[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[scooter]

I think seeing their picks will be interesting for sure and definitely give us some insight into their gameplay. With more options to choose from with more cost/benefit, each choose reveals a lot. Of course, it's still not like reading a book but it will be very intriguing.

For sure. You got me thinking... (that's a dangerous thing to do btw)

Our odds might not actually be bad. Take Lewwyn for instance - like I said I think there's a decent chance he grabs Spiritual to compensate for his lack of a scout because I'd be considering that if I was him. Plus because he's Inca, he almost for sure wants Expansive. Put me down as predicting Exp/Spi for him which would be solid.

Serdoa is Serdoa is Serdoa so I'm not even going to bother trying to predict what he will pick . I've played in 3 games with him previously and I still have no idea how to predict him.

And then the other one was Byz. That could be a threat to grab what we want, but he may very well try to grab Spiritual for same reasons as Lewwyn. He may also grab one of the two warmongery traits to support Cataphracts.

So maybe our odds are actually better than 50/50 to nab Fin/Imp. I keep forgetting that there's so many fun and doable combinations that the odds are in our favor. So there's hope!

[scooter]

Um, Serdoa? Pick already yo. Sigh. Getting impatient. So anyways, here's a brief email exchange with Dazed discussing the other map oddities outside our border:

we didn't even get to talk about other map oddities. Why a fortress north? Incense already ready to go? Where do those roads we can see in the NW lead?

Really not sure... There's two obvious places to settle first - west for pigs or northeast for lake fish (best food tile possible) and incense. Heading northeast with scout may be wise to get speed on the roads (depends on how far they go) but its also possible it's meant to draw us away from the west.

That's true! Darn SS and his choices!

(Should we be posting in the thread for posterity instead of emailing? It's less convenient but more fun for lurkers.)

Not really much, but I'm just trying to crack the reasoning here with the random things added. I know it's highly possible Seven just put those things there for no reason other than because he could... But who knows.

[scooter]

Solid choice by Serdoa. I'll write up more thorough thoughts later depending on how the picks go. Fin/Imp survived but seeing Imp go 2/2 like that makes me nervous.

[scooter]

We all love ourselves some groceries. (Fin/Imp)[SIZE="4"]Victoria[/SIZE]-achoo, we choose you.

Not cool. That said, Phi/Imp is gone too (which I was so mixed about putting 2nd), so the only real options left is Joao (Exp/Imp) or Lizzy (Fin/Phi)... so I think I have to take Joao.

[scooter]

Okay my reaction here in my thread was admittedly somewhat muted in comparison to how I reacted when I actually saw the post. I got the email notification on my phone for Lewwyn's pick so I checked the forum and saw Commodore's post. I was ... not particularly happy. Though it didn't shock me considering the direction the picks were going. Although I must admit to being semi-relieved that Serdoa went ahead and grabbed Phi/Imp so I didn't have to worry about my Phi/Exp vs Imp/Exp decision because I'd likely be choosing between "fun and good" and "better but less fun"...

I was halfway right about Lewwyn taking Spiritual but I whiffed on him taking Fin over Exp. Commodore taking Fin/Imp was disappointing, as again I thought he'd seriously consider grabbing Spiritual. I will say that me taking Joao means I will never have to worry about health in the slightest in this game . Not that that matters at all.

I'm overall fairly happy with the combination we got though. In my eyes we got the best techs possible, the second-best trait combination possible, and a solid (though not elite) UU and UB, which is all pretty cool considering we picked 4th and 9th. Interestingly enough I think Commodore landed the best traits and second best techs along with one of the best UUs... and since he stole what I wanted, he is designated as enemy #1. He'll have no scout though, though I feel like losing the scout is really not that severe a penalty.

I am a little disappointed that Serdoa is our one Philosophical civ, as there's likely no chance at all he reports consistently and comments on his use of it. Maybe he will, but it seems unlikely based on past games. If another game of this style forms in the future (I sure hope so), I'd love to take something like that for a spin and see what ridiculous things could be done with it.

I'm going to try to make a sandbox of my start tonight and do some sim work at some point. Nothing extensive actually - I just want to try a couple things. I also may make a template sandbox so I can build one for each of the other 4 starts so I have a solid view of what each of their starting capitals look like and what options they have to start. I should be in the best position after 15-20 turns based on my techs mostly, but I'd just like to get an idea of how much of a lead I'll be working with.

I'll hold off on trying to rank the picks and all that until we get civ picks from Brian and Serdoa, as starting techs are just as interesting (if not moreso) as traits anyways. Overall there haven't been any bad picks yet, though again I'd say Brian's first pick was a low-value pick in that if he really wanted Cre/Imp, it probably would've been there the second time around too. I also generally believe taking a civ first is the right choice because of the importance of starting techs here, but with Serdoa picking 5th it's hard to fault him too much for grabbing a leader there, especially if he rates Phi/Imp highly like I did.

