[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[retep]

About the score thing. I think another factor is huts. Depending of how much gold they have got from huts they could snowball really hard. Hipotethicaly speaking if they got enough gold to beline currency and Alpha at 100% then that is a huge advantage.
Have any of you check F8? With that score Dtay probably has the largest population in the world.
Also the factor of quality of land is important. No doubt there are people that had start close to gold/gems. That definitely helps too.

In another news, I see that pindicator was indeed in the center of his island.

[Old Harry]

Yeah, huts are another unbalancing factor - I think we're competing for the "most huts in the game" award. Unfortunately with Fintourist's poor hut-popping technique we didn't really benefit as much as we should...

And we need more predictions retep - it looks like CH's island isn't the same shape as ours, so how does that fit with your worldview?

[Fintourist]

Some quick responses as the new turn isn't up yet:

You know how I'm a bit too concerned with the scoreboard? I'm happy that we're bobbing along in the group around third place, but I wondered how Dtay and BGN have jumped ahead so far?
- Dtay is EXP/PRO and has a habit of starting fast anyway, he's got some good wonders and he could be gaining a little land using Stele's, but not much, so I don't think his score is totally false, but he's got to slow down after the landgrab phase.
- BGN is CRE/PHI, so he could be in a similar position to us but with CRE land points and the Philosophy bulb inflating his score. How well he spreads Taoism could dictate his tech rate later - something we failed at in PB13...

I feel a bit better about BGN's score now, so just need to worry about Dtay from here on out!

Both dtay & BGN are surely having a great start so a high score is deserved although those factors that you mentioned are also real. I assume that you will be a bit happier as we get our Moai + Civil Service score bump during the inter-turn..

On scouting - further west through Pindi's land, trying to end turn inside cities so he doesn't spot us? I'm surprised he's happy to just let us troll through his territory - we'll cancel OB's the second it looks like he wants to scout us, right?

Sounds good to me, although we can discuss that "cancelling OBs" thing once it becomes relevant. We don't need pindicator's OBs for trade route gold at the moment.

- Dtay is making 280 gold - our best at 0% is 145

Yeah, that's really high. Jewish shrine is a reasonable part of that gpt, that religion has spread like crazy..

Once we have graphs on CH and a few SAs in place what do we do with our EPs? Cynheard's graphs, dtay's graphs, Pindicator's research?

Probably at least Cyneheard's graphs, other than that I'm pretty open to suggestions..

- We're going to come out of the golden age switching to OR and one of the religions we have, so during the GA it would make sense to build units, working out what infra we want on what timescale before Guilds comes in. I'll need to think about this a bit more.

I approve this logic

- We want to spread both Buddhism and Hinduism to Alfie for two monasteries

Tech path:
I think you explained your thoughts a while ago but I couldn't find them - is this what you were thinking
- t112 Saving cash on Poly - GA starts
- t113 Save cash
- t114 Save cash
- t115 get Polytheism
- t116 get monotheism
- t117 get monarchy - get Academy for Alfie for small boost
- t118 Revolt to HR/Bureau/Slavery/OR - GA ends
I don't think Med and Priesthood are useful to us yet, so lets not waste beakers on them. They could be handy for overflow beakers later on...

City builds:
- Alfie's next infra, while waiting for MC, could be an aqueduct (although Horse Archers are good too.)

Hmmm. As you said, Alfie does not currently have that useful infra to build so Medi+Priesthood is maybe not such a bad idea after all (so that it can build those monasteries soon and due to pre-req bonus thing grabbing those makes sense before Monarchy). If not, the above teching guideline is what I was thinking as well.

- Gertie wants the Globe, but I dunno where we would use 8 theaters? Vulnerable coastal cities? Market and HR will do for now...

Yeah, 8 theaters is a lot and not something that we will rush in the near term. Eventually I'm sure that we have 8 cities that would like some extra culture..

- Stable then HAs before the Library in Hazelnut?

IIRC Hazelnut already had some hammers in library, but I must check how many. I mostly want it for increased culture output as CH's capital will eventually pop borders for a 3rd time and start gaining control of our crabs..

- Jelly bean is halfway to that library, but given that Alfie will work all those cottages relatively soon I'd suggest building it some mines and getting a Barracks in place.

I think there are also not that many hammers missing so completing the library probably makes sense. But barracks + units + couple of mines sounds otherwise decent. (Sorry for "overbuilding" libraries! Maybe I should have gone for military in couple of cities instead, but at the time those libraries were started HAs weren't yet an option).

- Kirby needs a library after the SA for our next GS, I like your whipping-axe-into-infra technique here.

