[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[Irgy]

In meta-spoiler-thread-news, I'm now hosting the images on imageshack. Aside from the fact that I'll run out of space here eventually, this avoids the silliness with the images appearing both inline and again in the attachments list. You'll notice the first turn post above is better now for instance.

The risk is that these could be found and spoil people. But given it's only the old "honor system" preventing them clicking on the thread in the first place I suppose there's no point worrying about that.

[Irgy]

Now, it wouldn't be a proper pbem spoiler thread if I didn't over-analyse the early demographics. So here goes:


One thing I forgot to mention already, WarriorKnight has popped 11 points worth of tech from a hut. Good for him.

So, what can we work out from the image above?

* First, a meta-analysis. It says I'm 5th in population, and everyone is the same. This means my position in the tie breakers is 5th. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it breaks ties in the reverse of the turn order, since that would put me 5th. I'll use this assumption in some more baseless speculation below.
* 18 GNP, goodness gracious. The only way I can see that happening is if Thoth is somehow working a 3 commerce tile, and getting a tech that has a pre-requisite. With creative he has 4 culture, and 9 + 3 gives 12 beakers, plus a 20% pre-requisite bonus for 14 beakers. Not sure what tech they start with (it's not in the manual), but my guess is it's ancient chants and they're going for mysticism like I am.
* Otherwise everyone seems to be on 12. Which is odd really, because it's one more than the minimum 11, so everyone has at least some sort of extra commerce, but not more than 1 (or not much more anyway).
* Everyone is working 2 or 3 food, and 1 or 0 hammers.
* At least someone else is working 2 food and no hammers like I am, because the averages are low for both. This is probably Thoth, as you wouldn't work 2 food no hammers without getting some commerce for it. But what on earth tile is 2 food 3 commerce? Another possibility is that he's settled on a 2 commerce tile and working another 2 commerce tile.
* WarriorKnight must be working 3 food no hammers, as I'm coming 6th in food but 5th in hammers.
* Someone (not WarriorKnight) has lost their scout already.
* Thoth's borders have popped, and he settled inland.
* Of the others, there are 6 coastal tiles in inner rings, three of which are in the same city. At least two other people have settled on the coast then, possibly three, unlikely four.
* Most people have more forests (which isn't hard) and/or less jungle than I do in their capital's BFC. Although someone has it worse than I do.

So, isn't it amazing what you can work out from the demographics screen! Armed with all this knowledge, I can now... umm...

That's the part I never really got. What on earth good does all this do me really anyway? Well it's good fun at least.

[Selrahc]

Is it considered bad form to look around after playing the turn? Normally there'd be nothing to see that you couldn't see before, the borders popping is a bit of an exceptional case.

No. It's fine. I am surprised you could actually make any changes though. Must be an end of turn thing.

[T-hawk]

What on earth good does all this do me really anyway?

In standard Civ, the chief use seems to be monitoring tech progress. When you see a score increase from a tech, having kept track of the GNP numbers gives you an upper bound on its cost and then some idea which technology. That in turn helps you decide what religions, wonders, and units to chase. And keeping track of the land numbers lets you sort out score increases from land separately from technology, for more accurate tracking of both. You can also gauge the potential for early rushes; if you figure out that somebody opened worker - work boat - Stonehenge, they probably don't have any defense.

I am not sure how this all translates to FFH, though.

And yes, a PBEM game allows you to look around after ending turn, and that is normal behavior. The game is paused and you cannot unpause it, so you can't make any moves.

[Ilios]

I am not sure how this all translates to FFH, though.

It pretty much translates the same way.

[Irgy]

Not much to add. Scout is trying to head northwest, since we seem to be in a southeast corner, but just hit another mountain range. Borders expanded in the capital, as I said earlier. I'm working the rice now, at least for two turns, since I worked out I can shave a turn off growth without losing any turns on Mysticism.

Overall I want to grow while researching Mysticism, then switch to hammer tiles under God King to pump out warriors faster and then switch to a worker.

[Irgy]

As I mentioned in my introduction, one thing I like to do is play these 7 player hotseat games all controlled by myself. Being ready to start the next one, I thought why not make the next one with the same civs settings as this PBEM. So, I have myself something of a test game running. I might post from time to time how it's going.

At the moment, it's only just started, 10 turns in (which amounts to 60 turns played). However it's already paid off a little bit, I've solved the mystery of the high GNP.

When I read that the Malakim have a +1 commerce in desert bonus I thought "yeah, wow, whatever. Take a 0 yield tile and make it an equally unworkable 1 commerce tile, great". But of course it still works on flood plains, doesn't it (and oasis I dare say). Plus the map script, as far as I understand, is set up to put the Malakim in the desert, but it also still needs to give them food somehow. So I feel pretty safe in guessing that they have flood plains galore, just as they do in my test game. Settled on one, losing the 3 food but keeping 2 commerce in the city tile just from being on a riverside desert tile, and working another.

It does then however re-open the mystery of the low averages. There's 5 other teams, with an average crop yield of 4, which means at least 3 are working 2 food tiles. Similarly, at least 3 are working 0 hammer tiles. So someone is working a 2 food 0 hammer tile like I was. They're also getting at most 2 commerce from it like I am, and getting no pre-requisite bonus, as any more would have to pull the average GNP up from 13.

Next turn I'll see if other players have changed what they're working after their borders popped like I did.

[Irgy]

Moved the scout. I was sure that this turn I'd finally see a 1 move tile for next turn, so that my scout could start to actually get somewhere. Well, technically I did finish next to a 1 move tile at least:


As you can also see from the scores in this shot, Varn Gossam and Hannah both grew to size 2, so they must have been the two working a 3 food tile. Varn Gossam is now working another flood plains. From the demographics, everyone has now switched to a 3 food tile, and no-one is working any hammers at this stage.

