[SPOILERS - NO PLAYERS] PB41 Lurker Thread: RNG Roulette with a Shotgun

[darrelljs]

Rusten seems to know the mechanics very well, but fails to understand human nature.

Yup, although if you compare this game to his first he's definitely getting there.  His ability to manage a civ is top notch and he's probably a few games away from getting the meta down and being a regular contender to win.  Not that it's too late this game, but it feels like it will be more of an opportunity to learn some lessons than to get a notch on the belt.

Darrel

[Bobchillingworth]

Why do you think it is ok to change the game after players have started to play it? The game starts once players get a pick order, and you can't know who starts where as the mapmaker, so you can't know that one of those starts has a choke civ.

Also, the starts aren't close. 12 tiles between capitals. That's standard.

I don't? You're missing my point; this map was randomly generated, and the map generator placed two players in positions which were essentially impossible to win. It shouldn't be a great surprise that the map generator routinely places civs at severe disadvantages. That 12 tiles between capitals is typical for other games is meaningless here, where everyone else started on their own continents with ample space between them. I'm not saying anyone is at fault, just that the start conditions the game spat out for SD and Nauf would have been extremely difficult for anyone to do well with against competent non-AI opponents.

[Krill]

I disagree with your point:

If you swapped Commodore and superdeath, what happens? Does superdeath still get rushed? Yeah. And probably dies.

Is it the start that is the problem here? No, and this is why. It's the leader/civ combos that caused this outcome, not the start.

[Mardoc]

Short answer because I'm tired: yes, but only if we come up with like 150g in Wealth Builds over the next 3 turns. That would let us go 50% Optics over the next 2 turns, and then turn on the slider to 90% for a 1-turn Feudalism. But that may be too steep a price to pay with all the builds I saw going on.

If you don't have the hammers free to build 150 gold worth of wealth, I really doubt you have the hammers free to build galleons and observatories. Conversely, if galleons are that important right now (because they'd prevent a war or make a war winnable) then another 150 hammers is pocket change.

From the global lurker perspective they definitely shouldn't bother, they should keep going with the infrastructure builds, but from the information they have, I could see them pushing for the earlier galleons. But in either case, I don't think pindicator's explanation here is correct. Quite possible that he's thinking more deeply than he's explaining in a 'short answer', of course.

[darrelljs]

My opinion of Rusten’s chances have gone up the last week, and Commindicator’s have gone down.

Darrell

[Zed-F]

Rusten still has a decent shot, but Comm’s right about his team’s land advantage. He still can settle a bunch of peaceful cities even without his upcoming plans for conquest. Once he gets to Chemistry and Military Science he’ll be able to start really going on a tear - at that point I doubt the smaller empires will really be able to keep up in production, and Rusten will be his only real competition.

[Mardoc]

Rusten still has a decent shot, but Comm’s right about his team’s land advantage. He still can settle a bunch of peaceful cities even without his upcoming plans for conquest. Once he gets to Chemistry and Military Science he’ll be able to start really going on a tear - at that point I doubt the smaller empires will really be able to keep up in production, and Rusten will be his only real competition.

Sometimes I feel like I favor whoever's reported most recently .  It really helps to see a civ from the inside.

But seriously: before the naufrager war, Rusten was neck and neck with Commodore in city count.  Since then, he's lost one city and captured at least two, while I'm not sure Commodore has been expanding.  On top, Rusten ought to be able to keep picking up land from BGN and he also has some available unsettled islands.  So I'm not sure that Commodore does have that land advantage.

That said, Comm does definitely have an infrastructure advantage now, and he'll shortly have a tech lead.  He can build stuff while teching, while Rusten increasingly has to pick one or the other.  Rusten's wars will help him on land, but I don't know that extra land is nearly as helpful as the courthouses/mints/markets/etc that Commodore invested in.

I am getting less confident in Gavagai, though.  I didn't expect him to be losing battles to Donovan.  He may yet win that war, but I don't expect it to happen quickly enough.  At a minimum, Commodore will steal some spoils.  I am, however, surprised that Commodore is talking about taking all of Donovan without making plans for the inevitable continuation war with Gav.  I don't see Gav peacefully letting Commodore take anything more than Donovan's outlying bits, especially when he's got a relevant UU that might help push Comm back.

[Zed-F]

Comm has settled 2 cities in the south of Superdead island during his GA, and has room for at least 2 more (including the sad gold city.) The settler being built at Sherman is destined for a Silver island city and there is room for another; I’m not sure if the second settler is built already. He has room for 2 cities in the south of his mainland, another 1-2 on his eastern gold island, 1 north of his moai near King, 1 between his mainland and Elephant island, and 3 on Elephant island (counting the barb cities there as ‘peaceful’ cities). That’s at least 10 more cities he can settle without conquest. I don’t believe Rusten can get quite so many without fighting.

I don’t think Comm is likely to get a tech lead soon, though he might eventually. Don’t forget that Rusten is about to launch a GA and spend it trying to get to and bulb Chemistry; it seems likely they will beat Comm there. I’m not sure what their plans are past that, though; are they going to aim for Military Science as well? They’ve also talked about Banking and drafting (Nationalism) so I’m not sure they are thinking in that direction.

[Krill]

Yeah, about that tech...

Rusten:





Rusten can build wealth to stop his bankruptcy from occurring, but his slider is basically dead until he gets into a GA, and even then, it is only the extra commerce from the GA tiles that will help the slider. He needs to research Guilds at 1425-ish adjusted beakers, Gunpowder at roughly 2000 adjusted beakers, and then double bulb Chemistry.

Even if he can reach Chemistry, and he can generate the bulbs, he is not getting MS. And I don't see him getting both of those techs in 8 turns, he will spend some time plodding along until he can get that, so there is a window that Commodore can exploit with his battles. And Commodore and Pin both have a plan to bulb Chemistry themselves. The FP is going to become the difference between these two empires, and Rusten will not be given an opportunity to get his down. Where would he build it, anyway? Probably should have just eaten Nauf, and put the FP on the inland sea so it couldn't be boated.

I reckon Rusten is going to be playing catch up to Frigates.

[Zed-F]

Possibly; Rusten does have a FP plan, but we have no firm info on when it will complete relative to GA timing.

Started settling some filler cities near our soon-to-be Forbidden Palace city (The Switch). Clam+horse was just planted and the fish+iron will be up in ~4-5 turns. Once we switch back to caste+rep and get the FP rolling our economy should be back in good shape. Tech is fairly stagnant right now, but we are set up for bursts this middle game so it doesn't worry/bother me much.