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

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

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?

Normally I would agree with you, but here I don't think it holds as much value as it normally does. I agree I have no issues with happy, so calendar is already lower on my priorities. Add that to the fact that I have only sugar currently that I could use for happy, and I have nothing that actually needs improving. My only other close calendar happiness is dye which is an ok tile, but they are all under yucky jungles, so would also need IW to improve anyway, and currently are not workable by any cities. Finally I am wanting to win early here. I do not want to build the MoM. This scales rapidly with empire size and I think the costs here will force smallish empires.

Construction again is not on my agenda. Cata are a great unit, don't get me wrong, but much better at defense I find. The pace of 2 movers on attack mean that even if I did have the ability to build cata I would not be doing so. They would slow the attack a lot, and if I pull this off I should be facing spears and longbows at most as the best defenders. If anyone has gone for currency and calendar unless they burn their own GE they will be sorely lacking down the metal casting/machinary/eng line, which is their only hope really. The main utility of getting construction for me would be the bridge movement, which maybe helpful on the attack. If eles were allowed then I may have gone for a cataphat stack which is pretty hardy and basically only counterable by itself.

Finally currency, that is a good one. However it is severely nerfed on this map. Very little ability for ICTRs, looks like there is only 1 island near enough to try for for me. So rather than 2 2 commerce routes I would only have a 2 and a 1 in each city. Also with the amount of war decs for visability that have happened (sorry I haven't updated in a while) yields from foreign routes will be rather low, plus I wouldn't really want to open borders to Jowy or Bob given how close they are and how light I am on military currently, and realistically will be until HA/guilds.

Math itself would actually be the most useful tech I think. 50% on chops is big. But it is a choice between a machinery bulb for 840 or guilds for around 1050-1100. Plus I save time not teching maths. I can still change my mind here atm, and use the GE for machinary. But the earlier the better for the phracts!

Also the costs of maths and currency combined are roughly equal with the cost of machinery. So in essence, if I were playing this the standard tech route, I am swapping the ability to have math/currency for machinery, and teching feud (admittedly costly, but about the same as cons/calendar combined) and at that point be able to build knights. I think that is a fairly good trade.

As for the backfill plan, as soon as phracts are enabled, I will go maths, currency. Keep the eco afloat. I will try to save chops for post maths phracts. The top of the tree does not interest me, and then it will be a choice between construction and eng or calendar, mainly dependent on my happiness situation. I will be whipping hard keeping the phracts in my cities, so when I do plan to attack I think I will feel the unhappy issues in the cities, so will likely need to hit calendar.

Civic plan is to run slav/vassal/mon. Not quite sure how I will swap into these. I think I will likely swap into slavery soonish, as I will need it to stay at the happy limit. I will then push on for fued and see if I can wait for that before swapping out of monarchy. I have ivory online, a religion around (1 city atm), wines in my borders by monarchy, gems in a very awkward position to use (grr commodore - Jowys silver was much easier to dotmap for him! :P) with cheap forges so I think I can last until fued if I go for it after monarchy. The other important note is that SEEING me in vassalage is a major turn off for attackers, IE he can build longbows? No point in going for him, find a softer target idea :)

To finance this, I intend to run slash and burn wars rather than the usual take and hold. I have no qualms destroying the majority of the cottages. I intend to use the cash that instant rather than the city commerce, and you cannot underestimate the demoralising effect of having your towns pillaged to nothingness, so even if you retake your city it is painfully worse, thus making them play weaker. (Online this usually results in submission to the AI and GGing). I generally keep the food improvements and use those cities to whip defenders hard for further conquests. I will also have a few chariots in the stack for this, rather than wasting hammers on extra phracts.

I kinda answered this in a roundabout way but pure mounted warfare will be done. I like mounted stacks. The ability to run past well defended border cities should not be underestimated, even with HA. Especially if you can use a couple to burn the road links so they cannot reinforce the more juicy core cities to burn! Then a mop up of the more practical to capture cities can be performed. I think also on this map holding cities will be a pain, due to the compact nature of the map.

Happy to answer any other questions, and I will update with lots of screenshots soon, it is just a daunting task now I have left it about 10 turns :P

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

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.

Lol you link me to using a similar strategy and getting owned... Ominous. However that did have a much boosted start, which I think favours lower tech warfare. You get a high city count and hammer output before your commerce catches up to the level it should do, thus making earlier warfare more likely. Also you miss the 12-15 slow first worker turns where you pick up a few techs. Plus AW makes probing attacks more likely and a farmers gambit less feasible. I am happy if I can get my copper up and be in slavery I can stop anything pre cata except a ludicrous WC rush.

