[Spoilers] Defining the phrase "€˜Hung Like a Horse"€™: Pb & the Kuriotates

[Krill]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237869

Once the player has been determined, that player's cities are each checked in turn. A random seed is added to the city's population, which then has two negative factors applied to it - an 8x bias against the city with the Palace, and a smaller bias scaled with the number of religions already present in the city.

[pocketbeetle]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237869

Thanks.

That's not the exact one I remember, but it's certainly in the right direction.
I'm particularly interested in the details of the random seed, and the smaller bias for already present religions.
Tried multiple searches, but ofc searching for 'religion' 'founding' 'holy city' etc in Strat&Tips throws up hundreds of useless threads.

The set-up I'm specifically considering is this:
Caledor: 1 founded religion, no others.
Purple/Cyan: 1 founded religion (AV) + 1 spread religion.
Let's say they're both around the same size ~3.
Kwythellar is a non-entity due to palace, may also have 1 spread religion.

It's a not big deal.
If I do say 10 sandboxes and they all turn out favourable, then I guess it'll be pretty safe to bet on.

[SevenSpirits]

It's remotely possible it's different for FFH, but...

1) take 10 + city pop + a random number below 10

2) Divide by 1 + number of religions in the city

3) Divide by 8 if it's the capital


The game calculates this for all your cities and founds the religion in the one with the highest number.

The penalty for having a religion in the city already is pretty significant. It means it's not even possible to found in a city with a religion, if you have a non-capital city with no religion and even half the population.

The capital penalty is basically impossible to overcome if you have another city with, say, less than three religions.

I learned this a couple years ago when I was making a mod which moved the normal religions out of the ancient era (Buddhism being founded in 3000BC, for example, just drove me nuts) and added a "minor religions" which everyone could found at Polytheism but which had no holy city.

/Moreinformationthanrequired

[Ilios]

B1

[pocketbeetle]

/Moreinformationthanrequired

Just what I was looking for, thankyou very much.

B1

What? Next turn?
That's the joke option!
You know you're meant to eat that last cookie, not smoke it, right Ilios?

I'm feeling nice, so you can change your guess if you want to...


Diplo:

Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 11:25:28 PM
Subject: RE: Possible Alternative?

Thank you for the tip, I will take it under consideration.

-Sareln-

Bastard!
Looks like Sareln is catching on to the game.

Looking at my meagre list of contacts, I've got the choice of trying again with Cull (previous communication does not make it look promising), or asking Selrahc directly. Alternatively, I could sit and wait, keep an eye out for mine building or deforestation in Illians lands.

I'm actually thinking of asking Selrahc, he seems pretty honest so far.


Edit:

*Ahem
Dr Pepper......... Whats the worst that can happen
*Ahem

That exact phrase was in my head too!

[Adlain]

*Ahem
[SIZE="7"]Dr Pepper......... Whats the worst that can happen[/SIZE]
*Ahem

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 71:

Two splashscreens greeted me at the start of the turn:



Our traits are now Expansive/Sprawling/Financial.

Vanilla Ice moved onto the forested hill to fogbust.
The Savant moved back North, Bob continued to road South guarded by Fluff, Bobbin continued to farm, settler moved adjacent to Caledor.
Turns out I timed Bobbin perfectly after all – he’ll finish the farm next turn just in time for Caledor to grow onto.



The bear is being annoying as per usual.
The worst move it could make (other than breaking game rules and entering cultural borders) is to move East, blocking off the second “Kuriotates Highway to Somewhere Else”.
If so, I might start looking into the odds of 2 warriors + a str 3 scout beating a combat III bear.

The area revealed by Vanilla Ice looks fine, shame there’s only one gl adjacent to the oasis but not the end of the world.
Note the dungeon south of the Reagents.

Meanwhile, Ilios determinedly continues on his quest for the free complementary cookie jar that comes after earning 5 cookies.

B1

I was a bit sneaky, and haven’t been taking many screenshots of Kwythellar, so you may have forgotten what unit has been sleeping there for a good 20 turns.
With Mining, the bulb option changed from Philosophy (meh) to Way of the Earthmother (hubba hubba).

One bulb and a blast of some Enya music later:

Photobombed by a bear…brilliant.

Religion 1 founded in Caledor.
The free missionary that comes when you research any religion will head to Purple/Cyan, to help with Phase 2.


What’s Phase 2?

I want both RoK and OO to be founded in Caledor, while at the same time not losing 10+ turns of growth in my third city.
If I had the *choice*, I might also want AV in Caledor, but I can live with it being in Purple/Cyan.
To do that, I need to use some gentle persuasion.

If I use the Savant missionary and the RoK thane in Purple/Cyan, to found AV and spread RoK respectively, that’ll mean Caledor becomes the favourite to found OO once it’s researched.

