[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[mackoti]

Question for Mardoc: Did you run this map through novice's map balancing tool? Some players seem to have significantly more land available to them (disregarding my move).

I made contact with dtay last turn as you can tell from the above screenshots, he accepted map trade. The only person I don't have visuals on is Ventessel, but I can see Joeys map of his side of the border.

I feel vindicated in my decision to move. Snakepick, identical starts and choke points on opposite sides of the start means the fastest starting players had an advantage on T0, and the players at the start of hte snakepick had the lock on those picks.

I dont know about having those lock, for example  is anyone  Charlegmane ,joa, augustus?

[Krill]

The issue is not with the leaders but the civs. Hunting/Mining was the best start pair bar none. It gave the most beakers, and because there are copper, iron and horse (and probably every other strat resource) at the capital, the players that got a civ with the right starting tech was able to hook resources quicker and overcome the advantage of traits for the first 30 turns.

I don't think that Inca at this start location would have been able to keep the south choke point against Gav for other reason though: there are no viable city locations down to the south choke point, excluding the choke point itself. I also don't have a single 6 food resource except at the choke point with Ventessel. That pig and corn at AF are the only 6 food resources I have. I also lack inner ring double food in my starting area. I have none whatsoever. I think that the only right way to play this start would have been to pick something like like CRE/IMP.

Ultimately, you expect map imbalances, but you need asymmetric advantages to win. I think this map is too balanced.

[Krill]

Oh yeah, a good one as well, my marble island has a jungle banana for food, everyone else has double food marble islands.

[Krill]

Also, I've just handed in my first Masters essay. It was an utter piece of shit but who cares I don't have to do it again. I hope to do a full T100 report but I'm off to Windsor tomorrow really early so there is a chance I need a pause.

The HE is up and running, the economy is crashing, the shrine is due in 5 turns to sort things out and I'm building 3 missionaries every 5 turns now. I count 7 cities already with Hinduism. I just have to beware the overflow cap at the capital, probably going to build a worker every 8 or so turns plus 6 military units.

[mackoti]

Oh yeah, a good one as well, my marble island has a jungle banana for food, everyone else has double food marble islands.

But I can tell you that no one has a second city site like how is your capitol.From a scale from 1 to 10 your was 10 and the best one after is maximum a 7.

[Mardoc]

Question for Mardoc: Did you run this map through novice's map balancing tool? Some players seem to have significantly more land available to them (disregarding my move).

No.  I expected that by the time y'all settled your first five cities, neighbor luck and player decisions would matter more than the map, so long as I didn't do anything egregious like forget to give you strategics.  As best I can tell from lurking, I was right about that.

[Krill]

Turn 100 report.

I've just played T101, but nothing new has occurred so may as well just do the proper T100. I'll start with the current overview, micro for each city and the workers involved, and if I have time, energy and patience, strategy going forward and a review of the past 100 turns.




NE towards Ventessel. There is an 8XP, sentry chariot on the galley, and a quechua that are mapping out all of the terrain. Dropping off the units on alternate islands and uncovering a lot of FoW very, very quickly. I technically double moved the galley, but he has nothing in this area that could attack it, he can still see it and he has a warrior next to my chariot that he can easily move away. I don't know what DZ is thinking after seeing SoZ built but I don't think he knows I have HE. He can't unless he looks very closely at the city. I need another galley to colonize this area, but I need Currency first. Obvious island city is on the island taking four resources. You can't see it but there is a gold island SW of Pennyroyal. I can't claim it right now, it is right next to dtay and it will need a lot of units to hold. If it is still around in 10 turns I'll try to grab it.

I'm borders pop eot101 at AF, which means I will be able to attack any front city DZ plants without reply. I'm not sure how to fit his second city into the dot map, or if I even want to. All cities on the mainland come after and during the death of China.





Islands towards Courva, yuris (he has no coastal cities here so not really able to contest) and Ventessel/DZ. Again, it's really a contest between Courva and me. Once Currency comes in I ought to try and claim the ring of islands beyond the one with the label, and I want to try and push to the marble city because otherwise I won't have a source I'm able to settle that has food.





Gold is now hooked after playing T101. I'm a little concerned that the wheat on the gold island can be settled by anyone, but really it's not that important: that island can't be shared, anyone willing to settle that wheat is willing to fight for the gold city. I'm dumping a scout onto the tile labelled city on the end of the peninsula. Give mer a heads up on Gav whom I can't trust completely.





Gav hasn't moved anything in this arena except a galley to those islands. I'm ceding all those islands south of the ivory, because I don't have any ability to get boats down there, so I couldn't hold them. The only "Contested area" is the bit with the spear but I don't think either of us care for shoving a settler there. Better stuff to go for. I would want to put a city on the northern plains hill (still) but Samsun will pop borders and take southern lakes away. So it's really not that good for me, but eh, Disposable front city?

Right now the only concerns I have are Gav invading but dtay just stole his western gold from him and he has galleys to the west. I think he is appreciating the detente between us and I'm not threatening to him (you'll see why later). Everything else is suggesting I have a bit more time to get the new cities up and running before I need to put them on military duty.

Cities up next.

