[Spoilers] Pindicator's Nice Thread

[Mjmd]

As a lurker I can attest that I LOVE all the reporting. 

As a player in PB65... I have not read that thread yet............

So it just depends on your target audience.

[pindicator]

Primarly for lurkers, but I think there's a lot of benefit in being able to share experiences with the other players at the end.

Do you think it would help if I made up a quick table of comments at the beginning/end of the thread with links to key moments?

[pindicator]

109

Happiness!




Part of my impatience for this turn was that Calendar was finally coming in and I have connected another luxury resource.

Worker actions for the next 10 turns or so are largely set:




Next turn all 5 workers improve the grass spice tile, and then they split up:

• A pair of workers will prep the way for the Silk tile, building roads and pre-chopping the forest. They also will build a road on the plains forest hill tile. I have a spear and axe to protect them from chariots, and the Shock HA are ready if he moves his Praetorians forward.
  
• A pair of workers will then build a road connection to Commodore. I had not realized this, but Commodore is the only person in the game I do not have a trade connection with. Somehow that happened despite me having trade routes to everyone else.
  
• The 5th worker doesn't have much to do. Could pre-chop or pre-mine at MLP. Could build a cottage for Heathcliff.

On end of t115 the borders at Heathcliff pop. Then on t116 all 5 workers plus a 6th being built in the capital will move to the silk tile and 1 worker finishes the chop while the other 5 will 1-turn the plantation.

After that we hook up the Sheep on t117 and then turn northward to the Marble. I'm going to try to trade my extra spice for Commodore's marble once I hook up the land route on t112, but then after that finishes I'm going to try and switch for stone. You can see I'm already starting an early Moai (probably should build a library in Thundercats first...)

But I have my own source of Marble, up at Voltron. I just have to pop borders and hook it up. Quick, what's wrong with this picture?




Library before Granary is correct! Or rather, not correct. Well, it does not seem correct, even though it was the fastest way to get the borders popped at Voltron. (Truthfully, chopping a monument here on t107 was faster, but my love for monuments has limits and ... huh, actually this might have been faster growth than what I'm doing. Shoot.) I'm chopping this turn and then again on 112 then whipping the library on 113. Then we need to have a road down in place by 118 so that on 119 when borders pop we can one-turn the marble.

I'm not thrilled with having marble be so late. Once it is hooked up then I'll try to swap my spice for Stone in order to finish Moai. And then finally we'll look to swap it with someone else's luxury (Magic Science has 3 gold, for example).

Finances are not fantastic.




Currently am making 31gpt at 0%. Hoping to bump up closer to 40 as we grow, but Currency is going to need about 250g in the bank, so we are another 10 turns away from completing that. Also, I still need to research Masonry before I can hook up my own marble.

Update: logged back in and swapped Thundercats to a library, and DtG to a stables. Keeping Smurfs & Rescue Rangers on their unit builds for now

[pindicator]

110

Not much for a turn update - I hooked up the second spice and am holding off trading it for now. A second person has Metal Casting - possibly Commodore. Sadly despite having a forge-based UB I really don't have a good layout for Colossus. Not like Magic Science or Commodore or Superdeath all seem to. Or Bing for that matter; I found his borders this turn.

Instead I was thinking about events and quests. What is the expected rate of having an event or quest? I know Charriu doubled that rate, but are we talking 1 every 50 turns on average? 30 turns? So far I have had 2 events and 1 quest this game - is that in line with expectations or were other people expecting more? Which in turn got me to think what I would like for a multiplayer random game, and I think somewhere around the 25-30 turn range (on average) is what I would go for. Quests would be 1 per era, roughly. All this is said without any knowledge of how it works under the hood, I'm just envisioning what a fun play experience would be.

[pindicator]

Trying to figure out MoM timings.

If I can trade for Marble next turn then I'm going to swap MLP to a 20hpt configuration and then I can put two chops into MoM on t119 and 3pop whip it on t120 if I feel like I am in a race. Without the whip it will finish eot121.

