RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Thanks, so culture has nothing to do with it if I understand correctly.
Also, not sure if this is a "done thing", but I have to ask: What's with your username?

That's right - culture is just a red herring.
As for my username - I got it from a crossword puzzle a few years ago. :neenernee

[shadyforce]

It's pronounced zip-vick-spliff-oof'd-peff...

[newbie]

Well, it seems like all the civs now have realised that it's a little cramped. Seems like most civs have discovered both their neighbours. Cramped map means lots of border diplomacy, and 2 neighbours per civ around the donut gives interesting diplo diplomacy. All turning out very fair and exciting, so very well done to the mapmakers!!!

If loads of civs go for naval expansion, then there won't be too much advantage for any one spcific civ. But with seemingly all the civs concentrating on land borders, then maybe there will be a large opportunity available for the first one or two civs to prioritize island colonization??? Whilst galleys/sailing are a bit expensive and significant analysis is needed before committment to naval colonization, I'm surprised that no-one has even mentioned or considered it (even if they don't act on it now, but just that they consider it for future plans). Every civ knows that there is a landmass across the sea from their (allotted) capital, and many should probably have deduced by now that by reasons of fairness and meta-mapping, that this is likely the case for all civs. So even if it is too early now to make the investment for island colonization, then I'm very surprised that no-one at all is even considering or mentioning it for their future plans or discussions.

I've no idea whether naval power is a great way to win the game, but players could certainly have a lot of fun with amphibious invasions of capitals, particularly due to the way the map is set up!!! One strategy (only works if you're one of the one or two doing it) is to get a reasonable borders-share of the torus with a couple of minor concessions in return for NAP with your two neighbours, and go naval! (The C&D mapscipt experts who guessed the torus map ages ago have been in a position for quite a while to guess the number of extra-toroidal tiles - sure they have plenty of calcs with higher priority, but this is a pretty short/easy calc I think, and maybe very useful for planning long-term strategy...). All of this is very easy for me to say of course, since I've seen the map and the players haven't.

It's a pretty natural reaction to concentrate on your mainland. As all 10(?) players are doing. And I guess people are concentrating on that since that is where the borders are. And you expand on your mainland first due to the investment required for sailing/galleys. But for no player (most of whom strategize in detail) not to even think or talk or strategize about the extra-torus tiles??? When they knew about them from turn 1 at their starting location???

I notice that Jowy/Yaz is the one civ without copper. And they now know that they don't have copper (but of course presumably don't know that everyone else does have it in reach). Does anyone reckon that this will affect things? (I don't remember all the details of the mapmaking, but my impression was that this was a misclick/oversight rather than anything deliberate - policy was for everyone to get copper a few tiles away on the mainland, but there was one civ for which it was missing, in the NW I think, presumably Jowy/Yaz). So it is potentially a pretty risky situation for Jowy/Yaz without copper, especially between Spulla & Rego/darrell/Sunrise... Risky for the moment, but they'll be fine once they get diplo or iron... Seems that they have some NAP with their neighbours for now...

[zakalwe]

I'm sure the naval expansion prospects will come up once the mainland borders start shaping up. Grabbing a good share of the mainland first seems like the correct strategy in any case. It will also be interesting to see how the inner coastline shapes up; if everybody tries to get a city or two on it then there will be a real crunch, and lots of close borders.

I thought Korea (broker/plako) were the unlucky ones to go without copper? Or did Rome just steal their copper, and also have another copper within reach?

Overall I have to agree that it looks like a very fun and well designed map.

[RefSteel]

I didn't notice before that Mali actually had a long NAP in place with the HRE. I wouldn't break a NAP either, so I understand why he's letting it go for now at least ... but agreeing to a pair of NAPs that more-or-less obviate his UU, without even the slightest provision for an aggressive settling move to count as, well, aggression ... appears not to have been the wisest move. Kudos to the HRE, I guess, who could prove a strong player in this game. (By the time the NAP expires, it'll be far too late for Mali to do anything about it really.)

Oh, and the Ottomans plan to rush Paris with two chariots and a warrior? Wellll ... they've got guts, anyway. Maybe fortune really will favor the bold; we'll see!

Naval expansion: It looks like team Korea is going for an exploring workboat. If the islands look attractive enough, and prospects with Rome look sufficiently dire, they might yet play a significant role, in the manner Krill suggested, by taking to the sea.

