RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[WarriorKnight]

I am fine with NE as well.

Since we are in agreement, I moved the warrior and ended our turn. Not much revealed that we didn't already know. Image didn't work for some reason.

[Sockboy]

Well, the payoff is hopefully next turn, but we'll see.

Anyway had a couple of other random thoughts/discussion topics I thought I'd throw out there...

Huge map. What are the effects? Things like city maintenance get decreased, more land per civ hopefully. How many cities do we need for Oxford? That scales with map size right? (But not number of civs?)

What kind of city spacing are we thinking of for our first couple of cities? 3/4 tiles away from each other.

Techwise I think we're mostly agreed upon heading towards Bronze Working ASAP, but that won't get us Pottery until quite late(around turn 40/45), is it worth slipping Pottery into the tech order pre-BW? We'll have to drop our research rate once we settle our second city. Without it we won't be able to build a granary in our second city, in fact it won't be able to do anything other than produce warrior, worker, settler or barracks.

[Sockboy]

Hey Hey,

New turn! and this time we already had a canned move, so I made it. NE with the warrior it was.


Some nicer looking land up that way, but those peaks look like a bordering range or something, I wonder how far they go... Is that a plains hill to the N of the uppermost one? and there may be a way through along the forested tile, do we want to gamble on it? I think not, but opinions?

Where to next guys? South then SE?

[ad hoc]

s se is okay by me

[Sockboy]

So a little bit more C&D, some successful, some not...

Starting with the unsuccessful stuff, Since team Morgan took 3 turns to settle I was hoping to check out how much coast they had in their BFC, but the cultural expansions of the creative civs who planted in the first turn helped mask it. I think I'm actually missing a demog screenshot for the turn in question, we have one, but it's before Morgan played so they still show as a 0 in the land area category.

Looking at the numbers now, most civs borders have expanded, but it's impossible to exactly determine who has what, the numbers are all pretty high, so I'd be surprised if any(many?) people are on the coast.

One thing we can guess at is that Team Morgan probably settled on a plainshill, as there's been a change in the max hammers produced. I can't see any reason for teams to change from a low production tile to a high one at this stage of the game (other than to muck about with the C&D numbers) so I'd guess the team making 5hpt at the moment is team Morgan. Are they building a workboat?

The other numbers I want to look at this time are the happiness and healthiness numebrs. Normally I completely ignore these, but there's some interesting stuff here too, particularly in the healthiness data.

The happiness shows everyone at an approval of 83%, except for one person... Rapoleon_Hi! he's got an extra happy face from being Charismatic. At least in game (although he's pretty charismatic on the forums too).

Healthiness is a bit difference, we're smack on the average [88] with opponent best at 91 and lowest at 85. So a bit of reverse calc shows us that rival best has a healthiness of 11, whilst the worst has a healthiness of 6. Possible modifiers are expansive trait, forests in BFC, freshwater, jungle, floodplains. Have I missed any? At the moment it's too early for improved tiles so there's no bonii from resources, unless you settle on one. The opponent highest is worrying, it means to my mind that we're got one opponent who's expansive, with freshwater and around 10 forests in the BFC! +2 difficulty, +2 expansive, +2 freshwater, +5 forests! That's a lot of chopping! It also suggests that we've got a pretty average number of forests in the BFC, Everyone is pretty much in the same boat wrt chops. The lowest healthiness is at 6, but I'm choosing to believe that's due to no freshwater rather than a lack of forests, 4 forests is a significant difference in hammers between two starts.

[Pegasus]

Do you think it is too risky to try NE then SE? We do run the risk of running into a cul de sac of peaks though

[Sockboy]

I'm not sure that NE then SE is too risky per se, but I think it's a matter of working out why we're scouting... If we're scouting to get contact with other civs then go far and wide, pick a direction and run from peak to peak.

If we need the warrior for home defence duty then it's probably better to stick to scouting for potential city site nearby. At the moment, I'm thinking to the E of the rice is a viable spot, it shares sheep with the capital, claims the jungle silver and gets wheat in the second ring. With the creative trait I'm not too worried about not having food in the first ring.

I just don't think it's in our best interests to send our only defensive unit so far from home at this stage of the game. I'm in favour of getting another couple of warriors up before we send them too far away.

