I'm looking for a replacement for 4 of my PBEM games.

• BtS Random Leader - Monty
  
• new BtS (or Stutter Start) - Cyrus, only about 15-20 turns into this (BtS)
  
• Catweazle - a BtS knock down draw it out slug fest - very interesting at the moment
  
• “1000 AD” Scenario PBEM Game - Louis XIV (France) Vanilla - over a yr old, captured Spain, Germany, Holland, currently at war with England - very good position
  

OK, compiling these results took a little work, but here they are:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/epic16results.html

The one place where there was some confusion concerned the score doubling bonus. This read in the scenario description: "DOUBLE your final score if you abstained from declaring war throughout the whole game." I intended this to be a victory bonus awarded at the end of each game, but I saw several players including it in their tallies even for retired (incomplete) games.

After giving the matter some careful consideration, I ultimately decided that incomplete games are not eligible for these bonus points. I cannot assume that an unfinished game would have been one in which the player avoided declaring war. It's not enough to say "well, I wasn't planning on declaring war" - I can't guess what might happen in the future! I apologize if this sounds like nitpicking, but I believe it's the most fair way to handle things. The wording in the scenario description should have been clearer, and that was my fault (although partly a product of this game's replacement status).

Compromise should be getting his score doubled, but I'm not handing out extra points to someone who suffered a diplo LOSS! Fortunately, he did such a damn good job of sharing the sushi love, it's irrelevant to the outcome of the competition (he comes in first either way).

Congratulations to all of our participants. I'd like to give special recognition though to LKendter, who turned in an outstanding second-place finish!

Unfortunatly, i thought the deadline was next week, so I went on holiday before finishing a game that i had stop like 3 weeks ago.

Anyway there is the report of what could have been a quite fast diplo victory if i had counted a bit better and been less enthousistic with missionaries (did he write after playing the game, as I was the 1st surprised to see that I just barely missed the diplo victory in 1505AD).

Report now ...

Want to have a religion in Nidaros on top of Sushi to make Wall Street (and all cash multipliers) much better. Therefore we need an early religion before founding a second city.
Without Mysticism, it could be difficult to get hindhuism, but we should manage Judaism as a back up plan.

Research is set to mysticism (then Polytheism), while working max hammer for a workboat (then max food until size2, then second work boat at max hammer).
Executive is send to explore while safe.

3700BC - Buddhism fidal and a panther is spotted, time to get back home safe.

3350BC hindhuism in Nidaros



Research Mining->Bronze (at 70%-80% stable)
Production warrior->Worker

2050BC found Uppsala, start Stonehenge (built in 1475AD). Uppsala will be a production city for Wonder and/or military and keep a clean GPP - Prophet - (multiple wonders, plus priests) until we get a GP for Nidaros Shrine (quite late in 880AD as Nidaros will be GPP happy before).



Discover shortly after that we do have copper on the island, just under the last fog (due to barb activity preventing better scouting).

1900BC Masonry in, Nidaros changes its production to Great Lighthouse immediatly (build in 1325BC) as this is one of the most important Wonder (for me) on this map. After Meeting the 1st AIs (Brennus 1650), the cash from GL will insure a good balance qwith the other expenses.



950BC 1st GP, a Merchant in Nidaros, get Metal Casting for Forge and Colossus.

800BC found 3rd city Haithabu, food poor but planned to get sushi quickly (440BC). Production city with main task to provide military for the Empire (National Epic), but will also build a few Wonder and Sushi executives.



Meet AIs while trying to prove the world is round with WB and galley (done by 125BC).
Brennus 1650BC, Gilgamesh 650BC, Justinian 500BC, Genghis 380BC.

Brennus even convert to Buddhism without any help in 440BC.

Keep slowly settling the island and exploring.

--------------------------------------------------
10AD Sushi report.
2 cities with 8 foods (6clams+2fishs)
-16 maintenance (still positive at 50% research)



--------------------------------------------------

Get Code of Law in 85AD (and late Colossus in Nidaros), with Courthouse, Sushi will become much more intersting.

Get Theology first in 280AD, Philo first in 490AD trying to minimise religion damage.

