RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[haphazard1]

Excellent info guys, thanks!

Turn has rolled...add we have our first score increase. Incas up to 30.

I thought Ancient Era techs were 3 points, so...pop growth?

[antisocialmunky]

A CHALLENGER HAS APPEARED!

Nothing too interesting, more trees and rivers, no new hills though. We have our first barb, its a lion. Gulliver will hopefully catch a delicious meal in the next 2 turns.



Also demo screen.

[haphazard1]

First barb, but we are well positioned with forests for defense.

That is nice land around Gulliver, or would be if only there was some food.

Demos and score are interesting this turn. We see Incas increase score to 30, and rival best pop is 6000 (size 2). So I think this is growth by the Incas.

Rival average power is up as well, by 312 (x16 = 5000 points). And rival worst inceased from 2000 to 3000.

The worst is the Incas, as 2 pop = 1000 points (1 pop = 0 points). But that leaves 4000 points unexplained.

Assuming the Inca score increase is entirely due to pop (anyone have a good reference for how score is calculated?), no other score increases means no new techs. So that is two warriors. Incas were busy growing and not working hammers, so two other civs have built warriors this turn. Plus the warrior built last turn.

Rival best crop yield is up to 7 -- must be the Incas, working a 3F tile and a 2F tile. Max growth strategy, apparently.

Rival worst approval feel significantly, probably the Incas at size 2. Worst health also down just a bit, again likely the Incas but they are EXP so only a small drop.

We did drop one place on GNP despite no changes in the observed values. I am guessing the Incas added a 2F1C tile (or 2F1H1C, like our sheep), and thus shifted even or ahead of us.

Northeast again for Gulliver next turn? No need to force a fight with the lion, I think.

[Cyneheard]

Pop providing 2 points seems reasonable, that pop can be either 1 or 2 points (for a standard map, it's 2 or 3). Since the rival worst was 3 civs at 2k (the 2 hunting civs + Inca), the 2 hunting civs have each built a warrior. But I count 3 warriors built. We lost 2 ranks this turn, which is consistent with those 2 hunting civs being ahead of us in tiebreakers. The warrior built for T7 was most likely from someone who founded on T1, and worked 3hpt, to finish EOT6. Several civs did found on T1, but not all of them could have built a warrior without passing us in power rating. Therefore, it's most likely one of: Pacal, Pericles, or Zara. We'll find out when one of them grows to size 2.

For approval rating: the Incas now have 5 happy faces / (2 unhappy + 5 happy faces) = 5/7 = 71%. Next growth would get them to 62% (5/8), then 55%, then 50% at 5 unhappy. To have grown in 8 turns, they were working a 3-food tile from the beginning. They will probably finish their 15-hammer warrior or scout for T12, since presumably they're working 2 hammers per turn (the 2-food-tile is probably a 2/1/1 like our sheep, since we lost a rank in GNP).

Ancient techs are worth 5-6 points (everyone started with 11 points, from their 2 techs, before founding their palaces, which was worth 16 as a wonder + 1 from pop).

For Gulliver, he's currently on the only forested hill. No matter where the lion goes, I think we still want to move NE. Evenif the lion moves NW, forest + river is just as good as forest + hill, and it doesn't cost us a turn of scouting.

[haphazard1]

Makes sense, Cyneheard. Thanks for the updated spreadsheet.

I tried to find a good article on scoring, but mostly found stuff about how unreliable the score is in measuring a game, or how to get 500K+ scores on tiny deity maps.

I am guessing (for now, lacking better info) that a pop point is worth 2 score points. So a founded capital at 28 points is:

16 - palace (wonder points)
2 - size 1
5 - starting tech
5 - starting tech

The tech value I am unsure of; I think Ancient techs are 3 points each in PB2, but this is a larger map and more civs which may affect the value.

Need to take another look at my test games, and watch scores a bit.

