[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[dtay]

Realized that first shot of the empire is 2 turns old... oops. I'll go in and get an up to date one (I swear I thought I already did that) in a bit.

[dtay]

Your interface transparency is unbroken. How does the upkeep (F2) look like?

Yeah I got my real laptop back instead of using the crappy spare. I'll post an upkeep shot when I go back for the real empire-wise shot.

[dtay]

Empire Overview:



Notice lack of defense... gotta fix that. Fix that fast. I'm operating really risky here and I really don't want to be. If there's one cost to this war its this, a barbarian forcing a whip or even worse actually killing something. EC is using its insane production to pump out a chariot+undecided in the next 5 turns, SC and Resembool are building units as well while they grow. Capital and Riole have better things to do though.

EC is pretty nice for this though, it has no need of a library and already has a barracks and granary, so it can build a worker/settler, grow on military, build another worker/settler, etc etc.

Speaking of barbs:




Thsi won't be a problem, if it turns down south my chariot coming from EC can pop it well before its near my cities, so I have a plenty large margin for error. If this had appeared further east though I'd have been more annoyed.


So now, the warzone:





As you can see the chariot in the back cut that road. Next turn the other chariot will cut the road 1N of Jetboy. This will make counterstrikes somewhat more delayed, and those few turns could be the critical difference between a strong defense and a non-extant defense.

He's still pushing lots and lots of archers, no other units seen. This is on the whole good. The archers can get odds on most of my units when they're in cities, but they're god awful at fighting my guys in the field. Sounds like open season on his improvements. I'm taking 2gpt in "enemy territory" maintenence, so if I can raze 12g worth of improvements that should pay for the time I'll be in here.

[dtay]

Empire overview - nothing much exciting to see:







Here's the warzone. I'm going to pillage the cottage next turn, then we'll evaluate if I think a city is worth going after. Still no chariots or metal units seen. Did he not settle near a strategic resource with city #4? That seems really stupid if so. I'll keep assuming the worst until I actually find said city.






Demo's. I'm at 100% science so it might be a bit inflated (but I bet a lot of other people's GNP's are inflated in the same way), but these look pretty good. I'm getting close to average in GNP and keeping high marks in the other 2




But also.... wtf who has 86 gnp? Even if they're a religion founder (William LP?) that's a ton. I think they'r winning right now.

[flugauto]

...Upkeep...

[dtay]

Oops, forgot to post that. I'll post the newest one instead:






Only 1 gpt in roaming costs, which is good. Easily made up for by the 15g i've already pillaged.


Empire overview shots:





As you can see I won my fight (90% odds) against the barbarian ax. Still have ~50 hp and a an upgrade now, so he's going to head over to the North Copper site.





2 scientists
Painful to not be working that gold, but every turn of the academy is worth ~10 beakers, so a faster academy outweighs the 4 commerce difference b/w the scientist and the gold. And I'm not going to starve the city to work the gold when I can just wait 6 turns. Then my GS is out, I'll be on the verge of 5 pop for a SC working cows+wheat+gold+cottage+cottage/ivory. At 5 pop it'll probably build a worker or settler (settler more likely).

I think I've definately decided on currency next. Once I sign my peace deal (probably next 1-3 turns or so) I'm going to hit massive expansion mode. Settle the island, one of the silver spots, and onwards. This means I'm probably going to crash my economy ~20 turns from now, right in time for currency to come in and save me.





Riole isn't finishing that library right now, I just had 17h of overflow and it was the most productive thing to dump it into. Resembool is about to get all its resources stolen and start working triple cottage (have to BUILD triple cottage first lol), turning into the filler city it was always meant to become.


The warzone:




3 observations:

1) barbarian ax joining the party. That's good, force him to keep troops by the capital and probably will pillage that mine.

2) Made back all my money by pillaging a hamlet, I'll turn the cottage to grass next turn.

3) I think I'm going to offer peace during my next turn. He's showing a ton of archers and is adequately guarding any attempt of mine to get across the river into forking position. I'll finish pillaging the cottage and try to get the farm, see what he's got in Dr. Tachyon, and then probably offer peace.

My work here is mostly done, I came out net commerce positive (substantially so in fact, i'll have made 20-30 gold on pillaging), I forced a bunch of archer whips which are horrendously unideal, I burnt the road heading to the north copper, and took out a what appears to be his only cottage. Excessive damage? No, but this cost me basically nothing and further set back my already set-back neighbor.

Its a bit interesting to imagine what would have happened if TBS hadn't settled so aggressively (say on the desert hill). I wouldn't have rushed the city (or would have failed if I had), he'd be equal to me in city count and wouldn't have just whipped his civ. Our border formation would also have been entirely different. Right now it looks like we're going to have this SW to NE line, whereas before I think a NS line near the lake would have been the division. Interesting to think about anyway.

[Ceiliazul]

well, there is a hammer cost for all those troops as well. probably still good if it makes you the regional hegemon, but saying 'no cost' is inaccurate.

[dtay]

Fair, though I think my the characterization of "basically nothing" is pretty accurate, my start in general had an excess of hammers and EC had to build SOMETHING while growing. But yeah, there's still obviously still a hammer cost since I could have worked a farmed grass land instead of the mines.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

2 scientists
Painful to not be working that gold, but every turn of the academy is worth ~10 beakers, so a faster academy outweighs the 4 commerce difference b/w the scientist and the gold

This is incorrect because you are not able to sustain 100% science all the time. You're also ignoring the three hammers you get from the gold. It was probably correct to grow to size 5 and work the gold as well as the scientists, though I don't have complete information.

[dtay]

Hammers true, that's just a qualitative tradeoff depending on valuation. I'm pretty sure it does come out ahead on commerce though, 10 was an admittedly high rough estimate, the more detailed math is:

I hit positive gpt at 50%, so the academy is 5gpt minimum, already greater than 4.
By the time I get academy 2 cottage growths and a city pop growth happen, upping total commerce to 24-25
I'm going to save all commerce as gold for the time between sailing-tech and academy, so I can run 100% for the first 5 turns or so of the academy.
2 golds and 2-3 cottages come online in the next 10-ish turns making the percentage science I can run temporarily higher, and then city 7 I build is the island city which won't really decrease beaker %, so the beaker % isn't dropping.

Finally there was the issue of dancing around the granary-build, such that working a 3rd food-y way back when (grassland cottage i guess) tile doesn't actually result in getting to size 5 that much quicker than hitting scientist at size 3 cause of when the granary gets filled (but obvi that's where the lack-of-complete-information caveat comes in).

Of course ideally I wouldn't have had to whip that warrior way back when and this tradeoff wouldn't have existed but human error/retroactive-barb-justification interfered.