[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Miro]

Game of Thrones: Based on the show (...)

Ahem. Based on the novels. (...)

Ahhhh noooo, I've been outnerded! It seems like a very fun game, just need everyone to be onboard with the weight of it.

I will also point out that you 100% have better things to be building. Forges, markets (in your commerce cities), your UU, heck now is about the time for barracks.

I don't intend on finishing Great Wall, I only want the fail gold. I hope it gives for all cities, the wording I saw in the mod notes is: "Fail-gold: No fail-gold awarded if you complete the wonder somewhere else yourself". My shittier cities are the ones building Wealth/Great Wall. I have a few Barracks and 7 Forges in production/produced. I usually only build 1 or 2 Markets, I'll pay attention and add a few more to the best commerce cities.

I'm used to going all in for wars with big whips and 90+% of cities producing military. Just unsure how MP war games go. Border patrolling sounds good.

CoL courthouses would be niiiiice. Damn, so many good paths to choose from right now. War with Galleys carrying Cho-ko-nus sounds so strange to me. Not saying it's bad, I've just never considered building extra Galleys for movement like that. But I guess this isn't a game against computers where each city has 3 - 4 Archers + whips, they'll bring everything to the front line and then cities are just 1 unit + whips.

I'm still gunning for GLib, but prepping for war outside of that. I'm eyeing Rome, but not ruling out coldrain (NA). If coldrain builds GLib, I will 100% DoW him lol

(Q6): Do you offer Fish for Fish right before you DoW to ensure you have 9 - 10 peace turns, or during war prep? (Assuming Copper for Copper is during war prep)

[Mjmd]

restarting numbers as this got long

1) DON'T BUILD WEALTH!!! Not at this stage. I actually logged in specifically to check for wealth builds. Left some notes on MORE forges, preferably soon (this turn if it makes sense). Don't be afraid to whip them especially with silver coming online. There are situations to build wealth, but its usually AFTER you've gotten basic infrastructure up / multiplier buildings in appropriate cities, already finished expanding, have sufficient military, AND are in a tech race. Don't become SD!!! (he commonly builds wealth early on and then wonders why he has no economy later as he never built multiplier buildings).

2) Ya ALL in for wars is a good thing. Real world "this war is going to be easy" happens all the time in this game as well.

3) I forgot you wanted great library. That is a 4th tech path. Gives you inside track to music GA and some good wonders that direction. All the tech paths have benefits and trade offs. I really like this part of the tech tree for that reason.


4) I might put the slow NW stone island sooner than 18 or 19. Both of those are on Rome border and I'm not considering that border contested anymore as I think it will all be yours at some point.


Q6) if its someone you really do want long term peaceful relations with no harm doing sooner and then reupping every little bit (fish for fish is seen as good for 10 turns, but doing so that often can get annoying). But yes you would want to do / re up a little bit before.

[Miro]

Ok, onto more Forges then. Weird, in SP forums I get called out for building too much infrastructure; getting tech ASAP is vital for snowballing, but I can see a midgame economy stagnating without infrastructure and basic warmongering won't work the same when you can't manipulate diplomacy. Dominion already had a Forge, so I can remove that note and feel like I'm not a total noob 

Also - we just barely beat coldrain to the island! Had 2 - 3 turns of detours (drop off at our south island, slow pick up in city to be safe vs Trireme), so it was a close one. Axe placement was misclick, set Galley 1E so coldrain couldn't DoW and kill/steal the city without risking his Galley.

[Mjmd]

Part of it in single player high difficulty the computers get such huge bonuses you fall behind in tech pretty easily whereas here you are playing on a level field and not building infrastructure will make you fall behind later. I also consider forges pretty high in value for snow balling. They make every single whip and every 4hammers more efficient. Now if you weren't doing so well in power / expansion I would caution not to go overboard, but I think you are pretty safe atm. I would put a 2nd defender on that island.

Again other multiplier buildings are very much city dependent. I'm still waiting on a map marking your commerce vs production cities.

