[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[fluffyflyingpig]

You are far too kind and gloss over the most important thing you could have done differently: bribe the mapmaker better.


Now that you have some maps, where do you rank your starting land out of the field?

[Fintourist]

You are far too kind and gloss over the most important thing you could have done differently: bribe the mapmaker better.

Now that you have some maps, where do you rank your starting land out of the field?

Hey there!

I can perform more thorough analysis when I can actually log into game. But here's something:

When it comes to land quality in terms of tiles we we were pretty close to bottom with 2 sea-food and 5-foodhammer tile for the capital. And apart from capital we did not get a single city with 2 food resources before teching calendar (Ok, Dunkirk has dry rice 4/0 and cows 4/2, but that's the only place within the 10-tile radious of our capital and it also had to give cows away for Hastings..). After we survived the first 100 turns and managed to chop some jungle, improve calendar resources and get lucky silver pops we came closer to average (still have below average amount of food though). I haven't really seen slower starts than ours, slowcheetahs tundra looks bad though and there is something weird with suttree's capital. So I'm not saying we had the slowest start, but we are not far away from that.

So as an answer..
Early land quality: 15-18th position
Mid-game land quality: 9-14th position

When it comes to geopolitical lottery, that's easier to answer without checking the map:

From the competitive teams winners are teams that started either close to north or south edge. Meaning Plako, Commodore, Mackoti, dtay & Ichabod (Ichabod's case is slightly different). We, Pindicooter & Lewwyn will struggle because we started more central, although it seems that the lack of island expansion from retep/Bacchus/Dhaphir will help those guys. When taking no actual game events + player skill into account and just consider leader traits of neighbors here is my answer:

Strategical position: 10-16th place

Slow's start was hard and his only real expansion direction was towards EXP Ichabod, who had total monster capital so he was pretty screwed. Retep was simply squeezed. It does not look like he has played his cards well, but even then I don't envy his start. So those guys were the ones with least luck. I'm happy that we did not get those starts although I see some comeback potential in retep's land.

The way I see it we belong into same tier with other central teams with many neighbors such as suttree, Bacchus, Pindicooter etc.

From all the starts I would probably pick Ichabod's, simply great land, not too many neigbours, killable neighbors.. Did I mention that absolutely insane plains marble hill capital, which combined with RBMod-EXP gets you a worker and 2 WBs in 15 turns? In practise that ment that after 15 turns we were already 60 hammers behind... I can tell you that's huge..

[Old Harry]

I'll dig this out to illustrate Fintourist's post. I need to make another one with all the recent changes now though.


I'm no good at evaluating micro potential at different locations, but from a strategic point of view I agree with Krill's setup-thread comments about how much better toroidal wrap is.

On traits I think the new economic version of AGG is performing very well - allowing Ichabod, dtay, plako and us to expand faster and further than we would otherwise. SPI is just generally great if you know you'll get through the early game, so while I'd have loved to start with FIN or PRO I'm still pretty happy with our chances for the future. I think we rank about 8th after:
- Nakor - FIN/PRO
- pindicooter - FIN/ORG
- plako - AGG/FIN
- Dhalphir - FIN/SPI
- Suttree - IND/FIN
- Commodore - FIN/IMP
- Mostly_harmless - IND/PRO

It's a free for all, so anything can happen, but if YM don't come for us next turn (in a rare bout of optimism Fintourist assures me they won't) then we've got a good chance to build our way to a strong mid-to-late game. I can see dtay going after TBSJ while plako is thinking about Dhalphir and Ichabod eats Slow and perhaps goes after William. So theoretically we're just up against Yurimack, which is never going to be easy, but might be fun!

[Old Harry]

While twiddling my thumbs today I had time to watch this:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/charl...od#3614771
See, having the weekend off can be productive!