[Cyneheard]

Ancient techs are 5 or 6. This is independent of the map size, or number of players. Classical ones are double that.
Chances are that tech, pop, and land all have fractional values, and the game rounds down.
And our score is:
1 from Pop
11 from Tech
0 from Land (haven't had any tiles for 20t)
16 from Wonders (Palace)

[Cyneheard]

Oh, a decision point for the next few turns:
If we work the plains hill all the way through, we'll have 1 hammer worth of overflow after rounding. I know my plans benefit from NOT having that overflow, and we can instead gain 2 commerce by working the rice. While we haven't decided on our development plans, do any of our strongest 3 plans need the overflow hammer (say, for a warrior while growing to size 2)? It doesn't look like it, I think we're all doing the rice + sheep plan, with the GHM to maximize hammer overflow on the last turn (also leaves 0 food in the box, since that food sits there forever).

We are 25 beakers shy of Agri, and currently make 10bpt, can make that 11 with the rice. No matter what, our first turn of AH or BW would have 15-17 beakers available, including the 5-7 of overflow. So it doesn't make a difference which 2 turns we would switch for, if that's the plan.

IIRC, our best plans are:
Cyneheard's (Option 2) Agri - BW - AH, build worker - warrior (size 3) - worker - settler @ EOT35. Revolt to slavery immediately, 2 forests chopped, working 2 GHMs on the river + the rice. Probably the fastest for settler 2 and/or worker 3.
Hap's (Option 1) Agri - AH - BW, worker - warrior (size 3) - settler @ EOT34. Better tile development, including more forests, but one less worker. Settler speed equivalent to my plan, because of timing of slavery revolt. Best tile yields, but misses the growth-curve benefits of earlier chops. Also, I prefer settling for copper than horses, although we can get city 3 soon enough.
And the most intricate of the 3:
ASM's Agri - BW - AH, worker - warrior (size 3) - settler @ EOT32 - worker (EOT36??). Not sure if we got all the MM kinks (and exact timing of other things, including slavery revolt) out of this one. Faster 2nd city (3t, so benefits of 6f/6h/9c if trade route: net 2 food on grass forest, and 2 TR commerce), but costs some worker turns, and might slow down settler 2 or worker 3. Also, with a slavery revolt, we can 1-pop whip the worker with a chop, or overflow + some production.

Should we run all of these plans out to settler 2 + worker 3 being produced?

[antisocialmunky]

Go for it, I didn't do the tile swapping, it was just stuck on auto. I don't think any relied on the hammer overflow though.

Another thought would be if the copper is near/far.

[haphazard1]

While I obviously like my plan , I think we should go with Agri-BW-AH. Copper is more important than horses, and hopefully we will have some someplace useful for a second city. Also the anarchy works out better with the settler on the move.

Running through ASM's sequence with more careful micro is worth doing -- we chatted earlier and as he said it was not quite as efficient as it could have been. With the 2 turns of rice, and spending a worker turn moving so we mine the second river grass hill for the extra commerce, we can probably make up most of the delay in AH compared to the other plans.

Running the options out to the second settler is also a good idea -- getting the first settler earlier is valuable but we do not want to sacrifice too much growth doing it.

On the micro, I think the 2 turns of rice is worth doing -- these little bits of commerce add up over time, and 1 hammer will not be critical. Also, watch out for the beaker overflow -- it seemed like it gets adjusted/reduced by the multipliers on the new tech, not the tech you just finished. At least I had a couple beakers less overflow than I could figure any other reason for. Maybe I was just failing on the calcs?

Also, I think we want worker 3 before settler 2 if possible, assisted by chop probably. One worker needs to go to the new city, and we will need to improve the sheep ASAP and also mine the third river grass hill after the chops.

[Cyneheard]

I'll go run my plan again, and have it 2 different ways: 1 where I fortify a worker once settler 1 is finished (as though it traveled with the settler), and the other where worker 3 does no jobs, but gets sent to city 2 immediately.

Re: overflow: Agriculture isn't getting any multipliers, so that shouldn't be an issue.

I'll also flip us to the rice for this turn and the next. On turn 10, we'll need to flip back to the plains hill.

Also, any thought on a naming theme? Cities and workers/military?