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Minor update while sunrise is sorting out his hosting stuff tonight. I had mentioned earlier that one possible use of our upcoming Great Engineer was rushing the Pyramids; the idea there would be double-revolting to Representation + Mercantilism in roughly 25 turns down the road. A free Representation specialist in every city, with a Philosophical civ, could be really powerful!
However, Speaker and I discussed the whole thing online yesterday, and we decided that it was more important to leverage our research for a military advantage in the immediate future. Maybe if we were isolated on our own island, or had one defendable front or something, the Pyramids would be a better option... but this map forces you to have enemies on every side. Better safe than sorry. So we'll go ahead and stick with our Machinery lightbulb, and instead tech Feudalism (4 turns, we think) followed by Guilds (~7 turns?) for what should be a huge edge. Hopefully we'll have knights a good deal before anyone else!
Speaker also noticed that plako had Alphabet tech discovered, and we realized that we could work backwards from the information displayed to figure out every single tech that they had. That prompted me to send off this email exchange:
Quote:Dear plako and Broker,
Hey, we saw that your team recently finished research into Alphabet technology. This might be too much to ask, but would you be willing to share with us what the F4 Foreign Advisor screen shows under the "Can Research" and "Can't Trade" columns? Working backwards from that info, we could together figure out exactly what techs the other six teams in the game have right now! Typing it out might be a bit of hassle though... I'd ask for a screenshot, but unfortunately the game rules prohibit that until one of us discovers Paper technology.
If you're interested, and don't mind sharing the information with us, we'd certainly appreciate it!
Sullla
The Killer Angels
Quote:Dear Killer Angels,
I'll check the techs when I log in next time and let you know. I was going to do this, but totally forget it during my previous log in.
btw. It might be that we start our Whosit campaign during the ongoing turn depending on what he does. The border city just have 3 defenders previous turn. We'll raze and then probably turtle up after that and try to manage against HRE and Rome. I suspect that they both focus their main forces against us. That should make at least slaze and Dantski very happy.
Best regards,
plako
So - awesome!  The one frustrating thing recently has been a sense of playing in the dark with regards to what some of the other teams are doing. There are too many score increases now to follow tech discoveries just from CivStats. If plako sends that info over, we can fill in our old spreadsheet with current info on exactly what techs everyone has. Obviously, that kind of information holds great value...
Should also be exciting to see what happens with the city on plako's border! I just hope he knows what he's doing. But anything that slows down Nakor and Whosit has to be good for us, so long as it doesn't result in plako's downfall.
We'll do more diplo stuff when the game gets up and running again.
March 27th, 2010, 16:10
(This post was last modified: July 17th, 2010, 12:08 by Sullla.)
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Table of Contents
[INDENT][post=42805](home)[/post] [post=66471](latest draft)[/post]
[/INDENT]
Overview
* [post=51274]Map[/post]
* [post=42805]Turn 50[/post]
* [post=50153]Turn 78[/post]
* [post=61754]Turn 124[/post]
* [post=66225]Turn 150[/post]
* [post=71217]World Map: Turn 177[/post]
Pregame Show
* [post=42807]Choosing a Leader[/post]
* [post=42992]Unique Unit[/post]
* [post=42996]Unique Building[/post]
* [post=43001]Starting Techs[/post]
* [post=46835]Leveraging Philosophical[/post]
* [post=42983]Analysis of opponents (part 1)[/post]
* [post=42994]Analysis of opponents (part 2)[/post]
Peacetime Management
* [post=47662]Micro Spreadsheet[/post]
* [post=49571]Research Overflow[/post]
* [post=64208]Production Micro[/post]
* [post=62177]Currency vs Code of Laws[/post]
* [post=49094]Great/National Wonders[/post]
* [post=67728]On Binary Research[/post]
Cloak and Dagger
* [post=46782]Spying on Production[/post]
* [post=47184]Spying on Improvements[/post]
* Technology Deduction
** ... [post=50199]by research cost[/post]
** ... [post=66617]by Tech Screen (Foreign Adviser)[/post]
* [post=47959]Cloak and Dagger Spreadsheet[/post]
War Management
* [post=50099]The Sentry Net[/post]
* [post=45075]Visibility[/post]
* [post=50117]Line of Sight[/post]
* [post=50065]Cool Game![/post]
Interesting Times
* [post=52544]Dogpile Buildup[/post]
* [post=52498]War <Turn:98>[/post]
* [post=61275]The final strike[/post]
* [post=53602]Multiplayer Defense[/post]
* [post=63395]Mutual Defense Pact?[/post]
* [post=68067]Sulla's rankings <Turn:160>[/post]
* [post=68406]The Three Turn War <Turn:161>[/post]
* Midgame Review
** ... [post=71422]Speaker/Sulla[/post]
** ... [post=71436]Kathelete[/post]
** ... [post=71587]Nakor[/post]
** ... [post=71966]Dantski[/post]
** ... [post=72062]Slaze[/post]
* [post=75797]War with Kathlete <Turn:206>[/post]
* [post=75797]War with Nakor<Turn:222>[/post]
Post Mortem
* [post=82148]Post Mortem Maps <Turn:228>[/post]
* Analysis
** [post=81003]Byzantium[/post]
** [post=81035]Greece[/post]
** [post=81107]Rome[/post]
** [post=81154]Mali[/post]
** [post=81239]Ottoman[/post]
** [post=81276]Korea[/post]
** [post=81650]Inca[/post]
** [post=82145]Holy Rome[/post]
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Great work, that should be in the OP.
