RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Jabah]

All her moves make sense and even if some little luck was involved with Iron being there, her position without Iron would still be quite superior to the starting one.

Considering she wanted to build warrior(s) to grow and not worker first (which imho seems much safer considering the distance between civs), moving to have the rice 1st ring was the thing to do. The warrior second move which spotted the deer makes that moving decision a winner, but spotting the gold was the real 'problem' (can't blame her, moving the warrior where it is was the only movement that make sense).

It (the gold alone) makes settling where she decides a good move with or without the iron.

If we wanted to avoid that, we (the map makers) should have checked that no one could have discovered a better place by just moving the exploring warrior/scout (I remember reading that we had a criteria saying that moving should not lead to a worst situation, unfortunalty it was probably impossible to check that no one could have found a much better place 2t away).

[Jabah]

I am also wondering if we will see some very early elimination, with some teams sending their warrior (or worst scout) far away while building worker.

If a exploring warrior is to meet an empty capital (and seeing it empty, which is possible for a few civ OR C&D enough to guess it is empty), I would see very few reason not to take the city.
(taking risk vs a defending warrior early, is probably not a good idea, but a free second strong city that early, especially for Rome/Zulu ...)

[Rowain]

I'm more surprised that only 2 moved. Especially Korea settling in place after discovering the second wheat left me wondering.

[Jabah]

Looking at the map, Pacal of Greece could also have moved to a better place with very little luck.

If they had just moved their scout on the hill SE of the starting position (instead of going ENE) they also would have spotted a forrest deer that could be reached in 1t (SW of rice) while keeping the rice (and also putting the Iron within the BFC !), still being coastal and next to fresh water

[Jabah]

I'm more surprised that only 2 moved. Especially Korea settling in place after discovering the second wheat left me wondering.

Especially since the 2 wheat place had 9 choppable forrests (maybe only 8 visible at that time) compared to the only 4 they have in the starting place !!

[zakalwe]

Will be very interesting to watch Korea and Rome, they are really close now (after Rome's settler moves) and based on their scouting plans it sounds like their warriors might spot each other in a few turns.

[Cyneheard]

Even the great and mighty Sullla can be deceived.

My best guess is that LiPing moved inland, didn't see anything useful there, then moved back to the starting tile (or close to it on the coast) and settled on the current turn. We are probably the only team with an inland capital.

TBH, the real danger for Sullla is that he might underestimate LiPing's abilities based on this. LiPing showed that she's very careful and detailed with city micro, which is the exact opposite of what you'd expect from someone spending 2 turns to found a city basically in place. And it's not clear that it'll be obvious via land-counting when LiPing pops her borders, either, since they'll include 2 squares of actual coast. Then again, Sullla is on the opposite side of the donut from Rome. So it will be some time before he realizes just exactly what LiPing's start really ended up being like...

[Krill]

TBH looking at what LiPing is posting, I'd say she will be massively underestimated. The method of obscuring her tech for instance isn't one that often gets used, because it only really works against those that actively follow demographics. But considering that those that seem to be following the demographics closly are the two groups considered to be the strongest...

Basically, I agree with Cyneheard, and would possibly tip LiPing to be in the strongest position around t80.

[ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF]

To the mapmakers:

What do you think about the greenness of the map? It is very lush. Is this by design?

I'd have thought it will make the game quite fast - even without tech trading.
Personally, I think adding more plains makes it more fun for a game like this - it's much more penalizing to go on a unit-whipfest IMO, and slows down growth in general.

[Krill]

To reach a tech rate comparable to the first game, the teams here need to reach about 3 times the bpt of the teching civs with the slider set to 100%. That just ain't going to happen, so the tech rate is going to be significantly slower here, especially as teams have to field significant amount of units.

I'd disagree with your assertion that plains would make people tech; I'd claim the exact opposite, because it is so much harder to tech due to lack of food, the window for attacks will be more open, and growing onto the plains is less useful, hence slaving out units to attack with is prefered because hte cities will be kept small, ie max pop size would be 6.

As it is the grass means that multiple options are possible for cities, and due to the proximity of the teams to each other, spamming cottage cities is most likely going to result in fast death. They are going to need armies, and navies, to hold onto every scrap of land they settle, otherwise quick strikes such as what Banana did against PAL are not only viable but expected, as soon as a couple of galleys have been built.