RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn played except for the missionary movement. Not entirely sure whipping PR was the right thing to do, although, it grows a pop back when the turn rolls. I think we should probably lay off the whip there and let it grow back and build units after it produces a stable.

I'm still not clear on what we should do with the missionary. If we decide against OR, we could still chop a Monastery in Kilrah to make missionaries from... problem is Kilrah won't benefit much from the research boost of that building. We could also still chop up a monument (ugh!) there, or just leave it's boarders unexpanded till we get around to converting it (double ugh!).

We could possibly convert Temminck, and build a monastery there... we'll definitely want a monastery there...

OK, I SUCK at macro, help!

X_X

[Maniac Marshall]

Agreed.

Stone site is only there for stone. With the stone site, how about we say they can have it, IF they let us use the stone on request? Worst they can do is say no. Well, they could declare war....

Email exchange with Mali. The gist is they get the gems site, we get the rights to try to beat the Aztecs to green, and we just ignore that sot in the north for now.

For Yellow, 1E OR 1 NE (which puts it back on a hill and a river) are alternatives. NE overlaps Savannah a bit, but has other redeeming qualities.

[RefSteel]

the city will be able to build the grainery in a timely fashion, delaying growth for one turn, so that it will have the grainery just before growing to size 3 for the cost of just one chop.

This would means we're slow-growing to size 4 (or size 3.5 + whip) before we get any benefit out of the granary. I'd much rather get it sooner with two chops.

I'm still not convinced we need monarchy right away.

I agree we don't need it yet, but I think I'd still revolt if it doesn't cost any extra anarchy time. How bad is the civic upkeep?

Once we have one city with religion, it will likely spread on it's own, right?

No. Zero chance. Which pRNG have you been watching this game? Seriously though, auto-spreads happen rarely and by sheer luck. Do NOT count on them! Note what happened to M_H's Prague in PBeM1. Likewise, in the first game of Civ4 I ever played, I had a city called Piker's Peak that was connected via trade network with three gazillion cities containing between one and three religions apiece, with (I think) all seven represented, for approximately ever. At first, I didn't send it a missionary because I was sure religion would spread there naturally. Later on, I decided not to send it a missionary just to see how long it would take for the religion to spread. When I reached domination sometime in the 18th century, there was Piker's Peak, in the middle of my empire, still populated entirely by avowed atheists.

as I see it it's a case of what we want more. OR/HR along with CS.

Sure - there's no point in revolting to HR right away if it costs us an extra turn of anarchy and we don't expect to need it. On whether we need it, of course, bear in mind the power of the whip....

(We're #1 in hammers this turn by a WIDE margin this turn btw, almost 10 IIRC)

Obviously, we rock. Terrific work on this game, Maniac!

[Cull]

BTW, I believe Monarchy is the SAME civic upkeep as the default one. Its just the question of if we can afford the anarchy I think.

[T-hawk]

Religion auto-spread happens only from the holy city. The holy city must have a trade connection with the atheist city (can pass through closed borders and Mercantilism, but not through hostile war territory, and the path must be defogged up to the other civ's borders.) So if you're at war with any particular holy city owner, that religion can't auto-spread to you. Only the holy city matters, not any other cities with religion.

The chance depends on distance, I don't recall the formula but it's something like 1% per turn at max distance and 5% per turn for a nearby city. The shrine doubles the chance.

[RefSteel]

Not entirely sure whipping PR was the right thing to do, although, it grows a pop back when the turn rolls. I think we should probably lay off the whip there and let it grow back and build units after it produces a stable.

General thoughts on PR: Given sufficient health and happy, it should work horses+cow+farm+(grass)mines+(more)farms until it hits size 10ish, except when building something that will be immediately useful. When it finally gets to a cap of some kind, the plains hill mine is great, and we might even consider working an engineer. The shared fp village should belong to Temminck when possible, but don't sweat it if there aren't enough farms available, as it only makes a couple beakers per turn of difference right now.

I'm still not clear on what we should do with the missionary. If we decide against OR, we could still chop a Monastery in Kilrah to make missionaries from... problem is Kilrah won't benefit much from the research boost of that building.

The big problem with OR of course is that it costs an extra turn of anarchy just to revolt to Hinduism. If we have zero happy problems, we can cheerfully send the miss to Kilrah for culture and not bother spreading it or converting to anything religion-related. That said, I like OR a lot, and at this game's tech pace, we're likely to get good use out of it even in our developed cities.

More specifically, on the Miss: If you're on the fence about what to do with it, you could start by asking Krill if/when he's planning to build the AP and whether it's going to be Hindu. If the answers are basically, "Yes, soon, yes," a monastery in Kilrah will eventually pay for itself anyway, from the AP hammers alone. The monastery should also speed the border pop. I'm inclined to get the missionary into Kilrah ASAP regardless though, since we need to get some culture in there and I like OR a lot anyway.

[RefSteel]

BTW, I believe Monarchy is the SAME civic upkeep as the default one. Its just the question of if we can afford the anarchy I think.

Aha - thanks, Cull.

Religion auto-spread happens only from the holy city. The holy city must have a trade connection with the atheist city (can pass through closed borders and Mercantilism, but not through hostile war territory, and the path must be defogged up to the other civ's borders.) So if you're at war with any particular holy city owner, that religion can't auto-spread to you. Only the holy city matters, not any other cities with religion.

