[PB63 Spoilers] Ginger and Lazteuq find a way to peace

[Plemo]

I am not so familiar with CtH. Is the converting overflow to gold active? In BTS it sure is not.

[Charriu]

It is active

[Miguelito]

I ran some tests on this during early PB59, and while I would get some gold it was less than expected. Is there a source on the mechanics? Does OF get debonified before converting to gold?

[civac2]

Yes, overflow gets debonified in CTH/BUG.

It didn't used to do that which opened up sillyness like mass-producing warriors in the HE city. For this reason, it was changed in patch 3.17(?). But instead they broke it completely so you almost never get any overflow gold. The BUG team finally fixed it.

Say you whip a warrior at 14/15 in a city with 6 base production and chop a forest into it too.
So you have 14 + 6 + 30 + 30 - 15 = 65 overflow. If there were any production modifier, you'd divide them out here (from the 65). Finally 15 of the 65 overflow will go to the next build in the city and 50 will be converted to gold.

[Ginger()]

Yeah, I ran some tests in CtH, hammers are debonified so no PRO wall-whipping shenanigans. The current plan should yield me ~110 gold from a whip and 3 forests. Mhmm, I feel so much better about my chances now that this little trick is under way. Speaking of projects underway I am setting up for a run at Hanging Gardens. Despite the late date it feels reasonably secure: Cairo is whipping for a war and desperately needs more cities and growth, doubt he can contest it. Fabled/Mjmd went for religious tech, Jack and SD should not be too far ahead in tech compared to me, and Cornflakes lacks the city count to make it profitable. Also no one but Mjmd has hooked up their stone yet. 

   
I spy with my little eye... Yup Mjmd has whipped 2 forges, one in his holy city and one in his capital. I predict he'll run a dirty-pool engineer/prophet and either bulb machinery or found a shrine  . I hope he builds Colossus in his holy city and gives Bing a nice golden eyesore. That engineer could really screw my attack if I run Praets, will need to supplement with War Elephants, which requires HBR... ughh, more techs. Alternatively I could run my own crossbows if I'm not rushing a wonder. After currency I'll have to make a commitment to war or more teching*. Also his triremes would leave my entire coastal core vulnerable. Rome, Cumae, Arretium, the fur islands.
*Fastest is Construction and IW then crunch time with Police State. But I could also do a run for CoL, Mono, MC, and get Forges, courts, and reli everywhere, for more stonks. Compare that to the risk/reward of war. I guess it depends on Bing and what timeframe he's thinking.

t91 demos with 100% tech (note that my ascendancy in crop yield is illusionary as Mjmd just whipped a bunch)
   
Everyone else's GNP is spiking too, turning on tech seems to be the latest crazy. I'm working 18, next turn 19 cottages which I'll bet is more than any other player at this point in the game, but again, this takes time to pay off, time I don't have.
Maybeee I should close OB with some people 

Edit: More text added

[Ginger()]

t93
The big news of the turn is that Bing landed GLH, conducting a 4 pop whip at his capital to do so, he also landed currency this turn with 0 gold to spare
I'll have to cancel OB and re-offer with a surcharge in two turns. I'm probably also going to cancel OB with SD, I'm not getting anything for it, and the more I think about it, the less his good will is worth. Speaking of trade deals, are we allowed to offer bullshit city deals (since at peace, accepting is not allowed) in order to signal intentions? I offered OB to Fabled for the last time this turn, because I want my 1cpt from his stone island and to explore more of the map. If he doesn't want free money from my islands, lord help him, I'm not offering OB again.

In the last ten turns after being squeezed for happy the whole game, I unlocked several new sources, and am still struggling to grow my cities ASAP. I have 6 cities growing EoT and am very happy with the curve that shows up in CY demos (GNP less so*). I also swapped out of slavery (2gpt) because I have no whips planned for 5 turns. I'm confident that I can do this because I have an almost 50% surge in power hidden away in build queues to save unit maintenance. 
The two short term goals are to crawl to Currency on 26gpt and land Hanging Gardens. I have 20(!) raw hammers** in Antium and 2 chops, so I should land it turn 104. Turn 103 by starving a little on a mine or pulling a cheeky whip.

