[SPOILERS] Xenu Succeeds, BGN Fails! - RB's First Pitboss Succession Game

[Krill]

You are the pick laggards, so yeah. You are the Baddies.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Xenu, if we are last, and it seems maybe we are, just pick one and I'll make it work.

[wetbandit]

Xenu, if we are last, and it seems maybe we are, just pick one and I'll make it work.

It’s too bad that you can’t pick a bad leader here, xenu, either you have mao for the good combo and mao-bashing, or BGN turns spi chm into a powerhouse and takes all the credit.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Mao.

I didn't pick Mao the first two times I played him and he sucked both of those times (BTS in PBEM29 & PB7).  Actually I sucked both of those times, too, so we will try to improve upon Mao's track record this time out.

Why are we choosing Mao?  BGN didn't seem too keen on Brennus from the start and I was only interested because I really wanted to play SPI again after all the value I got from it in PB38.  I know a large part of that was having the pyramids in my back pocket to unlock early and frequent civic swaps, which greatly enhances the svalue of SPI, but aside from that it is an extremely flexible and fun trait to play.  Mao's econ and growth based traits are surely "better" (for many reasonable definitions of better) than Brennus' SPI/CHA combo and should work well with Persia.  I guess ultimately it came down to the fact that I don't want to play SPI so badly that I'd be willing to overlook an objectively better pick for this game setup to play it.

So back to dictator role playing.  That should be fun.  Speaking of, I should check the poll again, I have an election to rig...!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Xenu, if we are last, and it seems maybe we are, just pick one and I'll make it work.

It’s too bad that you can’t pick a bad leader here, xenu, either you have mao for the good combo and mao-bashing, or BGN turns spi chm into a powerhouse and takes all the credit.

I'll take all the credit either way. Here's the thing, though: If we play Mao well, the only difference between THIS time and every other time Xenu has played Mao is, well, ME! 

And if we fail? Well, that's easy too. Xenu doesn't know how to follow directions and can put his coffee down right. now. These are the good leads. Coffee's for closers. Remember, I'm here on a mission of mercy from KrillMardoc downtown. My advice to them was to fire his worthless ass. I drive an $80,000 BMW to log in, that's who the fuck I am. 

Done.

As all of the remaining rerolls were of civs, there re no remaining choices to be made. Below are the combinations you will be playing:

superdeath - Isabella (SPI, EXP) of Carthage

Mr. Cairo  Pericles (CRE, PHI) of Sumeria

Rusten - Saladin (PRO/SPI) of the Celts

Gavagai - Zara (CRE/ORG) of the Dutch

Commodore  Gilgamesh (CRE/PRO) of Mali

naufragar - Suryavarman (CRE/EXP) of Babylon

Donovan Zoi - Hannibal (FIN/CHM) of Ottoman

BGN/Xenu - Mao Zedong (EXP/PRO) of Persia

I will edit the WBS shortly and send it to whomever I'm told.

While you're editing, remove some of that ugly brown from our start and make our starting blob more of a blob that we can get a non-boatable capital with a ring of cities that won't put us over a barrel for maintenance costs. 

Quick hit thoughts on the civs/leaders:

Winners - Rusten, Commodicator

• PRO Mali. Strong. Me like. And in hands of Goreripper. Stronger. 
  
• Rusten is quite capable of playing an excellent early game (again) and has the growth trait (PRO) to pair with SPI. I assume he'll want to go for Mids. He showed a keenness for wonders in PB38 and played the early game very well until he got wrecked (as is tradition) by mackoti.
  

I hope we start next to:

• Superdeath. Not because I think he sucks (I don't) but because his traits are what I was afraid we'd end up with which would lead to a very slow start. And I put the odds of him chasing Mids decently high too. Which is why I'd like to start near him if he does build them. We outexpand early on, whip up a bunch of units, then take a shiny pile of rocks. Though he is the die-hard type, which I like. 
  
• Donovan. Same reasoning, just swap Mids for cottages. Why build cottages if you can capture them?
  

I was secretly hoping to roll a PHI civ but I like Mao for the lols. What could go wrong? More thoughts on opponents later on if I get time.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I just noticed no IMP civs are in this game. That's good news for us, I think, as we'll be competitive enough in the expansion phase to not have to worry about being very far behind anyone. Kind of makes me wish we'd kept IMP but I think we're better off with Mao overall.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I still need to set up an imgur account or use your dropbox workaround for your private hosting. I ran a sim. It's a bit sloppy but the micro is pretty good. I was able to get granaries to 11/22, 12/24, 11/22 and not waste a lot of good tiles. Do a run or two of your own before you look too closely at this so we don't end up with a groupthink plan.