The chance depends on distance, I don't recall the formula but it's something like 1% per turn at max distance and 5% per turn for a nearby city. The shrine doubles the chance.

Thanks, T-hawk! We don't have a trade connection with Krill, so I was literally right that there is zero chance of an auto-spread to us. I should note however that M_H's Prague was practically on top of his holy city capital, with a trade route connection. Piker's Peak only had defogged trade route connections to three or four shrined holy cities at first, including my state religion, but got in touch with all of them before long. Piker's Peak was proud of its atheistic heritage - that's all I've got to say about that.

On the Dotmaps:

We don't want Green unless we're absolutely sure Mali will not attack us ... ever.

[EDIT: Also on the dot map: I don't think we'll be settling toward Mali with our next city or two regardless. I think. That said....

Would the stone city look better 1S, by the way? Its BFC would overlap with Mali Gems City's, but not severely. It would be sitting on a plains hill and would lose a couple mountains and a desert from its BFC, making up for its desert hill and Malinese Overlap, also trading two plains hills we could never feed anyway for a grass forest and a grass forest hill (assuming the city controls the part of its BFC that's in Mali City's 3rd ring). The site isn't awful - the spices are a sort-of food source, it's got an fp in its second ring, and it can farm the aforementioned grassland (already irrigated thanks to the oasis, I think). Cottage a couple of grasslands, quarry the stone, mine the three grassland hills, and it'll be decent at least, plus it has lots of forests to chop into something.]

[Maniac Marshall]

This would means we're slow-growing to size 4 (or size 3.5 + whip) before we get any benefit out of the granary. I'd much rather get it sooner with two chops.

There's been some improvements. We can't get it done before we grow to size 2 AND pigs hooked up, and hooking the pigs up is almost done (next turn) so there's no going back at this point. We'll have 3 extra food coming out of the lone tile we're working starting next turn. Now, if you want me to slow growth by working a grass forest I could get it done before we grow to size 2 at the cost of 15 food from not working the pigs tile (that can't be worth it can it?), otherwise, it's going to be done before we get to size 3 not 2. I could further ignore the mine and double chop the thing, but is there a benefit? Very minimal. See below.

The fastest it will be done with a double chop is on T98, Size 2. with 16/24 in the food box.

The fastest it will be done with a single chop is T99, Size 2, with 19/24 in the food box. This option also presents and a grass mine already done, and 30 hammers still available to chop.

To me, for a single turn delay, option two wins, but I'm and idiot when it comes to this game, so you tell me.

I agree we don't need it yet, but I think I'd still revolt if it doesn't cost any extra anarchy time. How bad is the civic upkeep?

If/when it is a free revolt, it's a no brainier. If we want to revolt to caste system (Which I surely don't think is in our best interest. We're going hammers/commerce, not farming. Again, though, I'm an idiot, so feel free to tell me), it'd be a no brainier to revolt now to HR/OR, and then to CS/CS on turn 99.

No. Zero chance. Which pRNG have you been watching this game? Seriously though, auto-spreads happen rarely and by sheer luck. Do NOT count on them! Note what happened to M_H's Prague in PBeM1. Likewise, in the first game of Civ4 I ever played, I had a city called Piker's Peak that was connected via trade network with three gazillion cities containing between one and three religions apiece, with (I think) all seven represented, for approximately ever. At first, I didn't send it a missionary because I was sure religion would spread there naturally. Later on, I decided not to send it a missionary just to see how long it would take for the religion to spread. When I reached domination sometime in the 18th century, there was Piker's Peak, in the middle of my empire, still populated entirely by avowed atheists.

I think T-Hawk answered this below.

Obviously, we rock. Terrific work on this game, Maniac!

Not so sure about that, with the whipping, we've fallen into the middle of the pack again in all categories. Still, I think with our tiles we'll grow back really fast and be back in or near the lead in both hammers and commerce soon.

[T-hawk]

Also note there's a multiple-endpoints effect there. If a city has a 2% chance per turn of getting religion, and goes 200 turns without it, that's a fairly small (but not prohibitive) chance, 1.7%. (1 - .98^200). But then if you have 20 cities total, the aggregate chance that one of them never gets auto-spread is 34%, well within possibility. Stated less quantitatively, we notice the exceptions, not the usual cases.

[Maniac Marshall]

The turn is in the books. Kilrah is converted.

The micro-plan is no longer valid. I'm building an Archer in the cap, as we need a few cheap MP units. Not counting the 2 scouting warriors, we have 1 warrior and 1 archer, so, at the very least, we need 1 more archer. I really want 1 more chariot too for Axe killing too if possible.

I will attempt to make a new micro plan in the next 48hrs.

Oh, as regards green, I've considered that possibility, though I'd be more worried about the Aztecs coming for the city than Mali. I'm not suggesting we beeline for it.

I know you want that Iron city settled soon, but, I'm concerned about yellow. That will be an awesome commerce city, and the site is way more at risk than the Iron site. Once the cities grow up some, and we have a few more units, we'll build another couple of settlers. Right now our military is stretched thin as it is without 2 more cities to defend...