RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[TheArchduke]

Another scout after the worker, are you not successful enough with your exploration? Just curious.

[Dreylin]

Another scout after the worker, are you not successful enough with your exploration? Just curious.

It's a fair question, but I'm not sure I can answer it succinctly!

Yes, I think that I've done extraordinarily well with my exploration so far - two Scouts & a (useful) map from 4 huts does kind-of help - however I have met only 1/4 other civs, and there are two areas close by which still remain fogged.

This is Quick speed (with which I have zero experience), but the one thing which doesn't speed up is unit movement. So I'm teching along happily and building what I can, but local exploration is plodding and I need to know fairly soon where I want to send my first Settler. To the East, there's a patch of Jungle, but how extensive is it? To the North is where I will likely Settle first, but I can't see enough of it to know exactly where. I'd love to grab a spot close by the Gems, but it's a fair distance and is there a food resource to the West of it, or will I be looking to plant on the Desert hill SSE to grab the 4FP?

With Pottery not due for ~4t, at this point I basically have 5 choices of what to build; Settler, Worker, Warrior, Scout, Barracks.

Settler - since there's no obvious "Yes!" spot visible yet, so I think it's a bit early to be looking to plant my second city.
Worker - potential, but (as with Settler) it's probably not worth building another "food" unit until I have the Pigs pasturised.
Barracks - it would be a filler build at this point and probably swapped out as soon as Granary was available.

So that leaves Warrior or Scout and it comes down to how my current forces are arrayed and how I plan to continue their deployment.

My original Warrior has worked his way North along the mountain spine and will now start to trend West (and either North or South), my Western Warrior will take ~5t to reach a longitude parallel with the Capital, and is far better sent Northeast towards my likely first Settlement. If I built a Warrior, he could either explore slowly or stay at home.

I have one Scout going long-range to the North, and a second trending SW along the far side of Banana Lake - neither of these would be open to explore Eastward. I need to explore to the East, and it's best with a 2-move Scout. Time is marching, but difficulty is Prince, so I think we even get a small bonus vs. Barbs in addition to the Animal bonus and he can stick to defensive terrain.

It's also worth noting the situation with Istanbul:

Currently size2 it is working centre tile, FP & Pigs for 8f, 2h, 3c and can build a 10h Scout or Warrior in 5t. But it could be reconfigured to work two grass forest hills for 4f, 6h, 1c which would allow a 2t Warrior if a hostile enemy showed up on the doorstep.

Growth is currently in 4t, so I will either reconfigure to build the Scout at the same time - which should also coincide with pasturising the Pigs - and then start a Settler or Worker; or I'll follow with a Granary and allow it to continue to grow to size4 before building "food" units.

I have heard anecdotally that Granaries & Whipping in general are less powerful on Quick speed because while the growth & production costs are reduced, the tile yields remain the same and you get a less efficient exchange.

I will probably time the Scout with size3 and then build Worker, Settler. That will let me hold off on going for BW and instead aim for a religion.


There, that'll teach you to ask me what I'm thinking!? :neenernee

[T-hawk]

I have heard anecdotally that Granaries & Whipping in general are less powerful on Quick speed because while the growth & production costs are reduced, the tile yields remain the same and you get a less efficient exchange.

I don't see why that would be true. Consider the converse - that granaries and whipping would be super powerful on Marathon speed. I've never heard that said and don't see why it would be true.

On normal speed, the granary is 60 hammers, and pays back 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - etc food upon city growth. On quick, it's 40 hammers to pay back 7 - 8 - 8 - 9 - etc food. Other than roundoff artifacts, the payback ratios are the same regardless of speed.

[Sullla]

Hey, I enjoy these long thought posts. As for exploration, it certainly benefitted our team early on in the Apolyton game, and perhaps will do the same here. Best of luck.

[Dreylin]

I don't see why that would be true. Consider the converse - that granaries and whipping would be super powerful on Marathon speed. I've never heard that said and don't see why it would be true.

On normal speed, the granary is 60 hammers, and pays back 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - etc food upon city growth. On quick, it's 40 hammers to pay back 7 - 8 - 8 - 9 - etc food. Other than roundoff artifacts, the payback ratios are the same regardless of speed.

Fair enough. As I said it was something I thought I'd heard somewhere, and I mostly wrote it out to see if anyone would confirm it to be true or not.

[Dreylin]

t12 -

Western Scout pops hut for 22g
Northern Warrior discovers shores of Great Lake
Worker starts on Pigs.

Starting to have some thoughts about the shape of the Map, since m_h is away for a couple of days I'll post them sometime this week.

[TheArchduke]

I stand corrected Dreylin. A scout sounds like a fine choice. And yes, I actually enjoy long responses, though I tend to be short and to the point with my own.

It seems I am playing Civilization waaay to leisurely, quite contrary to what I do in other games actually. Not sure what to do about it, though.

[Dreylin]

Well I usual play quite leisurely tbh, but with PBEM & Pitboss I have time to turn them over in my mind between turns. (and I probably hadn't actually thought through most of that before making the decision!)

As promised, here's a map update ... with a few additional notes.

[Sullla]

With more turns of scouting data, do you have an idea yet about where to send the first settler? It seems like you could move in a number of different directions.

[Dreylin]

With more turns of scouting data, do you have an idea yet about where to send the first settler? It seems like you could move in a number of different directions.

Well, first let me quote myself from a few turns ago:

To the North is where I will likely Settle first, but I can't see enough of it to know exactly where. I'd love to grab a spot close by the Gems, but it's a fair distance and is there a food resource to the West of it, or will I be looking to plant on the Desert hill SSE to grab the 4FP?

and also:

Looking at my hill-tastic capital site, I'm going to be looking to found a commerce-heavy city first off.

So I think that the second comment still holds; I'm looking for somewhere that will give me a good commerce output to match the production of my Capital. On that front, I currently see two options: the aformentioned Gems site to the East, or something to the North which pulls in the Cows & uses the river.

The other consideration at the moment would be to start securing my "strip" of the map. In that respect, the Gems/FP city on the Desert hill (it's actually only 3FP) seems like it may be a good start as a blocker in the East. The SW is a bit buried in Jungle for me to want to head there right away.

So I'm leaning more towards the Gems at the moment, but by the time the Settler pops I'll have a Warrior near the Cows and the new Scout will be South of the Gems, so I'll have more information then.