[SPOILER]PB58 - Mr. Cairo residing over the remains of Serdoas Library of Knowledge

[Serdoa]

Update is coming today. I just am back into a potential war situation with Jowy and as I was last to play had to log out afterwards immediately (well, after setting the builds in the cities the game requested me to do). I'm still not sure I'm doing that right. I think if I was not intending on attacking I could simply play my turn as soon as it rolled as I'm allowed to double-move him if I do not attack. But I might very well attack him as he killed my warrior that was scouting - which was ok although not necessary imo - and now moved that Chariot that did the killing near my borders, which is a hostile act that will be answered accordingly. I think he just wants to see if he can get a cheap shot at me - but really, he should look out for his own cities rather...

Oh, also: 20 cities by T100 is unfortunately off as that was reliant on getting Currency with Oracle. But I would have had to delay it by ~8 turns in order to get Math in time and when Jowy got Priesthood I realized that I most likely did not have that time. So after I finished Writing (~T65) I changed gears and got Masonry -> Priesthood, settled my ninth city to get Marble and got Oracle by EOT74 - but had to take Monarchy.

[Serdoa]

So, we have reached T76 in an absolute insane pace. What I want to do is giving an overview where my empire is standing and how I got there. But lets first compare all players in key-statistics. These are 

a) expansion strength - how many cities and citizens does a player have, has he been going more horizontal or vertical?
b) military strength - how good can a player defend himself, has military been over- or underproduced?
c) technological strength - how many techs does the player have and how important are they?

I am not up to date with all statistics unfortunately but I believe I can make good enough guesses to make the analysis still worthwhile:

a) EXPANSION

Tarkeel: Up to 9 cities and therefore tied with me for first. He did plant his last cities in rapid succession after being a bit slow at the start - though he got GLH and is not IMP so that explains that. Looking at it at right this turn I think he did the best job in terms of expanding. He should however feel the sting of maintenance costs now - especially as I cancelled our OB-agreement this turn which means he is no longer getting TR from me. Just AT has still OB with him but with 7 cities that won't fill up all of his TRs. AT was not willing to sign OB with me, which imo makes sense if he doesn't want to help the "leader", but he does help the second in line (if he has not actually overtaken me already). 

Settling times: T1, T28, T41, T48, T60, T68, T72 x2, T76

Of note is the flurry of cities he planted between T68 and T76, nearly doubling what he had before. I think he does have the lowest pop numbers though, between 18 and 20. 


Ruff: Up to 8 cities. Ruff played so far uneventful. His start too was slow but he keeps pace now. I'm not sure how good exactly he is doing because I'm still missing his graphs (thanks to Jowy who puts his EP into me instead of getting the graphs of others...). He does have the most pop (24) after I whipped away some of mine. 

Again, there was not real horizontal nor vertical growth at the start but he now as well has started going vertical. Of note here is that Ruff is CRE/IMP so most of what his traits are doing is half-way done already. CRE will provide cheap Libraries, which he should be able to build now I believe. IMP will as well provide some more benefit, though if for much longer than 30 turns remains to be seen.

Settling times: T1, T33, T43, T49, T53, T66, T67, T73

Ruff was slow to start and since kept up in settling. I assume his ninth to follow soon. 

SD: Up to 7 cities. SD is EXP/CRE but seems to not have beem able to use his traits to its full potential. I have a hard time gauging much more than that tbh, but it seems he has gone for a more vertical growth with 23 pop currently. It doesn't seem to do much good for him though as we will see in the tech-category (which vertical growth should shine in).

Settling times: T1, T32, T41, T55, T65, T66 x2

AT: Also up to 7 cities. And around 22 pop I believe though I pulled that out of a hat. Too many big increases at once which I could try to sort to city settling times and land points but I really don't want to. Middle of the pack basically, there really is not much more to say.

Settling times: T0, T32, T48, T58, T68, T69, T72

Jowy: Still on 6 cities - I'm not sure what Jowy is doing, being IMP and ORG I cannot fathom how he is at 6 cities and has not outexpanded everyone. That's basically all there is to his pick. I believe he intended to build the Oracle and get CoL with it to get his UB into play. That is a good idea, but you can't let your expansion slip for it. He has grown his capital to 7, which is impressive but also futile at this stage of the game imo, especially with the quality of these capitals (hint: loooooow). I've looked at mine again to see how I would use 7 pop and I would say he has 2 pop to much as he could work Deer, Cow, 1 PH-Mine, 2 GH-Mines for 16 hpt and 2ft or 26fhpt into a settler, so 4 turn them. But the other 2 pop? Working Clam, Whale or Lake (4 or 3 or 2/0/2)? That's just some commerce as the food goes to waste in either a settler/worker build or just into the foodbox with nowhere to grow as he is happy-capped. 