If I cannot trade for Marble then it becomes a bit more tricky because I'm going to need 6 workers to improve the marble on t119 but then also workers to chop out forests down by MLP. I think I can get it eot124 without a whip and I'm not sure on when it would come with a whip. EOT122? 121? It's all fuzzy still.

[pindicator]

112

The diplo game has begun:




Superdeath gave me this offer on t111 and I haven't responded. I don't think I will need his help against Gavagai. Rather, I do not want to split up Gavagai's lands with Superdeath. Also, I am not really willing to jump into fighting Gav until I can come back with a tech advantage: Elephants, Catapults, and Axes will be what wins against Gavagai.

Magic Science has been trying to trade me luxuries and I am a little torn. On one hand, growing is good. On the other, my cities have a few turns until they hit happy cap because they are all crammed in too tight sharing too few food sources. So I declined his Gold for a lump sum of gold proposal, and this turn I turned down his Spice for Ivory deal (although I really like that one; it would mean I don't have to tech Iron Working to build those Elephants I was talking about earlier).

Instead I hooked up the land route to Commodore and offered him my extra Spice for his only Marble. If he declines then I will come back to Magic Science and offer him back the Ivory for Spice deal.




The last chop came in for Voltron; next turn we whip the library. I suppose if Commodore logs in again and takes that Marble deal then I'll swap this over to a Granary. Pity, I really wanted to play this turn before Comm so I would know if I had Marble or not.

My workers up by Voltron will next cottage the riverside tiles. Voltron whips out it's library and then whips out the granary and then eventually also whips out a lighthouse - but the lighthouse isn't that important here because of all the riverside tiles. Yes, I am going to cottage the tundra. I am desperate after all.

Meanwhile the workers by Heathcliff roaded the Silk this turn. I'm changing this part up a bit: just 1 worker will move to the forested hill next turn to build a road there (this road is strategic to allow me to hit his horse as well as let my workers transition over to the Sheep after I improve the silk). The two workers on the silk this turn will then build a cottage on the grass tile next turn. Truly I should have built the cottage first, I'm getting lazy in my micro.




Meanwhile I was wrong about my build rate at My Little Pony: I'm missing a couple mines here to be able to hit 20 or even 24 hpt. The two workers that finished the land connection with Commodore will have 2 turns here to pre-chop and pre-mine, but then they need to run back west to hook up the Silk. There's no delaying that silk tile: I have multiple cities lined up for growth eot115. Well, if Commodore doesn't trade the Marble and then I trade the Ivory with Magic Science then I could delay and keep those workers in the east.

I'll have 2 forests in culture (DtG pops borders end of this turn) and 1 forest outside of culture for chopping into MoM - that's 120h with Marble, or 90 if i just stick with the in-culture forests. I can cap out at 20hpt at size 7, but if I get the marble earlier then I might give up the lake as soon as I have that next mine built. I've given all my production tiles to MLP - I think this is going to be its arrangement longterm, as it is the production spot. Thundercats will have Moai and be working sea tiles; DtG is a commerce city and will not be the unit pump that MLP will need to be.

I've been shuffling tiles like mad trying to scrounge out the extra commerce here or there. Nowhere is this better illustrated than at The Smurfs:




I really want to just hire a pair of scientists here and forget about Smurfs, but the problem is I need cities around it to grow just a bit more: Rescue Rangers needs to take over the silver, and the capital needs to take over those cottages. Or if I don't hire the scientists then that farm needs to be turned into a cottage and then I whip out the occasional catapult at 3fpt. But I'm trying to find ways to grow this city while also making sure I work the best tiles. As I said when I planted Smurfs: this is a city that is only for working the unworked tiles before the surrounding cities can build them. It's own growth or needs are less important.

Heathcliff is in a similar spot, but at least will have its problems solved when borders pop:




When borders pop we'll have Sheep and Silk to work. I think it's better to give Heathcliff one of them and have 2 cities at +4 or +5 food rather than 1 city at +7 and the other at +2.