T43: 3 whips (1pop each). 3 granaries, 4 workers, 2 warriors (!), 1 settler complete EoT (100/100 from city2 - this assumes we have a first ring forest in the fog). 4 total pop, all cities connected via road. Very farmer gambity, but also we'll likely have bronze to use as a high yield tile (and perhaps other resources too) before this sim ends so we will get better output somewhere for more units. City 4 is probably down ~T45 with worker support and a paper cutout warrior. Snaky continent means if we can keep the barbs out of the land tube we can skimp a bit. Maybe. But I assume we'll have an axe spear down before this time.

   

I'll clean this up for my second run to include remembering to swap into slavery at the appropriate time...

Code:

T0 mining/worker.
T8 mining.
T9 worker1 to pig. --> warrior. Work ivory T9.
T10 work sheep. worker1 pigs. T10-13
T13 warrior --> warrior
T14 worker 1 to sheep. Grow to 2 EoT.
T15 worker 1 pasture sheep T15-18.
T19 worker 1 [whatever. no wheel for roads, no time for mine to complete before BW] best bet is plains mine for 9h cap for best use of expansive (8+35%=10.8; 9+35%=12.15) [If 1t mine here put into hill 1S of sheep then it can be used by city 2 by T33-4]
T21 worker->settler. BW due EoT--> wheel. worker 1 cancel (no point finishing. not growing to size 3 for a while, probably better to get to forest to chop on schedule), to forest. worker 2 to forest. [lots of chopping coming up. worker to each side of capital.]
T22 [[SWAP SLAVERY - rerun sim and refigure below to add this in because I forgot. Some values below will change.]] workers 1&2 chop (T22-4)
T25 workers 1&2 move to forest/chop (T26-8)
[T26 - SETTLER 99/100. NOT SURE IF POSSIBLE TO IMPROVE. Actually, this is ok. 10 overflow foodhammers into worker at +35%.]
T27 revolt to slavery. Assume city to east to sahre sheep/pigs with cap.
T28 city2 found 663 of cap (on river, trade connected); start warrior. Work sheep. Cap work pigs/ivory. 2 chops complete at capital; worker 65/60. SLIDER TO 50% (+6G)w
T29 CAP worker3--> settler. 2 workers chop non ivory forests. 3rd worker road hill to city 2 . SLIDER TO 100%. (investigate 1 worker chopping cap 3rd ring where we'll settle 3rd city for +10h. 1 turn later founding city but this may allow to hook roads for trade routes on time there)
T30 workers 1&2 chop (T30-2)
T32 workers 1&2 chops complete (settler 102/100). Worker1 road 1W to capital.
T33 worker3 mine2/4; worker2 road wheat?
T34 workers 1&3 finish grass mine
T35 worker 2 farm 1/5, worker 1 to forest N of city2, worker 3 to ivory (chop T36-8 - won't be using)
T36 cap warrior->granary; city2 warrior->granary; city3 swap granary (Pottery-> AH)

----
Alternate take backtracking a bit...
T34 city 2 take sheep/pigs; cap work ivory/ghmine
T35 cap warrior->worker (10h)

[wetbandit]

That really stinks that EXP only cuts the first worker by a turn and not two.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm home now, thanks for doing the micro run. If I get time tomorrow during the day I'll try to make a run at it but no guarantees. Doing long term micro planning isn't really my thing. I usually like to have a general strategic plan that goes out 50 turns or so as needed but planning out turn by turn micro ahead of time really isn't a high priority for me. As long as you enjoy that kind of planning go for it. I like sitting in game and making my plans over the board.

My process for now would be to maybe figure out early build order and maybe when to slot in the first settler and then wait for early exploration to identify city sites before worrying about a 40 turn micro plan. The plan will obviously change as we find resources so no point really worrying too much right now with detailed planning since it's all going to change anyway. Unless the planning is fun, in which case, have fun.

I'll have more thoughts tomorrow, been feeling rough all day, headed to an early bedtime as soon as Old Harry confirms he has the game online and doesn't need any help.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Logged in and claimed the civ, ninja'd the password, and got a threatened BGN ragequit if we don't change it.  So OH, if you're following at home, ignore what I said when we were talking a few minutes ago during setup.  Looks like the possibility of teammate abuse is much higher than I projected!  Probably when we finish the first turn we'll end turn and quit to AI (hope we selected AI takeover when hosting the game?), then BGN can log back in and set a more suitable password.  

Borrowing Mardoc's screenshot from earlier I think the scout move is NE/SE onto the sheep before settling.  I know we can get more visibility from the hill but I think we should check out the river first.