Gaspar and NobleHelium - More Arguments About Buildings & Food.

[NobleHelium]

Hey man, if we win the game then clearly the soulless automaton form is superior.

[Gaspar]

So the main news of the turn was this suicidal plant by Yuri:



He's basically pink dotted all 4 players. In reality, the plant won't be too much of a problem for us - we'll easily be able to keep the sugar tile which is our main concern in the area. Particularly if he continues slow building monuments rather than getting Buddhist missionaries to his new cities. The issue is that he's planted an indefensible city in the maw of everyone. Good luck to him there.

That's really all there is to say interesting about the turn. Our main focus right now is growing our northern cities so we can work all the cottages, etc. We're saving gold one more turn until blowing through Priesthood and Monarchy. With nothing interesting to show, here's an example of how early religion can be a red herring:



Hinduism and Buddhism were the first two religions founded. But neither Yuri nor Ichabod has leveraged them at all - they've completely relied on natural spread which is slower for the earliest religions. Meanwhile Commodore and Us have gone about splashing our religions all over (in fairness, we've been aided heavily by natural spread, though we'd have been spreading it about as aggressively if we hadn't.) Yuri even built the shrine for his religion which by my calculations are in 2 cities. He'd be getting more bang at this point if he had settled the prophet. Nothing wrong with early religion, of course. But you need to either get OR or build a monastery and spread it about if you want to take advantage of it. No idea why you'd tech religion and then continue to build monuments everywhere.

Anyway, here's the demos. If anyone wants a shot of something, ask away.

[SevenSpirits]

they've completely relied on natural spread which is slower for the earliest religions.

Actually it's the same for all of them. But I completely agree with the rest.

[Ilios]

Yes, only Order has a higher spread chance.

[NobleHelium]

Order and Ashen Veil.

As usual, Gaspar warps one of my mechanics explanations and gives everyone the wrong info.

When multiple religions can spontaneously spread to one city, the religions are checked in order from left to right. If one religion's check passes, the other religions' checks obviously become moot. So Judaism has a slightly higher chance of spreading to a city that can get natural spread from more than one religion, and so on down the list. Is this why Judaism is the game's most prevalent religion while being founded latest? Definitely not, we got several lucky spreads and were the first team that could build missionaries.

Gaspar and I never agree on the value of early religion. I think I have a good sense of its value - N7 in particular used it to great effect in 23 and good effect in 29 - and Gaspar underrates it a bit.

[Gaspar]

As usual, Gaspar warps one of my mechanics explanations and gives everyone the wrong info.

Gaspar and I never agree on the value of early religion. I think I have a good sense of its value - N7 in particular used it to great effect in 23 and good effect in 29 - and Gaspar underrates it a bit.

Actually, as usual you assume I'm an idiot for entirely the wrong reason. I'm positive there was an active theory that later religions spread faster in vanilla that I read somewhere and it stuck with me all this time. I was aware of the mechanic you mentioned but didn't think it had anything to do with what I was talking about.

And as far as the value of early religion - I don't think it is valueless. What I think is that if you're going to do it, you need to commit to using it. Just teching it and hoping which is what Ichabod and Yuri have done is valueless.

Anyway, onto the turn. As noted in the banter thread - Commodore wardec'd Yuri, and Yuri needs good rolls to hold the city:



Yuri has two chariots in the city. You can also see that Yuri just chopped an axe into Samsun with 3 workers. Note that he settled that city 10t ago and still hasn't gotten any culture into it. I have no idea what he's doing, really.

Speaking of our crackpot neighbors, Commodore has a Settler in Torg. I assume that's for Marble.



We've got a Great Scientist coming out of Old Ruins in 3t (we get to hire the 2nd scientist back next turn.) We're still debating, but we might just keep saving gold until we found the Academy in 4t. None of the techs we're after at the moment pay an immediate and necessary dividend.



That's all the news this turn. Tune in next time on, what crack are our neighbors smoking.



BTW - check out Rival Best GNP. FML.

[Gaspar]

Just a quick T75 report, will do the big 1 AD extravaganza a little later tonight when I have more time.

So on the turn Noble didn't report, Commodore had a settler sitting on the marble covered by a chariot. We discussed over text message and decided not to antagonize Commodore. Commodore razed Diyarbakir, Yuri's crazy pink dot and then they accepted peace. When we opened this turn we saw this:



Previously, we had put 1t of road into the tile NE-NE of the city for just such an eventuality. Here's the conversation Noble and I had:

NobleHelium: part of me still wants to take a shot at commodore's city
it feels wrong that he can plant a poorly defended city like that and get away with it
due to a vague threat of AW
when he just razed yuris's poorly defended city
hmm he moved a spear out of torg
it'll probably arrive in the new city next turn
Gaspar: yeah, i have a similar thought, truth be told
i mean thinking about it more
aren't we basically treating commodore like AW already?
NobleHelium: we're basically going to be cold war all game
Gaspar: i really sort of want to do it
NobleHelium: yeah i do too
Gaspar: though ill feel really stupid if we lose the coinflip
but there's just an element of
NobleHelium: well yeah
Gaspar: fuck you
settling a city on our border with a fucking chariot
NobleHelium: i intentionally left enough workers within range of the forests to still have one left over to finish the road :P
Gaspar: screw it
lets hit him
NobleHelium: ok
Gaspar: hang on lemme take a before screen
ok
roading
NobleHelium: ok
well
it died
(the city)
Gaspar: woo
NobleHelium: lol
Gaspar: enjoy watching dave land great lib, douchebag

That's most of the news of the turn. As Commodore alluded to in the banter thread that he doesn't know how to use properly, someone got a GEng, overwhelmingly likely to be Dave. Other than that, we did fiddles and tweaks and chops and whips and stuff you'll see when I do the big report. We offered Commodore peace, though we don't expect him to take it. We shall see. Anyway, felt good to raze his city.