To make this contentful: Spullla, why are you planning on rushing to knights? Given your tech edge on Jowy, do you think the short term benefits of having knights first outweighs the long term benefits of having the Pyramids? Unless you are planning further military action beyond Jowy in the near future, I think you might be making the wrong choice here.
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Great work on the table of contents, VoiceOfUnreason!  I've edited it into the posts on the first page.
Two quick reasons why we are going for knights:
- Because the Pyramids are overrated. Unless you are going for some kind of specialist strategy (that usually only works in Single Player), they are typically not worth the cost to build them. Give me 2 settlers and 4 workers instead! The folks in this game have been smart enough not to waste much time building the wonder.
Besides, at this point we're probably only 50-60 turns away from Constitution and Representation anyway!
- Because we value the security provided by knights more than the economic advantage of the Pyramids. You always have to keep in mind that this is a Multiplayer game, not some kind of SP game where you can throw a cheese army at the AI and expect it to fold like a house of cards. (Blah, that link went to Blake's Epic Seven report, where he defeated an army of AI horse archers by throwing warriors at it and wearing them down... but unfortunately the website where Blake wrote his report no longer exists.) You always have to be watching out for an attack, even from your friends. The AI might not declare war at "Friendly", but humans sure will! 
Knights are especially strong units because, as two-movers, they can carry out fast offensive strikes (like we did with horse archers against Jowy earlier) or cover multiple cities defensively as needed against threats. Two-movers generally aren't that great in SP, because the AI stacks all its cities with large garrisons and spread them out evenly. But humans don't work that way; we stick large forces on the border and leave the inner cities lightly defended. Two-movers are valued MUCH more highly in MP, as they make it infinitely easier to race through to those lightly defended areas and do some major damage. Plus, knights flank catapults and trebuchets, so you can shred incoming enemy armies with ease, unless they've brought the appropriate counter units - and that means having pikes too!
To win in MP, you've got to have one of two things: overwhelming numbers, or the ability to strike where the other person doesn't expect. Knights hold tremendous value because they can do both very effectively. Hope that answers your question.
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I guess the thing I missed was the need for paranoia towards your allies. I can see where those feelings might come from given the history of this game
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And this means that the Arabs and Byzantines are a little better in MP because of it (okay, maybe more than a "little" in Byzantium's case).
Civilization IV sure runs like a dream on my new computer.
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Dr. Nomadic Wrote:And this means that the Arabs and Byzantines are a little better in MP because of it (okay, maybe more than a "little" in Byzantium's case).
Good question, and the answer is yes. Arabia is really good in Ren era because you can build camels right from the start. You can therefore rush them forward and sometimes hit an enemy before he's been able to hook up metal for pikes. Arabia is best on open maps like TBG where you can attack from lots of directions. Skilled players can generally defend against it on something like Inland Sea as long as the map is large enough.
Byzantium is so powerful that it's generally banned. With stables, which get built a lot in MP, or with the right civics, you have 2-3 promo strength-12 units. With the Shock promo your stack is pretty much unkillable.
March 28th, 2010, 02:25
(This post was last modified: March 28th, 2010, 09:32 by Sullla.)
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Your 'peace begins' link in your table of contents actually leads to our spoiler thread in RBP3!
Could you please edit or delete it? Thanks
[COLOR="Red"]EDIT: Done. Sorry about that, had no idea myself.
- Sullla[/COLOR]
March 28th, 2010, 07:24
(This post was last modified: March 28th, 2010, 11:12 by antisocialmunky.)
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Wow, great job on the VoU. Sullla and Speaker always get the star treatment lol.
PS. Oops, got your name wrong!
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To be fair. They did say they where going to do one at some point themselves. However VoiceOfUnreason just got there first. Besides, I don't recall anyone esle even hinting towards wanting one.
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