[SPOILERS] Shoot Plays Another Restricted Diplo Game

[Shoot the Moon]

Oh also thanks for reminding me about seven subbing for mackoti. Totally forgot about that.

[Shoot the Moon]

Might get to some demog stuff and player analysis later this evening, but worth noting that the land comes out to 230 tiles per player. The real question I'll be interested in finding out is how much of that is on the continent and how much is on the islands.

For just a really rough assumption we take 150 on the continent and 80 in islands, that comes out to probably between 10 and 15 continental cities depending on overlap and how coastal they are. So there should hopefully be decent land to expand into.

If I were to continue the assumption of 150 continental tiles per player and then say the continent is roughly a circle (which I seriously doubt it is, but for these numbers probably the best assumption I can make) that would be a 450 area circle. The arc between me and the next closest player if we were distributed equally would be 25 tiles. I'm not perfectly on the coast, and I doubt it is a perfect circle of a continent, so if I had to guess I'd probably guess I'm between 15 and 20 tiles away from the closest rival on my continent (probably on the lower side of that range). That being said, it appears that we have had our warriors place intentionally away from the continent center by the looks of things, so at least I hopefully won't have to deal with another warrior poking around too early. Although I am Mali, having to research archery too soon isn't terribly appealing.

[Shoot the Moon]

Doubt it will be necessary, but my password is gaius for this game.

[Shoot the Moon]

So after simming, Agri-BW comes out ahead. I'm not going to sim much beyond that for now, as it's going to start depending on what my second city looks like. My warrior has revealed jack shit so far; really just waiting for my capital's borders to pop to the next level (nice being cultural for that).

[Shoot the Moon]

Also time for the long overdue player/pick analysis:

1) Sian plays Julius Caesar (IMP/ORG) of Vikings

I'll be honest and say I somehow know absolutely nothing about Sian's ability despite him having played in what seems like half the games this site has recently run. If I am on the same continent as him I'll have to go and read up on some games. In terms of picks though, I think his combo is pretty terrible. Vikings were not worth the first pick in the draft in my opinion. Fishing/hunting will be a painfully slow start if his starting land looks anything like my own (and by my very brief glances at the demos screen--which I still intend at some point to go back and analyze more fully--suggest it should be). Neither the UU nor the UB will make up for this. Berserkers come at a time when you still have to use galleys to transport but when cities start having multiple units available defensively, so attacking with them is awkward. And while nav 1 on naval units is nice, I don't think it comes into play nearly early enough to make up for the fishing/hunting start. And the Julius, well I guess all I can say is Sian was last when the pick came back around, so that's that.

2) Kyan plays Louis XIV (CRE/IND) of Carthage

Kyan is a solid civ player in my estimation, but where he really excels is diplo, which obviously won't help as much here. In terms of picks, Louis was my first choice leader, so well done there. I don't like carthage quite as much (fishing/mining isn't the greatest starting techs, and while cothons are nice they also come late and can be shut down by people closing borders. And NCs suck.) I think for the choices available, Carthage wasn't terrible probably though.

3) Shoot the Moon plays Catherine (CRE/IMP) of Mali

Me.

4) Nakor plays Pericles (CRE/PHI) of Korea

Skill wise I'd say Nakor is good but not great. Probably below the mackoti/Kyan level, but above Musicman. Civ/leader choice wise, I really like it. Pericles was my personal backup, and Korea is a great civ to pair with a PHI leader. Cheap libraries paired with PHI (and the border popping of CRE for an expansion trait) make this one of the better available I think.

5) mackoti plays Rameses (SPI/IND) of Sumeria

Mackoti civ wise is probably the strongest player in this game (although I don't think the margin is all that huge). In terms of picks though I'm a little baffled. I don't think Ramses is the best here, especially with an IND leader already taken and the two best wonders for the setup banned. Sumeria I can only assume he chose for the good starting techs, as the Ziggurat is pretty worthless without ORG (even at the discounted hammers its too expensive that early on) and while the vulture is solid the setup we have with three civs on a continent heavily discourages early warfare as it just allows the third civ to do what they want. Maybe though this was intended as a sort of REXing strategy like my own--vultures for the "stay the hell away from my cities" effect with ziggurats allowing him to afford it.

6) MusicMan plays Pacal (FIN/EXP) of Inca

All I can say is he better be bad enough to justify the civ/leader selection we allowed him. If he is anywhere above middle of the pack I will have major problems with this setup (and if he wins I'd probably consider the game a farce).

Overall, considering both player skill and civ picks, I'd probably rate myself slightly below mackoti, even with Kyan, slightly above Nakor, hopefully a good deal above MusicMan despite the picks, and I don't really know about Sian. At least a good deal of this though will come down to who gets put on what continent. If MusicMan is as bad as the picks we allowed him indicate, I'd very much like to be on his.

[Shoot the Moon]

Weird. After simming it out, going worker-worker at size one until the corn is farmed comes out ahead. That was counter intuitive, but I think it most just means that with me not able to improve many tiles yet getting workers out and chopping sooner comes out ahead of growing.

Current sim has settler out eot 21, and my second and third workers out eot 17 and eot 23 respectively.

[Shoot the Moon]

Alright, time for a long overdue update (sorry the last week has been crazy so I've only had enough civ time to do the necessary simming of the start and playing turns).

Anyhow, my build order has gone: worker - worker (partially built until the corn was farmed) - warrior. I will switch back to that partly filled worker t17 when a chop comes in to finish that, finish the warrior t18, then start a settler t19. The capital will have just grown to size 3 at the end of t18, so the timing on all this between food, chops, and production works out beautifully. The settler will finish end of t21, with overflow likely going into a worker which will finish end of t25 assuming that I don't chop or whip it (revolted into slavery t15 for the record).

Tech path has gone: (start with wheel and mining)-Agri-BW-Pottery. Probably AH next although hunting may come first as I'll be researching archery for skirms so getting the tech discount on AH may be worth it.

All of this assumes thought that musicman, whom I just met, doesn't decide to try to choke me:



(I actually had visibility on him the turn before this, but as I said above haven't been able to post).

I don't see much of an advantage to him for choking me: I can easily get to skirms to clear any choke he tries to put down, and at the same time he wouldn't want me to research skirms any earlier than I otherwise would, especially if he's gone and pissed me off. The threat of me choking him back is simply much worse than any advantage he could get out of harassing my worker. We'll see though.

From EP I know that I am the only other civ he has met yet. He is not yet in slavery.

At a broader level, I am glad he is on my continent as he is the weakest player here. Should hopefully mean more land for me to expand into.

The road you see was simply from what would otherwise be wasted worker turns (that is moving from the capital to the corn is two tiles, so get a free turn roading by moving NE and roading then E to the corn. Similar deal moving from the corn to the forest)

[Shoot the Moon]

Argh, Musicman did declare.



I also realized I counted tiles wrong when deciding where to send my worker. I thought where I moved it it would have time to complete the chop before the quecha threatened it, but it turns out if the quecha moves S or SW next turn I'll need to move the worker, which will screw up my micro plans Should have moved the worker SW of the city instead

Either way, I offered Musicman peace. Perhaps all he wants is visibility on my capital; if that's the case hopefully he'll simply move SE and offer peace himself. Doubt it at this point though.

[spellman]

Doubt it at this point though.

If true, mmmmm chokes...

[Shoot the Moon]

And of course quechas start with combat I, making it even more fun.

He can't honestly think making an enemy this early is going to help him though, can he? He's not going to capture my city, but he does have a chance to put me far enough behind that I have no chance to win but can still choose who to screw over (read: him). Oh and I have skirms...