB18 (besides the fact that it would be a million times harder--stuff divides a lot less cleanly into 33 than 4 for instance, and each pop point appears to be possibly one point). There needs to be a mod that takes the difficult C&D out of the game, without turning intel into a guessing game--maybe a mod that takes the demos screen out of the game, but leaves the graphs and top cities, in a game with some active espionage (probably nerfed to RBMod levels) would be the best case--does anyone have thoughts on that?

[Cheater Hater]

Really, no comments at all on my C&D reflection/rant?

Turn played, but I'm not in the mood to write a report right now, so I'll just do a preview:

• I've started the 3 Praets as I said I would
  
• eastway built an Archer in Calembel, and the Prophet is heading SE
  
• I checked everyone's happy resources--most of those big cities must be unhappy/be supported by buildings, since only B4ndit and Twinkletoes have extra happy from resources--AT has Judaism, but that still doesn't support size 8, especially in non-capital cities (Say My Name)
  

[Cheater Hater]

T62 Report:
In an effort to not spend as much time on my reports, less setup, more reporting! Let's start with the happy analysis I promised in my preview:


So everyone has gems, AT has Judaism, B4ndit has gold, and Twinkletoes has silver and fur. AT, eastway, and B4ndit all have easy access to religion for temples, and both B4ndit and eastway can convert to their religions to add more happy. I'm unfortunately out of the whole religious loop--that's why I'm going for Calendar now; it lets me connect the dyes and spices in my territory to start with, and don't forget that incense sitting between Hartschild and Ancheim once Ancheim expands its borders. Let's look at the compass points to see how I'm doing on that front:


Here you can see the start of my military push--those turn totals will drop significantly at EOT, since both Caldisla and Norende will grow onto mines. The troop exodus continues--notice how the axe making a pit stop in Caldisla lets me send the Praet forward this turn--right now the plan is for all these troops is to station all of these troops in Hartschild/Ancheim in the short term, until I get an idea of what I want to do with them.


Hartschild is also building a Praet, and it can grow onto a mine end of next if it desires, though I think I'll just end up having it grow onto the second floodplains cottage. The worker movements are annoying though--best case I wish I could get the workers to the desert hill so I could road it (and get the settler to the grassland hill a turn early), but that's 5 spaces away, so instead I'm going to road around the hill instead, since I'll want to road the sheep anyway. As a bonus, I can spend a turn chopping the forest to give Hartschild 10 precious hammers for its Praet, since I would have wasted the worker turn anyway. In addition, I only need two of the three workers to road-road, so the third can head over to the east, since between Misama Woods and Florem there's a ton of tiles that need to be improved.


Not much new here--the settler's heading for the Florem site, there's acres and acres of jungle to chop, tons of tiles to improve--I'm building at least one worker somewhere (out of Norende almost certainly, maybe Caldisla, maybe Starkfort--although that worker would stay around there and isn't coming imminently).


No idea when/if I'll do C&D

[Old Harry]

Really, no comments at all on my C&D reflection/rant?

Well it was about C&D so I skipped it.

More seriously I didn't see anything I disagreed with. Essentially if I can play a bit of the game at work on a spreadsheet without any of my colleagues noticing I'm all for it (even if it isn't the most fun bit).

[Cheater Hater]

Thanks for at least some comment on the C&D stuff Old Harry

More importantly, I'm actually playing the new turn right now, and yes, this is important enough to update mid-turn for. I started looking at my econ stuff (trying to work tiles so I could grow & finish the Praet this turn & run a scientist all in Norende--doesn't look like I'll be successful ). Then I moved to the south, got ready to move my workers--wait, where are my workers? Turns out eastway declared on me!

Yeah, it appears that he captured the 3 workers, then deleted them, along with the chariot. Apparently I was taking too much of a risk by leaving 3 workers in the same tile--but seriously, eastway? I admit, it was stupid because B4ndit was in the area (and our peace treaty recently expired), but why would eastway of all people feel the need to attack my workers and set me back more? Since I didn't get to C&D last turn, here's the power graph for reference:


The current turn's not much different--eastway's a little closer to Twinkletoes, but that graph is before he deleted his chariot. Obviously, I'm attacking right now--but eastway must be expecting that, considering that he didn't even try to offer me peace. I'm wondering what a reasonable offer would be for peace with him--my idea for when I declared was to ask for at least 2 cities and some money, but that would be when I had multiple Praets on his doorstep and he had no clue I would declare on him.

Seriously, I still can't believe eastway was the one declaring--I mean, if my loan of Edirne was a opportunistic move, this seems insane--does he not have my graph? Is there a way to know how much his graph on me would cost?

Anyway, I actually have to play the turn now--we'll see what happens

[Cheater Hater]

T63 Report:
So yeah, eastway declaring on me changes things a lot
I'm going to detail my plans for eastway, as well as update the meaningful C&D (aka eastway's C&D) in a separate post, but for now, let's go over the compass points:


Around the capital, things haven't really changed, to be honest--I was already building Praets, and I'm still settling Florem as scheduled. Obviously it would be detrimental to settle Ancheim at this point, but I'm not quite sure what I should do with it at this point--what I probably should do is just leave it in Caldisla to settle Ancheim whenever tempers settle down, but part of me wants to settle a western city--that seems crazy though, especially since I can't spare any troops to do so. The one weird thing in this shot is probably the worker, but it can be explained--the current plan for it is to move onto the jungle 1NE of Norende next turn (to continue building a road to the second pigs/Florem), but since it'll take 2 turns to get to the jungle regardless, I put one turn into a cottage to avoid wasting a worker turn.


There are some more changes here--notice how eastway has finally decided to start settling straight north. The Praet that was originally going to defend Misama Woods is going to check that out--hopefully he doesn't have much more than a single archer there and I can easily raze it--or if he's sent multiple troops there that's fewer troops to defend the main attack. As such, I need to build an archer in Misama Woods to defend, and the chop will go into that so I can defend just in case.


Not much has happened here (besides my workers disappearing of course ) Seriously, why are you able to delete units without move points available? It seems unbalancing :/
Anyway, I needed to move my axe up, since eastway had a chariot in range--that's the only unit I've seen though. The other main thing is that B4ndit's overpowering my culture in Hartschild--I don't know if I'll get the gold or the wheat, but hopefully I'll get back the cottage--at least I still have the mine to work for now, and after that the whale's not a completely horrible tile--it'll sustain me until I do my 2-pop whip

No scout move today--it's in the dropbox if you really care
As I mentioned, I plan on doing a separate post to detail my plans for eastway--it may come tonight or tomorrow; I'm not sure, but it's not coming right away :/