Those are famous last words I think

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well I was rather busy the last few days and just managing to stay on top of the games I am in, then there had been so many turns played that I was a little daunted about updating. Luckily I did remember to take a few screenshots. If it seems a bit strange I am trying to report it as I thought at the time, although I obviously have further knowledge now.

Turns 40-44

So I last left a proper update on turn 39, which was the turn that I researched priesthood. I then decided that as much as trying for fued would be epic, a better push for my tech would be to oracle MC and get bronze earlier.

So I started teching mining, and here is a turn 40 overview.




I wanted to cottage the banana, as this city is gonna be a worker/settler pump and this is one of the best tiles, which I cannot upgrade for a while. (Plus no bronze for chopping currently) Also there is currently more than enough food here to satisfy it's needs, so a cottage is the best bet here. I moved the other worker to cottage for the capital. I need to get them running ASAP to get benefit from delaying bronze and the hammer deficit without chops or slavery. Getting the granary first is smart even without slavery as I will be running it shortly and it is cheap for me. Will go warrior/worker at size 4. It will swap the sheep back and forth with the cap as needed.

The other warrior went SW to clear the way for the plains hill sight for the second settler. Finally on a quick check around I noticed that Jowy is at 3 cities! Impressive speed there dude!




I continued scouting north next turn and irritatingly ran into a barb warrior.




I had wanted to clear the coast to the NE, to check if there was a better settle for the city for the marble, although this will have me to change the scouting path. But no big deal.

On turn 42 I noticed an interesting development. Jowy borders:




I was rather annoyed at this at first. That is 2 cities right towards me... It also makes using that flood plain rather awkward. Is Jowy building up to attack me? (Plus this means he settled city 3 on turn 37 I think - that is impressive!)

However then I thought some more - although it is annoying that he has taken a lot of land, the site he settled IS actually closer to his cap than mine (6 tiles to his cap vs 7 tiles to mine). It just seems closer to mine as to his it is via diagonals. I can use the fish for the island city, so it is just the flood that is hard to use. It also does pretty much mean though that it makes attacking me from his direction awkward. He will need to wade through my capitals culture to hit anything. So we will have a 6 tile buffer zone to the south, and an island city border (well in that direction anyway). So overall I am not too bothered by this settle. Also I have knowledge of most of the tiles around there and to my knowledge he has not picked up a horse resource yet, which is a relief. I cannot imagine there will be any other sources that close, there do seem to be a lot lying around on this map.

We continue on to turn 44, where I noticed bob borders appearing. Again this should give a nice gap between border cities.




He settled this city this turn, which is 3 turns earlier than I plan to settle my third city. No big deal, with everyone else in slavery and chopping I expect to be slower to the third city. I sent a worker to road the ivory to allow myself to grow tall as my wide ability is hampered without slavery and finished the cottage. My worker will now move to road the tile 1W of the cap I preroaded at the start moving to the corn to allow my settler to make it straight to the settle site.

Power charts - Jowy is increasing, but we are all at a fairly low base. If I had bronze then I believe that we would be even. So I think with that we have the same amount of warriors and population roughly. Bob still hasn't teched archery.


Demos - Looking pretty nice in all the fields! Although without slavery my demos need to be rather high to compete. Liking the GNP in particular. I do have a religion, and am going full tech although I am only doing a 1 preresquite tech.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Turn 45-50

At the start of turn 45 I continued my dance near Jowys borders avoiding the barb warrior and noticed this:




Jowys copper. It is third ring and he is only hooking it now. I expect my copper to be third ring also, and on a grass/plains tile. As he has already completed the road, it should be online shortly.




He also stationed his scout right on my borders... I am prepared for another declare next turn :wallbang:. Irritatingly I cannot use my capital warrior to kill the scout here as he is needed to be an MP. As Jowy would gain visibility regardless I guess I will just have to let him be.
The eastern warrior was moving to sit on the desert hill to my west to spawn bust approaching barbarian warriors, but I decided to call him back to kill the scout if needed. He would be able to cover the settler the turn it moves onto the city site if needed, but hopefully wouldn't need to.
An interesting point here is that barbs have been able to enter borders since Jowy settled his third city (turn 37) That is crazily early for a noble game, although I suppose we all had a 10 turn worker start.

When I did the zoom out showing culture, I finally noticed cornflakes culture on the world map. He and Retep appear to be expanding towards each other. I think that is his second or third city.