[Krill]

Turn 100 report: Cities

I'll start by running through the city screenshots and posting current micro and ideas for the next 25 turns.





OK. I have got to state a problem with the HE: I'm making too many hammers. I never thought this would really be a problem, but I can only build 2-3 axes before I have to dump about 38 hammers into something else. OTOH, I'm currently paying 8gpt for unit costs so is that so much a problem? I can build a settler every 9 turns and 6 axes to boot. I will be teching Archery after Currency, that means 25 hammer units. I'll have the southern plains tile farmed on T103, the northern plains tile farmed T107. Grow eot104 and pick up each plains farm when it's complete. I'm aiming for Construction after Archery, at that point I'm going to be one turning cats so need 25hpt, easy to achieve that with a desert hill.

I want to keep on slow growing AF at something like 2-3fpt whilst possible. I may need to take the cow for that, but I will be taking the cow in the long term to build maces and knights. Right now with Archers, I could only build one archer, then a sword and then dump the hammers into a settler like with axe builds now. I will build a Colosseum and then stable here the turn they are available: I figure that having units win a battle and then be able to heal-promote is worth the investment, when I will build them anyway to unlock 4 promo units here.

I want to have a stack ready to go the turn I finish Construction. that means that once Currency is done I'm basically going to want nothing but sword builds. That means, get the settler worth of overflow out by T108-T109.





GP eot102. Shrine gives me +10gpt from T103. Between the shrine and the HE I know that my demographics aren't close to accurate, but I don't think I'm a front runner by any means just yet.

R101 is going to pump out missionaries. I need a missionary for every new city from here on out, R101 makes them until I get into OR, and I'm not sure if I will get that opportunity. Once Currency comes in, I suppose I need to consider a market. Everything else suggests cottage the tiles and grow. The shrine gives priest slots, I need to get the golden age GP from here. the question of growth comes down to micro needs, and I need the priest to maintain 3 missionaries/5 turns. Need to consider what's more important. I also need to consider how to build more settlers. R101 is the only city that can actually build settlers, but it can't build both settlers and missionaries at the rate I need.





Paya. I've decided to grow WP and slow build Paya. We've all got to make compromises, one of mine is that I'm not going to build another galley over here. I'll build that Pennyroyal, which has a size 1 terrace and chopped lighthouse. WP will therefore grow onto all of the mines now and then the plains river tiles that will be cottaged. This is the only coastal city I want to put cottages into. I'm expecting Paya before T120, but due to the micro around growth and hooking happy/health I'm not going to figure that out now. I don't think I'm in a race for Paya. After that, barracks, Colosseum and back up unit produce to murder Ventessel/DZ.





Whip cycle! Only city I could build workboats for the new cities, so this is why they come from. I'll whip a settler from 12M T106, everything else can work around that. I want a settler for the NW on the peninsula, but this settler will go to the NW island. I'm toying with the idea of turning 12M into the Moai city, either here or Pennyroyal. If I go with here, I'll be chopping both forests for 90 hammers then overflow and production to do the rest.





Whip the library. Need workers, but AS is currently ignored on that front due to having enough tiles to work. I'll need to regrow but I think just cottage everything.

I'm getting bored now so I'll probably not right much more, but I'll at least do the cities now.





Work stone T101, whip T102, avoid growth T104, grow T105 saving 11 food, 15/24. Work boat for the fish will improve it T109. Sending a worker from the mainland to improve the entire island. Missionary used T105, borders pop eot108.





Grass cow improved T101, plains cow T103, grass cow roaded T104 and grass corn T106. Terrace whipped at size 3. Micro is a bitch. Way too much food for a city with way too much coast. Need to grow this city and use it to pump out GPP, especially during a GA. 7 specs fed at size 12, 21 base gpp, can't build NE here due to lack of hammers. Which sucks but whatever. Drop in missionary whenever, hooking the deer isn't that important.





Grow by eot105, chop forest T105, whip terrace t106, missionary used T107, borders pop eot111. Workboat to improve crabs will be in place to improve crab T112. Worker can road and prechop the inner jungle hill, the improve the deer, then finish the jungle mine and then hook the horse. Just grow and build Walls and at some point a lighthouse.





Religion spread T102. Rice hooked T101. Forest chopped T104, whip terrace T105, borders pop eot108. Then improve the pig and the fish and still be 7th in food...





Lighthouse chopped T104, grow eot103 Borders pop eot110, maybe eot109 depending on religion spreads. Then I'll use this city to build a galley, probably double whipped. The workers will improve the capital plains tile and then come back to improve the corn. I fucked the worker micro up (due to trying to save gold on keeping units in my borders, otherwise everything would be a turn quicker here).





Who gives a shit. Worker improves the horse, whip the terrace asap then regrow on the crab and rice to size 3 and whip the lighthouse It's just another city, nothing special, however it cost nothing in gold for city maintenance.

[Krill]

The graphs are just dumped, then I'm going to bed.

[Krill]

Joey just paused and whipped something like 14 pop points, then unpause to show a 43 point score drop.

I'd argue that's an abuse of the pause mechanic because we didn't not know how much pop he shipped in different cities but someone else can make that complaint public.