[Tarkeel]

1) DON'T BUILD WEALTH!!! Not at this stage. I actually logged in specifically to check for wealth builds. Left some notes on MORE forges, preferably soon (this turn if it makes sense). Don't be afraid to whip them especially with silver coming online. There are situations to build wealth, but its usually AFTER you've gotten basic infrastructure up / multiplier buildings in appropriate cities, already finished expanding, have sufficient military, AND are in a tech race. Don't become SD!!! (he commonly builds wealth early on and then wonders why he has no economy later as he never built multiplier buildings).

Soft disagree on this one: There are some circumstances where it's worth build wealth/research in a few cities for a single turn or so for certain key techs, but in general I'd rather put hammers into units (preferably long lived collateral) than wealth.

[Mjmd]

I think its important when teaching new to multiplayer people to give them the general rule and then they can later figure out when to break it.

I do build wealth in quite a few of my games, but its usually before rifles and before infantry. IE at a point in time where it doesn't make much sense to be producing out of date units. I have also done it in cases where I know I'm in a tech race. But very rarely have I ever done early in a game.

Writing mainly to say "MIRO REPORT PLEASE!!!".

[Miro]

I think a writeup every 10 turns is a good pace.

T120 Update:

xist10 (Carthage) completed The Colossus ~T115, coldrain (NA) completed Mausoleum of Mausollos ~T113. We will be the first to Aesthetics, finishing T121. Literature should finish ~T127.

We finished Calendar which has been a blessing and a curse.
The good: We're hooking up 4 +Happy resources!
The bad: I don't know how to break it to you guys. Our cartographers thought it'd be a good idea to split the map through our nation. We call ourselves 中國 (Zhōngguó) meaning "Central State" or "Middle Country" because we've always put ourselves in the middle of the map, but one of our scientists messed up and put us on the fringes. That's not the work of a great scientist, that's the work of a 60% scientist.



Ok, it didn't split directly through our mainland, but we have a new city on the island southwest of us (by Rome, wrapping to far east) and this splits through our northwestern island's territory.

On the bright side, with Calendar centering the map, I drafted up what the T0 start may have looked like to the map maker. I think they blended the world wrap very well.



Unfortunately, Dutch beat us to the boring Stone island NW of us, settling it on T118 when we would have gotten it on T120. The 19th city Settler is now headed for the city spot next to Rome and Blood on Clock. I may settle on the Marble, away from his Gold. I just don't see anywhere else the Settler could go and wouldn't consider saccing it. Maybe the boring Cow spot up north.



Regardless, I don't plan on making anymore Settlers this game. Do you agree? (Q1 below)

We have 2 new cities - 1 on the southeastern island by coldrain (NA) and 1 on the southwestern island by rickety Rome.



Ticket to Ride: This "gateway game" is simple enough for non-geeks to geek out on and tense enough to keep your attention. I like the game, it's not bad, but I'm always surprised by how much my non-gamer friends/family get into it. If you haven't played it, all you do it pick up cards and build connecting train routes between cities to score points and cut off routes your rivals might try to build. That synopsis sounds boring as hell but it can get addicting!

Telestrations: My mom's favorite game. Like the "telephone" game, but with drawing. You have an erasable flipbook with dry erase markers and everyone draws a card. One memorable card reads "Peeing out a fire." So you draw that on your flipbook while everyone else draws their card on their books. Then you all pass your book to the left and look at what they drew. Then you guess what it's supposed to be, writing your guess on the next page. Next person draws your guess. And it repeats until you get your book back and you all look through what everyone guessed/drew. To spice things up, my brother and I like to purposely guess wrong. So when I see a stick person peeing on a fire, I interpret it as "Oh, it burns when you pee. I'm guessing it's a UTI." And then my poor sister has to try and draw a UTI. 

I've been marking my commerce cities with "C" and the rest with "P" if you see them when you log in, but I'll display them here.