Powers seem pretty stable, main thing is no skirms available yet.

The next turn Jowy did declare and asked for peace straight away. He just sat on my forest hill to the SE of the cap, but he also killed my scout . Probably should have kept a little further away from the border perhaps. I accepted as there is no point having him sit on resources and either have to suffer unhappy or an improved tile that I cannot work.

EOT 47 I picked up bronze working, and had a major setback...




With where Jowy has settled makes a terrible location for me... I can't settle in front of it otherwise I will have major issues keeping cultural control of my first ring, and thus defending the city will be impossible if at any point he can strike with war chariots from inside his own cities! Also I kinda wanted to leave that area as a natural buffer zone between us too. There also aren't any other sources of bronze close by either. I had already moved the settler to the western site also and felt that moving for a subpar city location there would not be the best play. If there were no Jowy cities there then city for would have gone 1S of the copper as capital culture picks up the flood and the flood and the copper would have been 2 good tiles to work straight away, and the copper would have given a fast granary. When the borders had popped and I had fishing it could have picked up fish too. Now I am not so sure. Perhaps the best site would be 1E of the copper? It would not have the great long term potential, and it would't be able to control it's second ring so cannot be settled without a spear or 2 but might be the best use of the land.

Also out east I wondered if bob would attempt to settle the marked site for the clam - this would be great for me as I could spear both of those cities from inside my own territory. Hopefully he does feel the greed and go there

As there wasn't much I could do except play the land how it lays I went to continue my plan and go for the oracle. I had been keeping an eye on the 2 marble sources that I could see so far and no one has hooked them yet.

Turn 48 I settled my third city, although I forgot to take a picture of it on that turn . Here it is on 49:




The worker followed to hook the sheep ASAP and my other worker after finishing the ivory connection went to chop the forest - first mistake here is going for an instant cottage I realise now. I am too used to quick speed where you gain a worker turn straight cottaging a forest rather than chopping and then cottaging. I finished a third worker in New New York who will help get some chopping done on the oracle. No point holding it up with so much marble around and not going for an ambitious slingshot. I had built the warrior to within 1T of completion just in case any attack needing a few more bodies, until the city was size 4 and the worker could be done in 5 turns. I will get a fourth worker there shortly too, I need to catch up on chopping!

The new city started build on a granary. My warrior I kept 1W of the capital so it could respond to any threat within time wherever it may come from.

I think I will go monarchy next, just building up cash to get it in one shot. Given that I have delayed slavery this long, and will do until after I complete the oracle it will only be another 5 turns until I can have monarchy. I will probably do a double switch and have no happy problems after, and make up for lack of earlier whipping! My populace will feel my wrath

Still no great plan for trying to connect the copper in that location. I think I will just have to suck it up and risk a worker down there . No barbs should threaten me but if Jowy has WC then that would be a free worker for him... Even trying to get some chariot cover would not be that useful, as the WCs will have good odds on them.

The x's are just thinking spots. I have no idea where city 4 should go yet...

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Turn 51-53

T51
Continued building the oracle in the cap, and workers mainly helping there. I finished the western pasture, otherwise little else to say. No scout obviously so pretty dull. Techwise I decided to plow on and get monarchy. I also have wines that I can hook with this really helping the happy limit.

I did note that Jowy has writing. No one else has writing yet.


Demos again looking pretty good with everyone at 3 cities, although the non slavery caveat still applies.


I wanted to see the difference for full tech 1 prerestquite to full tech 3 prerestquite. A gain of 12 GNP



T52

Empire overview:




Pretty happy with everything right now. 4th worker soon, some nice infrastructure and almost the first world wonder. Power tiles hooked and 3 generally nice cities. Moving the warrior to spawnbust/sentry the western area. I will probably sentry up the north with Jowy in 10-15 turns.




Also noticed that Judaism has been founded. (even though Hindu says unknown I know bob has it from the culture graphs I have on him - plus he has had a spread! Damn RNG ) It has gone to the Retep city that I saw whilst scouting out there. This also means that he has masonry though! Could he be competing for the oracle? None of the marbles I can see have been acquired and I doubt there would be another in easy settling distance but you never know. Not much I can do now but wait and see. I will be completing it in 2 turns anyway. Just a waiting game now... Interesting going for Judaism this early, it isn't like religions will be sparse on this game or give great shrines. Mine was born out of necessity of culture quickly in that first settle. He unfortunately had already spent hammers on a monument in that city too

T53

Retep turned up to say hello, but I am wise to the RB declaration for visability game now. Moved my warrior to make it rather unappealing. He can already see the new city, and the only place he could go is onto my sheep, but if he does go there I will just use the corn for this city next turn.




