Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Cyneheard]

I'd generously call it light sklrmishing.

Well, CFC has lost 20k in units, and I think CivFr has lost twice that. And CFC lost a city (albeit a captured border city). The war weariness numbers imply five to seven combats as well. So it's more than light skirmishing.

It's not a duel to the death yet, unfortunately. That would be awesome.

[Sullla]

While we're waiting for the next turn to begin, let's look at the tech situation. We have Alphabet tech now, and that allows us to see where the last remaining laggards stand relative to our team.



Realms Beyond
All Ancient Techs (17)
All Classical Techs except Compass (13)
Paper, Feudalism, Machinery, Civil Service, Philosophy, Engineering, Guilds (7)
Liberalism, Education, Nationalism (3)
Total Beakers = 28,566
25 cities / 155 total pop

We still have the most beakers researched by a good margin, although the gap has been closing in recent turns. Our tech rate should increase dramatically once we get out of our current war and integrate the captured cities. (We have six cities that are size 1 right now, costing us a lot while contributing almost nothing, for example.) Printing Press is also worth quite a bit, once we finish the tech. And finally, it's also important to keep in mind the tremendous number of Golden Ages that other teams have been running through in the last dozen or so turns. CFC, Apolyton, CivFr (two Mausoleum GAs!), UniversCiv, WPC, and the Germans have all recently run Golden Ages or are in one now. This is another reason why other teams have been closing the gap, so it's not quite as bad as it might have seemed.

CivFanatics
Techs Ahead of Us: Banking
Techs Behind Us: Drama, Paper, Education, Liberalism
Total Beakers: 22,446
20 cities / 141 total pop

CFC has pursued the tech path most similar to ours. We've both gone pretty heavily for the bottom of the tree to enable a military conquest with knights. This appears to be working out well for both of us, although it remains to be seen how the CFC/CivFr war will shake out. I would expect them to go for some combination of Education and Printing Press next on an economic push, but it's also possible that they could go for Gunpowder as well. If allowed to settle the Spanish territories freely, CFC will be almost as large in size as our team in the wake of our German conquest. They are the biggest threat to win the game alongside CivFr.

CivFr
Techs Ahead of Us: Music, Printing Press
Techs Behind Us: Philosophy, Liberalism, Education, Nationalism
Total Beakers: 22,086
19 cities / 134 total pop

CivFr hit the top of the tech tree very hard, getting an early Aesthetics/Literature to claim the Great Library and various other marble-boosted wonders. They also beat us to the Music Great Artist by a single turn. However, this has left them weaker in the central part of the tech tree, as they still don't have Education, Nationalism, or even the prerequisite Philosophy for these techs. (It was nice of them to cheapen the cost of Printing Press though!) Outside of the lack of drafting, CivFr also has excellent military capabilities and can counter CFC's knights with their own knights and elephants. They have also claimed a very large amount of territory and will be a major threat to win the game in their own right. We should be praying that this CFC/CivFr war continues and escalates, as it would be about the best possible result for our team.

Apolyton
Techs Ahead of Us: Banking, Economics
Techs Behind Us: Iron Working, Literature, Aesthetics, Horseback Riding, Drama, Calendar, Construction, Engineering, Nationalism, Liberalism
Total Beakers: 21,366
17 cities / 94 total pop

Apolyton has taken a very strange path through the tech tree. They have more Medieval techs researched (7) than Classical techs (6). They've essentially ignored anything even the least bit military-related to go full on economy. And indeed, they pushed for early universities, whipped them out with their cheap Philosophical trait, and got an early Oxford up in their Bureacademy capital. In the current Golden Age, their GNP looks extremely impressive with that 1300 figure or whatever.

However, Apolyton is pretty much at the height of their power curve right now, and it's only going to decline from here. Their teching power is based on a tricked out capital city with Academy and university and Oxford, which would be awesome on a Tiny map, but scales poorly on this Huge map. Apolyton is far lower in population than the other strong teams (CFC, CivFr) and has zero room for further expansion. They will inevitably be outdone in the long run by teams with more population and more territory. By the end of the German war, we're looking at roughly double Apolyton's number of cities, and once those captured locations have the chance to grow up to a decent size... well, you get the picture. See what's going on in the current Pitboss 8 game, for those who aren't involved in the game themselves. Over the long haul, more territory and more population will trump a smaller, vertically inclined empire.

There is a sharp dropoff to these next two teams.

UniversCiv
Techs Ahead of Us: Printing Press
Techs Behind Us: Polytheism, Monotheism, Literature, Aesthetics, Horseback Riding, Drama, Construction, Feudalism, Philosophy, Engineering, Guilds, Nationalism, Liberalism
Total Beakers: 16,560
18 cities / 138 total pop

This team is the reverse of Apolyton, as they went for mass horizontal expansion instead of vertically teching upwards. The result is that they are very significantly behind in technology compared to the power teams. UniversCiv did the best to maximize what they could get from the tree though, going pure economy like Apolyton, with a crazy deep beeline to pick up Education and Printing Press (thanks for making them cheaper!) while still missing basic techs like Monotheism and Construction. They have no military techs worth mentioning, just maces, and they are a very long way away from any Gunpowder weapons. They have also just about reached the natural limits of their expansion (which is roughly 20 cities for most teams on this map) but do have the good luck to border the pitifully weak WPC. If I were them, I would have looked to attack WPC already, but they have chosen to go the econ route instead. Perhaps down the road. UniversCiv has been kind of mediocre the whole game, not as terrible as WPC/Spanish but not really competitive with the top teams either. They never write back in diplomacy either. A strange team to figure out.