(Did I say IF prospects look dire? I just noticed that thanks to the location of Rome's second city, its iron will shortly be three tiles deep in Roman culture ... and it's already roaded ... by the road that links both Roman cities! Also, Regal's Reach will own two tiles in Pyongyang's BFC, and then there's a straight row of hill tiles leading all the way down from flatland Pyongyang to flatland Seoul. And Korea hasn't moved a worker toward their one strategic resource, and is apparently teching Pottery.)

And yes, the teams without copper are:
1) Greece because of a map oversight (which probably won't matter much in the long run; they'll hopefully get iron before they have to fear war)
2) Korea because of Rome's westward-tending cities ("Rome's" copper is far north of the present Imperial Center, I believe. If Rome settled in place, the Regal's Reach copper would be "Korea's" pretty clearly) and
3) Mali, because the HRE swiped it from right under their noses (caught 'em NAPping!)

[antisocialmunky]

Does it bother anyone that Team Spulller is having such an easy go with their worker gambit? Their neighbors aren't really treating them as the ridiculous powerhouse they will be later on.

[Shoot the Moon]

Much earlyer you said that there are about 250 extra land tiles so where do you think they are. all on the islands or in the middle of the donut.
Naval exploration a factor at all.

Anyone else find that a little spoilerish? I know someone posted a little bit ago in this thread that he may not be spoiled, as he said he is only watching Sulla's thread, but that is the second time it's happened right after it was similarly addressed in this thread, so I'm not entirely sure.

[meatbalz]

Does it bother anyone that Team Spulller is having such an easy go with their worker gambit? Their neighbors aren't really treating them as the ridiculous powerhouse they will be later on.

i wouldn't say "bother" is the right word. they have played a very strong opening and you'll find their 4 warriors compare pretty well with what most other civs are running around with at the moment. you can see from other threads most other civs are not paying attention to demographics, so their 4 worker/3 city by turn 50 start is flying below the radar screen. bear in mind though, the stilted and overly formal diplomacy they've decided to adopt is leaving others cold, and you saw in PBEM1 how quickly alliances can form once a threat is identified. they will face strong resistance in the mid-game once the true magnitude of their strength becomes apparent to everyone.

i *am* a bit surprised that dantski, who has the strongest military an a UU made for early action, seemed never to consider a choke strategy and jumped at the chance to sign a counter-productive NAP. it would have made sense if he intends to secure one flank while sending skirmishers elsewhere, but he's given no indication that's the case. i suppose his choice of mali was a "max safety early" one, but if he keeps playing defensively it will leave him at a disadvantage in the mid-game relative to civs who make fuller use of their UU/UBs.

one final thing, and it's been mentioned a couple of times. it appears the sullla/speaker team is getting a noticeable advantage - as if they needed any - from spoilerish comments. while it's to some extent unavoidable as they get the most posts -> the greatest likelihood of receiving useful info in a post, it's gotten worse in recent days. not sure how to go about solving this, or even whether there even is a solution...

the most recent spoiler's a bit of a bummer as one of that team's few disadvantages is that moving off the coast will (theoretically) delay their settling of the outer ring relative to the other teams. now somebody's posted a big neon sign in their thread saying "check out those 3 tiles of island you see, nudge nudge wink wink".
maybe, since nobody is in a race to settle the outer ring yet everyone's aware something's out there, someone could post, in every thread, something along the lines of "how does exploration by sea fit with your plans?"
or would that be just as bad as the spoiler comment in speaker/sullla's thread?

[shadyforce]

It is getting ridiculous. I wish people would just let the players play.

[antisocialmunky]

the most recent spoiler's a bit of a bummer as one of that team's few disadvantages is that moving off the coast will (theoretically) delay their settling of the outer ring relative to the other teams. now somebody's posted a big neon sign in their thread saying "check out those 3 tiles of island you see, nudge nudge wink wink".
maybe, since nobody is in a race to settle the outer ring yet everyone's aware something's out there, someone could post, in every thread, something along the lines of "how does exploration by sea fit with your plans?"
or would that be just as bad as the spoiler comment in speaker/sullla's thread?

I think you're overstating the effects. Its not an intellegent idea to settle those islands right now and I'm not sure how the BtS penalties would affect those cities. I'm sure they expected some islands anyways and I would prioritize getting more of the mainland anyways.

I do agree that maybe its just time to censor ej801 or send him angry PMs. Dr. Nomadic was just really offtopic, this guy is feeding India little hints here and there.

As to my original concern. Don't people realize that India's UU will accelerate the growth curve of India so far as to tile improvements and chopping over the course of the whole game?

Oh well, it seems like it might a team Spuller/Dantski Block against HRE or something.