[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[Maga_R]

What I referred to as my "in-game" experimentation, was that when at turn 2 I switched from generating 10 visible beaker to 9 visible beakers and consequently turns to finish Animal Husbandry changed from 11 to 12. Now I see that the only thing it shows is that "free" beaker must be added before multipliers. BTW, I think that discounting tech costs would be more logical and elegant solution - I also thought that visual display suggest this, but have to check.

This leads to a problem. If finishing a tech gives discount to other players, than the game becomes about sandbagging techs until needed (leaving them 1 turn from finished), to get maximum discount and avoid giving it to other players. See my thread in Civ V PBEM 2 for more discussion on the topic.

I hear you, Ichabod, this is true that one-time discount can create strange artifacts, too.

on the other hand, same effect but in less extreme form is exploited by wildly popular binary research.

[Maga_R]

alright, so I managed to take a distant screenshot of the land, still having problems with more detailed views:

   

I also sent them a generally friendly message asking if they would be interested in exchanging info and peaceful cooperation. So far the response was very positive, two of the team members already acknowledge reception of the message, they also tried to chat with me in-game but could not log in because of firewall issues. They wrote me they discuss the answer between themselves (there is four of them on the team) but we should expect it or another chat attempt within couple of hours. HBHR also mentioned they are glad to have us as a neighbor - I hope the reason is not because they think we will be an easy target for their Dog Soldiers .

Slaze, please remember that because of no peaceful double-moves rule we have to wait for Native America (Oxyphenbutazone or HBHR or Kurumi or Suttree) to move first.

[Maga_R]

Slaze, please remember that because of no peaceful double-moves rule we have to wait for Native America (Oxyphenbutazone or HBHR or Kurumi or Suttree) to move first.

In terms of scouting, I was thinking of going E->NE and then hug their borders and hopefully have a peek into their capitol. Then would continue scouting NE, mostly E, worked very well so far. And seems you were very right about the map being Inland Sea .

EDIT: I have changed the research to fishing intentionally to give us time until turn 13 to figure out if we want mining before completing AH. To have a chance for early mining, we have to switch to fishing this turn.

[plako]

I see nothing signicant you would gain from moving "out of order". Only if you declare war then it would make sense to try to preserve the turn order.

[Maga_R]

I see nothing signicant you would gain from moving "out of order". Only if you declare war then it would make sense to try to preserve the turn order.

Yeah, we are also leaning towards this - and it is late at night our time, so likely will just play the turn to not hold up the game. Thanks for chiming in, Plako

[Maga_R]

Turn 7 demo update:

Two teams got new tech this turn: Orgynized and Eggheads, both got Hunting. The slightly puzzling thing is that Orgynized seem to research AH now, but Eggheads for sure did not switch to AH after researching Hunting. This is somewhat strange, they started without Fishing, so because of researching Hunting first, they will not be able to start a Workboat when their EXP worker is ready at turn 12. If not for discounted AH, why they wanted Hunting? For Archery? BFCs seem similar in terms of resources (sudden interest in civs starting with Fishing after starts where known ), but I have not seem a single Hunting resource on the map yet .

EDIT: I keep forgetting that Egghead pick Byzantium, not Babylon. So they have no agriculture and there is no way to tell if they research AH now. Anyway, starting with Hunting is somewhat strange since they miss both Fishing and Agriculture Of course, I cannot be completely sure that somebody did not built a warrior exactly same turn as another team got a tech - but believing in Occam's razor/Maximum Parsimony principle .

[Maga_R]

Slaze,

ideas for scouting? Only two teams to play (including us), I am in game now, but we have not discussed what to do. I am thinking 1N->1NE - unless I would see something to make me go 1N->1N. Would be also neat to see how much land Natives have North of their capitol, but atm I would value meeting new civs more. LMK.

And the picture for our faithful lurkers

   

EDIT: We are last team to play now. I actually think we discussed continuing scouting E or NE and trying to trace the coast for trade routes.

[slaze]

Still couldn't figure out how to post a picture as an attachment. Can you give me more instruction or should I just go dust off my photobucket account?

Scouting: in game the tile in the fog 1NE of their cap is clearly a lake. If we could get to the tile 1NE of that one we can look into their capital tile. So I'd say get to that one, although iirc it takes 2-3 turns. Just try and use as many moves as poss to get there; I vaguely remember being able to go 1N-1NE. Looks like we're up though I can't play it for another 8 hours, please go ahead if you can.

I saw their response. Sounds good, exactly what we want to hear. I'll give you more detail on my thoughts tonight

[slaze]

Yeah ok, just saw the shot for whatever reason. Yeah clearly looks like a N-NE to me

[Maga_R]

OK, I am fortunately stil at home, so I will do it not to hold the turn. Thanks!