Using the numbers that SevenSpirits kindly gave, we know this because:
Caledor: {10 + (1-9) + 3 (pop)} / 1 + 1 (RoK) = (14-22) / 2 = 7-11 output.
Purple/Cyan: {10 + (1-9) + 3 (pop)} / 1 + 2 (RoK+AV) = (14-22) / 3 = 4.7-7.3 output.
For comparison, Kwythellar: output ~3

The higher number gets chosen, which means that OO will almost certainly be founded in Caledor.
I would have to get very very unlucky, with Caledor rolling the minimum and Purple/Cyan rolling the maximum, for that not to happen.
Factor in also, that I’m pretty sure I can easily reach pop 4 at Caledor in time, I’d say it’s a lock.

I won’t found AV straight away, as it would be nice to pick up at least one free religion spread. And if I do pick up one, I would prefer it to be RoK rather than AV.
The AV holy city receives +2 beakers and +3ish culture per turn, which means that I’ll be giving up around 10 beakers by delaying founding, but compared to the cost of having to build an extra RoK thane (40 hammers), I think it’s a fair trade.

Remember that although I can found AV, I can’t do diddly-squat with it until I research the relevant religion tech.
No tech means no AV temples or units, means no missionaries to even spread it.
I’m more interested in founding AV to a) achieve the OO force, b) to dissuade anyone else from trying to follow AV (and possibly getting tempted to summon Hyborem).



Of course, this is still all in flux.
If that bear delays the city founding sufficiently, it may become worth it to just wait and make Caledor a triple holy city.


Demographics:

Included Selrahc’s power graph for the lols.
His power increased by another 6k, ie two more warriors, so he’s going full bore military.
Also worth noting his GNP is dropping like a bomb because of all those men, that in turn is going to cut into the research time for his next tech.


More Map bitching!

Ummmm, with Mining comes the ability to see Copper deposits.

Except there are none.
Zero.
Zip.
Squat.

Not just around me, but on the entire combined Kurio-Illian map I cannot find one.
I’m still in shellshock so I’ll start on the hyperbole later, but suffice to say I’m glad I wasn’t intending to go down the Bronze Working / Axemen route any time soon.

Question is, does Selrahc know/has he noticed, and does he realise how that impacts on the lifetime of his Priests?
Finding out if he got Mining suddenly becomes a touch more important.

Also Mighty Selrahc!

Kuriotates ratmen have been burning nibbled candles at both ends, trying to figure out what tech you got last turn.
One of the many possibilities was Cartography, which of course confused the heck out of them.
If it is Cartography, and you're thinking of building the Giants for some failgold, let me know, I'll be happy to help out by delaying them a touch/whatever.

I realise it's a bit cheeky to send a message to someone saying 'what tech did you just get?', so feel free to say no comment.

Kind Regards,
Pb, NeedstolookintothedietaryrequirementsofRatmen Boy-King

And a quick reply!

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:07:53 +0100
Subject: Re: FFH PBEM

The tech was mining. Which should probably let you know the hut tech I found . You've seen all the trees around my capital... mining is a must.

It feels a bit wrong just telling you though, what kind of test of deduction is that?

Sounds about right.

Greetings Selrahc,

Aww thankyou, you didn't have to tell me.
I was wondering about mining, but the hut did cause some doubt yeah.

Let's say I owe you a free info titbit, to be claimed at your leisure?

Kind Regards,
Pb, Backtodrinkingtheygo Boy-King

[Ilios]

What? Next turn?
That's the joke option!
You know you're meant to eat that last cookie, not smoke it, right Ilios?

Mmm, Crystal Choc...

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 72:

For T72, there are no prizes for guessing where the bear moved.

The bear is being annoying as per usual.
The worst move it could make (other than breaking game rules and entering cultural borders) is to move East, blocking off the second “Kuriotates Highway to Somewhere Else”.
If so, I might start looking into the odds of 2 warriors + a str 3 scout beating a combat III bear.

I looked into the odds - they weren’t great.
It was really dependent on how lucky I could get with the first two warriors.

The best scenario for a showdown was to move Beefy (Combat I) onto the forest, while keeping Fluff and Vanilla Ice within range.
If the bear then beat Beefy, who had 45% defense bonus (25% forest, 20% combat I, str 8 vs 4.35) I could then throw Fluff at it before trying to finish off with Vanilla Ice.
The fact the bear would now be on the forest wouldn’t have been a negative, it wouldn’t have received any defensive bonus and instead Vanilla Ice would have received additional strength from his woodsman promotion (+30% in jungles/forests).
Even so, I decided that losing men on barbarians was not a smart thing to be doing at this stage, especially given the recent power rating of my next door neighbour.

Thus I opted to try and lead the bear away:



I’m hoping and guessing that it will continue to chase Fluff and Bob the worker, moving off the road onto the forest.
If so, the settler will then perform a sprint down the Gauntlet of Furry Death.

Alternatively, if the bear moves SE, ie continuing to block off the route to Purple/Cyan, then all my military units in the area are within range to attack next turn.
Because frankly, I’m getting tired of this bear now.

The new worker built at Kwythellar moved SW onto a gl hill.


Demographics:

• Selrahc gained points for +1 pop at Jingle Bells, now size 4.
  