[Old Harry]

Turn 131

Aaand we're back. William is keen to get rid of his marble, but I think we want money, so I'll refuse. He's not saving money at the moment, so we can't ask for gpt so I didn't counter-offer. We asked for 60 gold last time.


dtay got two free spreads of Taoism, which is excellent news for espionage and/or income later in the game. I assume Pindicooter are just passing through, rather than the war being anything serious. Our galley has a tough choice next turn - pillage the crabs or get vision on Eridu.


North city is empty... Wish we had back lines like dtay! This galley could meet Commodore in 16 turns, or we could send a sentry chariot to the far east of TBSJ in 7 turns?


I whipped a worker in Koniggratz, and moved a bunch of units towards Peterloo. There will be six bows and six axes in Peterloo next turn. Our axe stack will move to the iron next turn from where it can get to cannae in two turns or Peterloo in one turn.


In the east we lost the peak, the library completes this turn and will pop borders t147. Lots of worker moves still to do - I'll leave that for Fintourist to work out. The only other thing I spotted was that Agincourt will grow unhappy soon - it could work another scientist to slow growth?


Power - Mack isn't going up, so I think Fintourist is right - they aren't coming for us next turn


Demos

[Fintourist]

dtay got two free spreads of Taoism, which is excellent news for espionage and/or income later in the game.

Actually I think RBMod removed religion's influence on espionage, but I need to double-check that.

North city is empty... Wish we had back lines like dtay!

Lots of worker moves still to do - I'll leave that for Fintourist to work out. The only other thing I spotted was that Agincourt will grow unhappy soon - it could work another scientist to slow growth?

Agincourt does not really have happy problems. It has -3 unhappy because it's MP warrior is outside the city currently. We will also hook up silk next turn so if we want the city will have +4 surplus next turn.

I was blocking someone so I still have 1 worker move left to do. (I'm wondering whether I want to chop a forest on another silk resource or the tile you signed. I've spent quite a while staring at the game and I hope that you won't be unhappy with my decisions. At least I'm pretty happy how our cities in the river valley will get new tiles to work just in time to support their growth.

Power - Mack isn't going up, so I think Fintourist is right - they aren't coming for us next turn

Yeah, it seems unlikely. However, in the case mackoti is planning some aggression we won't be happy about the fact that he "double-moved" us this turn. (After playing several turns after us mack played before us when the game was again put up). Actually playing after Mack would be beneficial in terms of military tactics, but I was planning to have one worker still vulnerable when T133 starts. It's not a huge deal if we change our plans there (it maybe delays hooking up dyes by 1 turn), but we can decide that next turn. (I'm planning to hook up the dyes N-NW of Peterloo soon, because 2/0/4 tile is pretty nice and improving it can be done safely outside mack's vision..)

Btw, slow took amazing 4 minutes to play his turn so probably he is not trying too much in his war against Ichabod. Not even a single whip..

I'll go and finish the turn..

[Fintourist]

Ok, I ended turn. I switched Omdurman from forge into Lighthouse. IMO, in that city the benefits of earlier lighthouse clearly ourweigh the hammer-savings of earlier forge. I also made Issy work grass forest instead of mine. In essence this is trading 6 hammers to 3 food during the next 3 turns. However, this gets us an earlier growth so it wins one hammer back on the 4th turn. This also works better with forge overflow that we speculated earlier (simplified this wins back 1 hammer so that I would say that in the end we are actually trading 4 hammers to 3 food) and allows us to start a worker one turn earlier.. Overall I just felt that this was a small improvement..

Our capital actually wants us to improve our health cap. We want to road our pigs soon, but we should also try to make some kind of a dyes-to-crabs/deer deal. Let's suggest something to somebody next turn?

[Old Harry]

That all sounds good. I'm surprised the lighthouse comes out ahead of the forge, but I guess once it hits size three the lighthouse starts paying out... Good idea at Issy, and at Agincourt - I knew that.

We've got some odd health trades going on at the mo (especially with dtay), so a bit of time working out what we have and cancelling trades we don't need might be in order. Maybe we need a new spreadsheet...