Around 500AD.
Get another GM in Nidaros who settled there.
Meet Louis (forget to look after him in fact)
Khan declare on Gilmaresh.
Build late Pyramids in Haithabu (engineer city)
Build Chichen Itza in Uppsala (priest city)
realise I need a religion to build AP (done in 860AD)



Get the Prophet shortly after (in 880AD).
Start converting Brennus (already in, changed and comed back in 1485AD), Gilgamesh (990) and Genghis (1170) by sending missionaries to most of their cities and get at least one for the Justinian and Louis (both needed the anti-Theocracy trick of gifting them a missionary in a religionless city - it was also needed for Giglgamesh Capital before he convert).

From 1000AD to 1500AD
Start sending Sushis executive to my food poor cities (or the one that needed to grow faster) as finances are much better.



Complete Castle quest (get the diplo bonus) to improve thec chance of diplo victory.



Complete the Sushi quest



Get a low odds G Spy in Nidaros, who is sent to infiltrate France and regular spy will later steal high quality technology (Gunpowder in 1400, Astronomy in 1505 after a miss in 1460).

Around 1500AD
1st to Economy in 1455AD (GM to Paris -Artemis- for 3500g)
1st to Liberalism delaying as much as possible to get Steam Power.
Genghis (friendly for ever) is coming with a small stack, but a a very wrong time time for 2 reasons (declare on IBT)
1. I have lots of money and will discover Rifle (and steal Astro) so he will be out-tech very badly)
2. AP election is coming and I was counting on him



--------------------------------------------------
1500AD Sushi report.
5 cities with 13 foods (7clams+4fishs+1crab+1rice)



--------------------------------------------------

1500AD AP election
The election had always been versus Gilgamesh, but with Brennus reverting to hinduism 3t before, I am facing him this time with much better chance as he is less popular.



unfortunatly missed by 25 votes out of 600, so close.


After 1500AD

Genghis declares as expected but is repulsed at sea and peace sign asap (back to friendly)
next AP election is a bigger miss as genghis and Gilgamesh decided they loved Brennus better now, and with Vassal appearing more and more often (and these don't have all the nice bonus i have with their masters, they are not voting "properly").



Brennus even declare later (1660AD), was punished by having his islands captured before peace.





I stop in 1734AD (thinking I had another week after coming back from holiday
More or less beelining to UN, hoping to get it before all the hindhuists go to Free Religion and should be able to win a UN victory against Justinian who I am un-officially helping to stay in 2nd place.


(Might try to finish it soon as I need only 2-3 techs)
--> done 2-3 hours later...

Jabah

I had a great time with this event. I love the custom scoring. You can read about it here.

Now, I've got to get some sleep before I read some other reports tomorrow.

Well, here we go:

Dreylin's Epic 16

Final Sushi Total: 31

Yep:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/comments.html#epic16

For those of you who played, please make sure to include your final "sushi" resource tally at the end of the game as well. You can get this easily just by opening up your final savegame file and looking at the number of your resources in any city. The scoring looks pretty close at the moment, so this could be important. Thanks!

Unfortunately, I thought I would finish this game off today but I could not. Ive played one game over the past few months and im happy it was this one, this was a truly hilarious game, and not in a good way either

Pre-Game Plan: The scoring seems to favor a couple of things: The AD Deadline is very lucrative if you try to maximize your score for that. The game obviously favors cultural victory, so rather than going cultural, I decided to try for space race to maximize my fastest finish points there. My plan was to try to maximize points at 1 AD deadline and rush for a early space race finish without declaring war the whole game.
----------------------------------------------------------

Since its archipelago, I sent out the executive to explore the whole island, I had him fogbusting for the first 2000 years . My techplan was Mining -> Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Archery -> Mysticism. I had to get archery since copper was not nearby and the island was larger than expected, so barbs could become a potential pain. Initial dotmap with total seafood resources each city would pull in.



I decided that it would be safe to chase both Great Lighthouse and Oracle and still get a good score at 1 AD. Executives were expensive though, so building the great lighthouse and oracle cost me 3 extra executives, but I think it would be worth it when chasing fastest finish (That was apparently stupid since only 5 people reported so far )

Before finding a foreign civilization to expand my corporation too, I had my executive taking care of important business, such as this:



He popped 3 total huts on differnet islands all over the place. oracle completed in 1600 BC, took Metal Casting for free. Met brennus a few turns later and immedietely spread corporation over to him. 8)

Great Lighthouse completed in 750 BC, while expanding to a few more cities for more seafood resources. Maintenance really kills you in the early game with corporations, so I decided not to spread any corporations domestically until later on. Around 600 BC, I popped code of laws with a great merchant. Also researched compass, monarchy, math and alphabet before the first deadline. So anyways, by the first deadline, I thgouth I pulled in a decent amount of points.

