[SPOILERS] Serdoa goes to war II

[Serdoa]

Thanks Gaspar and Mardoc Those posts should hopefully help make Commist nervous which have a scout of mine - and a warrior from Lewwyn - on the border of their second city

As for the map, I have forgot to mention that this might be slightly wrong as I am currently not sure where exactly the 8x8 squares start. Or if it is instead one big 16x16 square plus 1 8x8 square. I think the latter has a higher possibility. I think I have uncovered enough of the map that I could be sure already but I get a headache when I think to long about those toroidal maps.

Well, what else? Ah yes, AH finished with a slight change of micro plans this turn already and horse is under the pasture.. or on it? Above it? Flying horse? Rainbow Dash? Whatever... I have horse and I will use it. Next settler is in production, probably others (Brian I look at you) have already produced their second one. I have unfortunately slightly misplayed as I produced my 3rd worker first. First time ever that I have more workers then I should have in ANY civ-game I ever played But I'll use him to road some tiles and will hopefully get horses online around T28. BW would have really been the smarter move for whipping, but without granary there is not that much difference yet. Still, I am a little bit stunned that it is actually that good, despite us having so many "good" tiles (Crabs = 5/0/0, Corn 6/0/0, RR Mine 0/5/0, Deer 4/1/0). Thats 4 tiles which I thought are more worthwhile to work then whip away. But it seems I was wrong -> simply due to Imp and only in case of a settler or is that a general misconception in my mind? T-Hawk, enlighten me

[Serdoa]

Well, well. T24 was played. That meant I have achieved the following as of this turn:

3 cities - 6/2/1
Techs: Hunting, Fishing, Agri, Mining, TW, Myst, AH, BW ~90/104
3 warriors, 1 scout
3 workers

As for my opponents:

scooter:

2 cities - 4/1
Techs: Hunting, TW, Agri, Mining, BW, Fishing, ~50 in something
3 warriors, 1 scout
x workers (I suspect 3 or 4)

Commist:

2 cities - 5/2
Techs: Myst, TW, Hunting, Agri, Fishing, Mining, Meditation, Pottery, ~50 in something
4 warriors, 1 scout
x workers (I suspect 2)

Lewwyn:

2 cities: 3/1
Techs: Myst, Agri, Hunting, Mining, Fishing, TW, BW, Polytheism, ~60 in something
4 warriors
x workers (I suspect 2)

Brian:

2 cities: 4/1
Techs: Myst, Hunting, Agri, Mining, BW, Fishing, TW, ~50 in something
4 warriors, 1 scout
x workers (I suspect 3)

What does that tell us now? I think I am in the lead currently, that is what it tells us. I suspect others will plant their 3rd city now this turn as well - tbh I expected that already earlier because I clearly misplayed by getting that 3rd worker first. Anyhow, apart from that it tells me that I am the only one who knows where to find horses, though I expect others to suspect that as well.

Demos:



Capital:



Second city:



Third city:

[Serdoa]

Ok, and now what everyone has waited for (and what I hope will get at least one to tell me that I am crazy )

Our worldmap nearly completed - CAUTION BIG!:

Smaller version

[novice]

Your analytical skills are impressive. And I love map stitches.

[Serdoa]

Thanks novice Though to be honest with you, some of my opponent-analysis is presented as fact when in reality it is just a educated guess. For example I have Commist set for Pottery. But they have not only Agri and Fishing (+40% for Pottery) but also Mining and Myst (+40% for Masonry). And Pottery and Masonry are the same cost. So they can very well have researched Masonry instead. But that doesn't seem to make too much sense for me as

a) either they get a GM, bulb MC, build a Forge and rush Pyramids
b) get IW first and then Masonry and slowbuild with the Stone one of Pyramids, GW or SH
c) don't get Masonry

There is simply no need to tech it right now for them. Pottery instead opens up the mentioned MC bulb with a GM, followed by an Oracle-slingshot for Machinery. Silly me that I have taken Philosopical and will produce that GM on T30 while they will earliest have one T36*, with the ability to build Oracle by T34. Oops

* I have tracked their food and mfg numbers for quite some time and as far as I can see they have not started to produce a GM

Anyhow, forgot what I said, I of course am awesome and therefore present you the newest analysis of my opponents: What the fuck happened turn 24 and 25?