- I dunno what our new tundra cities will be for, so I'm not sure what Infra they'll want to build...

I guess they are kind of hybrid weaklings.. They need granary+lighthouse for food, and then barracks+library+forge are probably basic pieces so that the commerce of those coastal tiles gets a slight boost and those coastal tiles can be whipped away into military efficiently.

[Fintourist]

Have any of you check F8? With that score Dtay probably has the largest population in the world.

Last time I checked dtay was leading with pop point 6.XX % while we had 5.something. Pindicator was however the land leader of the civs we've met.

[Old Harry]

City builds:
- Alfie's next infra, while waiting for MC, could be an aqueduct (although Horse Archers are good too.)

Hmmm. As you said, Alfie does not currently have that useful infra to build so Medi+Priesthood is maybe not such a bad idea after all (so that it can build those monasteries soon and due to pre-req bonus thing grabbing those makes sense before Monarchy). If not, the above teching guideline is what I was thinking as well.

Right now Alfie is at about 14 health - we can probably trade for two or three resources we don't have (rice, clam, banana, etc) and we'll build a grocer for +2 or 3, then the forge is -1 so our health cap will be 18-19. We can get to size twenty, but probably no bigger, so its possible we can cover it with resources, but if we do decide we will need the aqueduct we could put some hammers into it now, while there is no better infra to build... After the HA of course. Do you think we'll need an Aqueduct eventually?

- Gertie wants the Globe, but I dunno where we would use 8 theaters? Vulnerable coastal cities? Market and HR will do for now...

Yeah, 8 theaters is a lot and not something that we will rush in the near term. Eventually I'm sure that we have 8 cities that would like some extra culture..

- Stable then HAs before the Library in Hazelnut?

IIRC Hazelnut already had some hammers in library, but I must check how many. I mostly want it for increased culture output as CH's capital will eventually pop borders for a 3rd time and start gaining control of our crabs..

Theater in Hazelnut! The library is about half finished I believe, so might as well complete it, then build a stable, but after that just mounted units please!

- I dunno what our new tundra cities will be for, so I'm not sure what Infra they'll want to build...

I guess they are kind of hybrid weaklings.. They need granary+lighthouse for food, and then barracks+library+forge are probably basic pieces so that the commerce of those coastal tiles gets a slight boost and those coastal tiles can be whipped away into military efficiently.

Does Granary->Forge->Lighthouse or Granary->Lighthouse->Forge work better? I'd assume the second without testing. I'm not keen on libraries in places that won't get cottaged for very boring reasons:

If we grow on coast to size 5 we'll be making about 24 commerce (inc trade routes), assuming 50% tech rate a library will be worth 24 * 50% *.25 = 3 beakers a turn.

If hammers are worth about 1.6 commerce (going from Seven's maths from a while ago) those 90 hammers = 150 commerce and it takes 50 turns for the library to pay back at 3 a turn. Even being more generous with what hammers and beakers are worth it's still not a good return. Once the cities are size ten the payback is more like 25 turns, but that'll be a while off...

Right now I think units are going to be more use - we could whip and chop these cities for unpromoted Cats I suppose - so I'm not even sure that Barracks are going to be that useful (oh, perhaps for the culture if any cities get planted before the GA artist border pops).

Where is Zanth?

[Fintourist]

Turn 112




GA begins..




Brand new civics.




Not long anymore until we have our Bureaucademy capital..




GA demos.. That #1 MFG is a real monster.. If we turn tech on our GNP is above 500. I think there is a chance that we will surpass the lurker civ during the GA..




And for the first time we have a top5 city

Do you think we'll need an Aqueduct eventually?

Eventually, sure, so yeah, I guess it's a decent idea to build it already a bit in advance. Maybe couple of HAs first though and we wait for Organized Religion? During the GA our capital could 2-turn HAs for a while.

Does Granary->Forge->Lighthouse or Granary->Lighthouse->Forge work better? I'd assume the second without testing. I'm not keen on libraries in places that won't get cottaged for very boring reasons:

If we grow on coast to size 5 we'll be making about 24 commerce (inc trade routes), assuming 50% tech rate a library will be worth 24 * 50% *.25 = 3 beakers a turn.

If hammers are worth about 1.6 commerce (going from Seven's maths from a while ago) those 90 hammers = 150 commerce and it takes 50 turns for the library to pay back at 3 a turn. Even being more generous with what hammers and beakers are worth it's still not a good return. Once the cities are size ten the payback is more like 25 turns, but that'll be a while off...

