RBP4 [SPOILERS] - Shaka of Zulu (sunrise089, regoarrarr, and friends)

[Krill]

I'm still envious you got the best start in PB1...

[regoarrarr]

I'm still envious you got the best start in PB1...

So you compensated by screwing us with this map? (hypothetically speaking)

[Ruff_Hi]

annnnnnnnnnnnnnyway

That 'word' has to be worth $1

What scoring system were you using?

Don't be dense - and 'no', you aren't getting a new post to answer your question.

[darrelljs]

So you compensated by screwing us with this map? (hypothetically speaking)

He gave you a fantastic start, then you moved.

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

Here are a few pics of the lands that we've discovered.





Note the blocking peaks that we've seen, marked with the white lines.

Here's some land analysis. We currently have 15 tiles of land, and F8 shows us with 0.62% of the total land. That indicates that there's about 2420 total land tiles.

Here's a breakdown of some of the land that I can see so far.

North of Vine: 76 tiles
South of Vine: 120 tiles (guessing based on some fog)
SW of Vine: 30 tiles
SE of Vine: 60 tiles (again, guessing, and that doesn't include anything further east than the current warrior)

That's 286 tiles, and with 10 civs in the game, average would be 242 tiles.

So either a) all this land is not "ours", and/or b) we've got an above average start.

[regoarrarr]

In city news, our worker finished the grassland farm, which we swapped to. That gives us settler still in 4 but the extra commerce (10% increase going from 10 to 11!!!) shaves a turn off Sailing, now due in 6.

[regoarrarr]

As I continue to post after myself, the C&D department is running into a problem.

The team of Atlas / luddite researched a tech this past turn (T33). What's the problem, you say? Well, they last researched a tech on T31. So, unless they're HAULING (and I mean HAULING), there's no techs that could have been with standard researching.

So it must have been some tech switching, either unintentional or deceptive. Probably just a decision change (similar to our own swapping off of Bronze Working to chase Fishing / Sailing)

So, let's look at the facts.

They start with Agriculture and the Wheel, and took place in the great Hunting tech-off of Turn 7.

They then researched a tech on T22, which we penciled in on Animal Husbandry, and then the tech on T31, which we guessed as Mining, and now a tech on T33.

First, let's rule out other possibilities. There have been no wonders created, and what we've called techs have all come in 6 point increments, so they can't be population.

There have been 26 turns since Hunting.

8 turns at size 1
5 turns at size 2
9 turns at size 3
4 turns with 2 cities (size 3 and 1)

I'm going to assume limited or no working of the grass commerce tile, which means that it should be about 10 commerce per turn total. Maybe slightly higher, and I'm going to assume the 2nd city is about breakeven (more commerce but then some maintenance costs). So that's 260 (possibly up to as much as 280 commerce) over the past 26 turns.

Possible techs (these are divided by the pre-req bonus)

Fishing: 69
Mining: 85
Mysticism: 85
Archery: 86
Masonry: 115 (99 if both Myst and Min)
Pottery: 115 (99 if both Fish and Ag)
Anim Husb: 123 (both prereqs)
Sailing: 144

My first thought before I ran the numbers was Fishing, AH and Pottery. Like he started off Fishing, before realizing he didn't have a good chance of GLH, so then swapped off to AH. But the tech timings don't make sense.

So I'm going to guess starting off on Fishing for a turn or two, then realizing he needed AH more (and/or he couldn't get GLH). That explains why his AH was 1 turn slower (T22) than otherwise would be expected. Then a few more turns of Fishing before realizing he wanted Mining first (T31) then 2 turns to finish off the cheap tech of Fishing (T33)

That's 277 commerce which is just about right.

Feel free to at me in the lurker thread about how wrong I am

[regoarrarr]

In other news, soldier counts are growing much slower now, as people (besides us ) stop building warriors.

Luddite (8 tiles land) and Nakor (7) both founded their 2nd cities this turn, and Luddite was the first to be working 5 pop points. There are now 5 civs with 2 cities and 5 with just 1. I expect us to be near the back of the pack on 2nd city if not last. We'll be founding on T41.

[regoarrarr]

A few comments on the land we've uncovered so far. It's pretty good, resource-wise. At least from a breadth of resources.

The only resources I haven't seen (and we're not done exploring) are:
* Furs
* Wines
* And most of the Calendar resources (the only one we've seen are some jungle bananas)
* And no marble or stone which may be intentional

But what we DO have are:
* All 3 metals (hopefully Bronze and Iron too)
* All 3 grains
* All 4 seafood (incl. whales)
* All 3 pasture resources (hopefully horse too)
* Deer
* Ivory

[regoarrarr]

And your trusty WarlordDr reporting service reporting in

I decided not to play T34. I figure I've got everything just about under control

In other news, as you probably already know, Lord Parkin completed Stonehenge this past turn, meaning that my prediction of Mysticism on T28 was indeed correct.

A rather obvious play for a Chm / Ind leader (which doesn't make it a BAD play, of course)

And following up on my last post (what is this with my combining 3 thoughts into one post instead of breaking them up?!?!), I found a silk resource