Okay seriously, what is up with the "server is busy" stuff? It's getting worse every day. I went to post this and of course I got the message, so I'll save this for later I guess. Do we know what the problem is? And if so, does anyone know how to fix it? I notice the main site (realmsbeyond.net) is fine, just the forums get the error.

[scooter]

Made a sandbox and did some playing. I'll try to write a fuller report with screenshots later once I've done some more testing, but as of right now I get a settler out at end of T14. It requires some mild juggling between the workshop FP (for the +1 commerce) and the corn (get to size 4 quicker). That means:

-size 4 city working farmed corn, camped deer, mined RR hill, and plains hill forest
-Agri -> Mining -> Bronze Working with BW halfway done at this point
-2 warriors complete and another with 1T dumped into it

That should be a pretty quick start. Since no one took a Granary or a size3 capital, this will likely be the quickest start. So I need to find the best city possible within 14 turns. Send the scout one direction, send first warrior another direction (NW for pigs/fort area and NE for fish/incense areas probably), then second warrior can go to the city spot for defense.

I'll write up a post in a bit with screenshots detailing how it'll work, but I'm also going to work a bit past T14 to speed up workers that will come afterwards. If anyone wants the sandbox let me know.

[scooter]

Ok I've simmed out the first 16 turns. I believe this is the best plan at the moment:

t0: work FP workshop and move onto deer with worker. agri: 5T, grow: 5T, warr: 4T

-Working corn might mean faster growth, but the bottleneck here is Agriculture research time. Working the 3/0/0 corn means Agriculture comes in 6 turns, which means the worker would burn 2 turns building a road. If I work the 2/1/1 FP workshop instead, it means it comes in 5. Growth is slowed by 1T I think, but it's made up by the corn coming sooner. Also it means more hammers invested which is a freebie bonus.

t1: nothing
t2: nothing
t3: Deer finishes camping - swap from FP workshop to the Deer (this does not delay Agriculture)
t4: move onto corn and spend 1t on road then cancel (alternatively could burn the 1t road on the Deer. Doesn't make a huge difference).
t5: Capital grows to size 2. Agri completes. Start farm:



Work workshop so mining in 4t:



Same deal as earlier. I could work the corn here, but that would mean Mining in 5T, which would cause 1 worker turn to be spent on a road or something. By working the workshop, I get it to coincide with the completion of the farm.

t6: nothing
t7: Swap to corn. We can now do this without slowing down Mining, but it allows us +1 food. Not sure this actually matters because it completes next turn.
t8: Corn done:



Note we are about to complete our second warrior. Press enter and Mining is in.

t9: Mine started. Capital 2T from the magic number of size 4. Second warrior about to finish.



t10: Cap 1T from growth so sink 1T into a warrior (or a barracks potentially)

t11: Now at size 4. Swap to settler and work max hammers

t12: Mine completes. Cap looks like this:



Beautiful. Note: there's a turn's worth of hammers into a warrior - it's just not showing because I was lazy and didn't keep it in the queue.

t13: Send worker for the grass hill
t14: Settler completes at EOT.

t15: Grass mine completes. Swap to it from plains forest hill. Choose worker next:



t16: Worker completes at EOT. BW due in 2. Worker on grass hill likely heads out with settler towards new city? I'll have to think about that - still 2T away from being able to chop.

So to recap, in 16 turns we will:

1) Produce 2 1/2 warriors
2) Produce a settler
3) Produce a worker
4) Grow to size 4 working 4 improved tiles
5) Be 2T away from being able to chop and whip.

Sound good? I'm cool with that. I think this is about as refined as I can get for the first 16 turns.

[fluffyflyingpig]

This looks like a fun game, looking forward to this. Also, please name all your cities after RB PBEM naming schemes from previous games.

[scooter]

This looks like a fun game, looking forward to this. Also, please name all your cities after RB PBEM naming schemes from previous games.

I'm having a lot of fun and it hasn't even started yet so that bodes well for this game and for the general quality of this thread . Hopefully we'll make things interesting for the lurkers.

As for naming scheme - that's funny and very meta. Unfortunately it requires me to think and do some refresher research... but I usually get tired of naming cities and get lazy and quit naming them, so I have to use a naming scheme that doesn't require much work... So I'm probably going to name cities after some of my favorite songs from this past year.

[T-hawk]

Krill pointed out to me how wonderfully this capital is set up for an Imperialistic player. Grow quickly to size 4 and you have 1h (center tile) + 5h (rr hill mine) + 1h (deer) + 3h (plains hill forest) = 10hpt => 20hpt when building a settler.

Does Krill know how Imperialistic works? It's +50%. 10 hammers turns into 15, not 20.