RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Krill]

Actually it is multiplicative, so you'd get 1.2*1.15=1.38 total beaker bonus. IIRC, of course, it has been a while since I've done anything to do with tech MM...

[Speaker]

Thought you guys might like to see an interesting picture from a multiplayer game I just finished.

Here's a stack my team of three players just used to killed a player on the other team and win the game. They had a lot of units, but 100 two-movers is pretty much impossible to stop. Can you spot the key tile to hold? Remember, the game is played with two-city elimination, so if you lose two cities, you die.

[Sullla]

The tile two east of where the stack is sitting can hit ("fork") all three of those French cities. I'm guessing that's what Speaker is referring to, although it's a little confusing since both teams have a French player on them.

Wow, 87 cuirassiers in that stack, not bad. Of course the difference in an Ironman style game like this is that you can't whip your empire into the ground just to get a kill - not unless it's the last team remaining! (If we ever would get into a 1 vs 1 situation, Speaker will have full reign to unleash hell on our poor population, hehe.)

[Speaker]

The tile two east of where the stack is sitting can hit ("fork") all three of those French cities. I'm guessing that's what Speaker is referring to, although it's a little confusing since both teams have a French player on them.

Yep, that's the spot. It's bad business planting cities like that, so that one tile can fork 3. And then to completely fail to protect that tile.....

Wow, 87 cuirassiers in that stack, not bad. Of course the difference in an Ironman style game like this is that you can't whip your empire into the ground just to get a kill - not unless it's the last team remaining! (If we ever would get into a 1 vs 1 situation, Speaker will have full reign to unleash hell on our poor population, hehe.)

We were actually winning by about 700 points and way ahead in tech. But point taken, there was a *lot* of slaving going on.

/end Dr. Nomadic-style post

T71
Chancellorsville got a full 30-hammer chop into its Library, as we finished Mathematics this turn. I have left Worker E unmoved. The micro plan says for him to build a road, but why not have him chop the silk forest and finish the Library instead? In any event, our road to white dot should go on the cow and then the deer to save us the worker turns later.

Fredericksburg got a chop into its Granary.

Selected Fishing for tech, and then turned the rate down to 0. We get our Great Scientist in 2 turns!

Other than that, nothing much happened.

Chamberlain enters Greece's land next turn.

I'll leave it to you to perform Worker E's action and end our turn, Sullla.

[Sullla]

Well even our Fast Workers can't move TWO tiles into a forest and chop, Speaker. We need the road on Worker E's tile so that next turn one of those workers can move into the silk forest and chop. If you go back and look at the tile micro again, you'll see what I'm talking about.

One other minor nit: Jubal Early was heading straight south, because we had moved far enough east to meet Broker and plako. You moved him northeast this turn, which was a little out of the way. Maybe we should think about designating one of us as the official Turnplayer (?) It was easy when there was only one unit to move, but keeping track of all the units is definitely getting more complicated.

In other news, Chamberlain looks like he can reveal two of Jowy's cities next turn:



NW-NW should reveal both Athens and Corinth, if we haven't made a mistake reading the cultural borders.

Demographics look really, really good (we're in first place in GNP even when running 0% science) and overall we couldn't be doing too much better. Unfortunately this is starting to be reflected in our score, which is bad. I'd rather be doing awesome and sitting in the middle of the pack in score, than be racing way out ahead of everyone else. Score is largely meaningless in evaluating overall strength in this game, but it's very "visible" and so players tend to pay attention to it. We're going to start facing diplo problems down the road as our score balloons past everyone else...

Whosit has a very reasonable request for Open Borders from us:

Dear Speaker and Sullla,

I hope that this new year finds you both well. As you have no doubt noticed, Bib Fortuna has reached the edge of your territory. I was hoping that you would see fit to grant me passage through. I will take the most direct route through and only wish to contact the remaining civilizations. Is this acceptable to you?

Best regards,
Whosit, Galactic Emperor

With your permission, I think we should grant them to him.

Also, the population numbers this turn are a nightmare, because every team in the game got a score increase (much of which was from land points) and then two teams went and whipped cities on top of that. I don't suppose you have a Demographics picture from when you logged in, before the whippings took place...?

[Speaker]

Well even our Fast Workers can't move TWO tiles into a forest and chop, Speaker. We need the road on Worker E's tile so that next turn one of those workers can move into the silk forest and chop. If you go back and look at the tile micro again, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Well, the silk forest has a road on it. So you can move into the city and then move into the silk forest on the road and chop.

