[Spoiler] RB Pitboss #2 - Shaka of Rome

[LiPing]

Oh. Well. I guess I annoyed everyone with my first 12 hour delay to move.

In that case, Scarlet Devil Mansion planted.

[Krill]

The 12-hour rule is only if you're in a settling race, or think you might possibly be in a settling race. You don't need to wait, since you know how many people have settled. And, no, we did not give somebody 2 settlers. We weren't doing that much when we made the map. (If that is a spoiler, Krill, smite me where I stand.) In the future, unless you've defogged a 2-square radius around your target location, then, yeah, you should wait. But this time, it's not necessary.

Yeah, don't worry about it, just try to play fast in the early game.

[LiPing]

Exploration (or lack thereof)

I think I am going to build worker first and attempt to 'recover' the two turns. I tried to calculate starts involving building warrior(s) first, but they seem very slow - I seem to lose about 30 beakers, 15 hammers, 10 food, and end up with a three turns later settler by doing so, and I think, that's very, very expensive for some scouting.

On exploration, I think I should err on the side of caution and move say, to that grassland forested hill, then station somewhere to the west or north west about ~2-3 squares from the city until about turn 13 or 14 when I'll be fairly sure I can't get killed by a wandering warrior.... or maybe cut south-west to the coastline first and then circle north.
Alternatively... I don't really have anything much invested in the game yet, and the chance of a warrior showing up from the east should be a great deal lower now, I could just start moving west.

I can also attempt some subterfuge, like for example... I'll research hunting first, but I don't 'need' it until turn 14. Hunting would finish on turn 8, if I let it go to completion (and it's the only tech that I could research in 6 turns, so everyone who takes info from the score/demographics would know that's what I did) so I could let it wait one turn from completion, start on the next tech instead and finish the hunting say... on 8 turns in where it'd look like I took Mysticism (...okay, I don't expect anyone who does that kind of process to believe THAT ) or 9 turns where it could look like I took agriculture first and built a warrior so my soldier count would LOOK like I could plausibly have another defender (the only direct line of sight tile of my city without committing to a declaration of war is NE-NE.)

I do wonder how many units will be lost to animals though, since we're at Monarch difficulty...

[Jabah]

I like the idea of delaying the tech discovery until you need it. Having your score and/or power climb twice within very few turn will at least bring a bit of confusion to those paying a little attention to it

[LiPing]

There is also some other benefit to slow-rolling the techs where possible; that it'll deny anyone who has met me and researches the same thing a 3% beaker boost, although that probably won't mean anything unless someone's met two people with the tech and is making 17+ science per turn... 12+ and three people though, maybe... but by that point I think it'll be too difficult or impractical to delay anyway. *shrug*

One problem with doing this trying to get some bluff value out of the 2k soldier points is that besides what happened in reality, every other possible combination that would involve building a warrior and researching a different tech, would make me look like an idiot, and I'd like to think people would give me the benefit of the doubt on that one some examples, and I'm not sure if the ones involving 2c would be even possible, or if the 16 GNP I have right now will be visible on the demo screen which would refute them...

T8
1) Research Mysticism, Build Warrior using 2/1/0 tile, build Worker after.
2) Research Agriculture, Build Warrior using 1/1/2 tile (or other combinations involving a lake etc.), Build Worker after.

T9
1) Research Agriculture, Build Warrior finishing with 21/22 food in the box (I think this is the only possible way that doesn't involve growing?), build Worker after ignoring that growing first would cut two turns from the completion.

[Jabah]

I don't understand the last bit of your post. With deer, you have a 2/2/0 tile and until you are at size2, even to foul people, I can't imagine any reason not to work this tile (well possibly working unimproved rice is a semi valid option for a few turn)

[zakalwe]

Being perceived as an idiot by the other teams might not be all bad.

Keep posting screenshots please, I wouldn't mind seeing a new one every turn. After all, since you're playing solo you must work hard to win the post count war.

[mostly_harmless]

Isn't there a decay of invested beakers after 10 turns as well?

mh

[LiPing]

I hope this goes through, I have been having a lot of trouble with the forum today.

Isn't there a decay of invested beakers after 10 turns as well?

mh

To my knowledge, I do not think there is, unless it's very very far in the future, I tried starting a game, put 1 turn of research into a random tech, then hit enter a lot of times researching other things, and the 10b was still there after around 50 turns.

I don't understand the last bit of your post. With deer, you have a 2/2/0 tile and until you are at size2, even to foul people, I can't imagine any reason not to work this tile (well possibly working unimproved rice is a semi valid option for a few turn)

I am sorry, I think my explanation was bad, I will try again.

Those aren't what I'm going to do, but possible explanations the other players could make from what they see on the demographics (my rise of 2000 soldier points), and the change in my ingame score. Here is this turn's demographics, I'll try and use it to explain.


Other people won't be able to see my exact numbers, but they'll be able to make some educated estimations based on Rival Worst and Rival Average.

Hunting and Warrior both are worth 2000 soldiers, and I want them to have the possibility of thinking I did build the Warrior. In order for people to think I might have done it, it needs to be believable, and therefore somewhat sensible.

So if I delay hunting by two turns, on turn 10 it will show that I both gained a tech (from the change in the ingame score), and 2000 soldier count. I am of course going to be working the P-F-Deer, it's a very strong tile, but it's usually a rare tile to see. Commonly available unimproved tiles are 3/0/0, 2/1/0, 1/2/0, 0/3/0 [with variable amount of commerce depending on river and some other resources], and 2/0/2 for fishing people. For someone to make a 8 turn warrior with those kind of tiles is very reasonable (they worked 2/1/0 tile for 8 turns), it can mean they have no 3 food tile (their food is water based, or something like plains cow, plains wheat...) so that part of it is fine. Where this lacks some believability is with the tech. The only techs that I could get in 8 turns (80b produced) are Hunting(59b) and Mysticism(74b), and for someone with Fishing and Mining to research Mysticism first, to me is not a reasonable thing to do.

If I delay it by 3 turns, then the tech can be Agriculture (89b) which is a
much more reasonable looking first tech, but then it runs into problems with making a 9 turn warrior using those tiles. If the city reaches 22 food, it will grow and cause a score increase, and that won't happen, so it has to be "<22F and >=15H in 9 moves". I think (I am not looking at this all that carefully) that the only combinations that result in a 9 turn Warrior and Agriculture t9, end up with 19+F (1 turn from growing) and require a 3 food tile. On top of that, since there will be no score increase for population shortly after that, it suggests that the person would have done something like build a worker from that food position which would take 15 turns, instead of filling the food box and then building the worker, which would instead take 13 turns, so that requires spectacular mismanagement.

There is the possibility of having gotten T8 Agriculture by having worked a lake or other 2 commerce tile briefly, but as I am worst for GNP on the demographics, I think it'll show that it was impossible for me to have worked any commerce tile.

By the way, can someone who is familiar with Pitboss games clarify something up for me that might come up later? With all the rules relating to 12 hour, or other timed waits, are you supposed to use the real clock, or the pitboss clock for those, and if it is the pitboss clock, how is it affected by the turn ending early?

[mostly_harmless]

Use the Pitboss clock. You are on a 12hour rule, because there is a 24h Pitboss clock.
Real time does not come into it (consider the effect of pauses for example).
The turn cannot end earlier if you have not pressed enter, right?
Or am I missing your point?

mh