List:
Gloomhaven
Hues and Cues
Smash Up
Twilyt Struggle
Battleball
Mansions of Mad (mixed)
Blood on Clock (GP Farm)







Demographics and Charts:





Questions:

(Q1): Do you think we're done making Settlers? I don't usually fill in cities within my borders.

(Q2): Thoughts on settling the 19th city on Rome's southern border or the northern Cow spot? I know we talked about not contesting the Gold, I'm just trying to find a use for that Settler.

[greenline]

Telestrations is one of my favorite party games. I wish other people enjoyed it as much as I tend to.

But why found the city on the horse instead of one east?

[Mjmd]

Reporting I'll take what I can get, but as the game gets later might want to do it more often as game gets faster, but sometimes you just do whenever interesting things happening and if they aren't then ya not reporting is fine. For your screenshots why do you do them like that? This might be just my opinion but I find it disjointed. You obviously put a lot of work stitching them together, but just using the pov slider or using fying camera I find to be easier for screenshots and for reporting. Also, getting rid of the names makes it hard sometimes. For instance the crab 2nd western island city I don't remember the name for. I think we talked about Moai there and you have it labelled C, which if it will be Moai I agree with. Otherwise I like my fishing villages to just whip units IE production. How is Moai coming along wherever it is? That is another classic timing where I try to make sure I have it done in time for GA. Also, the GP farm city I would still cottage EVERYTHING and make it a commerce city. It will incidentally have enough food to be a GP farm without actually farming its grasslands. I might also go into to look at (but I've been busy) but the floodplain cow copper city might be commerce instead of city near the elephant.

Q0) I am also curious why on the horse? Your 18 spot in your planning was 1E.

Q1) I LOVE filler cities. Almost irrational love of filler cities. It somewhat depends on WHEN you want to go to war. If soon, then you might be done for now. If you are going to launch a GA or in general econ up, then maybe you want to settle the last couple before then.

Q2) Again somewhat depends on when you want to go to war. Its a crappy city, but the northern cow spot could culturally control the plains hill overlooking the water. Which is a key tile for vision. Vision is WAY more important in multiplayer than single player. I have probably failed in not talking about this before. Controlling that tile will allow you more easily attack from the fog. Speaking of if at some point before your power build up you HAPPEN to chop that forest in the NW of pig would also help speed. Did he take that tile culturally? It looks like your screenshots are from different turns as one shows you controlling and one him. Back to Q1 if you are going to wait a while maybe you settle both although might cause conflict in the south. I wouldn't settle either if you are going soon as there might be a better spot in his territory to settle / having a combat settler available is useful. BTW when you do eventually get the southern spot I would do NE of the marble so it can take a crab.

Q3) What are your future plans? Tech / attack timing / and related GA timing?

[Miro]

Telestrations is one of my favorite party games. I wish other people enjoyed it as much as I tend to.

But why found the city on the horse instead of one east?

It's great! Fun with good and bad artists. I've gone through the deck enough times that I ought to check for an expansion or maybe grab cards from a different game entirely so we have new things to draw.

I originally planned to settle 1E of horse, but opted for the Horse's immediate +1 hammer because of how late this city is. I want it to contribute as a net positive ASAP. 100 AD may not be all that "late", but as the 18th city it has -10.39 gpt directly and about -5 gpt indirectly (increasing num_city maintenance for all other cities). So at -15.4 gpt and +9 commerce while my Worker and WB are 4 turns from improving its tiles, I'm anxious about that city.

A Horse pasture can net +1 hammer and +1 commerce later and I know that's a sound play, but I'm just that anxious about maintenance costs and don't want to wait 30T for this city to be a net positive.