*Civic Maintenance is an astounding 40% of expenses... was not used to these numbers in single player. 
**let me never badmouth plains hills again

Here's the overview shot of the empire. Notably I fired my specialists for a turn to cut growth times
   

[Ginger()]

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship...
Bing and I have a long, prosperous future ahead of us. I offered to sell him my fur for 4 gpt and he accepted no haggling and sent back Copper for Copper   .
 I feel terrible plotting against Mjmd as he's shown nothing but cooperation and made our borders easy, but it has to be this way. The madlad went ahead and built Colossus in his holy city, talk about eggs in one basket.  Bloody Rose, the Buddhist holy border city, must be gleaming in Bing's eyes. Mjmd also invested EP in me for the first time last turn , I've swapped away from trying to get research vis on Cornflakes in order to match his spending, or at least signal my intent in matching his spending. 

Domestically, I am very pleased with the progress. Lots of vertical growth fixing my woes.
Crop Yield hit 173 last turn, down to 168 today after hiring 4 scientists. 
Currency/GE should come turn 100, Moai turn 103, Hanging Garden t104 (with 2, possibly 3 new cities settled in between Currency and HG), then Academy 108, golden age 114.
HG is risky going for it this late, I'm watching like a hawk for any visible aquaducts. I might whip it, because it would be such a huge swing, but likelier my greed gets the better of me and I let it slow build. Growing Antium up to be able to work 4 plains hills was a big struggle and tax on Rome and Arpinum. 

The big news of course is that Cairo has razed 3 cities off our northern neighbor, including both fur cities, it appears the triremes did not arrive in time. 

I was going to do a turn 100 opposition rundown, but got impatient, so here are my thoughts now.

Myself:
12 cities.
Gandhi is a leader who's (admittedly powerful) abilities require tech progression to unlock. My growth curve did not allow for that. However, my growth has given me a very nice position, especially since, given time, I have it easy to convert food into beakers. If I get Hanging Gardens, my demos should be even more stonks. Long term things aren't so peachy without some decisive moves to push the advantage, after all, everyone has the same amount of land to expand into as I did, and a lot of my pop is working coastline. I also have a very favorable theoretical hammer advantage in any future wars, with police state and praetorians (won't mean squat against Xbows). I might have to start worrying about a dogpile if I go for shiny things like Calendar and 12turn golden ages. 

Bing:
9 cities (settler sighted) 
Zara has been doing work for him, despite a slow opening overbuilding military, he managed to land GLH extremely late and has top tier demos alongside Mjmd and I. With cheap libraries everywhere, ORG, Currency, and GLH, he's gonna have a good time. Will be a problem in the future, but I hope that we can split Mjmd between us. GLH is in his capital, which makes it a tempting target, but our border is very stable for the moment.

Mjmd:
9 cities (settler sighted) 
Probably the favorite to win a few turns ago, just lost 3 cities to Mr. Cairo, and has whipped prodigiously in the last few turns. Looking at his past games this seems to fall into an unfortunate pattern for Mjmd where he micros himself a nice snowball and then loses ground militarily. With courthouses everywhere, 2 forges up, Triremes, Colossus, he is definitely still in the game, and coupled with our unfortunately short expansion rings, that is why he's my target in the medium term. In the short term, I have better things to do with my food and gold than whip ancient era garbage. Also, his holy city has been unfortunately gimped by bad rolls with the random spreads, 2 cities caught it early, but none since afaik. 

SD:
9 cities  
Demos still firmly in the pack despite having double land, I suppose that is reflected by the not-so-double city count, but he doesn't have to worry, he just has to wait. With the early conquest, all he has to do is run out the clock. He also seems unusually (for him) invested in this game, playing half-hour or 45min turns some days. He has sent me some friendly overtures and stuff about Cornflakes which is really just nonsense, *you're the problem SD*   I need to keep him reasonably happy as to protect my fur island, but I regardless canceled OB to reduce his income. He's welcome to bribe me some future date. Will watch with angst and impotence as he grows into a monster.