More to come...

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Razing cities always feels good

[Gaspar]

Ok, so its time to make up for weeks of boring, useless reports with a big OMG HERES EVERYTHING REPORT. So OMG HERES EVERYTHING!



The 1 AD report

Okay, so we'll start with a big overview shot:

Our copious signs obscure things a bit but I didn't have a chance to make a save where I cleared them out and/or I was too lazy to. Either way, that gives a decent picture of the Lands of Sanctuary. The map is pretty tight and hence we've seen every player involved in at least one wardec and everyone but Dave in at least two. I'd be pretty happy with the land distribution if Kiki was Halls of Agony and pink. Its not, so I'll say we've probably managed a reasonable share but not quite reasonable enough.

I didn't take a lot of shot of the advisors like I might have if this were the T100 report - that's where I'll whip out the customary report card and such. This is as much a "make up for many turns of lousy updates" deal as it is a big milestone report. Here's the tech situation, though:



In theory, we're relatively close to taking off here - unfortunately, Commodore and Dave have already started to do so. Dave's tech rate is irrelevant as long as he continues to not settle cities but Commodore is legitimately scary at the moment.

And now for the requisite trip around the empire, with comments...

New Tristram, capital.

As you can see, the forests alluded to in the chat above were chopped into to MoM - which we'll whip next turn. We were taking a more leisurely approach to building the wonder, not sure about level of commitment which is why it hadn't been mentioned yet, then decided to go for it when we saw Dave getting the GEng. Dave is a decent shout for Liberalism on account of bulbs so we can't really afford him to land MoM and Taj - even in his underexpanded state that can be a game ender. Anyway, the capital basically shares tiles heavily with Old Ruins and Wortham Chapel - you're looking at it in pretty suboptimal configuration. Once the Academy gets put down here in a few turns, it will probably be working the more developed grassland cottages full time.

Old Ruins, second city.

I didn't highlight, but it will finish popping out our first GP - a scientist - next turn. OR is a solid contributor if not flashy and notably - there's still a wonder in them thar forests eventually. It was originally going to be the Pyramids, it will now have to be something else. AP perhaps, if Dave doesn't take his Engineer down that road.

Cathedral, abused child.

We contorted a bit to make Cathedral the Jewish Holy City because of the culture boost on the Commodore border and its worked out that way. Beyond that though, Cathedral is the city we grab something when we need it, whatever it is. Need a missionary? Whip Cath. Need a few beakers? Push Scientists in Cath. Need an Axe? Whip Cath again. Because of its location and the aforementioned abuse it will never fully flower. But its been an important piece of the empire.

Royal Crypts, Military provider.

It does what it says on the tin. A nice little city which will be less nice once it eventually loses the pigs tile to the new city there it has produced a large number of the empire's military and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Wortham Chapel, commerce and little else.

Wortham Chapel is looking a bit greener than normal thanks to working many cottages for the cap while it takes it's MoM adventure. It will whip that Library once Tristram has grown back to take those cottages.

Leoric's Manor, future beast.

Good production, good food, good commerce. What's not to love?

Hidden Camp, future Moai site/

Pretty marginal at the moment, just whipping stuff left and right and overflowing to Moai.

Caldeum, jewel of the south

Not bad for being settled only a few turns ago. It'll whip that library next turn then probably overflow to a Barracks and start its short-term future as a secondary military pump.

Khasim Outpost, Outpost indeed.

Largely settled to seal the border with Yuri, its a marginal site that will improve once we net the clam. Beyond that - zzzz.

That's all for now. As stated previously, there are three more sites to plant for us, 2 quite marginal locations for Wines and Deer and then the pretty darned solid Corn city along the Eastern border.

I'll pause here for questions/comments and then throw up a bit of a "Here's what's next..." post afterwards.

[NobleHelium]

Right then. We played turn 76.

It is a time of drama in the world of PBEM 38.



So last turn we chopped 3 forests and 2 third-ring forests into the capital so that we can whip the Mausoleum (for four pop) this turn. Originally we were going to build it one turn later, but once davy got his GE we were definitely going to speed it up at all costs.



Previously, yuris had lost the city of Konya to Mistabod. This turn he lost another two cities including his capital. The last time someone lost his capital this early was Commodore's dismal performance in PBEM31. I actually thought Constantinople was a renamed Istanbul, but Gaspar pointed out that the Oracle is gone from the game (seen via F9), so Istanbul must have been razed. They also got an imperialistic GG.

Anyhow, Mistabod also finished the HG which shot their score up tremendously with the new cities. HG is a mediocre wonder in my opinion and I generally would not build it without Stone, but that is definitely great timing for it. They could use the pop to whip out a new round of attackers...

Commodore declined our treaty offer to exact petty revenge on the Chariot, but then offered us a treaty which we accepted. That's fine with me, I'll trade a Chariot for an extra turn of peace. We did finally get our GS as well this turn, so one more turn of gold saving before we burn it. We're not sure what we're teching though. You may also point out the folly in building an Academy in a capital that will be size 6.



We got a lucky spread to OR the turn before our missionary arrived, so we're redirecting him to a new city which will be settled soon. We'll settle the Wine city and then the Corn city in rapid succession, while the Deer city will wait a bit, since it's hardly worth much of anything before Optics. We could have built Moai there, and it actually has one more water tile, but three of those are crappy ocean which is just a riverside plains farm (although you don't need worker turns for it). We'd also have to have planted it sooner in place of a stronger city.



We also built an extra road near Caldeum which lets us get trade routes with Mistabod thanks to yuris's former city. We've since signed OB with him and the trade routes are helping quite a bit.



yuris is definitely out of the game.