45 Points total to be exact.
10 Seafood resources
5 cities with corporation




I had 4 cities at this point, heres my empires overview



After this point, since I had great ligthhouse and MANY foreign trade routes to exploit, I went into rapid expansion mode, and expanded to 12 cities by 1000 AD. At 1000 AD, I started building more executives for the 1500 AD Deadline. Also, Genghis khan had "Enough on his hands" from about 500 BC to 1250 AD in my game, when h finally declared war on me.

I was completely ready though, with a navy of 10 triremes, 5 caravels and 2 galleons. I sunk his ships before they even reached my landmass, its was really hilarious because Genghis tried to go around the little northern island, but I had his galley's with all his troops trapped. He could have landed his troops on the little island and left them there until he could get more ships, but instead he decided to let them sink.

So anyways, brennus declared on me the same turn genghis declared (Bribe). Just to mention the relations situation at this point, Brennus, Genghis, Justinian and Loius were all pleased with me, and Gilgamesh was friendly. I bribed Loius on the other side to declare on Brennus so I dont have to deal with 2 fronts. Everything was going great, I had gotten together about 12 units to launch an offensive on Genghis since his whole offensive stack was at the bottom of the sea, but then the unthinkable happend.



Notice the relations . Gilgamesh declared war on me from friendly relations, and bribed Justinian and Loius (Who was still at war with Brennus) to declare on me. I had a huge navy at this point of 20 ships, and by turning off research for 5 or so turns, could upgrade all of them to galleons and sink anyone before they got near my land, but this was going to be massive micromanagement. I stopped playing at this point and never got back to this game unfortunately, but it was truly hilarious. Demographics at the end:



And thats without my foreign trade routes since everyone declared war on me.

Since I never got to 1500 AD, im not sure if my points situation from 1350 AD will count, but if it does, here are the numbers:

Cities with Corporation: 22
Seafood Resources: 14
Total Points - 56 + 45 = 101

Not sure if not declaring war will count since game was not technically over, but I did not declare war the whole game and would not have until the end.

Also, tech situation at the end if anyone is wondering: I had constitution also, my plan was to get to democracy after I got the free merchant from economics, and buying all the infrastructure in my new cities before I obsoleted the great lighthouse, then running away to space victory.

Hey all,

Well, this is my second game at BTS, and my first epic:

Rodge goes fishing

Following Dreylin's suggestion in one of the other reports, I won't put the result of my game in the title or in my post. It's all on the last page of my report.

Anyway, enjoy!
Comments and suggestions are always appreciated

Sid’s Sushi converts money to food. So the question is what can we do with the excess food? Food becomes commerce through using specialists and food becomes hammers via the whip. This suggests minimal cottaging of the terrain, maximal irrigation/mines, and an excuse to build workshops which almost never come into play until State Property. It also suggests getting the Pyramids both for boosting specialists and for raising the happy cap.

One more thing about not building cottages: Food also becomes commerce through trade routes, particularly on an Archipelago map as eventually almost all trade routes are “intercontinental”. So cottages won’t particularly be missed.

Now the scoring in this Epic is as follows: … forget it, I’m off in shadowland since I use the BUG mod and I’m too old to change. Let’s just have fun with the game. (I will track how I do with the scoring criteria but I’m not going to particularly bother with game-planning for it.)

We start and have a possible Red Herring: Sushi executives don’t show up as a possible build. Either a game-breaking bug or … check back in a couple of turns ... now they are there. Probably an artifact of a mid-turn WB save.

Capital pre-founded, so no decision there. Research heads towards Bronze Working so I can commence the whippage. Capital builds a WB, but I have to watch how many I build so I don’t kill my own research, although the WB’s can yield explosive results if it’s possible to wait and build workers/settlers late. An early worker is needed to hook up the Gems, though. More happies = more bodies available for the pile.

