[SPOILERS] scooter peruses RB's Greatest Hits

[Krill]

Just give us more goes at the "What game am I referring to" cannot.

[rho21]

Extra seafood! Pretty nice to see those clams there. Anyway, I think I should probably still settle where the longbow is located, but if anyone can make a compelling case for a different spot, now is the time.

Wow, loads of food. I assume the plan for the other island is W-W-SW from the longbow. W-SW from the longbow is the obvious alternative spot, should you prefer only one city between the two islands. Incredible site, but probably a bit exposed to go for at the moment.

[Sullla]

Hidden clams are very nice. Definitely drop the settler off on the same tile as the longbow. The one other alternative would be to drop the settler off on the other island, at the other clam next to the gold resources, but I'm not sure we want to be quite that aggressive with plako. Demographics are looking very sharp, and we're not even behind in tech right now, somewhat amazingly.

Two other short observations:

* We should try to check out that island in the fog east of Rage Quit. Now that we're locking down the border with plako, securing as much of the mackoti disputed territory should be next.

* Do you have a date in mind for triggering the Golden Age yet?

[antisocialmunky]

Extra seafood! Pretty nice to see those clams there. Anyway, I think I should probably still settle where the longbow is located, but if anyone can make a compelling case for a different spot, now is the time.

Take the spot adjacent to the golds because why not. We need a city fitting of the name 'Pink Dot'! :D

edit: beaten by Sullla.

[Tohron]

Admittedly, Pink Dot is not from an actual RB game (just a game with an RB team), but you were saying you thought you could Plako a bit, and 1N of the clams on the gold island would give an extra happy resource in the first ring (whereas the longbow spot wouldn't let you work gold at all), plus you could work both clams, whereas the longbow spot would not give access to the gold island clams.

You were also estimating that REM and makoti were ahead of you, so that might encourage taking a small risk. You were conflicted about settling Radio in your last game, but it turned out to not be a big deal. Ultimately, plako probably doesn't want to fight on his east when there are cataphracts to his west.

[Epoxy]

THE DAILY ROLL

TURN 223–224: WAR IS UNFORESEEABLE

The gears and chains of the Khmer Empire wind down and slacken, their golden age and well of inspiration at an end, for the time being. Following them another nation enters the Aztecs' roster of research visibility: England is researching education. On their doorstep the Aztecs' first overseas colony shall soon be planted as a settler and their escort make landfall by mountains of silver, but the leaders take five, as there is an opportunity to cause England some grief by claiming some additional riches of gold and clams. Take it, take what should be yours!, urge the special advisors, already projecting a territorial assertion of Pink Dot proportions. But should the Aztecs stretch themselves so far, to pursue this claim in lieu of boundaries, for the sake of future animosity and vice with England, when easterly Byzantium may well visit to do the same?

[chumchu]

Getting the gold is worth a great deal, 2 happy in all cities, 3 good commerce tiles and an additional food.

Can you defend it? Probably.
+ on a hill
+ can block direct boating by covering 1 tile
+ England only has one city on that sea

[Brian Shanahan]

Admittedly, Pink Dot is not from an actual RB game (just a game with an RB team), but you were saying you thought you could Plako a bit, and 1N of the clams on the gold island would give an extra happy resource in the first ring (whereas the longbow spot wouldn't let you work gold at all), plus you could work both clams, whereas the longbow spot would not give access to the gold island clams.

You were also estimating that REM and makoti were ahead of you, so that might encourage taking a small risk. You were conflicted about settling Radio in your last game, but it turned out to not be a big deal. Ultimately, plako probably doesn't want to fight on his east when there are cataphracts to his west.

The first ISDG was one of the main impetuses behind Realms Beyond developing the strong multiplayer community it has these days. And by the end of the game it was Realms members who were hosting the game and doing all the donkey work to keep it alive from a server mechanics point of view (says the man who joined the site about six months after). It's a perfectly crumulent city name IMO.

[scooter]

Turn 225



Two free spreads of religions that aren't ours. The good news is I hadn't bothered building any culture in those two cities, so we'll get free border pops out of them. The bad news is that it makes the upcoming missionary spread into Masterclass a dice roll situation.

Also, yes I went ahead and dropped the settler down with the longbow.



I might have gone for the gold, but you can see just below the interface that Plako already has a city on those waters, and he's had it for longer than we have I think. That makes defending it a little more challenging even if the hill helps quite a bit. He's also got a new settler coming out of York, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's headed towards those islands. If the gold is still available when our next settler pops out, I'll be pretty tempted to go for it.



More importantly, we'll need to dislodge this longbow pretty soon. It won't be immediate, but I'm going to get a couple Knights together over the next 10T or so and see what I can do.



I hooked up one of our dyes, and the other will be hooked next turn. With that in mind, I offered this trade to RMoG. Obviously neither of us have our second one hooked just yet, but I'd like to secure a trading partner in advance. I think they make pretty solid trading partners overall.



I missed a full overview show of the southwest, but here's the northern core. Island city settles next turn (226), and Bananas on the following turn (227). I'm currently farming one of Rage Quit's riverside tiles, and I may add a few more there. The rationale is that Merchant Gank is the stronger city, so I'd like it to have more cow control. Rage Quit then seems better to farm up and use as a whipping post to get us some boats on that water. If I add a farm or two, I can double-whip it every 5 turns indefinitely, and that should help us a great deal in holding these waters from Mackoti. Longer term, we'd rather run some Rep scientists here than cottages anyway.

Cities are all growing up for the golden age. I'm targeting T229 right now to launch it. We should be close enough to Constitution by then which is the main concern.

I've thought about it, and I'm planning to try to get the 450GPP great person out of Masterclass rather than Merchant Gank. Merchant Gank's food situation is a couple notches weaker than Masterclass (corn + plains cows vs embarassment of riches), but it'll be pretty easy for Merchant Gank to get a settler out. So to recap, we're going to get 4 great people out of Pocketbeetle, Pilot, Lurker Killer, and Masterclass. Most likely outcome is merchant, engineer, and two scientists.

Finally, neither REM nor Mackoti have hit 8 cities yet, so we should maintain our lead as we hit 10 over the next couple turns. Various charts below:

[shallow_thought]

A Pink Dot does look tempting.

Does the site actually make sense? Would you be happy with the resulting dot-map (ignoring Plako, for the sake of argument)? It looks like you can get all resources in various BFCs, but don't get much chance to share between cities.

Would early access to gold actually help much?

I think it could actually be less aggressive to grab the east coast of gold now, maybe play nice with culture and leave Plako access to one gold, rather than be fighting (culturally or literally) by planting a city in the centre of the island in a few more turns.

Edit: cross posted - sanity reigns after all.