Cornflakes:  
6 cities 
The wildcard. No slavery the whole game, playing the game and CHA as the designers intended. With a scary, scary leader at tech parity, and a massive tech lead over the rest of the field. Recently popped a golden age and went into Caste, will probably adopt his native religion, Confucism, I suspect he ends the golden age in HR, Vassalage, Slavery, and Confucism. I very curious to see whether he commits to playing a beatdown and trying to bowl someone over with fancy tech or if he will now REX after clearing away some of the tech gating by securing Currency, MC, CoL. I suspect the beatdown and soon vassalage, because otherwise the current early golden age makes little sense, but I could be wrong. Loading up so heavily on tech puts him firmly in the driver's seat for controlling the outcome of this game, but also puts him on a clock, the commerce delta he currently enjoys will shrink as the more profligate civs grow their new acquisitions. 

Fabled:
9 cities
Strong synergistic civ and leader, promptly ignored that and went for religion   , twice...  Mehmed of Ottomans is a very cool hedge leader who gets 2 happy for 40h at Math on the way to an Org-assisted Currency beeline following some aggressive EXPansion. That didn't happen, (maybe he landed Monotheism and Maths, but I doubt he had the beakers for it). I think he played the first 14 turns identically to me, growing on 3F1H and popping out the workboat at size 2 before worker. If he did have a mirrored capital to mine, Wheel/Agr would've been bad starting techs, and might have explained his rocky start. Maybe my deer was an unirrigated wheat for him, then I can understand Ottomans. His development this game has been marked by over-militarization in response to a pressure campaign from Cornflakes. The whipping he did to fight off Cornflakes erased the gains visible from his early granaries, now his demos are in line with CF, Jack, SD, and Cairo. I rate his position as decently stable despite setbacks except that one of his neighbors is playing a tech gambit that could result in violence. 

Cairo:
7 cities 
I don't know if he just likes fast turns or is emotionally disengaged from this game, but I do cheer him on from the sidelines as he just nabbed a whopping 3 cities from Mjmd. He's clearly not to be underestimated even if the numbers are uninspiring. What brought on the war, was it a confluence of easy capture gold/knock on the leader/get off my lawn? I don't know the impetus for the war, but it has had a marked effect on Mjmd's position. I cannot say whether it will improve Cairo's. He doesn't appear able to keep the island cities as he razed both, and the whip and power spike has further damaged his crop yield which despite recovering sharply in 2 turns, is now bringing up the rear of the pack. His border with Cornflakes looks reasonably distant and stable, but I'm not sure Knights will care that much about defensive depth. 

JackRB:
9 cities
My biggest mystery this game, due to poor scouting and a lack of his foreign engagements to give me insight. Probably doomed to fight Superdeath  . His CY is decent, but his MFG and GNP are quite low. He's got a hedge leader so despite IMP being nearly spent, FIN is still kicking, and Vikings is a relevant Civ on this map, so we'll see what happens. He actually shares a rather wide and green landbridge to Bing (world 2nd GNP and 2nd/3rd CY), so I really don't fancy his position long term. Especially if Bing and I dogpile Mjmd, there will not be much pressure on SD.

[Amicalola]

That was a very useful first post to read. I am general lurking this now - hello. Nice to see you are doing well, I had high hopes from our MP game.

Also here are some general responses to some recent posts of yours (I haven't read the whole thread):

Here's a general strategy question global lurkers might be able to answer. On a scale of Never to It's-Fine, how do you usually feel about non-Cre library whipping? Its common practice in single player, but the growth/tech curves are much different here.

I think that's totally fine, but I whip too much, even in normal games. But if the commerce is worth more than the population whipped (at slightly over break-even, since you can save gold while whipping) I think it's worth it, because a city grows from 4->6 faster than 6->8. It also has the benefit of reducing your food/hammers in the short-term, which imo can be really good if you're ahead and trying to hide it. Depending on your civilian situation, you might have more luck overflowing settlers/workers into the libraries instead though? Especially if you are saving gold and don't plan to turn tech back on immediately.

The travesty of an economy continues....

To fix the floundering GNP...

Strong expansion, slow traits, and desperately trying to keep up in GNP? A player after my own heart. Seems like a Pyramids dream too, I'm really looking forward to seeing how you use it.

*Civic Maintenance is an astounding 40% of expenses... was not used to these numbers in single player.

I'm curious what you mean by this? I only ever played SP at Emperor, so I'm not aware of the top strategies. Do people play differently with civics at a high level?

