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

[WilliamLP]

Thanks! I'm not much of a sports fan and it's already covered in this game with Scooter. But the Billy Beane "Moneyball" Oakland A's are the classic example.

But yeah, if the circumstances of this game are just going to let me play like I did in PB11 (and kind of like what Commodore has been doing here) then things are looking pretty good and it can be pretty fun. I have my explorer down in Harry and Fintourist's territory, and they're being forced to do a lot of military buildup with potential existential war on two sides. Whereas for me, Plako is kind of forced to play for tech catchup for now, and 2metra doesn't seem like he wants to fight again either so somehow what was once the more warlike place in this game may have become the most peaceful.

(Of course I could be entirely wrong trying to read what's going to happen in this game - it wouldn't be the first time.)

[pindicator]

I hope you take no offense when I say you have put performed all of the Power Rankings and finishing projections that I did earlier in the game.

[Krill]

3rd in GNP? Those known tech bonuses don't exactly slack off until you start getting back into a, well, less shitty tech position you know.

[WilliamLP]

Pindicator: I'm absolutely not offended. I've learned a ton about the game in the "short" amount of time that it has been going on for. Honestly I would prefer to be underestimated in the future again though.

3rd in GNP? Those known tech bonuses don't exactly slack off until you start getting back into a, well, less shitty tech position you know.

Yeah, and it's an interesting effect in this incarnation of RBMod, where Steam Power and Sci. Meth are strong economic techs in this position because they're flagged to enable map trading. And when nearly everyone left knows every tech I'm researching, it's just like a flat 25% bonus on the base research each time... It's the last game of its kind where this is something to think about, I guess.

(Edit: I accidentally clicked on Commodore's thread, saw nothing.)

[WilliamLP]

Mackoti gifted another destroyer, asked for 400 gold. I only saw the offer when I logged in to unpause and then of course I couldn't have accepted. But I needed the gold to get Astro in 1 turn anyway. I'll pay him next turn, but right now my gold is too low.

Do I really even care about having a navy? I think my best naval defense is that it's not anyone's interest to try and take coastal cities off me. Sure they can raze them, but none of my key cities are coastal (possible exception of the Moai site), and I have enough cavs and cannons to take out a realistic naval invasion force.

The 400-ish gold figure seems pretty fair, given that Frigates are 90 hammers, upgraded with 350 gold. (And I can actually build them now, holy crap.)

So there's a bit of a destroyer party on my west coast:




I have no idea why Commodore is flashing them at me too. So why does Mackoti want me to have destroyers anyway? Maybe he has some hope that I'd actually attack Plako, who still lacks Combustion? (Yeah, "still", coming from someone in my tech situation. )




Meanwhile, Azza seems to have no hold on the mainland anymore. It only took like, what, 120 turns to get him? He still has two cities somewhere, maybe islands.

Scooter now has a lot of land! He and Commodore have now consolidated their whole continent. He also just got Statue of Lib, which ought to be worth a metric shitload with a continent that huge. He's clearly not into the game though and is pretty clearly in third place still.

I'm doing a run in Organized Religion to build some Observatories and Wall St, plus finish a few Levees. Also I switched to Representation because why not. I may still do a GP burst in the future if I can get away with it.




I don't really understand the Free Speech / Enviro switch in RBMod. Fortunately in this game I have the luxury of not needing to care because my tech has been too behind the world anyway. Enviro here gives gold for specialists and farms, and it seems like an empire has to be awfully big for that to be worth more than Bureau. And now that it's in economy, Free Speech can't ever be a good idea over Free Market and SP both, can it? I guess it's supposed to be a carrot for going lib early or something.

I'm not even sure that SP is worth more than Free Market for me in this game! When every city is saturated with 4 foreign overseas trade routes with sustained peace, it might be worth as much as 10 commerce per city, I don't know.

[Krill]

Need to remember this is just about the perfect game to maximise FM output. Most of the time it's no where near this good.

[WilliamLP]

My game is still delightfully boring. I'm getting Sci Meth in 2 turns, and the extra multiplier point will help me out since everyone and their dog knows every tech I'll ever research. I should even get an incremental upgrade when (if??) Azza is ever eliminated. Yeah, it seems to work that way, despite some claims to the contrary.

I'm pulling up on 6th place because I have a strong lead over Harry and Fintourist in the demographic of not being next to Mackoti.

Mack just finished Industrialism so Tanks and Battleships are coming. Is he actually going to launch a significant attack in this era? If he's not able to, then for all intents and purposes combat may be a non-issue in Civ 4 after the Industrial era.

[novice]

My game is still delightfully boring. I'm getting Sci Meth in 2 turns, and the extra multiplier point will help me out since everyone and their dog knows every tech I'll ever research. I should even get an incremental upgrade when (if??) Azza is ever eliminated. Yeah, it seems to work that way, despite some claims to the contrary.

If Azza has the techs you want to research, his elimination will hurt you. If he doesn't, it will help you.

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, it's a good point I learned recently, seeing it in the code: known tech is multiplied by the number of living civs who know it, divide by the number of living civs total, including yourself. So it's never 100% and the max is (n-1)/n, decreasing as n decreases.

[Haram]

Whats your tech situation vs 2metra?