Reporting I'll take what I can get, but as the game gets later might want to do it more often as game gets faster, but sometimes you just do whenever interesting things happening and if they aren't then ya not reporting is fine. For your screenshots why do you do them like that? This might be just my opinion but I find it disjointed. You obviously put a lot of work stitching them together, but just using the pov slider or using fying camera I find to be easier for screenshots and for reporting. Also, getting rid of the names makes it hard sometimes. For instance the crab 2nd western island city I don't remember the name for. I think we talked about Moai there and you have it labelled C, which if it will be Moai I agree with. Otherwise I like my fishing villages to just whip units IE production. How is Moai coming along wherever it is? That is another classic timing where I try to make sure I have it done in time for GA. Also, the GP farm city I would still cottage EVERYTHING and make it a commerce city. It will incidentally have enough food to be a GP farm without actually farming its grasslands. I might also go into to look at (but I've been busy) but the floodplain cow copper city might be commerce instead of city near the elephant.

I can do a wider screenshot next time, I just thought it'd be hard to see. I toggled bare map just to show the cities' tiles to help evaluate commerce potential. In previous posts, units got in the way. I don't plan on another commerce city showcase so I won't be using bare map again.

I don't think we're on the same page which could be a skill issue on my end or miscommunications. I'm used to going into war 15T - 30T after researching the key unit for that war and having other units/buildings prepped before that time. We researched Cho-ko-nu on T110. I delayed mass production of it because of calls for more Barracks, Forges, and Markets. I thought, "Ok, two of those are war-related. Wish I would have made extra Barracks before T110 but the calls for Axemen to raise power rating were priority earlier." I also mentioned I'm aiming for GLib, then war. To me, this means one city isn't contributing to the war effort, but everything else will be. So Moai hasn't started. Moai is obviously good in the long term, but long term investments don't cross my mind during war prep.

That said, Battleball (Crab island) is 15T old. It has a Granary and Lighthouse with 32 hammers into Library. I can switch it into Moai and Copper will be available to work ~T125.

Q0) I am also curious why on the horse? Your 18 spot in your planning was 1E.

Q1) I LOVE filler cities. Almost irrational love of filler cities. It somewhat depends on WHEN you want to go to war. If soon, then you might be done for now. If you are going to launch a GA or in general econ up, then maybe you want to settle the last couple before then.

Q0) Above

Q1) But their maintenance costs!!!  I guess in late game they become more useful with corps online. By the way, I've never really made a corp. Like, I did once or twice in games I already won just to see what they were like, but my SP games usually end just before corps would come online.

Q2) Again somewhat depends on when you want to go to war. Its a crappy city, but the northern cow spot could culturally control the plains hill overlooking the water. Which is a key tile for vision. Vision is WAY more important in multiplayer than single player. I have probably failed in not talking about this before. Controlling that tile will allow you more easily attack from the fog. Speaking of if at some point before your power build up you HAPPEN to chop that forest in the NW of pig would also help speed. Did he take that tile culturally? It looks like your screenshots are from different turns as one shows you controlling and one him. Back to Q1 if you are going to wait a while maybe you settle both although might cause conflict in the south. I wouldn't settle either if you are going soon as there might be a better spot in his territory to settle / having a combat settler available is useful. BTW when you do eventually get the southern spot I would do NE of the marble so it can take a crab.

Q3) What are your future plans? Tech / attack timing / and related GA timing?

Q2) The shots were from different turns, it looks like I took that forest NW of Blood on Clock. BoC reached its 3rd culture ring recently (117 Culture, 4 cpt) and that tile is at 58% Chinese. That goes against my SP mindset, but OK the Settler can stick around for later. Also "combat settler". Wtf?! That's a thing? I guess I can try to settle a city under a stack if it's in trouble, just never occurred to me.

Q3) I don't have a future plan, but I have concepts of a future plan. I'm getting Literature for GLib, then CoL. Courthouses sound so nice right now. After that, I'd like to found a religion but the cheap ones have already been taken, so I may grab Monarchy. Military production in 8 / 18 cities right now, so this isn't a mass war effort yet. Maybe attack in 20T - 25T. GA shortly after Monarchy.

Also forgot to mention, but xist10 (Carthage) is probably going to circumnavigate the world soon. Surprised he hasn't finished it yet. It wasn't even on my mind, I'm used to there being an ocean preventing that so early.