Adv 48 - Regoarrarr

[regoarrarr]

Executive Summary



* Spaceship victory in 1800 AD
* Score of 20

Report is here

[Rowain]

Nice and golden report . Why puttting gold on gl never occured to me stays a mystery.
Have to replay the adv this time with gold replacing the incense and 2 irons/1copper

[regoarrarr]

So darrelljs and I have been having some interesting discussions on whether a gold based economy (like mine and I guess ruff's though I can currently only see the front page of his report) is better than a specialist economy (a la krill or GES).

I didn't give it a whole lot of thought during the game, but after reviewing things, I think that a gold based one is better, perhaps with a few more wheat / corn / seafood tiles than I put in.

I think the reason is that city growth just takes a long time, especially when you are health limited as we were in this game.

As an example, GES and I both have screenshots from 175 BC, and his beaker per turn is 300 bpt, and mine was 1018 (!). Granted I am in a Golden Age but still - that's pretty significant.

He was definitely able to out-beaker me in the end game (he got up near 1800 bpt and the most I ever hit was around 1400) but by then it didn't matter (as much).

I'd be interested to hear other opinions, and hopefully as other reports roll in we'll see some other data points

[darrelljs]

Hammers matter too. You got an extra hammer per tile due to those mines. Of course all those settled Great Scientists are worth a hammer each.

Darrell

[T-hawk]

Shortly after that, the first Khmer scout got a look at our glorious capital.

Love the photography angle there! (link)

"Man he must have left MapFinder running for DAYS to get that start!!!" -

I didn't give it a whole lot of thought during the game, but after reviewing things, I think that a gold based one is better, perhaps with a few more wheat / corn / seafood tiles than I put in.

I think the reason is that city growth just takes a long time, especially when you are health limited as we were in this game.

As an example, GES and I both have screenshots from 175 BC, and his beaker per turn is 300 bpt, and mine was 1018 (!). Granted I am in a Golden Age but still - that's pretty significant.

Wow, I think you might be right. Ruff finished pretty fast with a gold based economy too. I went mega food, but didn't hit 1000 beakers until 400 AD with Oxford, but did top 2000 in the end game. Full report coming late tonight after going back to grab a few screenshots.

[Krill]

The commerce economy works best when you can plant gold tiles everywhere, that much was always fairly obvious. The Commerce v Specs balance always depended on Towns taking so many turns to grow, by replacing towns with gold mines you got all of the advantage front loaded whereas with the extra food resources the spec econ still required set up (Library, CS, Pyramids, Bio).

Where this scenario had an interesting twist was the scoring mechanism, because a Spec based economy will always grow but the Gold based economy doesn't really grow at all if you follow the GA based approach. How do you maximise your tech lead without letting the AIs catch up with you? regoarrarr used diplomacy for AI infighting whereas I never bothered with that side of the game (because I loathe AI diplomacy) and had to deal with constant AI invasions from t150 onwards.

Really though, the reasons the gold based economy works better comes down to fact you only need 1 GS for the academy, and that GPP cost for each GP increases.

[T-hawk]

I read the whole report now. Yes, Privateers are fun. "zergs of caravels" - Also at Satellites to prove the world is round!

I think 20 is the highest score on the board so far. (I don't know my own - I finished playing very late last night and didn't even count it up yet.)

[regoarrarr]

I read the whole report now. Yes, Privateers are fun. "zergs of caravels" - Also at Satellites to prove the world is round!

Yeah I think that must have done something with the AI building routines - I opened up WB just now



And around Cyrus's lands, I counted 38(!) Frigates and 8 Caravels. That seems... odd

[Bruindane]

"I kept them away from Hannibal because a) he was in last place, and b) SOMEBODY had to have trade routes open to trade with me!!! :-D"

About those privateers, i believe you can safely block Hannibal's incoming trade routes, maintaining trade routes from those same cities. I am uncertain if another ai could get the trade, but your privateers don't block yours.

Great report, and I'll have to read again carefully as it closely mirrored my game, right down to Isabella's missionaries passing through the city on their way to Shaka.

[Thoth]

Yeah I think that must have done something with the AI building routines

The AI tends to drop into "spam best ship available" mode if it's being blockaded. If that happens to be triremes/caravels vs Privateers it doesn't work out well for the AI. The strength difference is to high for the AI to attack without overwhelming numerical odds and so it winds up wasting hammers on ships it doesn't use.

Once it gets Astro + Chem any surviving ships will get upgraded on the cheap to Frigates, but until then it screws its self.