Settling times: T1, T32, T37, T46, T54, T63

So, he has gone 13 turns now without a new city. That hurts as IMP. He won't realize that now most likely because he still keeps up with the others due a total pop of around 20-22, which does give the illusion of being equal. But the others are already improving their new cities and grow them, while he is not. Later on when the late game traits really come into their own it will be much more visible how much missing this early settling will hurt him.

There is one saving grace for him however: SD and Ruff also only have early game-traits while Tarkeels traits (IND/ORG) are similar to his. Only AT and I should really surge ahead when FIN towns start to appear. 

Serdoa: I'm on 9 cities currently and for some more turns to come as expenses are brutal now. I think I did well enough on expanding out though I could have been faster at one or two points in the game. Though in general I'm ok with it. I do not have enough workers currently though I am in the process of correcting that. It is not as bad as it sounds, thanks to FIN Lake/Coast but obviously I'd rather work riverside cottages by now. 

Settling times: T1, T24, T41, T48, T56, T63 x 2, T64, T70

I'm unhappy with the gap between T24 and T41 but I did built SH on T40 so that explains that. After that I consistently planted a new city every 7-8 turns, with T63+64 seeing 3 new cities. Had everything gone according to plan I would have taken till ~T80 to get the Oracle and Currency (and no 9th city in that time). I would then be able to settle much more freely and would go up to 13 cities nearly on the spot (pre-produced and moved settlers) and would go up to 20 in the next 20 turns. The production-capacity is already available for that, just the money is missing  


b) MILITARY

This one will be much shorter. We all kept up our military more or less. Several players in my opinion underbuilt military at the start but by now it seems mostly everyone has corrected that. Though the main-build-up can be seen by AT and Jowy, my neighbors. As to why I cannot say - I certainly did not make any aggressive moves against them. But that is also something I want to test this game: Be more peaceful and see if that does anything. My prediction is: No it won't because RB has devolved in a meta where players are rather throwing away their game to reign in a perceived leader than play to win.

With that said: I fully expect Praetorian on my doorstep, even though I am and will be a spiky target. But that really seems to be how several players on RB are viewing the game right now: Just stop the leader... but if you do not become leader in doing so, there will just be someone else emerging. 

c) Technology

This one will also be shorter because - well, I type more than 3 hours by now and frankly I have no energy left for this. I also could not keep up with who got what tech since around T60 so I can only guess. But so far I can say:

- only one player has Math, AT seems the most likely one, whoever it is, he is most likely the only one to surpass me in techs (which given my expansion is wild)
- I believe with the exception of Mysticism everyone now has all the first row techs and most likely the second row as well, with the exception of Sailing which Jowy is missing

In total I'm actually a little surprised as I expected to be technologically behind - not only because I did not expect having 2nd most beakers produced in the game but also because I did research Meditation, Masonry and Priesthood. I actually have even most beakers if I count Monarchy which I oracled but I did not. With that it is not even close but I'm leading by a good 20%.

Map:

[Charriu]

My prediction is: No it won't because RB has devolved in a meta where players are rather throwing away their game to reign in a perceived leader than play to win.

That's interesting looking back at PB54 and 55, I had the feeling that the opposite is true. People do not enough to stop a leader, which leads to people conceding fast or worse even attack other contenders to force the game to end.

[Serdoa]

Well, we both might be right. After all not everyone is giving their reasoning for why they choose to attack a certain player and not everyone who does might be fully honest - to the readers or even himself. For example, in this game I assume AT and Jowy to attack me, with the possibility of SD joining in. Both are my neighbors so it is very easy to find a "reasoning" besides dethroning the leader. However, looking at the current state, Jowy should seek to expand and grab land in other directions - we basically have a set border - but he moves units in my direction. He did only offer a Cease Fire after killing my warrior but agreed to a peace treaty with Ruff. I don't know their border situation but it seems to me that tensions there should be much more expected and therefore a peace treaty might lead to land-loss if Ruff is quick to settle while he has not to fear for his units.

With AT I'm actually expecting since I saw him being my neighbor that he would come for me. As Rome he should likely try to use his UU. And so far my offers for OB were met with cold silence - which I interpret as me being the likely target of his UU. Especially as he instead gave OB to the civ that is

a) his other neighbor and
b) has GLH

So, both neighbors show clear signs of not being willing to work with me even though I did not only not make aggressive moves but even showed that I could have and elected not to. Both have willingly given up advantages or "better deals" to benefit not themselves but another player, seemingly just to avoid working with me or even showing peaceful intentions.

Now, that might not be RB meta and actually just a sign of my early dominance (and maybe perceived strength as a player?) which scares some of the players but I've seen that in several games happening now. Though maybe this is also just a case of if you get an early lead others see you all the time as a threat to win even if someone else is in a better position, but has a lower score (see Tarkeel in this game). I guess that was the reason to develop no-score mod?

