[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[Krill]

Number of cities. For a fixed hammer cost of wonder (Apostolic Palace, Spiral Minaret, and University of Sankore), you can an output that scales from number of cities (Yes, you have to build the temples and monasteries, and slso have to push to Divine Right but if you get all three wonders the pay off is humongous). TBS' thread in PB31 is an example of the stupidity of the profitability of this approach on a...food poor...map.

Yeah, this. Exactly. 

The secret of the AP and friends is that the +2h you get on your temple or whatever is actually way better than +2h from a citizen working a bare plains hill because you don't need a citizen to work it nor even a tile to work!. You don't even have to pay upkeep on the citizen, nor does that citzen increase the size of your city's food bin. So, it's more comparable to a citizen working a +2h, +2f, +1c tile.

But you are only competing with players that have got a religion (although this is one of the circumstances that building a wonder purely for denial can be the right move IMO). In this case, Pindicator and GKC have the ability to bulb Theology to found Christianity and open up an AP build. Someone else can bulb Taoism but you need to have either Drama or CoL, AND Medication AND Monotheism; no one will research their way there because they are ignoring military techs for too long. 

It's possible they could throw a bulb into it, but I think it's more likely they'd save the Prophet for either a shrine or a GA. 

Don't forget that the AP does have a significant risk-mitigation factor built-into it: we save gold on Theology, but if we notice that someone founds Christianity, then we could bail on both the tech and chasing the wonder. That said, we would have to spend the beakers on all the religious prereq techs beforehand...

By view? If we could grab Confucianism, there is no real difference between grabbing a forge and a GE, or a temple and a GP (except the temple is cheaper to get in beaker and hammer cost), and theoretically we could end up with a chance to grab a religious wonder IF we have a production city. If we wanted to make a run at Literature after Currency (with military techs fitted in as needed) we could do without that much difficulty, and then the GL is a 18 turn build in the capital (hahaha). As much as I hate the idea of spending a GE for the GL, that's probably our only way of building it. And whilst we have a great NE city I should found, I think we have no choice but to use the capital as the HE city (oh look, want to make a run at the SoZ?) If we don't grab Confucianism, I figure we should just push Monarchy for the 25 commerce in wineries it unlocks...and possibly bulb Philo? That would mean in a GA we could at least run Pacifism. And we probably want machinery before Feudalism, just to open up windmills (and Xbows as I figure we end up getting Construction before MC)

I don't know. Just too much stuff and we are extremely hammer poor. The only path I can see is to just be huge...

That sounds fine to me. FWIW, I think the GL is one of the best wonders to rush in general because rushing it lets you put it in your NE city, which generally otherwise doesn't have the hammers to build it.

The crux of the matter IMO is: Are we going to accumulate GPP before we finish Currency? I don't see how, where or why. Other than a GS bulb for Philo there is nothing we would do with a GP, so let's wait and focus on fixing a slow civ/leader pairing. Still got no cottages down, but once we hit 7 and 8 cities all vertical growth is going onto cottages at Owlthorpe, City 4, horse and silver cities (OK, silver city never really grows but what little growth it has goes onto a single grass farm or cottages).

I have no idea of the tech strategy after Currency. I can see Machinery before Feudalism if the aim is 1GA to finish at Merc (Machinery>Feud>Guilds>Banking is feasible). I can also see the 25 commerce per turn and +1 happy on Monarchy smirking at me, goading me. I know we have to fit in IW, HBR and Construction (enables Xbows remember, so straight Machinery rush doesn't hold military value), and we probably have to grab MC for triremes even if we don't build forges.

The religious line of techs is ~250 base beakers for Myst/Masonry/Polytheism, Mono is 150 beakers above that. Meditation is ~125 base beakers but we only want that if we need a temple (Which if we plan to bulb Theo we would). Going for Monarchy through Priesthood is around 135 base beakers cheaper than through Mono but breaks an Astro bulb (can't grab both Preisthood and Mono without opening up the Philo bulb unless we ignore CoL). Monarchy is ~420 base beakers with only one prerequisite, so through Mono that is pushing 800 base beakers for thr whole route. Theology isaround 750 base beakers after we reach Mono. CoL is about ~510 base beakers after Currency. I like it just so I can stop thinking: build courthouses when we need, grab a shrine through a slow temple priest and time a library GS to follow and just grab what we need afterwards. I don't even know where to start with any of hte other options.

[Krill]

If I were to be brutal, and focus on a return to form: Save gold after Currency then push to CoL whatever (before we crash the economy). Then, grab Meditation if we have COnfucianism, and follow up with Construction and HBR and just spam out settlers to grab everything we can and "try" not to crash the economy. Just push as wide as we can go, then push wider whilst heading to Banking via that Astro double bulb in whatever fashion seems best at the time.

Success being defined as holding front cities at the western bottleneck, and a disposable front city north of city 7.