  
• Cull gained points for +1 pop at his capital Khazad, now size 6.
  I outlined Cull’s happy cap in the middle of this post.
  Normally it’s 6, so he’s either:
  • Reached the ‘zero unhappiness’ state with his Dwarven vaults.
    
    
  • Unhappy.
    
    
  • Hooked up a happiness resource.
    
  
  Given that he now needs 200gp (two cities) to be receiving no penalty from the vaults, I’d say it’s one of the latter two options.
  Can’t tell from demos if he’s unhappy as the second city masks it. But since we know Cull recently researched Calendar, I wouldn’t be surprised if he, like all(?) of us so far, has a commerce/happy resource in his capital BFC.
  So I’ll say he’s got a silks/dyes/cotton hooked up AND it either has to be riverside or he has connected it by road, ie researched Exploration way back on T47 (still one unassigned tech with Cull, either Anc Chants or Exploration).
  
  
• Iskender gained a tech.
  

Tech:

Archduke:
Last turn that he researched a tech: T44 -> Assigned Mysticism.
Next turn he researched a tech: T58
Therefore gap = 14 turns
GNP during period:
T44-50 = 11 ie research 9.
T51-58 =13 ie research 11.
6 turns x 9 + 7 turns * 11 = 131b
I’ll take one order of Crafting please. Wasn’t expecting it though.


On T51 the Rival Worst (Archduke) GNP increased by 2, from 11 to 13, and has remained consistently there.
I know Archduke has Mysticism, and I think there’s a good chance that was him building a Sage Council.
Rival Worst GNP is now 15, so there's a high likelihood that Archduke is researching something with a prereq.

Before I start with this one, some things to keep in mind:
Iskender took over the Hippus on T67, rival worst GNP 18 at the time.
But the next turn, T68, he settled a second city and so GNP went down to 17.
If we assume it’s stayed around there since then (Selrahc’s plummeting GNP has masked it recently):

Iskender:
Last turn that he researched a tech: T58 -> Assigned Crafting.
Next turn he researched a tech: T72
Therefore gap = 14 turns
GNP during period: 15-18 ie research 13-16
14 * 14.5 = 203b
It’s a touch inbetweeny, but I’d say AH at 193b is a reasonable fit, particularly for a Hippus player.

Looking at the numbers, I think it’s unlikely Iskender switched research.
He could maybe have fitted in an 85b tech like Exploration in the timeframe, but it would have been close and the loss of prerequisite bonus beakers would have been noticeable.
Slightly weird of Archduke to research Crafting but then not continue straight on to Mining (wine resource?).

[pocketbeetle]

Turn 73:

Thankfully the bear took the bait this turn, moved E onto the forest to chase Fluff.

The settler rushed past onto the tile covered by Vanilla Ice, and Bob the worker who was with Fluff, joined them.
Beefy and the RoK thane SE of Caledor moved South one tile, while Bobbin the worker moved SE to help chop out the granary.



Over at Kwythellar, the newly named worker Bobbo started mining the gl hill.

Moving Beefy and the thane within reach of the bear might have seemed a little strange, but I’d noticed that Caledor had 4/5 culture.
So at the end of the turn:

Barring Vanilla Ice being killed by a two moving barbarian on the tile SW of the rice, the third Kuriotates city gets founded next turn.
(I forgot to add Vanilla Ice's movement to the screenshot, but basically he moved S-NW and all the other tiles are clear.)


Demographics:

• Bob, Iskender, Cull all gained pop points for their second cities growing to size 2.
  
  
• Included the Mfg Goods graph to show Selrahc is definitely calming down on production now.
  Meanwhile Bob’s is increasing thanks to the recently discovered Mining tech.
  

I believe OO is a lock for me if I beeline there now.
The only player who potentially has Fishing is Selrahc, and he can’t research religions.
Ordinarily, that would mean I could delay founding OO, but I can’t because of the obvious problems already explained at long long length.

I’ve swapped the tech path around again, so after Fishing it’ll go -> Festivals->Message from the Deep.

The Kuriotates are constantly in a state of high readiness and adaptability, otherwise known as indecision.
The amount of time this game gives between turns means I’m always looking for ways to improve the play; in this case now that I know the numbers involved for founding OO, I can delay without worrying too much.
Caledor is going to grow faster than Purple/Cyan for the time being, and I can control the latter’s pop by introducing a worker into the build queue.
Additionally, each turn that I delay increases the chance of a free RoK spread, plus Festivals -is- important economy-wise.
I’m sorry if it’s frustrating to read a paragraph about why I intend to do something like *this*, only to then see it changed a couple of turns later.


Mute Svartalfar?

The other point of note, is that I’ve been expecting some kind of “Is he going for you or me?” type message from Sareln for a while now.
Yet it’s still all quiet on the Eastern front.

It should be blatantly obvious to him that Selrahc has built the White Hand, (Turnlog + power graph spell it out) and that to do so he’s clearly sacrificed a lot in terms of economy and early growth.

I don’t think Kurio-Svart relations have deteriorated to the extent that Sareln wouldn’t even contact me to at least sound out the possibility of help/aid, so… I don’t know.