[Charriu]

Well the simple reason for no-score was that Miguelito wanted to start a game with it, because in the past we had those.
I knew that in the past they made a special mod version for that, but a game option is better in this case to avoid future special versions.

[Serdoa]

So, I was asking myself how much 20 cities would cost in expenses. For reference the 9 I have to incur expenses of 55 gold. That is no. of cities maintenance, distance maintenance and civics upkeep. Each new city would increase these costs between 10 and 16 gold, considering size 1 cities at distance 10. That of course would not be the case for every one but it seems a good enough average. 

That means that 20 cities will cost 197 gold in expenses. Given that a city will at best make 5 gold just by settling (2 TR with currency each 2 gold + 1 gold city center) there are expenses of 97 gold to be covered. Now of course cities do not just "pop" up and given a staggered expansion some of the cities should already work cottages / coast. Still, that is quite a bit of money. Of course, 4 cities with 8 pop each working FIN-cottages that have grown should be able to cover that. But then there has to be some research as well... at least 4 better 8 more of these kind of cities. Which would leave 8 for production. Really have to play through some iterations to see how fast that can be setup, especially given that we need an island-city (Ruff has given me OB but currently we both do not benefit from it which I guess means we both don't have Sailing as there should be a coast connection). And of course we need Currency. 

Also, I got another spread of my religion, to my border city with Jowy.

[vanrober]

I ve enjoyed a lot the overview you have written! Thanks, really instructive

[Aurorarcher]

Same here. Also, regarding expenses (like that 20 city cost) I think the later the game goes inflation and civic upkeep become a pain also. I'm not sure how either of them is calculated but I believe they depend on the size of the empire (population)?

[mackoti]

Every city wich have  a food resource, and some land good for cotage is worth setling.The thing is to have workers prepared to chop granary at size 1 and grow very fast.

I usualy do that with cities starting from 4th and forward.With first 4 is hardder but after that is bad planning if you dont have the setup ready, if you dont have it better not setle, get more workers or whatever you need.

[Serdoa]

Thank you guys for the kind words.  

@mackoti: I generally agree though you've included some "ifs" that should not be underestimated.

- IF you can chop a Granary -> most cities I can plant have no forests around them (not because I chopped them, they simply do not exist)
- IF you have a food source for it to grow fast -> if we assume food source means 5f+ then I have none of those left on this map to settle easily
- IF you can grow onto cottages / have cottageable land -> most of the land is plains or jungled or hilled

Not all of these conditions will be met on any map as can be illustrated by the one I'm on. But lets assume I had such a city-spot to settle. I would still incur 14 gold additional expenses per turn and - even if I settled a city with fish and had a workboat ready to net it immediately - would at least make -9 gold per turn. Growing onto cottages would take 5 turns for the first pop, 2 more for pop 3 and 3 more for no. 4. Total of 10 turns. Lets assume the cottages make you 3 gpt, if they are all riverside and you FIN (which again is not even certain on any map). That would still lead you to a minus of -72 after 11 turns. After 27 turns you'd still be at an accumulated -2 gold, so more or less break-even. Nearly 30 turns before you turn a profit is quite an ask. That's why Currency and international trade routes or island routes are so important. Just a 2c trade route changes that to a maximum minus of 61 gold (11 turns) and a break-even after 23 turns. Currency and another TR? That's -39 gold after 8 turns and break-even after 18.

Overview:
FIN, riverside cottages

1 TR, no island: -72, break-even @27
1 TR, island: -61, break-even @23
2 TR, island: -39, break-even @18

You'll not want to look at these without FIN and non-riverside though. Of course commerce is not the only metric that is important so that is a very one-dimensional way to look at it, but I think it is important to understand that you can easily crash your economy thoroughly if you expand too fast or without certain key-techs. Or if you are not staggering your expansion - something that is I think often not talked about because good players do it intuitively without having to think about it. But not everyone is aware of that. Tarkeel planted 4 cities in 8 turns and I can say without seeing his land already that he will not get them improved anytime soon. It is just too many, too quickly. He does have leeway through TGL but it still is something to note.

On the other hand Jowy has not planted a city between T63 and T77 - as IMP.

Now, much of that has also to do with factors that you just have to account for so take all of what I write with a grain of salt, I simply do not know their exact details and what might have moved them in these directions. But it does show areas to improve upon.

That also is true for me btw, as I myself do not have as many workers as I should have. Not much missing, just 2-3 which I have this turn finished but I should have had them 5 turns ago. I did however decide to not have them in order to speed up research and getting Oracle. That was a conscious decision that you have to make from time to time - and it might very well have been the wrong decision.