1.) Well, turn 25 absolutely NOTHING happened
2.) Turn 24 was more interesting

1. Brian whipped his capital to 2
   
2. scooter finally settled his 3rd city
   
3. Brian did so as well
   
4. Lewwyn lost a warrior
   

On to T26. I can only tell you what I did of course as I am first in turn order:

BW was finished EOT25 and I found out that I have copper. All of you certainly have seen the spot already in the threads of those with BW, so I spare you a picture. Either that spot or the horses one is my next city though. I then have moved my workers, warriors and scout and ended turn. Oh, and I took a day off to think about a micro-plan for the next 15 turns After investing 10 hours I came up with a probably really bad plan which is prone to fail anyway and even if it works will certainly only set me back but will increase my score enough to make me dogpile-target no.1 ... oh wait, that was PBEM25

Demos



That was before ending turn and growing to size 2 in my newest city. With that addition I am no. 1 in all of the first 4 categories. If nothing much changes I can show that next turn because certainly no one has ever seen something like that

Unfortunately my "good" play shows in the score



Well, maybe that means at least that I don't need to be careful about my micro-plan as I am leading the score anyway.

[Serdoa]

Well, played T27. Demos first



Unfortunately I can't show me being first in the first 4 categories :/ But there are still some interesting things. For one my GNP is ridiculously high because I am researching Pottery (rather, I finished it EOT). With a tech with only one pre-req, the standard case, I'll have around 40 I think. Still ok I'd say. And of course I have only palace culture while Lewwyn and Commist both should get 5 extra culture for their holy city and Brian should get 4 extra culture for his 2 additional cities as he is CRE. Leaves scooter and he is trailing in GNP all the time. Of course, most of that comes from me having the gold improved already, which I'd guess from the GNP I am the first to achieve.

Apart from that stuff, we also have some news on the C&D-front not related to GNP:

1.) scooter grew one pop and has now cities of the size 5/1/1
2.) Commist grew two pop and has now cities of the size 6/3
3.) Lewwyn got a tech ... this one is tricky. Right now he has the 6 basic techs (Fishing, TW, Agri, Hunting, Myst, Mining). He also has BW and Polytheism. It took him 4 turns to research it, he wasn't in Anarchy in that time and he got no soldier points. Therefore:

- it can't be AH, Archery or IW
- he certainly also didn't research Sailing as thats not needed even remotely right now
- PH should take only 2 turns and so should Masonry and Pottery

So, what I think is that he did indeed start one of PH, Masonry or Pottery but switched after 2 turns and instead finished another tech. Only, how to find that out? Apart from waiting, I can only guess. Right now I believe Masonry to be an odd choice as the Stone is jungled and the Marble is far away. Pyramids you don't want to build without the Stone, same as GW. PH on the other hand does have the Oracle and Pottery of course holds Cottages and Granaries. I'll assume that he started with Pottery but switched to PH. Why that way round? Because we have so few river tiles that even for a FIN-civ I don't think the terrain is leading itself to cottages.

4.) Brian grew also and has now cities of size 2/2/1
5.) Lastly, Commist really wanted to inflate his soldier points and so finished BW this turn, grew 2 pop (for another 1000 soldier points) AND finished a warrior. He jumped from 19000 and being last in soldiers to 30000 and being first.

[SevenSpirits]

Nice.

How much benefit have you gotten from your starting buildings thus far?

[TheMusicMan]

i enjoyed reading this thread, thank you for the nice updates. the big combined map was particularly nice.

[Serdoa]

Lets talk about this game as a whole. I have - unfortunately - realized too late that I - again- ignored the bigger picture. What do I mean with that? Well, what I like, and I think am not too bad about, is thinking about the first 30 turns, how to setup your city best, how to get the most hammers and food out of it. Stuff like that. What I tend to ignore most of the time though is how I want to setup my civ as a whole. But I also tend to believe that I am not the only one having that issue. Indeed, I think many of the medium-players do not too bad on the micro-front but often lack on the macro-front, ultimately losing them the game.

Now, how does that relate to this game? Well, this game is imo a prime example of how the "best" opening (not that I want to imply I even came close to that) won't do much for you if you don't decide EARLY on how to setup your economy. In nearly all of my games I started by trying to get my first settler out as fast as possible. And then to get my workers, and another settler and some improvements and roads and maybe a wonder... and then, looking at my finances and seeing my GNP dropping more and more off against the other players I realize "you are still missing Pottery, dumbfuck".