Bob I think has got archery a turn or 2 ago, which I forgot to get a screenshot of. However I have recently got third ring Borders in New New York so I should be able to see any approaching units. There is a lot of forest out there though, and he has seen my copper so will know it is unhooked at present...




Having some barbs have a look at my cities now. I will move a warrior up to intercept him and hopefully lure an attack whilst on defensive ground. Don't want to be wasting hammers on barbs this early.

And that's all up to date! I should get the oracle end of next turn (if it goes now I have been a bit screwed by the turn order, but so be it) plan will be to get mon and dual civic swap. Also I will quickly chop a forge in NNY and work a eng spec there for the GPPs to get one out before a GP. One worker will go on a lone mission to try and hook the copper. I shan't bother covering him as I would just lose both the worker and the covering unit then. After I have chopped the forge in the western city I am unsure of my next build there at present. Finally after the oracle I will either go settler or granary, probably granary whilst waiting for slavery working my cottages.



Long term plan I think I will attempt the colossus for fail gold. I do not think I will work that many coastal squares to make it a great wonder to own, but I will be able to convert 1 hammer to 2.75 gold (as it needs a forge, although that is only from city hammer amounts of 4 hammers, otherwise the extra will be lost in rounding) if I try for it in a few cities I should be able to bank a fair bit of gold. The best way to build it will probably be with worker and settler overflow. I will have to detour slightly to have the ability to build a marble wonder, and stone is rather far from me currently. Therefore it is the most efficient fail golding.

Tech wise I will go for either fishing/sailing next or IW, probably IW. I think after a lot of though a city to use the gems first ring will be the best. It will get me another 2 to my happy cap with forges, and is a great tile to work. I think I will have to build it on the tile 1S to share the sheep, otherwise having a food source there will be tricky. The other city I should probably build soon is the one blocking the passage to the SE. This can work the sheep tile straight away, whilst NNY can pick up a few cottage squares, work it's eng and be whipped a bit. I will be able to work the wine which is a decent square and eventually pick up lighthousable lakes and a FP.

The island city will be done shortly after sailing, and cities out to the west can wait as I am unsure of the best settling pattern for them. People are so far away there I am tempted for a city to sit on the plains hill with copper W and crabs first ring. Then I could have a fish city a little further away and one for the leftover land and horse later. But this will probably all change by the time I can put up another picture when I get the save back!

[von Adlercreutz]

How are things going? Did you get the Oracle?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I was gonna give you a full answer but I am planning on doing another big update shortly, probably either tonight or tomorrow so I will save spoilers. It was gonna get done over the weekend but my one pitboss at cfc hit the fan and went into meltdown over what I feel would have been an obvious double move but there was treated as 'tactical play of the clock'.

The ruling actually went against me as they are quite happy with clock games, but the other guy felt he now needed a reload (no idea exactly why still) despite moving after me last turn, not ending his turn then logging in the second the turn rolled. He claimed the turn prior he couldn't finish his moves (even with that civstats activity) and even though he didn't declare war next turn he had claimed the first half of the turn, otherwise I will double move him.

This along with managing to have a few internet games with the gamespy crowd again, and having to update the other pitboss thread to keep adrien in the loop I am behind reporting here. But lots to say when it does come up and I have been doing a fair bit of forward planning...

Whilst playing the teamer games online (very common setup, a 3v3 on an inland sea setting with always war 2 city elimination) I found that my skills have dropped a little in ability to play a turn in a minute - if you spend a few months on looking at a turn for a few minutes at least if not more it suddenly becomes very awkward to play like that again! However this made me very excited for this game as our team had a good lead, but even with that we were completely overwhelmed with the other teams phracts. Despite having pikes and eles, they just rode right through us and managed to decimated everything.

So if I can pull off an early slingshot here I should be in very good shape although admittedly the city slim limit did help.

But not to keep you in suspense as it was only the turn after I last reported it was due, yes I did manage to claim the oracle, and take metal casting with it

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

So starting to reupdate (I feel this is a allegory for my life, leaving things until they pile up too much and then trying to do everything in 1 go, my tutor would definitely agree, but would also probably suggest that it is more important to get my professional reflective learning done instead too :P) but civ is more fun.

So currently we are at the late 60's turn numbers, and today is the first day that we haven't had a turn since the game started (that I can recall). We shall push through, using the screenshots that I took at the time on each turn.