Medium-term the preferred Wonders: The Colossus (again, few Cottages), TGLighthouse (as per the Epic description) and the Pyramids. CoL is also an important tech as I expect to be building Workshops out the yang (in addition to Caste System). So ... the royal we will be prioritizing Metal Casting and CoL, as there is no big rush for anything on the top of the tree. I also realize that due to Sid’s in the capital, on turn 150 we're going to get a GM. I’ll have to read up on the new-and-improved CS slingshot.

Then the game actually starts. I take the Sid Executive for a quick spin but only get to 3750 BC before he runs like hell from a Bear. One benefit to all of this jungle is rather little risk of losing the Exec to an animal. But ignorance is bliss, so much fog remains …

3675 BC - Buddhism falls. I always like to play with "Choose Religions". Adds a bit of flavor and masks the AI tech path a bit.

3525 BC – First WB completed and a Clams are netted. That only costs 6 gpt. Again, have to avoid crashing the economy before the 2nd city. I’ll build a couple of Warriors before Slavery comes in as whipping WBs is fairly efficient.

3300 BC - Hinduism FIDAL or FIADL, neither of which can be read in English.

Warriors going walk-about to get free experience vs. Animals before the regular Barbs show. I'll build 3. But both of my explorers took damage from animals so by the time BW is researched (3150 BC) I see no metals in my limited vision. More importantly I revolt to slavery and prepare to crack the whip!

First original erroneous conjecture of the game: Research into Sailing to eventually meet the neighbors. Would have been just as easy to send a couple of WBs wandering. Instead I was afraid of Barb Galleys showing up so I wanted Galleys of my own.

3025 BC – First picture: Receive a game un-balancing event.



Also spot Stone for a Pyramids build. Now just have to figure out where the next city goes ...

2400 BC - Soon after building my first worker ... well this is kind of silly. (No picture, ‘twas the free Shock to all Axes event (and the promotion carries over when the Axes are upgraded to ‘zerks). No neighbors, so sucks to be the barbs.)

2200 BC – The AI builds Stonehenge. It looks like 3 Sid resources is all I'm going to get right now. But I do have a plan ... however since I’m writing this about 3 weeks later I can’t remember what the plan was. But I’m sure it involved stealing underpants.

Anyway, with Masonry in hand (and the possibility of building the GLighthouse), we set out for CoL. A very long trek indeed ...

Now I have to check the rules again ... unclear, so I'll interpret this to mean in the black at 50% prior to expanding Sid's. So expand into city #2.



Next plan is to simultaneously build the Pyramids and Great Lighthouse. I'll whip the GL and build the Pyramids honestly.

1300 BC - Meet Brennus the Hindu. He has more cities (and Axes), but I'm not worried. With two Wonder builds on-going, not much happening. I'm down to Writing + CoL for the beeline. (Goofy game doesn't give the proper order on techs to get the discount. )

1150 BC – The AI builds the Great Wall. Uppsala has 19 turns remaining on the Pyramids and Nidaros about the same for the GLighthouse.

1025 BC - Meet Louis and Open Borders. Also Open Borders with Brennus. We'll see if that is a mistake, I had his WB trapped in the Magellan race.

975 BC - Whip the Great Lighthouse in Nidaros for 4 pop. Including 3 Redshirts. Will this solve my economic problems?



Well, at least a little. Can add 4 bpt (which is a 20% boost) while staying in the black.

I still only have 2 cities, but here’s my first Axe thanks to Random Events.



Nothing like starting with a level 5 unit. I don’t have anyone to use these on except Barbs, but the events will make it painless to capture a couple of barb cities on my continent.

In 750 BC The Pyramids complete from a whip. Food=production. The Oracle goes on the same turn and I found my 3rd city. The GL is very nice on this map, I think I actually made a profit by founding the city.

In 725 BC my first GM pops Metal Casting. Yeah, I planned that I should have a big head start on the Colossus. I also revolt to Representation (primarily for the happiness). I’m not sure I can even run a non-citizen specialist yet. Maybe I have a Library in Nidaros???



Finally, in 475 BC CoL is researched. 475 BC - Guess I don't have to spread Sid's to pop the borders here.



By 170 BC I’m able to whip the Colossus. The map is frustrating for circumnavigation. And I’ve still only got 3 cities. That will change quickly as CH’s come online in my Sid cities. (Only two so far)

My fourth city doesn’t need Sids due to huge food surplus. Will provide workers at size 2.



