RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Shoot the Moon]

Is Spulla as ahead in the game as they claim? I see their city sizes as 5, 2, 2, 1 and they are not that ahead in tech. They might have gotten a couple of cottages ahead of everybody. But they claim they are way ahead of everybody else….

My impression is that they are. I don't think anyone else even has half as many workers as they do. Whosit is the only other one with four cities, but he doesn't have nearly as many workers as they do, and is hurting economically because of it.

That being said, I don't necessarily think they are assured to run away with this game. They are going to soon run out of land, while others such as IKZ, Rome, and even Jowy have more land to expand into. Spulla is also at a disadvantage in settling the islands, as they moved their capitol inland and have not even researched fishing yet.

[Krill]

I'm not sure. I think Whosit is only 1 worker behind Spullla? 5 v 4, after the worker is built in the cap next turn.

[zakalwe]

The early academy should provide quite a boost, though. Which would snowball into early calendar and other nice economy boosters.

[novice]

comparing their screenshots
T65 - trade route exists

T66 - trade route does not exist

can someone offer explanation what happened?

Err.. What are you talking about? I see trade route icons (three arrows in a triangle) in all cities in both screenshots.

[T-hawk]

Well, it depends. The reason he is doing it the way he is is so that the pop he loses from whipping grows back immediately. That is generally the preferable way to whip. The main problem is that the most efficient time to complete a granary is half food and the most efficient time to whip is 2 food from growth. By one criteria, he is certainly micro managing correctly, by the other he is not.

My name was invoked, so here I am...

You're right about the two conflicting guidelines for when to whip. For most whips, the best time is right before growth, so the city regrows immediately and at a smaller food cost, minimizing the duration and impact of the lost population.

Granary whips are different since the whipped item itself provides food and is sensitive to the state of the food box. Most of the time, "food half full" wins. If whipped right before growth, the granary doesn't actually do anything until the food box refills to half.* So instead of whipping the laborer immediately, let him work the next tile for a few turns until the granary whip. This was the point of my analysis in the Apolyton game.

Even that isn't strictly superior either way, though. It's a tradeoff of the 2 food of smaller food box versus whatever the next laborer produces in the turns before he's killed. And if the next laborer doesn't have a 2-food tile to work, you will come out ahead on food by whipping the granary sooner before the city grows. Finally, the other tradeoff comes if the whip anger clock will not run out before you want to whip this city again; in that case, it can be correct to whip the granary ASAP to start the anger clock sooner. This is uncommon though as most cities will want to take 10+ turns without more whipping, to grow onto their good tiles and to the happy cap.

*Technically the granary starts filling its hidden store immediately on the turn after it's finished. But that fills up when the food box is half full, so then the granary doesn't do anything during the second half of filling the city's food box. This is functionally identical to switching the order of those operations so it's simpler to think of the process the other way around.

The magnitude of the effect is small in any case, no more than a couple hammers or food. It's not like in Civ 3 where a single turn error on completing the granary could cost 10 or 20 food.

[Kristian95]

Err.. What are you talking about? I see trade route icons (three arrows in a triangle) in all cities in both screenshots.

He is talking about the trade route with Dantski

[novice]

He is talking about the trade route with Dantski

Aha
For the life of me I couldn't figure out what difference he was referring to, but now I notice the trade icons in the contacts list...

Can't think of any explanation except a barb galley along Dantski's coast.

[antisocialmunky]

Interesting letter:

Hey Ottos,

Might be too late to play nice with Byzantine. Our relations went cold around when you attacked them, although the reason is a sum of many things. Anyway what matters is that they don't trust us now (if they ever did), and they seem to believe that we are building an army to finish them. I found a way to abuse that suspect for our benefit India's recent diplomacy message tipped me off that they have a pretty tight relationship with Byzantine. Byzantine will tell everything to India: India will think that I'll use my army against Byzantine. That should help me against India and shouldn't hurt your war.

About that diplomacy message that tipped me off.. India wants to give Byzantine copper/iron, exactly what we suspected yesterday! However they don't have trade routes, so they want me to give copper/iron to Byzantine and they would give me theirs. Going to decline it by saying that I don't trust Byzantine, which would just strenghten their beliefs that I'm going to attack Byzantine. Unless you have some other plan in mind, let me know.

Tech path wise, cba to list all my techs, but basically from more advanced techs I have Iron Working, Sailing inc soon, then on to Writing. I've pretty much ignored the religion techs. Not sure where to go after Writing. Probably the economy/military route instead of cultural.

Btw what do you think of Incans? (IIRC your neighbours to the south)

While it is nice and echos what I mentioned a few posts ago, I think Sullla will suspect it. Jowy + Dantski build up will make it kinda obvious. Still, I hope it slows the Indian Builder's Paradise down.

[Ruff_Hi]

Turn 68 has begun:



- Chamberlain found rice and fish resources in the fog. Maybe we'll think about putting a city here someday... or perhaps better yet, we'll found some cities on that landmass in the center of the Donut that grab the fish!

Not if they play like the AI and found 1 tile off the coast. Why didn't they move pink dot 1 tile East?

[Swiss Pauli]

Moving it east would trade off grass river tiles for coast, so I think it's in the right spot where it is.