[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[MindyMcCready]

Regarding 'opposite of known-tech bonus' - tons of things are opposite of it . For example: ALL WONDERS. Liberalism. Religions. Really I think the game has a mixture of win-more tools and catch-up tools, not any consistent approach.

Not quite! Those things are win-more, but Alphabet in RBMod is a way to win more by actually hurting the little guy, making them pay for the same benefit that you're getting paid for, not just surpassing them.

Not that this is bad, but it's not broken in BtS to have it at writing so everyone gets in on it, so why "fix" it to this? Open borders are still a valuable and salable commodity.

I still don't quite see the problem with Alphabet. You don't have to pay for the benefit, you only do so if it's worth it for you. You also have the option of teching alphabet yourself to rid yourself of the premium.

What about Calendar? Someone techs that first and then sells luxaries at a price putting them ahead and the buyer behind?

The one thing that I'll say is that, somewhat unlike Calendar, there might be a bit of a monopoly on this tech where there wasn't before. Everyone techs writing so everyone has access to OB. Alphabet can largely be otherwise bypassed in NTT and is a pretty significant barrier tech cost wise. If HarryToursit charges 'just a bit' to each player he might make his monopoly last a while. At 6 gpt somebody's going to 'compete' with him.

For these reasons I kind of like the change. It becomes another strategic choice where Writing never was (or at least wasn't for so long).

[WilliamLP]

I still don't quite see the problem with Alphabet. You don't have to pay for the benefit, you only do so if it's worth it for you. You also have the option of teching alphabet yourself to rid yourself of the premium.

What about Calendar? Someone techs that first and then sells luxaries at a price putting them ahead and the buyer behind?

I guess... but there are many alternatives to calendar luxuries, and none to Open Borders. It's a little like Hit Musicals, etc., though pumped up to an extreme.

If I think that BtS has lots of win-more features and enjoy them, it also doesn't mean I think it should have more, or ones that create a larger disparity between haves and have nots than before.

For these reasons I kind of like the change. It becomes another strategic choice where Writing never was (or at least wasn't for so long).

I guess... It comes back to whether you want RBMod to be a variant or a balance fix. This change succeeds in an interesting way in the former, and is detrimental to the latter.

[WilliamLP]

I tried to put my non-hysterical hat on, and offered this:




This is basically what we had before, except we were getting banana back. I don't mind this so much, since we don't really have a use for marble immediately, and there is another one we may be able to hook up.




The gems for silver trade to Ichabod is pretty dumb - we're actually losing a happiness with it! But we're way above happy cap at the moment anyway.

Ichabod took two cities off of Slowcheetah.




It looks like he's moving outward from Gateway to Glory. Maybe we should be watching for hidden messages in his city names. Cheetah still has his copper intact, but doesn't have much left after losing that region.




Retep didn't move his horses, except to move a single one to threaten Rigoletto. I moved a spear in. He did move his axes and three spears to join the horses.

I don't think he can invade NE-NE because he could be hit with 5 cats. And it would crush his econ again. Or in the worst case we could actually just dance around him: moving our 1-movers to Traviata, then SE-SE, then to Barbiere actually gets there in time to defend the city, as absurd as the path is.

I'm not sure if I mentioned before, but Retep also finally settled his fourth city a couple of turns ago. I figured, since he's not moving his horses, he might want to consolidate so I did the declare and offer peace move yet again.

Before, I was surprised he took peace but this time I wouldn't be. He sees all our stuff so can probably see it's a stalemate if we play properly. (Unless I'm missing something.) I would love another 10 turns to build a longbow defense and build up the northwest though.

Speaking of which we have another settler now. I'm thinking about if there's any city that's useful to the east:




That quechua has been there preventing barb spawns for a few thousand years! And with no sign of contact from Cheetah either.

I'm thinking if we're going to settle anything, the hill SW of the quechua might be it. It at least isn't completely useless after CS and irrigation can be spread. A more aggressive move would be to try and settle 1SE of the quechua, and then backfill later. But that target might be too tempting and easy for Ichabod if he just crushes through Cheetah.

For now, the settler is going west, probably to settle on the copper.

[MindyMcCready]

2S-2E of Quecha is our fortress city. It also makes Ichabod very vulnerable to us hitting him from many different angles.

Personally, I'd want to settle both SW (or just W) and 2S-2W to really lock down that region. Personally, I'd say SW (or W) for now and 2S-2W when we can put 4-6 LBs in that city.

Other options, less threatening to Ichabod is 1SE (but Ichabod can approach on a hill) plus 2W for 6 grass tiles + couple of windmills + furs). This is really the trust option since both cities can be approached via hills. Personally, I see no reason why we wouldn't be Ichabod's next target however far into the future that may be.

Blah, rambling. If I had to pick just one city, and we should assume that for now, it would be SW.