Tech path now: Civil Service, Optics? Once I have Currency I can back-fill. Probably pick up Alphabet and trade Currency and CoL around for stuff I’ve missed. I don’t want to give up Metal Casting, despite already having built the wonder. (Keeps others away from circumnavigation.)

Then I concentrate on building military to capture 3-4 Barb cities that have sprung up. The next GM pops and .. that’s an odd coincidence. However, if I bulb CS I’ll lose the free Shock promotions on my Axes. (Axes, not Melee) So maybe I’ll slow-play this a couple of turns until I have ~6 Shock promoted units. Swap research to something else while I build a few more Axes. In 325 AD I pop the bulb and revolt to CS (having already researched Machinery). Revolt to CS and prepare to use the flotilla-of-doom on some Barb cities.

Not a lot of deep strategy yet. I haven’t tried to infect any AI with Sids and they can’t reach me to attack, so it’s just me vs. the Barbs and the Jungle.

Meet Khan in 335 AD, Open Borders and make a lopsided trade with him. Now he’s pleased.

Capture a Barb city on the SE tip of our island, another on the island immediately E and one on the longer island SE. Actually captured the latter twice as I burned the first location and then the city re-grew one tile over. This point in the game was spent trying to get caught up on workers and settlers, as I lost a lot of expansion building 3 wonders in my first two cities.

Bizarre. I make a tech trade with Brennus (He gives Calender + 56 gold, receives Currency + Priesthood). He goes from Pleased to Cautious. Whatever.

This random event didn’t work out for me. Turned out to be 113 gold down the drain …



Circumnavigation in a sloppy, slow 550 AD. I’m sure anyone who made a concerted effort with WBs could have done this in the BC years. Then despite being the closest civ to us, we finally meet this guy.



Gilga ended up playing an isolationist game just like me. Never attacked anyone, never was attacked. But he did tech well.

Early in the AD years this event comes in: Starting to get a little silly, particularly because I knew I wanted to play passively and just investigate the effects of corporations. This event led me to try to build a blitz Trireme, but the Barbs wouldn’t cooperate. 8)



Around 700 AD I capture my first source of Rice, from a Barb city on the major island N of the start. These guys will be replaced with some defensive ‘zerks and move on to attack other barb cities. CR III/Cover is a nice way to bust LB’s. J

(This report is getting hard to write because my screenshots aren’t being saved in chronological order. Bizarre.)

Epic 16 – Something Fishy

How to play this one? I think a peaceful Cultural Victory seems the best way forward. I’ll open with the lesser-spotted Viking Hinduism grab, and send the Exec exploring for a couple of turns at least.



Hinduism grab?!? Well, why not? I seem to have enough hammers for the Oracle at Nidaros and if I’m not planning to attack anyone then the usual Viking opening (Mining-BW) lacks appeal; the AI favours Meditation anyway so they’re likely to cut their throats going for it. In theory. And Buddhism was founded on turn 12. My Executive Scout nearly dies to a panther on turn 14, but I’m able to run back home.




Snoogans. We’ll need a worker to get some hills mined. And it’s pretty obvious that everyone will be going for CoL gambit:




I trundle on through BW after Mining. We have copper, but in a somewhat unattractive spot. So it’s Archery next, and Wheel after that. Slavery adopted on T60 (now that I have enough pop to make use of it), and Judaism FIDL the next turn. Priesthood is lined up after the Wheel, and then AH.




Has Legendary Builder writ large on it, this one. Archie moves SW to clear the fog. I lose my fogbusting warrior outside Nidaros soon after, but his slayer moves south for the winter. Or something.

A very early Oracle:




Stonehenge BIFAL on the previous turn. Not long afterwards, I meet the Jewish Celt, and the Pagan Mongolian. The former is to the east (I had a workboat go scoutsies) and the latter somewhere to the north, as far as I can tell. OBs with both. We learn Sailing then Masonry for the Great Lighthouse. Pottery for lovely granaries and cottages. A Great Prophet is born on T108 and I decide to settle him as I need the cash and hammers now. Met Pagan Louis shortly afterwards, and decided to suck up to Genghis by gifting him some Clams. Must remember to cancel this come 5AD!

