[SPOILERS] Muffin's spoiler thread of delicious baked goodness and half baked ideas

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

So here is another update for the last 3 turns we have done, 28-30. I have been collecting screenshots from them!

So firstly when I decided that I was going to go for the NE settle that needed the religion, I sent the scout off to find people, going NW as I could get 2 moves that way. I was rewarded with a hello to cornflakes's scout, although still no sign of anyone out west. I finished a road to the cities north to allow the settler to settle 2 turns quicker and built the settler.




Start of the next turn nothing hugely exciting, the warrior moved to cover the settler on the tile to the west of the intended settle site, and the scout moved along the horses for 2 moves again and found another capital, and the last player I hadn't met. We saw Retep and his sumerians. The worker moved to cottage the floodplains, before he will move to pasture the new city when the borders pop after Buddhism. The capital went to build another worker, getting to finally use the expansive trait.




The placement of Retep in relation to everyone else confuses me slightly, we seem pretty evenly spaced as it is without cornflakes's BFC. I guess he will be to my SW or SE, but tbf with the wrap he is pretty much gonna be in 2 directions at once anyway.




We then rolled to the next turn and I moved the scout to get some more visability on Retep. He has an irrigated corn and 2 workers that I can see in view! I wish my corn was irrigated, but I'm sure that there are other changes in the BFC that compensate it. I won't complain about the map until I see it all




In domestic news I settled my first city! I forgot to rename it, but I was right and even without roads the game counts it as connected! Winning. I spent a short while thinking about what should be built here, and with the amount of foodhammers it can pull in I decided to go for a granary. With this choice, after the worker the capital will grow on another warrior. I changed the tiles to allow the new city to work the sheep, to grow faster. This does not affect the worker build time.




Demo time! That new connected city has done wonders for the demos.




Top GNP and 1 off top food. I am a little low in pop and MFG though. I guess most others grew to size 4 first? And are working higher hammer than food tiles. Still I am happy with the GNP, which I think will be down to my cities being connected.

Now just to hope that no one else lands bhuddism or I really will be a little stuck with this plant. It will be another 20 turns before the capital pops the sheep below the city.

Plan now is to get another settler from the capital after the warrior, then to start on the oracle.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Next turn played, and with some more time slightly more analysis.

So not much happening domestically. Still cottaging flood plains, no other units to move.

However the scout saw very interesting developments. Reteps second city was planted, so I moved in to have a look and found this:




I can't understand why planting on the gems is needed there... It's a rather powerful commerce tile so why kill it, not even for bonus commerce or hammers in the plot? A city site to the SE could have picked it up in the BFC and still shared the corn (I am assuming that is what he is doing) whilst picking up the pig. I'm sure he will have his reasons, but it is not obvious!

I spent some time looking around other indicators. It seems that I was almost the last to meet everyone. Only Bob and Retep have not met, which makes sense as Bob scouted towards me and not Retep. No current squabbles over land with early warriors so far either it seems.




Espionage wise, I have graphs on both Bob and Jowy. Gonna spend on both cornflakes and Retep now. Bob has been spending very heavily on me... I can't quite work out why. Is he paranoid of my GS play and like of warring? Is he wanting to definitely have graphs to see if a skirm rush would work? As long as I get Buddhism I will have nice big cultural borders in 22 turns to see anything coming at least. I have half a mind to spend aggressively on him, but this isn't worth starting a cold war over a civ with a very irritating early unique unit.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Turns are moving slightly more quickly now.




I landed Buddhism! New New York is now the first holy city of our game. My worker was built in Springfield and I have started on another warrior.

The scout found some marble, south of the pig I think (I forgot to take a screenshot) that is irritatingly close to retep. Close enough to maybe make him want to make a play for the oracle I think. It is in a nice position on a river to be settled on top of. I need to watch poly's founding time to get an idea of a probable time I need to complete the oracle by.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well first an update from the previous turn.

I liked the look of the demos, with everyone (I think) at 2 city.




Top food and GNP! Although by a tiny amount in each (but that top GNP is going full gold for cash) Very interestingly someone has more spare health than me despite me being expansive, both cities on rivers and no forests chopped yet... Nothing else of interest happened this turn, I moved my workers 1 each to the pasture resources and started the flatland one, covered by the warrior.


Then I opened up the next turn and was expecting a quick turnaround before work and was greeted with a headache of a conundrum.




Bob declared war moving in his scout. No other units on the minimap seen. Urgh, not fun. This required some C/D of which I luckily still had enough points for graphs (by 1!) And now typing this I realise in the sent game I forgot to put some more points on him to keep them... FFS. I think looking from his scout direction he declared from the hill south of Jowy's scout.