One other minor nit: Jubal Early was heading straight south, because we had moved far enough east to meet Broker and plako. You moved him northeast this turn, which was a little out of the way. Maybe we should think about designating one of us as the official Turnplayer (?) It was easy when there was only one unit to move, but keeping track of all the units is definitely getting more complicated.

If you like. Though we only have 2 units actually out scouting...

Demographics look really, really good (we're in first place in GNP even when running 0% science) and overall we couldn't be doing too much better. Unfortunately this is starting to be reflected in our score, which is bad. I'd rather be doing awesome and sitting in the middle of the pack in score, than be racing way out ahead of everyone else. Score is largely meaningless in evaluating overall strength in this game, but it's very "visible" and so players tend to pay attention to it. We're going to start facing diplo problems down the road as our score balloons past everyone else...

Yeah, this will only get worse as we plant more cities because land counts so highly in the score. I'm not sure what we can do, save mass slaving, but that will hurt our tech....I guess we'd better just start building units soon.

With your permission, I think we should grant them to him.

OK

I don't suppose you have a Demographics picture from when you logged in, before the whippings took place...?

Nope, sorry I don't.

[Speaker]

I just logged in and noticed that Byzantine has a double forest warrior who is in position to steal 2 workers from us next turn.

I would really like us to rectify this military situation. We can't be worrying about every warrior that skirts our land....

[Kyan]

I just logged in and noticed that Byzantine has a double forest warrior who is in position to steal 2 workers from us next turn.

I would really like us to rectify this military situation. We can't be worrying about every warrior that skirts our land....

Bearing in mind Byzantine's current war and the fact you're currently trying to help them with metal, i can't possibly see them attempting a worker steal on yourselves.

[Sullla]

Well, the silk forest has a road on it. So you can move into the city and then move into the silk forest on the road and chop.

Hmmm, I suppose you're right. Chalk this up to a mistake on my part. I don't think it matters all that much in this situation, fortunately.

I'll offer Whosit Open Borders at the start of next turn, and send him back an email to that effect.

I just logged in and noticed that Byzantine has a double forest warrior who is in position to steal 2 workers from us next turn.

I would really like us to rectify this military situation. We can't be worrying about every warrior that skirts our land....

We're regoarrarr's only real chance to get a metal resource. I really doubt that they're going to screw us over by double-moving and stealing our workers... especially since we had the chance to do the same to their worker, and we chose not to. I know it's the MP way to be paranoid, and rightly so, but we can't freak out every single time another team's unit passes near our borders.

I do agree that we need more military units though! Antietam should be able to produce chariot (T74), axeman (T76), spear (T77) and then we'll be in much better shape. At least researching Math (6k) has boosted our Power rating a bit, and Sailing (2k), Archery (6k), and Iron Working (10k) can all make that look even better. Still, our two neighbors do look like this:

Jowy: 2 scouts, 1 warrior, 5 archers, 1 axe or sword
Dantski: 4 warriors, 2 skirmishers

So we've got a little time before anything too nasty comes our way.

I think we have the Demographics sorted out for this turn. For the record, here was the full list of transactions:

Speaker/Sullla (20 points): discover Mathematics (12), Antietam size 4 (3), Chancellorsville size 4 (3), land points (2)
Jowy (10 points): land points (10), whip two population Sparta size 4 -> 2
Dantski (14 points): Timbuktu size 5 (3), land points (11)
athlete (2 points): Coruscant size 5 (2), whip 2 Coruscant size 5 -> 3
sunrise (13 points): Athens size 4 (3), land points (10)
IKZ (19 points): DINA size 2 (3), Cuzco size 2 (3), land points (13), whip 3 Fetret Devri size 6 -> size 3
Whosit (3 points): Byss size 2 (3)
Nakor (10 points): land points (10)
Broker (2 points): city gains one pop and then whips it away

It may not be 100% correct, but for the moment all the numbers add up correctly!

[Speaker]

It's not so much paranoia. To borrow a poker phrase, I just hate leaving myself with no "outs." Much better to just cover your workers on the edge of your land and pop your borders.

By the way, you are a total wizard with your demographics and score analysis. I'm looking for that "bowing down" smiley face, but I guess RB doesn't have it. Ah well.