[RefSteel]

so another question for lurkers: production occurs at the end of a turn, and barbs move after this. When are unit healing and fortification occuring? Before production? After production but before movement? Thanks for your previous input RefSteel, going to try for 2/2?

Probably too late to be helpful here, but if I'd answered the previous question more clearly/completely, this answer would be obviously the same: Barbs don't actually move "during the interturn" in a simultaneous Pitboss game. The interturn handles things like production and tech and healing and fortification and so on. The barbs (and AIs if any) actually move simultaneously with every other civ; it's just that since they're computer-controlled, they always play quickly and at the first opportunity. Theoretically, it's sometimes even possible to double-move the barbs if you're logged in at turn roll and quick on the draw.

[Krill]

so another question for lurkers: production occurs at the end of a turn, and barbs move after this. When are unit healing and fortification occuring? Before production? After production but before movement? Thanks for your previous input RefSteel, going to try for 2/2?

Probably too late to be helpful here, but if I'd answered the previous question more clearly/completely, this answer would be obviously the same:  Barbs don't actually move "during the interturn" in a simultaneous Pitboss game.  The interturn handles things like production and tech and healing and fortification and so on.  The barbs (and AIs if any) actually move simultaneously with every other civ; it's just that since they're computer-controlled, they always play quickly and at the first opportunity.  Theoretically, it's sometimes even possible to double-move the barbs if you're logged in at turn roll and quick on the draw.

I thought this would be the case, but I don't trust my memory any more. Thank you for the clarification I imagine that there is a check to see if a unit has full movement points or march to heal and apply fortification bonus (probably the same step?)

I wonder if our double move rules apply to the barbs? I know that the 8 second double move timer does apply, but I doubt we could play a PB with an 8 second turn timer.

[Krill]

Turn 060

I am a moron. From the Turn 057 report:

I've gone with the library build. By swapping this turn, I'm keeping the option to one pop whip a queue upgraded spear, or whipping the library for 1 pop on T62 (with immediate regrowth to size 3). This next warrior would also cost me 1gpt in unit costs IIUC (although if I am wrong, I'll accept the public humiliation here).

I should have built the extra warriors. They don't cost gold at this point. I still want the library, but I would have greatly appreciated the extra fogbuster up here. As it is, I have to hope the barb warrior attacks my warrior (I moved it to lose the 15% fortification bonus it would have had, which increases the odds for the barb warrior to win from 4% to 10%). Due to the barb cowardice and insanity mechanic described by DanF, this increases the chance of the barb attacking and dying. If it moved towards city4 location, then I'd have the 25% odds on hill defence, and I'd prefer the 1 in 10 chance of loss over a 1 in 4.




So now I'm stuck waiting another turn to see what the barb does. If it dies, I'll walk the unnamed Warrior5 north west and get that full sentry net completed for the north. If the barb wins, I'll cry. If it just walks past the warrior I'll throw my keyboard out of a window.

Praise be unto the RNGesus that the rolls be fair and just





Double whip has landed, Warrior6 complete eot61. Having second thoughts about the lighthouse whip now: Wondering if it makes sense to just double whip the worker and overflow the hammers into a lighthouse, and use a forest chop to complete it? The quickest a chop could land is T68, even with the extra city WT starts working the lake fish and lake tile, so that's an additional 9bpt right there. Not like a decision is needed until T63 anyway, but I'm going to keep an eye out for when I can finish Maths. This would allow two worker whips in the capital and frankly, allow me to get terrain improvements under control. I like it in theory but need to see if it works out (cost in food is 5 food for the delay in the lighthouse just from the fish food).

Just looking at the tech I should generate around 235 beakers between T61 and T65, and I'll already have around 125 beakers invested into Maths, so eot65 that would put it at 360 beakers, requiring a further 55 adjusted beakers to complete. That should be attainable, but city costs my be much higher than expected.

The really interesting point: If one chop lands T68, a second chop could land T72, and there is the possibility to instead whip a settler for the island city. Probably unwise, but it would get us horse city T73, silver city T77-ish and the island city T77-ish as well?

[Krill]

Fucking OH and IMP and 6 cities before anyone else gets 5.

[Krill]

Warrior2 lost. That means the barb warrior will heal to C1/Shock and go back up from 20hp to 82hp, and if he runs into city 4 it has a 42% chance of victory, I can't hook the copper now and I can't get the granary down. I'll almost certainly have to chop out another warrior. And this wasn't the wrong more, because if the barb had moved past it would have had a 25% odds battle instead of a 9.9% battle, this is just the dross that makes cic4 combat a bad system.

And there is a barb warrior down by the wines.

I give up. Sometimes systems just aren't salvageable. Civ 6 is a better base to build off.

[Hollybombay]

Next game, Barbs off?

[Juri]

Next game raging barbs

[Krill]

Probably better to just recode barb combat so that any time a barb attacks with less than 35% combat odds, the barb automatically dies and can't do more than 50hp worth of damage. Just like cats can't kill.