At first I was keen to just kill the scout for his insolence :P But then the way he moved his scout has made me weary. When he moved onto the first square he would have seen that I had no way of hitting his scout from there and yet continued on to have a look into my city. He would have seen that if he stopped on that tile he would have a) either drawn me out to hit, and have been able to dodge onto a different tile for city visibility on a fairly safe assumption that I am likely to have only 1 warrior in the city or b) if I stayed in the city have been able to jump into view and out of view again next turn, or c) if I had gone to move onto the forest south of the city then he could have danced NW NW or NW SW with his scout.

He would also know that with the border pop the tile that I would likely be wanting to improve would be the cow and am conscious that there are 4 tiles to the east that he could easily move from next turn with a warrior which will be an annoyance for the improving worker.

I spent a while agonising over the score and power charts, and think I have gathered that he has at least a warrior, and possibly a spear?!






The first jump I think is a 2000 tech (likely hunting) the next I think is growth to size 2 for 1000. The next I am certain is 8000 for bronze working. Then he has a 3000 jump which I am struggling to work out, but I think is likely a 2000 tech (an hus?) and a warrior. It has to include a tech as of the size of the score increase and I cannot believe that he would send out a settler without a warrior with barbs on. But then I also cannot explain his 2000 increase in power without a score increase. Is that 2 warriors? Has he already hooked bronze and got a spear out? I would be very surprised if he had intentionally got a spear out this early then but who knows. The main thing I confirmed is that he has not teched archery yet, so he is unlikely looking for a protracted war or a full rush.

Whilst I probably wouldn't risk a full health warrior v full health warrior with a fort bonus over a worker, having a low health warrior running around was just not worth it if he wanted to get frisky with the possibility of a spear coming this way to harrass me.

Or I could just be thinking too much into things. But I decided to be the nice guy and just offer a cease fire, I felt a peace treaty would have appeared weak. Perhaps I would have gained useful info if he was planning to attack if he turned it down, but who knows.


In would news I think I have worked out where Jowys 2nd city is. Somewhere using this tile, likely 1 tile away to have been hooked this fast even with the free border pops, and probably the plains hill to the west for a bonus hammer, capital tile sharing and to pick up sheep with a border pop. Or possibly 1N of the cow to pick up silver in the BFC. (If the image isn't clear, I am seeing that someone has pastured but not roaded the cow.





EDIT as I was typing this and referencing the http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...aphics.php charts again I realised that I was using the unit power values from vanilla and not BtS. Epic fail. Trying to be too clever. I am still not quite sure of his reasons behind his scout movements though... They still seem like a lure to me.

So for his jumps it is actually a 2000 tech (hunting), growth, BW, 2000 tech and growth at the same time, and then a warrior. I guess if the warrior had moved to cover the first city there would be no way that it would be in a position to attack me, as his cap is 10NE 1E of mine.... Bah. Ah well not the end of the world. I have let him have a free look at my city without paying for it, and a scout is less useful now anyway. Plus I still think there is a possibility that he is trying to lure me off the tile to move in a warrior, although that risk is very small now I know he only has 1 warrior. I did decide to not change the granary build as I would only put 1 hammer into a warrior if I did so I haven't messed up my micro plan at all. It could have been worse, and I could have gone for a warrior swap and for max hammers. When you read this, you had some luck here bob!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well Bob did not take a cease fire, and continued moving his scout through my lands. I had a warrior ready, but could not move out to try and hit him. Where I moved I would either have left my sheep or cottage tile for him to sit on. Therefore I had to suck it up and sit in my capital. I decided rather than going settler here to build another warrior just in case this was a prelude to something else. This will delay my next city by 2 turns, but it will allow me to get another cottage up for the capital.




The next turn I opened finding Bob offering a peace treaty. I did contemplate turning him down to try and confuse him, but in the end thought that would be quite a hollow move as he could easily see that I lack bronze working currently so I would be able to do minimal damage. I would much prefer taking the peace treaty option and giving him less of a reason to build irritating skirmishers.

I will need to keep an eye on his power charts and see if he spikes in the next 10 turns. I was not expecting this kind of aggressive play from bob, who I would expect to bunker and tech. I pulled my scout back in preparation of him coming into attack, so now my scouting priorities have changed slightly. I will push up through my northwest, to my south east in the land between myself and Jowy and bring my scout to sit somewhere on mine and bobs border as a sentry. However, for an empire without bronze working, I think I have a pretty productive sitting so far. Also, my demographics are looking pretty healthy also, however they need to be as they are competing vs chops and slavery!







Currently my power seems ok. If I remove the BW push then we are at around the same amount of units.




Viewing around the rest of the world, Retep has not picked up any further resources that I can see for his 2nd city (ie the pig). I still haven't seen cornflakes's BFC, and I do not have any visability on Bob other than the edge of his capital. However Jowy has pastured sheep next to the cows. Although he has not camped his initial ivory yet.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I have been thinking more and more about my current plan. I think it is just going to be too risky. Whilst I think I can land the oracle between turns 60-65 looking at my tech speed, to leave myself vulnerable without bronze working for that length of time is a bit risky. I could just about manage it if I was not next to Egypt and Mali whom chariots are fairly useless against. Also spending that much time without chops and slavery will seriously effect my growth curve.