Right now I think units are going to be more use - we could whip and chop these cities for unpromoted Cats I suppose - so I'm not even sure that Barracks are going to be that useful (oh, perhaps for the culture if any cities get planted before the GA artist border pops).

Yeah, 2nd one is probably better order in most cases. And yup, no reason to push libraries too early (if at all) apart from real commerce cities and our Great Scientist producers.

[Old Harry]

Jumped into the game to figure out some stuff:

Keep growing Alfie! It's got 4gpt trade routes too . Presumably we're growing onto a plains or hill cottage next turn in which case we'll make 18 hammers during the GA and 11 after (lets assume we then grow onto the remaining cottage by the end of the GA so it'll be 12 afterwards). We only want to build a forge, a monastery and an aqueduct before we get to Guilds, when we'll want a grocer (then a bank when we hit Banking). I guess we get MC on the last turn of the GA, so with OR:
- the Forge will be 120/(12*1.25) = 8 turns
- the Monastery will come after the forge so 60/(12*1.5)= 3.33 turns
- the Aqueduct is 100/(12*1.5)= 5.55 turns
So before Guilds we want about 17 turns of Infra built here. Do you think we'll take less than 17 turns to get to guilds after the GA ends? If so we should put some hammers into the Aqueduct during the GA.



You forgot the Moai-in-GA shot - Gertie is actually struggling for happy here - with an SA it could grow bigger quickly, but that's five turns away and unhappiness would be problematic, so a settler and HR units is probably the best option . Where is this settler going?



Jelly bean doesn't need a lot of buildings - so could we switch to making a HA this turn and complete the library once we're in OR?



Cornelius' happy cap grows with the completion of the SA this turn (forgot to get the figure, but I think it's on 25 right now) - should it work the corn instead of a cottage this turn to grow? Ignore me - that's not how the SA works after all . We're two turns from being able to grow it...

[Commodore]

Nice GA!

You know, you guys should totally join PB22. Just discard the sandbox, you'll have the time/rest of us will have a ghost of a chance!

[Old Harry]

I've been pondering what we're likely get out of warfare in this game.

If we conquor Azza easily then we face Mardoc, an experienced player with a good shrine helping his tech rate. If we find Azza tough going then Mardoc could make some gains of his own, perhaps cheaper than we can. We need to get research visibility on Mardoc at some point soon because I'll be surprised if the time it takes us to () beat Azza doesn't allow Mardoc to get near us on tech. Hopefully there will be more fighting between the two of them before d-day.

The real prize attacking Mardoc is his capital, you can make out the culture on here, so there is a lot of territory to slog through to get there . In any case I'll be interested to see what the border looks like when our chariot gets there in the next couple of turns.


This is our invasion force so far (has Azza seen the HA yet? If not lets keep it hidden for now):


Finally this is what we're building (except that I switched JB to a HA).

[Fintourist]

Just for the record, I'm not ignoring OH's previous posts, we just addressed those things as we chatted yesterday..

You know, you guys should totally join PB22.

Ha! Thanks Commodore! But at least I do have too much on my hands now. 1,5 months until my full-time work begins, still lot to do before that (finish thesis).. OH will take over the turn-playing responsibility here, but maybe he is crazy enough for another game..?

I've been pondering what we're likely get out of warfare in this game.

If we conquor Azza easily then we face Mardoc, an experienced player with a good shrine helping his tech rate. If we find Azza tough going then Mardoc could make some gains of his own, perhaps cheaper than we can. We need to get research visibility on Mardoc at some point soon because I'll be surprised if the time it takes us to () beat Azza doesn't allow Mardoc to get near us on tech. Hopefully there will be more fighting between the two of them before d-day.

I'm more optimistic than that! Shrine or not, I feel that our economy is strong enough that we can fight a war and still stay decently ahead of Mardoc. Although I think it's not realistic to assume that we could take the whole continent without either of our opponents reaching e.g. Feudalism. (Azza is far away, but Mardoc certainly has time and required teching power.

The real prize attacking Mardoc is his capital, you can make out the culture on here, so there is a lot of territory to slog through to get there . In any case I'll be interested to see what the border looks like when our chariot gets there in the next couple of turns.

I actually revealed Azza's dental plan (10 axes, 2 spears), but I'll need to replay my scouting moves and will post a shot once I'm allowed to really play that thing.

(has Azza seen the HA yet? If not lets keep it hidden for now):

Nope. Yeah, let's keep those hidden as long as possible. The plan could be to keep HAs away from the border, but close enough that they can reach a staging tile in one turn if needed (and not in one stack, distributed here and there).