As I said, this game is a prime example for that issue because due to the gold, the incense and the added village one easily forgets that he actually needs to get an economy going at some point. And if you do that, you are screwed even more, because this map only inhabits ONE spot which does have enough riverside grassland / FP tiles that I'd call it a commerce-city spot. All other spots with rivers give room for 2-4 cottages. And even that are only like 5-6 spots I think. Now, Lewwyn and Commist might be able to do something with several spots which do have several non-riverside grassland tiles as well as they are FIN. But scooter, Brian and myself? I don't see any one of us using a cottage-economy. Or at least not successfully.

So, what else is left if a cottage-economy is not feasible?

- Colossus-coast economy: I don't think one can call that a real economic solution if you are not FIN. But it is equal to a grassland village and that takes 19 turns to even get there and another 26 to overtake it, so you look at +25 commerce for the first 45 turns if you work colossus-coast. So, that can be part of a solution if there is another water on the map.

- TR-economy: Well, if this would not be AW and there would be enough coast then obviously using the GLH for a trade-route economy would be feasible. As it is... it is not.

- Specialist-economy: Good old Pyramids. Of course. The long disregarded and now called OP solution for all your economical issues (somebody should tell the Greeks...). I don't go into details, I think everyone knows how that works in theory.

Back to my introduction. I have ignored the fact that this map screams for a economic solution being NOT the cottage-economy. It is lush but does not have many rivers. It is AW so traderoutes are only internal. It does have some water tiles, but only around 2-4 per city. Everything should have told me "Get the Pyramids". And taking into account that I have no way to pop my borders AND there is stone in the capitals BFC (which also is a 5yield-tile without the jungle and with an improvement) it really should have been obvious how my research path should look like. But as I said, I ignored that entirely, just concentrating to do shiny micro.

And that leads us to the actual T27 and me thinking about how to get the Pyramids fastest. I had already started to produce a GM before I realized my dilemma. Now, I either finish him and bulb MC or I stop and get Oracle to get MC. Both solutions though mean that I will need to gamble on a low-odds engineer if I want to rush the Pyramids. I don't like that, gambling the only economic solution I see for this map on the roll of the dice. And that leads to several possible routes:

- Go for the gamble
- Go for the gamble but get IW and Masonry anyway to use the stone for SH
- Disregard the gamble and settle the GM. Get Currency as fast as possible, settle like crazy and build wealth to keep afloat and teching
- Do something completely different...

I am really struggling for a decision here now. I don't know what is the "right" solution. If I had started thinking about this earlier I could have gone for a good solution. Now I struggle to come up with one which at least does not cost me too much. Certainly my expansion will be delayed by it though. But then I realized another thing: It is not nearly as costly to expand as in PBEM25, but it also is not too cheap either. In a testgame with 3 additionally settled cities, all around 3-4 tiles away from the cap, it did cost me already 9 gold to have those cities. With 4 addtional cities I was up to 12 gold. Of course, one can pay for that with gold and incense. But that won't leave too much for research.

[Serdoa]

Nice.

How much benefit have you gotten from your starting buildings thus far?

Thanks Seven.

The starting buildings didn't get me too much benefit thus far. The airport I haven't used once but I didn't assume that to happen so early tbh. I have produced units (apart from the WB and a warrior) only in the capital and my cities are close enough and connected by roads so that workers don't get any benefit from using the airtravel instead of moving along the road. I certainly could easier pink dot something with it - but honestly, I don't see much sense in that as long as I don't have copper nor horses. Still I am sure it will come in handy when the cities are further apart.

The grocer on the other hand did provide many options alreay that early. Especially coupled with PHI we talk about a mere 6 turns to run both specialists (providing 6 gold every turn and therefore paying all my expenses as of now) to get a GM. I had several ideas what to do with them, from bulbing CoL and using Oracle to slingshot CS (doable but not worth it) to bulbing MC and using Oracle for Machinery (X-Bows are certainly a fearsome unit this early) as well as simply settling 2 of them. Especially with Pyramids that should be quite strong (total of 2 food, 12 (15 w. grocer) gold, 6 beakers). That would pay for around 5 cities in expenses.

Still, I am not sure if I really use them to it's fullest or if other buildings wouldn't have been worth more. I hope you have written down in the lurker thread what you would have done as I'd be interested to read your thoughts on the different combos after the game Seven.