[WilliamLP]

2S-2E of Quecha is our fortress city. It also makes Ichabod very vulnerable to us hitting him from many different angles.

Interesting! I hadn't even considered going that far out, and it would be a hard thing to defend (4 turns from any city that's any good), but it might be viable if we could get 2-3 fortified LBs in there. The viability of it depends on how tough Cheetah will be to crack, maybe.

It does remind me of Speaker's classic post on the "Cool Game" city plant though. While it's not nearly as bad as what he's talking about, it's the kind of move that I could imagine setting off Ichabod the way Too Many Kojiros set me off.

My general thought was we'd lock the border with Ichabod somewhere sort of reasonable, and then we'd be (hopefully) looking west for the rest of the game.

[MindyMcCready]

Hey, I remember the "cool gaming". Bit different in that we're settling up on the dying Cheetah rather than the rising Spulla combo.

If we "cool game it" and congo line in our LBs we'll get killed for sure. If instead we go in with 4-6 LBs and seize that city, then Ichabod will have to expend a lot of resources to take it. Not that he couldn't if he was determined, but the whole point of that city is to create a solid deterrant. Combo that with the second fortress city and we've got more than 5-6T of warning of any attack to our core even if he was to, a la Spulla attack, go around our first fortress city with 2-movers.

It's going to be pretty unappealing to make that his choosen attack route. It's important to fill these cities with strictly defensive units to help convey the message that it/they are there strictly for defensive reasons.

As for 'far out' and 'hard to defend', well they're both true but only 1 tile away from the SE tile you suggested. Of course, sometimes 1 tile can make all the difference to someone flipping out or not like you said. And, if Ichabod can't sit on a hill, it's arguably easier to defend despite the distance. With engineering, we'd have the ability to retreat to the back up city in one move. I'd guess that 4-6 LBs mean that we're safe for now. When Knights/Pikes come into play we still have the retreat option.

That plant is the same kind of plant that Ichbod pulled against Cheetah that ruined Cheetah. One rock-solid defensible location that allows you to concentrate your military and dissuade or punish attackers. Us having that location may make Ichabod tilt, but if he can't take it then it may instead make him play nice for longer. If he attacks our wines location we can hit him pretty effectively in Cheetah's soon-to-be-old territory resulting in MADness.

No matter what, I'd want to land the closer city first and follow up with the aggressive plant only when we've got enough LBs to make any attack difficult.

Also, the SE of quecha city won't be too terrible. Windmills + chain irrigation + RB mod workshops and we'll get a reasonable amount of production out of it. Both cities should be on pure production of course.

[WilliamLP]

No matter what, I'd want to land the closer city first and follow up with the aggressive plant only when we've got enough LBs to make any attack difficult.

Yeah, we're totally in agreement on that. Planting a forward city 7 tiles from the nearest connector is a different message than creeping there by steps.

The problem with all those cities is that food is king and they have no resources or flood plains (getting to +5 means farming 3 river grass and not working any hills), and they are very high maintenance and have high defensive cost. So it would be a very long time before they paid back for the settler + LBs + worker turns + distance costs.

Also, the SE of quecha city won't be too terrible. Windmills + chain irrigation + RB mod workshops and we'll get a reasonable amount of production out of it. Both cities should be on pure production of course.

I just checked and I guess windmills aren't buffed in RBMod? In BTS I'm really underwhelmed by them before Replaceable Parts. A hill windmill is a 2/1/1 tile, which is maybe better off just being whipped off. (Comparable to coast without any bonuses.)

But anyway, I don't think we disagree on much here. I do think the resource grabbing city NW of Turandot is more pressing than an eastern site right now, but maybe the tile SW of the quechua will be next.

[WilliamLP]

You wouldn't believe how badly I want to cheat and see what Retep just posted in his thread!

[MindyMcCready]

Hmmmm, Ichabod's future intentions would be more interesting. So would Bacchus for that matter.

Actually, it might be interesting. I bet that he's lamenting why he's still alive in this game. Or maybe he's asking himself why the heck he didn't uncover the rest of his lands and move to the islands like 80 turns ago. Or maybe he's planning on going to the islands for survival spite purposes. Not that it would really matter since he's got almost no culture anywhere that our little religion didn't spread to.

Do you know where Retep planted his 4th city?

Of course that means that he spreads his troops a little thinner and I want to kill him again. It also means the reward for killing him is also bigger - at least when the city grows assuming its not a totally loco plant like horse-butt city.

If not for our PB11 shield I would really be pushing hard for that horse city raze as I figure it would cost us little to nothing. I don't disagree on waiting until maces (hope we get them soon) for a hard push through Retep and into Bacchus (at least the disputed lands) but that horse city seems like very low hanging fruit now that we've planted our newest plains hill city + mucho culture in the area.

[Ceiliazul]

a bit confused about the 'pb11 shield' reference. I haven't read Will's thread there tho.