Get the Shocking Axeman event soon after: such a pity I’m not warmongering in this game! But it’s not all gravy as I get a slave revolt in Nidaros. Great Lighthouse gets completed in BC800 (I was fearful of competition from Louis). The Pyramids are whipped for two pop at Uppsala in BC 470, and REP is adopted straight away. I tech on to Metalcasting and start the Colossus. We’re soon robust enough to spread Sid’s:







On the same turn, Louis founded Christianity.

In 10 AD, I have Sid’s Sushi in 3 cities, 3 clams and 1 fish for a total of 23 points. Not very impressive.

We proceed to found Birka down at the southern tip to get 2 clams and a crab and potter along happily, trading tech and building away until a WHEOOH check comes back positive:





Aaah well. It was always a risk. I scurry some boats to find his exact location as I’ve not been able to do so thus far. He rather makes a hash of his war plans by demanding one of my two pigs and being at peace for 10 turns I’ve completed Colossus now and can use this breathing space to complete Philo before going to Construction.




When GK dumps his troops off (in my lands as we have OBs) I can see he hasn’t brought a Spear along, so I whip out some HAs and plan to take him out on favourable terrain.

The plan changes somewhat when he plonks a city down on a hill by the sugars. This aggressive settling will not stand, man. And so once he retreats his units into the city, there’s only one thing for it:




I decide to put the hurt on Mongolia and send some triremes out to sink his galleys and pillage his nets. Peace comes courtesy of the Great Mediator event (in AD 775). Seeing as he can’t get to me, I tech away merrily - Currency, CS, Calendar(traded) - and add another city. A GM gets settled at Nidaros.

Add Roskilde in 890 for the Marble. Spread Sid’s:




Add Tonsberg as a potential Artist farm on the island by Nidaros (after first removing a barb city). Sigtuna gets found to work the sugars (and prevent Khan from coming back as he had a settle pair in the area). REX continues with Lödöse on the plains island to the north of the mainland. Sistene is completed in 1040, but as I’m avoiding a state religion, I won’t get the full use out of it. With Justinian, Louis & Genghis Buddhist, Gilga Taoist & Brennus Jewish there spilt is too awkward because I have no Buddhist cities.


More Sid’s:



MoM in 1130 as we research Divine Right. Islam duly founded in Lödöse in 1200. Taj in Uppsala in 1250: gotta love 15 turn Golden Ages! Settle another GM in Nidaros in 1280. Get the Greed quest is 1295: our boys demand Rice, and a quick scan of the map shows they can have it – the barb city (of Etruscan) is founded on it no less!

But first this:


Will help our troops get to their target city, and it’ll make Great Trade fodder as I’m planning to shut down tech soon. Researched Guilds & Banking myself and traded in Engineering before the shut-down. Finished Versailles in 1325 to discover that it’s a really weak Wonder: barely a dent in my huge maintenance costs.

Etruscan falls, so…



And the same turn:



Genghis and I vote in Gilgamesh as the AP Leader (though the Mongolian was always willing to declare war on Sumeria). Got the Sports League quest in 1380 which I think I forgot about…

I founded some Fishing Villages at the start of the 15th Century: Odense, Oslo, and Riber being slapped down to claim more seafood. Mongolia was allowed to enjoy Sushi:





This city would end up flipping and getting itself razed because of its huge maintenance cost. Oh well. With all the necessary tech in hand, culture infrastructure was rushed. A huge error was in rushing Globe: I was in Caste System for ages for a start and the Artist farm concept was redundant with the amount of Artists & Wonders at Nidaros On the positive side, a Trade Mission to Paris at the beginning of the C18th netted 5,000 gold :wow:



Note the date: 1500 AD. I had Sid’s in 5 cities and 22 Sushi resources. 32 points.





How now colonial Mao? GK has spun him off.

The end took a long while in coming as my third city couldn’t get anywhere near the awesome culture power of Nidaros and Uppsala. On reflection, Birka – with it’s far superior food – would have made a better choice but I was blinded by the culture lead Haithabu had. And just to round off the I was a turn ‘late’ in detonating the culture bombs.



Endgame totals: 26 Sushi Resources.


In-game points: 55 x 2 = 110 (I don’t think I’ll be top scoring for the Sushi).

End date: 1764 Culture Victory. Max score: 140.

Very entertaining game: peaceful builder events with a twist are right up my street