[Sockboy]

I think we should probably start shifting our discussion on starting builds here rather than by email.

For those of you following along at home...

Our short term goals are:
Bronze Working (to unlock production by whip and axe)
Settler (to umm... expand)
A number(2/3) of warriors (for exploration or defence)

I think we should also prioritise another couple of workers but we're not agreed on that yet (mostly because we haven't really discussed it too much).

With that in mind we've started simming out a few different starts, since BW is so far away for a civ which needs AH and doesn't start with Mining, we'll have to build our settler the old-fashioned (slow) way. Now the big question is really 'do we start building our settler at size 3 or 4'. We've looked at a few different options, but that's what it boils down to (Pegasus, I found a way to replicate your switching start results without the switching, it's the settler at four option).

Wk kicked us off by WorldBuilding a sandbox to test out the various strategies and he simmed out a number of tests for comparison. We've all had a look at refining these down a bit, and I think the attached spreadsheet really sort of boils out the differences.

Essentially we're choosing between:
Settler3 v Settler4
Settler on turn : 32 v 35
BW on turn : 37 v 36
Warriors : later v earlier

(Note: We can adjust the timing on the Settler3 start to get us the second warrior prior to starting the settler, it delays the settler a turn, but not BW I think)

They are identical out to turn 22 so we've got some time to discuss. I would like to point out that we get another two workers very quickly with the Settler4 option, whilst it takes us another handful of turns using the Settler3 option. I think it's important. One other point, the earlier we settle the earlier we need to move away from 100% science, I don't think it's enough to delay BW another turn in the Settler3 option, but it could have consequences for our next tech (Pottery most likely).

Have a go as well and see if we can't shave another turn or two off these. I'd be interested particularly in the Settler3 option, I think it's as lean as it gets (it's all WK's work). I think the Settler4 option is as tight as it'll get too, but I will also admit I'm not necessarily the a world champion at this type of micro so I may have missed something

[WarriorKnight]

Huge map. What are the effects? Things like city maintenance get decreased, more land per civ hopefully. How many cities do we need for Oxford? That scales with map size right? (But not number of civs?)

City maintenance does decrease. Hopefully we do get more land per civ but with 17 civs who's knows how much we get.

We need 8 universities for Oxford (same as the banks for Wall Street, courthouses for forbidden palace etc.) on a huge map and no it doesn't scale with the number of civs.

What kind of city spacing are we thinking of for our first couple of cities? 3/4 tiles away from each other.

Ideally we want cities to be 4 tiles away from each other for defensive reasons. In reality it all depends on the map but a denser city build is usually better.

Is that a plains hill to the N of the uppermost one? and there may be a way through along the forested tile, do we want to gamble on it? I think not, but opinions?

Where to next guys? South then SE?

I think it's a desert hill, not like it really matters.

I'm fine with going S then SE for now.

So a little bit more C&D, some successful, some not...

Starting with the unsuccessful stuff, Since team Morgan took 3 turns to settle I was hoping to check out how much coast they had in their BFC, but the cultural expansions of the creative civs who planted in the first turn helped mask it. I think I'm actually missing a demog screenshot for the turn in question, we have one, but it's before Morgan played so they still show as a 0 in the land area category.

Fortunately, I have a demog screenshot of the turn in question (turn 2 after Morgan settled). Pictures don't seem to be uploading correctly from where I am at the moment so its saved in photobucket. For the lurkers the rival average then was 8937, which I believe makes Morgan another land start (needs to be checked how many lake tiles, if any).

Looking at the numbers now, most civs borders have expanded, but it's impossible to exactly determine who has what, the numbers are all pretty high, so I'd be surprised if any(many?) people are on the coast.

Well, given that the average is 19375 and a few teams that delayed settling still need to expand borders, we can safely assume that no-one is on the coast.

Also the rival low is 9000 now which means that whoever is that other team that had a water tile is creative. Fairly useless info but nice anyway.

One thing we can guess at is that Team Morgan probably settled on a plainshill, as there's been a change in the max hammers produced. I can't see any reason for teams to change from a low production tile to a high one at this stage of the game (other than to muck about with the C&D numbers) so I'd guess the team making 5hpt at the moment is team Morgan. Are they building a workboat?