Finally, I am on a whip and unit moratorium. No units, no whips. I'm building axes up to 34/35 and swapping to infrastructure or another unit. I need about 240g to be able to 3-turn Currency. I'm already over 40gpt and when the silk gets hooked up should be able to top 50. But we have to get Currency soon for the "free" 20 commerce that will add from trade routes. I might be able to turn on the slider in 3 turns, so Currency by end of t117 is the goal.

[pindicator]

114

Commodore turned down my Spice for Marble deal so I re-offered Magic Science's deal back to him: Spice for Ivory. That is a very good deal for us: Ivory gets multiplied by Markets and also lets us build elephants without teching Iron Working. I need to consider Commodore is making a play for Mausolleum himself, but thankfully he settled one of his cities right on top of a sugar, so I will be immediately know when he has researched Calendar. Not yet is the answer. No Currency either. What is using that Great Merchant for?

Commodore did offer me Fish for Fish, and I repeated it back to him without accepting. Then immediately started thinking about how I might have to pillage his marble if I do see him research Calendar soon. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Getting the extra happiness from Magic Science meant I could grow a couple cities early and not wait until the silk being hooked up on 116. So my capital, DtG, and MLP are all set to hit size 7 at end of turn. Funny thing with my MLP setup was that I could switch a plains hill mine over to a coast and I come out net-even on hammers because I'm growing a turn sooner and working another plains hill mine a turn sooner. But then I also get 3c for "free" by working the coast.

Economy is growing faster than hoped for, and I'm already into the upper 40s for gpt at 0%. Which means I might be able to just squeeze in Currency in 3. I turned on the Bunsen Burners, and rearrnaged some more tiles. I also "broke" my rule and triple whipped the library in Thundercats last turn. By switching off the grass hill mine and growing the pop back quickly I think I come out at least even in commerce with this.

Anyway, here's the mess of my empire and how I've got tile assignments split up:




I am marking all this up here not because I love tedious micro projects (although sometimes I wonder...) but because I want to show how my big problem now isn't so much happiness as it is that I am running out of good tiles to improve and work. Which is why I need to start thinking of my cities in terms of haves and have-nots, which is a meaner way of saying I need to specialize them more. For instance, Rescue Rangers should not be building a library. It's going to be a tundra desert of a city in the future, just whipping units off of that deer while all the commerce tiles go to its neighbors. I need to switch that back to an axe even if it does complete end of turn.

I also added the pair of scientists to Smurfs this turn, both because the scientists will get more beakers towards Currency than the lake and plains cottage but also because I want to stagger a bit and speed up the second great person.

Demos with the slider turned up:




Currency in 3 ... hopefully

[pindicator]

115

Every time i see Gavagai move his Praetorians out into the field I do a little happy dance: 




If he had done this last turn I might have had to scramble a little, but the worker was able to finish the road this turn, and that opened up the horse archers.  I figured a reasonable result would be to split the 2 shock horse archers attacking in, which would leave me with 4 regular horse archers to kill off 1 wounded praetorian and 1 regular.  So I'd lose one more and then likely wipe the forward stack.  Park a couple axes on that forested grass hill and call it a day.

Shock HA vs Praetorian (71.41%) - WIN
Shock HA vs Praetorian (71.41%) - WIN

1 praetorian and 1 axe remaining.  Might as well send in the only unpromoted HA now.  I'll probably have to trade again next turn against his last Praetorian but I wouldn't mind losing some unit costs here.

Horse Archer vs Praetorian (37.5%) - WIN

Or that could happen.

Here I just decided to not press my luck, put a pair of axes on that hill, and call it a day.  Next turn it all falls under my culture, but for this turn I'm going to have a little bit more unit expenses and getting to Currency will get a little tighter.

Aftermath:



Varus, give me back my legions

I hit 10xp on one of the shock horse archers. Do I go straight for Literature and build the epics now?

[Krill]

That last sentence deserves a 5k word analysis.

[Charriu]

I hit 10xp on one of the shock horse archers.  Do I go straight for Literature and build the epics now?

Should you go for the national epic, don't forget you have to actually level up the horse archer