[spoilers] Pindicator Steals the Mapmakers Naming Theme

[pindicator]

031

I misjudged Yuri a little - I do like where his holy city ended up, and because it was the only city without religion it seems likely something he planned for.  But yikes, a religion spread and it could have gone very wrong...  Still, I think using culture to bully the barbarian cities and steal their improved tiles is a smart play.




City #4 is Matsumoto-Jo, planted on the island horse.  I'm a bit excited for the new Shogun series on FX, having read the James Clavell book so many years ago.

It's a bit of a risk because I'm not going to have defenses in place for a little bit - and for that reason when Thoth asked for open borders I denied.  I feel confident I have the first island city (honestly ... no idea where Thoth or Scooter planted so maybe not) and I don't want to clue the Vikings in to the fact I am going for a seaward expansion.  Matsumoto is going to build/whip Triremes for a while here.  Eventually I improve the stone, chop out the forests and replace them with workshops, and sit on a solid 13hpt (after Guilds).  4t triremes right there.

But I also wanted to settle on the horse because I want to get a pair of horse archers out.  Without them I would only have the 6 swords for my attack on Wolfpack Tower and while that would be likely victory it would also be within the realm of the RNG going horribly wrong.

Speaking of Wolfpack Tower, the barbs have built a second worker who is just sitting in the city.  This city is such an early bonanza its ridiculous.  I'm sure the other players catch on soon, and since I had to go north first I really don't think Commodore lets me get both neighboring barb cities.

[Tarkeel]

Should have played a random PB66 style map...

It would have been my preference.

I don't think you'll get anyone who played on the map to say that though.

The actual capital BFCs were very well made, but the rest of the map... I think we managed to hook up horses around T120? And only had iron through luck.

[Krill]

Was it 66? I meant the game that Commodore constantly fought off the invasions from Ginger despite having zero land to work with. Was that PB64? Edit: Just checked, that was 64, and that was what I meant to say. Sorry for the confusion.

RB has never really explored truly random maps. That doesn't mean picking the first map rolled, but if the map maker isn't allowed to make any edits, it's a very quick job to role a couple of hundred maps and pick the dozen you like the most to let lurkers vote on, and then randomly assign the starts to the players.

I think a lot of people would rather get screwed over by a map generator than a map maker. A little bit of work can be done on RtR to amelerioate some of those horrific imbalances, the civs need a fair bit of work but have never been closed to a finished position, the traits are close to alignment, the pasture needs putting back on Hunting, and then work should be done on the mapscripts and the map generator code itself (ie to remove the plains cow and a billion forest starts). But it's actually doable if people want that.

[pindicator]

We did some truly random maps in the early days of RtR: PB5 and PB8 were both a lot of fun. There's no way we get a Zulu invasion with a hand-made map.

I think I remember you stating that one of your inspirations for RtR was you wanted to make a mod that would allow for us to be able to just roll random maps more often, Krill.

[pindicator]

I really love the differences in this game with civic choices and strategy.




Also, Thoth & Yuri researched Civil Service and Feudalism (though I don't know exactly who got which until the next turn comes in and I see which way Yuri switched his civics).

We have Scooter with the early rush to Bureaucracy and then focusing on whipping settlers from his capital.  I really did love how he just chose to ate the anarchy turns in order to get to his preferred setup - I think we are a little too scared of anarchy here when sometimes strategy demands that you should be in a different setup.

Thoth has skipped Slavery entirely.  No anarchy turns, no whipping: he built workers as his first 2 builds, was the last to grow to size 2 in his capital, didn't reach size 2 in his second city until t17 - and yet from there has grown both cities to size 8 where they can probably put anything out for him.  He now has the highest population in the game and is well set up to put settlers out - or start building forces.

Commodore is rexing like mad: he has bounced between slavery and serfdom, and just settled his 5th city.  He does not appear to be utilizing caste yet - and from what I've scouted it appears he's going for a tight city layout (something you can do when you get more than 1 bonus food tile for cities...)  I'm a little surprised that he did not go for a fast Keshik buildup with how close this map is.  However, he may choose to now that he has finished Feudalism and switched into Vassalage.

Yuri has done less civic swapping than I expected, instead utilizing SPI's cheap temple to get a fast Great prophet.  He hopes to setup a bulwark against Thoth with a holy city to his west.  Then with his original holy city in his east, he could have two strong gates to either end of his land. Also if Scooter has planted a great artist bomb on Thoth's other border, Thoth could be very hemmed in.  (He could also be doing the perfect counter if he's building up military against them.)

And I've rushed a military start, pumping out swords to capture the barbarian cities on the border as quickly as possible.  Or maybe I'll just continue going north...

I think Slavery is done for this map.  Especially with a Bureaucracy capital, you can easily get a settler out of the capital in 6 turns.  Better, I think, to be in Serfdom for the majority of the time - build watermills and cottages at the capital.  I still expect to be in Slavery occasionally, but I don't think I even want to split my time 50/50 - I'd rather go 5 turns of slavery and whip cities twice in that span and then spend 15 turns in Serfdom.  But I feel like with the additional technology you get at the start of the game, the potency of slavery turning unimproved or weak-improved does not shine so strongly.

I'd like to get to Nationalism instead.

[pindicator]

Shit shit shit shit shit

I clicked serfdom on the civic screen. Why did I click serfdom? I needed caste

[pindicator]

I need to own this mistake. No more resets.

[Mjmd]

See if you had never told us we would just think it was on purpose!

[pindicator]

033

So yeah, I screwed up real bad. Again. Not as bad as my reset early on - but it's still pretty bad.

I was supposed to switch into Caste this turn and start running an artist in Matsumoto-Jo to pop borders for it to work the clams. Now it has to steal the deer from the capital or not grow.

I was supposed to start running merchants next turn. After 6 turns get a great merchant and switch to Bureaucracy. I had the micro set up for tile improvements for a size 8 capital - and then I'd start pumping out settlers. Now I have 5 turns of ... doing something. It's not enough time to make a settler. I think I just delay getting Bureaucracy for 5 more turns. And maybe put out some units? Do I skip my plan for a CS-bulb altogether now? Or do I just tech CS? Or maybe just put out a wave of settlers and then get into Caste right after to pop borders in all the new cities. I really don't know what's best.

Now? Now I don't know if I have the energy to do this again. I'm tired of making plans only to make a mistake and ruin the plans as soon as they are set. This is the second really big mistake in just over 30 turns. I've made a couple smaller ones where I've screwed up worker micro and had to redo it. I am very mistake-prone this game and I don't like it.

[T-hawk]

Could you appeal to Ramk to magic a fix without needing a reload? Put you into Caste now, and if you gained anything by the turn of Serfdom workers in the meantime, you could skip a worker turn to compensate.