[Fintourist]

That all sounds good. I'm surprised the lighthouse comes out ahead of the forge, but I guess once it hits size three the lighthouse starts paying out...

Immediately when we get lighthouse into Omdurman it will be worth +1 food/turn (clams) and that lake tile at size 3 will be nice too. Going forge first only saves 60/1.25 - 60/1.5 = 8 hammers, so I would say that forge first is the right call only if it delays lighthouse by 5 or less turns. In this case the delay would be significantly bigger (we can't chop those forests quite that fast and Ondurman is currently at size 1 so natural production/whips won't help that much in getting those 180 hammers together).

[Old Harry]

I put this together to see what resources we have:


Banana 2
Clam 4 (mostly from dtay)
Corn 2
Cow 1 (of 2)
Fish 2
Rice 1 (of 3)
Sheep 1
So we're missing wheat, deer and crab and can hook pig any time. I think someone will trade us wheat (Bacchus, Ichabod, plako, dtay, Mack and Pindicooter all have wheat). Also a grocer in Agincourt will get us +4 health. We should bee-line Guilds. These are the trades we currently have and our resource situation. We can cancel both clam trades with dtay, everything else is either like for like or necessary happy.


Then while we're waiting for the turn to roll I thought I might as well rate all the capitals. You'll be surprised at my conclusion. Spoilered for many many images.

Dtay settled t0. He has three food, two flood plains, a decent number of hills too and some rivers too. Nice. 9/10


Pindicooter also settled t0. Three food, a river and a load of spices for commerce. Very nice. 9/10


Mackoti: t0 - a couple of fish and a wet wheat, marginally better than us. 5/10


Plako: t0 - three different types of food - so it would have been a tough start (except that he popped two techs in the first 15 turns). There are three 6-yield tiles and a river so this is better than I first thought. 7/10


Us: t0 - two fish and a dry corn. And two silver! No wonder we're running away with the game! No river though. 4/10


Commodore: t0 - four food and two iron? Seems unlikely - must have been a pop or two? Lots of rivers too. 10/10


Ichabod: t1 - moved to the plains hill marble, but only has five food foods (four before lighthouse) so good start for exp, but slows down fast. 7/10


Lewwyn: t1 - BACON! Lots of rivers and three six-yield tiles. Bah. 9/10


Azza: t1 - three food, but five is the maximum yield until the lighthouse. Possibly worse than ours except for the plains hill plant, wonder where he moved from? 5/10


TBSJ: t0 - like us except for the bacon, marble, river and lighthouse lake. 7/10


William: t1 - three six-yeild tiles and a river. Very nice. But why no cottages? 9/10


Dhalphir: t1 - two pigs and a clam is good. Two elephants help, but he lacks commerce. 7/10


Nakor: t0 - three different techs needed, river. So 7/10


Bacchus: t1 - lots of rivers, but only two food. Why didn't he settle 1W? 4/10


Suttree: t2 - the two turns spend wandering definitely weren't worth it. 2NW would be way better. 4/10


Slow: t1 - two fish, a corn, a river and a (tundra) deer. Lovely! This should have been a quick start. The rest of the land available is tough though. 8/10


Retep: t2 - that's a lot of wandering. He probably had the clam start, and would have been better off there or even better 1N. 5/10


So my conclusion is that Fintourist has been right to moan so much, the only people with capitals close to as bad as ours have since moved them (Mack) or caused their own problems (Suttree, retep). Without the three silver pops we'd be totally screwed. With them we're in with a shout if our micro doesn't tail off and we don't make some dumb mid-game decision... France and Alphabet are probably what salvaged our game with this start.

I think Commodore has the best start, closely followed by William, Lewwyn and Slow. Anyone want to quibble?

Edit: oops, forgot m_h... maybe I'll add him tomorrow.

Of course, now that the turn rolled I'm going to go to bed. No free religion spreads for us this turn