CivPlayers
Techs Ahead of Us: Theology
Techs Behind Us: Construction, Feudalism, Machinery, Philosophy, Engineering, Guilds, Nationalism, Liberalism
Total Beakers: 15,516
15 cities / 89 pop

These guys are in the unfortunate position of being the most squeezed team in the game. They started between our team and CivFr, and were boxed in terribly on both sides. It didn't help either, of course, that CivPlayers paused expansion to build both the Oracle (beating us by one turn) and the Apostolic Palace in the early portions of the game. Now they are stuck between the two strongest teams on the map with nowhere to go and few available options. They actually have a decent monk economy going, but the lack of territory and population is an absolute killer that dooms them in the long run. Note that CivPlayers recently teched Education and has been whipping out universities; they are sitting on 1600 gold that they will presumably start burning through as soon as they're done with Oxford. Their tech position is probably a little bit better than UniversCiv in truth.

And then we plummet off a cliff to the final two teams.

CivForum.de / Germans
Techs Ahead of Us: none
Techs Behind Us: Literature, Aesthetics, Alphabet, Drama, Calendar, Code of Laws, Metal Casting, Paper, Machinery, Civil Service, Philosophy, Engineering, Guilds, Liberalism, Education, Nationalism
Total Beakers: 6786
10 cities / 44 total pop

These poor guys have had a game where everything seemed to go wrong. They were pursuing a rapid expansion strategy when WPC decided to go crazy and attack them. WPC razed their sixth city and forced a whole bunch of defensive unit whips that destroyed their economy. When they were finally beginning to rebuild from that disaster, we attacked them (again with WPC) with a vastly superior army. They did manage to reach Feudalism for longbows, and Construction/HBR for elephants with gifted ivory, but that doesn't look like it will be enough. Hopefully they are in the process of suiciding their army to destroy WPC's army, leaving our team to take the spoils of conquest. These guys deserved a better fate.

We Play Civ
Techs Ahead of Us:
Techs Behind Us: Priesthood, Polytheism, Monotheism, Literature, Aesthetics, Horseback Riding, Alphabet, Drama, Monarchy, Code of Laws, Compass, Currency, Metal Casting, Paper, Feudalism, Machinery, Civil Service, Philosophy, Engineering, Guilds, Liberalism, Education, Nationalism
Total Beakers: 3942
10 cities / 80 total pop

These guys absolutely suck at tech. WPC was actually behind the Spanish by 1000 beakers before they were eliminated, if you can believe it. We wondered why they never spread Hinduism as a religion; it's because they lack the techs for monasteries or Organized Religion. We wondered why they weren't connecting their dyes, it's because they didn't get Calendar tech until T149. They still do not have Currency tech. They've researched 4 Classical techs and 0 Medieval techs, at a time when the power teams have entered the Renaissance. WPC is so hilariously far behind that they are a sitting duck for anyone who chooses to conquer them. The best units that they can build are swords, dog soldiers, and catapults. We are probably about 15-20 turns from rifles at the moment, and CFC/CivFr/Apolyton are in about the same position. There is no way that these guys are going to survive until the end of the game.

I like the WPC players, and they seem to be nice people. At the same time, they are unbelievably backwards in tech, and their land would make a perfect addition to our empire, as it wouldn't extend the borders much at all. Let's try to stay friendly for now, but be willing to keep our options open down the road. Attacking with rifles and cavs (when our Turn 200 NAP wears out) would be laughably easy. Maybe...

Anyway, I hope this helps make it easier to see where all of the teams stand.

[kjn]

Having looked some more at the pop values, I think CivPlayers have no more than 80 pop. F8 calculation gives a total of 878 rival pop, and right now the noted down sum comes to 885.

We know that CFC has 141 (since they are at 16%), and that CivFr has 134 based on the rival best values for population. We have perfect visibility on WPC and the Germans. I worked through Apolyton's number, and they have at least 104 pop, with three ciites in the fog (and I guess at least one of them has grown), and the situation for Univers (pop 138, two cities in the fog) is the same.

Ie, I put the current upper bound for CivPlayers population at 82 pop.

[TheHumanHydra]

Sullla, thanks for that breakdown.

[kjn]

I logged into the game to check some figures, and noted that Adventure One works the grass farm instead of riverside plains hill (for +6F).

Is this an intended change, Sullla?

[Ruff_Hi]

2metraninja is asking for a pause. I'm assuming it is under rule 5.g - game was taken down (lightning).

2.g. In-Game Pausing - Any Team may pause the game. Any team encountering a paused game should consult the CFC based turn-tracker thread. If a team has not requested a pause in that thread, the game may be unpaused.

2.h. Abusing Pauses - No team should abuse the game pause rule.

4.e. Game Pause Requests - Any team may request a pause by posting in the CFC turn-tracker thread. The purpose of the pause must be included in the pause request.

4.f. Abusing Pause Requests - No team should abuse the Game Pause Requests rule.

5.g. Game Reloads - All game reloads will trigger an automatic game pause (game admin will post such in game pause thread) for a minimum of 24 hours or until each team that logged in to the game after the reload point has stated in the game pause thread that they are ready to continue.

I don't think that 5.g applies as all other teams except CFC has indicated they are ready for the next turn. 2.g or 4.e could apply but CFC would need to state a reason for the request.

[NobleHelium]

Bullshit like this is why we hate CFC.

[novice]

Bullshit like this is why we hate CFC.

I don't know if this is a joke or hyperbole or what. I certainly don't hate CFC for requesting a pause.

Relax guys, it's just a game.

[kjn]

I think the main issue is that 5.g is very poorly written and badly thought out.

[Sullla]

Since the current turn began on Thursday, and it is still going on right now on Monday, we definitely do not want a 24 hour Pause added on top of everything else. CFC has been able to log into the game themselves for over two days now. It's past time to move on to the next turn.