Quite boring of us really, all doing the same thing.

I've rocked the boat however by switching back to the wines this turn. Growth next turn either way, and I'll lose a turn off Mysticism if I don't switch back. Because the next growth requires 16, one more than a multiple of 3, I did actually want the 1 overflow from working 3 food again, as it will get me to pop 3 a turn sooner. But I want the commerce more. I went Mysticism first partly because I decided hammers were the more limiting factor, but the act of doing so made commerce become the limiting factor again in my development.

[Irgy]

So, we played a blitz session, and therefore I have more than usual to report.

In summary:
* Played up to and including T10.
* Grew to size 2, gained a population from an event and now nearly size 4.
* Moved the scout around, and popped a map from a hut. So I have a lot of map revealed now.
* Saw WarriorKnight (Elohim) borders from the hut map, but have not yet made actual contact. He is to the northwest.
* Letum Frigus is between myself and WarriorKnight, to the west.
* I've also spotted gold to the north, and a mana node to the west in what will hopefully become my territory.
* All in all there's quite a spread of varied resources around, very little repeated other than the three gems.

Here's what the hut gave me:


A useless event - they gave me the wrong one! Darn those stars...


This one on the other hand is close to being the most beneficial event in the game. This is the one for which I always keep 100gp on hand from pretty early on. Unfortunately, it's come too early this time and I didn't have the cash for a settler (imagine that, a second settler on T10!). Even still, an extra population is a big advantage, let's make the most of it. It will really mess with everyone else's demographics/score monitoring too...


Look out scout, goblins about! Fortunately this was the start not the end of the turn. I was safe from the skeleton the previous turn because until another spawns they will sit on the barrow rather than move off.


A zoomed out view of everything:


Latest Demographics:


So, what's everyone up to?
* Varn Gossam is growing and working flood plains. Pretty sure he's researching Mysticism, since there's nothing else that he would get the 20% prerequisite bonus on, and nothing else that would take him that long at his huge GNP. He's the other player who's size 3 now. The flood plains and desert commerce start is pretty nice for him really. It surely has to be him on 28GNP, but I can't figure out where it's all from. 8 palace + 6 from flood plains + 2 from capital = 16 commerce, + 3 pre-req bonus = 19, + 4 culture = 23, still 5 short. So it looks like he's found himself a Priest already! He's going to be off to an absolute runaway start.
* Sir Yellow and WarriorKnight are taking the farmer's gambit and building a worker first. Both have already finished one worker tech, probably agriculture or something (agri certainly makes sense for WK with irrigate rice I can see next to his capital).
* WarriorKnight also popped another tech on turn 1, could be anything really.
* Thessa and Hannah are growing like I am, and have reached population 2 like I should have :D
* Thessa also has a tech, either a cheap one or from a hut.


I'll give some more thoughts on what this all actually means a little later.

[Irgy]

Further to last post's demographic analysis, some other things I've deduced:
* Sciz (previously Thoth, aka Varn Gosam of the Malakim) is surely the one 54 life expectancy. This seems to round down, as I have 55 from 100x5/(5+4), so his equation is 100x6/(6+5). His extra health is from the life mana. 3 from population, 3 from other sources, therefore he probably has 6 or 7 flood plains in his capital's BFC. Don't know if the capital tile counts or not, I suspect not because the flood plain is technically removed when you settle. Not a bad location all in all. It's a lot of food, but he'll suffer unhealthiness problems trying to work it all. Presumably he has no food resource, as the map scripts tend to consider that many floodplains as good enough, and he's gone for Mysticism first.
* From the approval ratings, it appears Sciz currently has no garrison in his capital, the same as me.


Here's what I'm planning at the moment.

Thanks to all that jungle, the health cap is at 4 population, which I will reach soon. Until I chop the jungle and/or farm the rice, both of which are a fair way off, it will stay there. The plan then is to work the following in the mean time:
* Scientist, wines, two grass forests.
* Once the wines are improved, I can switch one grass forest to the grass hill forest.
* I will also work the grass hill forest until I have the Elder Council to open the scientist slot.


To support the plan to build an Elder Council and run a scientist, I will likely switch not just to God King but to Pacifism as well. I've done this in most of my test game runs. Although I'm not really getting the full 50% out of it by just taking 3gpp a turn to 4gpp, it still cuts a lot of turns off generating the first great scientist. Getting the Academy those good few turns earlier will be worth a lot of beakers. The cost is a few hammers building warriors, and while I do indeed want to build a fair few warriors early on I think it's still a decent exchange. It won't slow down workers, settlers, or the Elder Council.

The biggest unknown at the moment is where on earth I want my second city. I've put quite a bit of thought into that, which will follow in a later post once I can get some good screenshots for it.

You'll notice there's nothing in these plans at the moment about a pyre zombie rush. While I did always consider it an option, there's a number of things working against it at the moment. Firstly, the Elohim are my main neighbour, and they're a terrible option for a rush, since they can simply hide away for 20 turns to prepare while being completely immune to harm. The Elohim will also, I think, make an excellent long term ally, which is something I want to aim towards. Secondly, I have next to no forests in the capital. With no whip and nothing to chop, it's going to be difficult to churn out a rush-worthy quantity of units. So at this stage I'm happier to just rex peacefully and set myself up for a powerful magic based late game.

Pyre zombies will still definately help discourage anyone else from getting any ideas though. They will be built and used, but maybe mostly against barbarians and for defensive purposes. I certainly look forward to burning a fat invading stack of crusading demagogs with them, assuming things turn that way.