T54






Obviously the big news here is securing the oracle. I wonder if I was competing with anyone? Both Retep and Bob have a priesthood prerestquite, so might have tried to get it at a longshot, although being the only IND likely meant no-one else bothered to try for it. (I note now I should probably get more city tile shots, I got a few throughout this but it is hard to remember to get everything!) Retep did not declare war and scouted the borders, so I moved my western warrior to go and spawn bust. The eastern warriors - 1 is fortifying in the forest, and the other moving out to spawn bust my other unpopulated border to my southeast where barbs are likely to come from.

Forest being chopped for south park for it's granary, another cottage for the cap built by my 2 workers there and a 5th worker getting built in NNY, using the overflow for the hammer bonus this turn then it will switch back onto a forge next turn, until the chop comes in to complete the worker.

Externally one thing I did notice was that Jowy had OB with cornflakes... Not quite sure what he is doing there. (Also note no Retep/Bob contact)
Everyone except Bob and myself is on 4 cities.






As I am 2nd with 0 import/export only one of them is benefiting from the open borders, and I guess it must be flakes rather than Jowy, as the most likely explanation for this is flakes has sailing but Jowy doesn't. He is gifting flakes 4 commerce! Poor move dude. Unless you needed to move through his borders, but even still... I can understand mutual benefit, but that will quickly add up!

T55

Obviously I chose MC with my bulbing plan. Little upset I couldn't get a bigger tech, but I am sure this is definitely the best long term plan now.






Granary chopped in SP (note I am working the FP rather than the corn - essentially I am holding food in there until the granary comes in, as otherwise I will not grow with as much food in the bar), started in the cap and (image taken before change) forge started in NNY. Workers that finished cottaging moved as a pair to attempt to hook the copper to give me some security. A wandering Jowy unit could really spoil my day here, but not much that I can do about this. I do need metal now, especially as both bob and Jowy can see it being unhooked.
A few barb issues all around. Retep scout looks a bit isolated there and will likely be killed. Also there are barbs all around NNY now. I thought about getting another warrior but I could not get it early enough if it was needed anyway. I decided to keep the warriors close to the city so if I lost a stupid odds fight then at least I would not lose a city over it.




I also started thinking about city spots. Here is where I would have liked city 4. He would have worked the copper on a granary off the bat and had the flood to instantly use, as well as fish second ring when I got the tech. But as I said above, I would have issue controlling my first ring culture here which is a recipe for disaster, and second ring culture is fairly important vs war chariots! Need more time to work out where the next ones should go. Not building any settlers at present, so still some time to think.

T56 - the theme for this turn is stupid barbs...






My warrior won his 96% battle out in the forest and moved back into NNY. Retep did lose his scout and I took the 85% odds to kill the barb, rather than let it promote next turn (most likely) and become a bit of a pain, which I won nicely. But a second warrior appeared from the SE as well... I decided to stay on the forest. I felt that I was more likely to entice a barb attack here and could reinforce/swap with the NNY city warrior if I had any issues with combats.

SP started a forge to grow on and I started cottaging the flood tile. HR (and slavery) in 5 turns!




Keeping the demos pretty healthy, although I do have +15 culture per turn currently (although Jowy with 4 city is at +12, Retep and Bob both have religions too and flakes has henge, so I feel our culture outputs are roughly even atm) and am at full tech.




Speaking of religions, my bhuddists are being rather stubborn at spreading... Really envious at the hindu spread!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I should point out why I play with the health bars on - the health bars are directly related to the strongest base power unit that is built. So if you notice that a health bar suddenly shortens, you know that a stronger unit type is out. This is very useful for timing the first axes/spears, then swords/has, then eles etc.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

T57




(Note the health bar changes, a stronger unit type is now on the field)
The barbs continued their relentless advance, in a rather annoying fashion. They both threaten my sheep pasture and can hit my warrior. I worked out the odds and didn't like my chances of surviving both warriors going onto the sheep to defend it, especially as the 2nd warrior was needed in NNY to keep the happiness. So I felt I should risk the pillage and keep my spot on the forest.

NNY grew to size 5 last turn, and I put the chop directly into finishing the worker started 2 turns ago, to minimize turns not growing. Finished the road to the copper, without any issues from Jowy so far, and everything else continued on as building.






I spend a little time analyzing the demos with regards to the health bar changes. I think given the power increases it is likely that Bob has got some units out, probably skirms given his civ. As my power is 2nd (that I can see) without anything other than warriors I feel pretty safe from everyone else currently, and with the large borders with Bob will have decent warning with any attack coming from that direction.