So I am thinking that I will have to tech mining - bronze working next, and with this it will push my oracle completion date back well past turn 70 if I were to go for a slingshot tech. Therefore I think I will just suck it up and go for metal casting, which is more valuable for me than most being IND anyway. It was a nice plan, and if it was a more defensive map with less/weaker UU neighbours I could probably pull it off.

But then I have been thinking about other strategies I could use and hit across this... http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...e_tech.php

I could use the old cheeky SP GE cheese trick to boost myself exponentially along my tech path! So I need to build a forge in a different city to my cap and run an engineer specialist for 34 turns before 50 turns of having the oracle. This should be easy with my double forge construction ability. I can easily bulb machinary from this, but looking down the list I think I can pick up a better bulb tech...

Great Engineer:
Machinery
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Combustion
Metal Casting
Mining
Iron Working
Engineering
Replaceable Parts
Steam Power
Steel
Robotics
Railroad
Feudalism
Fascism
The Wheel
Plastics
Masonry
Construction
Guilds

Basically if I have all the techs in bold, then I will not be able to research any of the other bulbable techs. So essentially if I tech for feudalism, iron working, masonry, and machinery; whilst avoiding mathematics to not enable the construction bulb, I will be able to bulb guilds.

So techs I will go for before a phract attack from now will be in some order: mining, BW, IW, masonry, machinery, fuedalism, writing, metal casting (oracled), guilds (bulbed) and finally HBR. I will probably also through in fishing and sailing to enable me to pick up a few more food resources and claim the central island. I think this path may actually be quicker than picking up a GP through the oracle and either having to settle him or make the mabohabi. It will definitely allow to expand faster with having chops earlier.

Civics wise, I will want to be in slavery, monarchy and vassalage (so I can avoid stables, and get the phracts out quicker) I am not quite sure of the way I will revolt for them as I would like to do a double revolt at some point. Perhaps I will revolt to slavery now, then go monarchy fued double swap. But hopefully plan 2.0 will not be called upon to defend war chariots! I think I can manage skirms with this plan fairly easily also thankfully.

pbem62:

I may have also been influenced on both changing the slingshot plan and also the way I am reacting to Bob now by seeing 2 different people be attacked very early in this very similar style game, with pretty easy wins. Especially the dazed THH conflict, where dazed with 2-3 war chariots could have taken his entire empire...

[GermanJoey]

Very interesting idea! What's the base tech cost of Guilds at this map size?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well I have always thought it was a little bit of a waste rushing the mids so early when you actually can build them with a 50% bonus anyway... but hey ho. Note this is an idea that was born out of necessity to get good value on the oracle bulb, feeling that I cannot delay bronze any further (which I believe was definitely the right call when I do a mega update of the last 5-7 turns or so) not only to help growth with whips and chops but just for security. Knowing my luck I will have missed bronze with the settles, but the bare hill 2NE of the capital looks suspicious to me.

Guilds is base 1200 on this map, so delaying the bulb will give the best value for the GE. He will give a base of 1000 plus 2 for each additional pop, so I can time it right to probably get near 1100 into it hopefully. Much better than the 840 for machinery. I do not think I would benefit from the snowball effect of getting machinery earlier either. The only thing it enables that interests me would be windmills. I hope to dodge archery so crossbows will not be that useful. Plus metagaming it allows little time for my opponents to pick up on my threat level. If they have got alpha early for some reason, seeing me with machinery will likely ring alarm bells, so if I can get guilds a few turns after then I will be in a suddenly very powerful position. After about 10 turns of having guilds I will be pretty hard to attack, so it is a survival game/stay competitive dodging normal eco techs until then game :P

I do feel after thinking about this it is not only safer play than running an extreme farmers gambit to get a good oracle tech, it will get up growth more with early forges and not delaying chops, plus a full amount of bulb into guilds is better than having a prophet to either settle or build a shrine on a very small map with. Much better GPP usage!

[von Adlercreutz]

Well, I've got to say this is very different way to play that I'm used to and what I usually see in these RB games. And I'm curious to see how it works out.

Delaying math and the teches it allows (currency for economy, calendar and construction for collateral comes to mind) seems to me as a big disadvantage. Happiness shouldn't be a problem with early monarchy. How fast do you plan to backfill these after bulbing Guilds? I guess you'd want construction to help with warring but that would delay economical teches even further. Or just pure mounted warfare while backfilling currency?

[Commodore]

Well, I've got to say this is very different way to play that I'm used to and what I usually see in these RB games. And I'm curious to see how it works out.

Please let me know how it works out for you too.