Well, in my demog screenshot the max hammers is 4. I have no idea who is doing what for production so feel free to try finding info here.

The other numbers I want to look at this time are the happiness and healthiness numebrs. Normally I completely ignore these, but there's some interesting stuff here too, particularly in the healthiness data.

The happiness shows everyone at an approval of 83%, except for one person... Rapoleon_Hi! he's got an extra happy face from being Charismatic. At least in game (although he's pretty charismatic on the forums too).

Actually, there are 2 Charismatic leaders in this game; the other is ManiaMuse's team (with Hannibal).

Healthiness is a bit difference, we're smack on the average [88] with opponent best at 91 and lowest at 85. So a bit of reverse calc shows us that rival best has a healthiness of 11, whilst the worst has a healthiness of 6. Possible modifiers are expansive trait, forests in BFC, freshwater, jungle, floodplains. Have I missed any? At the moment it's too early for improved tiles so there's no bonii from resources, unless you settle on one. The opponent highest is worrying, it means to my mind that we're got one opponent who's expansive, with freshwater and around 10 forests in the BFC! +2 difficulty, +2 expansive, +2 freshwater, +5 forests! That's a lot of chopping! It also suggests that we've got a pretty average number of forests in the BFC, Everyone is pretty much in the same boat wrt chops. The lowest healthiness is at 6, but I'm choosing to believe that's due to no freshwater rather than a lack of forests, 4 forests is a significant difference in hammers between two starts.

Well we moved to get more forests in range (and plains hill) so we got fairly lucky there. We should endeavour to use our forest chops wisely since it looks like everyone is in the same boat. Otherwise it's likely guess and check from here.

Essentially we're choosing between:
Settler3 v Settler4
Settler on turn : 32 v 35
BW on turn : 37 v 36
Warriors : later v earlier

Let the debate begin:

Firstly, there are 3 plans for debate. There is my settler3 option, my settler4 option (which is incorrect above because BW comes on t37) or Pegasus's settler4 option (which is incorrect above because the settler actually comes on t36).

Warriors, after the first warrior is completed for military protection, are only useful for scouting (and military police with HR, but that's a while away) which, on emperor, probably will not last long against the barbs. Therefore we should try to build 3 or 4 at most.

While it is true that the settler4 options can build workers quicker after the settler, the settler3 option can grow to size 4 after that with more improved tiles and an earlier 2nd city. True, we run light on defence, but I prefer having chariots and axes to warriors. Of course if we meet some teams along the way, then things can change.

At the moment, I still prefer my settler3 option. This can change if we don't have any horses or meet some teams in the next 20 or so turns.

[Sockboy]

Firstly, there are 3 plans for debate. There is my settler3 option, my settler4 option (which is incorrect above because BW comes on t37) or Pegasus's settler4 option (which is incorrect above because the settler actually comes on t36).

While it is true that the settler4 options can build workers quicker after the settler, the settler3 option can grow to size 4 after that with more improved tiles and an earlier 2nd city. True, we run light on defence, but I prefer having chariots and axes to warriors. Of course if we meet some teams along the way, then things can change.

WK, can you have another look at the spreadsheet. I've managed to find a way to get both the settler out on turn 35 and BW on turn 36 :neenernee, it involves working a riverside grassland (not mine) at size3. This is better than both your Settler4 option (same timing on settler, BW on 37) and Pegasus' Settler4 (Settler on turn35, same timing on BW). I assume there's no reason to look at options that have been bettered. This reduces the options to be considered to 2.

I'm not convinced we can work more improved tiles by having an extra city out a few turns early, mostly because we need our single worker to chop out the next two workers (actually it's a chop and whip). Delaying BW means that our worker needs to shuttle back and forth between the two cities to partially improve tiles before moving back to chop or further delaying our next workers. There's a lag of around 9 turns between settler out and next worker out, that's pretty substantial to me. Maybe the worker actions here can be adjusted, but I don't think there's a lot of room for it.

Not sure I agree that we don't want more than 3/4 warriors unless absolutely necessary, but nevertheless both options builds provide three (they both build 2 warriors, to give us 3 if we include our stating one), we'll want 2 for military garrisons, so that's only one more for exploration... Both have some hammers invested into a barracks (although very few in both cases, and they can be changed to an extra warrior if we feel prudent).