[Ginger()]

Hey, glad to have you stop by!
I did end up whipping the libraries, very tight dot map + whip is a joy for keeping the good tiles constantly worked. 

Strong expansion, slow traits, and desperately trying to keep up in GNP? A player after my own heart.  Seems like a Pyramids dream too, I'm really looking forward to seeing how you use it.

You're too kind. Yes, it is a very nice situation for Pyramids lots of base food and mfg to put through its multipliers, and the happy cap in particular is responsible for my recent spike. The struggle is going to be what timing I want to go for. Specifically with regards to spreading a religion (if one ever reaches me  ) and whether I want to invest in Mono/Forges/Courts and go for medieval or if I commit in the next 20 turns. The embodiment of this dilemma is my upcoming engineer—Mausoleum or Machinery? In a thread I read, Pindicator said that the winner of wars in Civ4 is often the player most willing to trash their sandcastles, and with Pyramids there's always the temptation of "Oh just a few more turns of Representation growth/tech". I've read the PB60 reports a couple time because it was a fascinating game (the way you did Org Religion and Forges was eerily reminiscent of the way Medieval always-war teamer games on zulan play out, Missionary and Settler co-timed and the city is off to the races), but the part that really is relevant to my position in this game is how lucky.. I mean skilled  the timing of your attack on the Maya was. Lazteuq was about to explode, everything was in place, 10 more turns and the weight of all that crop yield, Police State, AP, and Sankore would've been too massive to overcome.  

What I meant with my quip about civic expenses is that Org is kind of a win-more trait in singleplayer (except on Diety where games can often go until Industrialism), if you have enough cities for it to matter, you're already winning, and the style of lots of cottages/specialists and tall fat Monarchy cities can leave Org bonus within single digits for the first 70-80 turns. It usually works out to 10% of your slider, which is meh if you're running 70-80 breakeven in singleplayer, and huge in these pitboss games that run 30-40 or less often. 


t96
Short update only this time, I should get currency a turn earlier than expected, t99, I asked Cornflakes for a loan (inconsequential for Currency timing) for 2 reasons, if he accepts, I have leverage over him for 10 turns he's probably not going to declare. If he declines, he's left thinking I'm strapped for cash, and thanks to the scout overflow trick and Rep specialists I'll have Currency in 3 no matter what he does. Of course, I was feeling cocky yesterday and that just had to be shattered by Cornflakes moving his settler onto the hill I predicted. Him having a port on the marble sea is going to be a huge PIA, especially because it lets him connect via lake to the ocean and possibly bring the full weight of his navy to bear. New plan: stop antagonizing him with OB haggling and become best of friends   . I'll need to stop by Metal Casting soon for triremes if not for forges. I'm thinking either Iron Working or Archery after Currency.

[Amicalola]

In a thread I read, Pindicator said that the winner of wars in Civ4 is often the player most willing to trash their sandcastles.

Hah, Pindicator also taught me a similar lesson the hard way.

I've read the PB60 reports a couple time because it was a fascinating game (the way you did Org Religion and Forges was eerily reminiscent of the way Medieval always-war teamer games on zulan play out, Missionary and Settler co-timed and the city is off to the races), but the part that really is relevant to my position in this game is how lucky.. I mean skilled  the timing of your attack on the Maya was. Lazteuq was about to explode, everything was in place, 10 more turns and the weight of all that crop yield, Police State, AP, and Sankore would've been too massive to overcome. 

That's interesting, I had no idea we were replicating a meta from somewhere else. I guess it makes sense though. In fairness, hitting Lazteuq before he exploded upwards was a part of the plan - the luck was in everything else! I still can't believe I was expecting an amicable peace after we took 3 cities...

What I meant with my quip about civic expenses is that Org is kind of a win-more trait in singleplayer (except on Diety where games can often go until Industrialism), if you have enough cities for it to matter, you're already winning, and the style of lots of cottages/specialists and tall fat Monarchy cities can leave Org bonus within single digits for the first 70-80 turns. It usually works out to 10% of your slider, which is meh if you're running 70-80 breakeven in singleplayer, and huge in these pitboss games that run 30-40 or less often.

So basically Singleplayer is less dynamic and more "Hereditary Rule -> Big Cities" based? E.g. OrgRel being better in MP? And Pyramids being viable?