[SPOILERS] Retap is over and Retap is gone...

[WilliamLP]

Also, note we can be sure the starts aren't mirrored now. Wow, 1174 land tiles for nine players? That's pretty close indeed! The naive and mostly wrong calculation is that pi * (6.5 squared) is about 133, so that's the kind of max-min radius we can expect if players are perfectly placed with non-overlapping circles, which is mathematically impossible. Still, we'd expect to find another player within like 13 tiles straight or 9-ish diagonally, on average, or a little closer.

The stone looks accessible by land, right? The beaver is nice but also means we can't delay AH for too long. Non-exp working the oasis without hammer loss might be able to find time and excuse to go for a religion somewhere, not sure we can.

The scouting strategy looks correct to me. There was an argument to go E first, since it looks like it might be a dead end you don't want to waste scouting moves getting to again later, but with so many 1-move turns onto the oasis or forests, probably not. I might consider uncovering a bit more southeast before looping back? That's where we're most likely to find a human. But you'd risk a bad roll with bear spawn or something too, I guess. I also kind of like leaving some fog around the capital that the first warrior can uncover (you have him on T24) so that the scout can take a bit wider arc. But again, not many moves to spare with settler T30-ish.

Without seeing more, the PH that shares the corn is looking like a nice second city spot?

Do you care if I log in sometimes? I would never move a unit or change anything, and I wouldn't log in before you in a turn to have to react to diplo windows, if possible.

I've been really busy in real life, but I should be able to run some sims tomorrow after work.

[retap]

I don't think we can get a religion (not a early one at least) we need to many techs this early.

Going more southeast before circuling back sounds fine to me.

You can log in whenever you want William.

Yeah the PH looks good but IMO it needs another food resource to consider it for a second city.

Now off to work

[WilliamLP]

Sandbox here if you don't have one yet (I know you're a pen and paper kind of guy): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3860...dSwordSave




Note Standard world size, not Large, so tech rate is slightly faster than some other games. The sandbox above should match the real game. Costs:

Fishing / Archery 59
Mining 74
Wheel / Agr / Priesthood 89
Pottery / Meditation / Masonry 119
AH / Poly / Sailing 149
Bronze / Writing / Mono 179
Iron 299
HBR 373
Computers 19435 (you need to build internet just to log in)

And meh, I guess Wheel first only saves 1 worker turn, and a road 1S of Pedro is nearly useless anyway - it doesn't really do anything that a road on the hill SW wouldn't do. So Agr / Mining is pretty obvious first. (Meditation would be 10 turns, no way we could afford to slip that in and not be very behind in worker techs.) After that, I guess we both think for a couple weeks whether it makes sense to go Bronze next or something else?

[retap]

Thanks for the sandbox William, now if only Ichabod makes a google doc and start making C&D
I do use sandbox mostly to confirm that I did my math right

Yeah is a standard map, Harry said so in the sign up thread.

Is agri/mining ideal? I was thinking mining/agri doesn't afect the worker but that way I could go BW in case is somehow necesary still scare of the impi rush

Another turn:



Found ivory another happy resource that requires AH. To be honest I don't like this, this makes me think that others also have early happy resources except they probably got the metals (which are stronget IMO)

The stone is in an island, it needs sailing to reach.

Lots of forest and hills but no so much food so far, also where to move next?

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, no reason not to go mining first, I think you're right. I don't see any downsides to the red scout move?

Yeah, I'd much prefer a metal happy too. But furs on a grass forest, that's not bad! And two easy happy means we're not extremely jealous of Charismatic. I'm really not a believer in Elephants in RtR, but I could be convinced to be wrong. Defensively they don't really do anything that a spear can't, and offensively they're really expensive for a unit that also loses 1-1 with a spear. I've yet to be afraid of them from either side. I feel like Longbows do almost everything better, including even offense.

That stone is such a tease.

Testing a couple micro plans using a webapp I wrote for PB 18, maybe more to come.

Your previous plan:

My program thinks you only get 15 settler hammers on turn 25: food surplus is 3, then 2 (capital) + 2 (plain forest) + 4 (mine), and 4 bonus because we get the +60% on the 8 hammers, not the food.

Another plan with immediate growth to size 4:

That one's up 18 commerce on T31, down 4 worker turns, up some warrior turns for scouting. I think the soonest we can (reasonably) get bronze is EOT29... I hate to say it but yeah, starting with any two of mining + hunting + agri would have given us some more flexibility for nice early whip micro plans. Like you, I don't know about bronze next, but then there's a chance that seeing copper will inform the second city site, and also it's nice to revolt in the turn the settler moves. And chops are amplified by both the leader traits.

This plan looks bad at first glance since it finishes T18 at 23/24 food in the box. But it does get a settler out T30.

There are also the 1 worker openings that would get a settler out faster, e.g.

I believe that would get a settler out EOT 27, but is 3-4 turns of a new city worth the many lost worker turns? I'm thinking not, since those could be going into mines (great for us) and chops. And also it isn't like starts where you can plant a city connected on a river and get an immediate +2 commerce for trade routes either.

My gut likes the size 4 plan with 2 workers so far, with bronze first. Because after that you can very quickly put in more chops and maybe get the whipping econ started for a very early city #3 going from size 4->2.

[Ichabod]

Why would I help some retap smurf dude that I don't even know? Where's my friend retep? And who's Pedro?

Pedro is actually the name of the main character of the book I'm writing!

Yeah, don't expect meaningful contribution from me.

[WilliamLP]

How about some opponent analysis? (I'm not Commodore, so this won't be good. )

Rough order of ascending chance to win:

HAK + Fenn: Mehmed of HRE (Mysticism/Hunting) Mehmed is a very good leader in any mod, Org is very arguably the strongest trait, and they get a bonus on tons of buildings, and an awesome synergized courthouse. I like the UU too, though it's use and era are very specific - it's not often you want to go engineering early. So I like the combo, but am skeptical about the player. Civ takes a certain uncompromising and ruthlessly logical personality and obsession with detail. I don't feel it. I think Mindy is ded-lurking which is... interesting! I think Mindy is a very valuable ded-lurker, pointing out small things with an obsession with war, but you need to ignore about 80% of the advice or you're just going to be last place in econ. Adoring war, combined with being (imo) too optimistic about what attackers can do in this game, it's not a great combination.

But... as has been shown many times here, this game isn't won by safe rational play. If someone only makes moves that a rational and very attentive player wouldn't be able to defend against or take advantage of, they will be passed by the players who seize the day.

Grimace: Ramesses of Celts (Myticism/Hunting) I don't get this combo at all. He's going to want a religion for the free revolt. But where is he going to get time to do it and where are the concrete bonuses? This start is going to be poor before forges, and Spi is good for late game micro, but what's he going to have to micro? I don't know much about the player, but don't get the feeling he's very strong right now.

Borsche + AgentJohns: Shaka of Ottomans (Agriculture/Wheel) I don't have much to say here. I'd love to play Agg in RtR at some point so I'd like this leader. The techs are good. The players? Again, pretty green and I know very little.

Elkad: Hammurabi of the Dutch (Fishing/Agriculture) Decent techs if they have a fish, good traits (with slight anti-synergy we talked about). I know nothing about Elkad.

Donovan Zoi + AdrienIer: Bismarck of India (Myst/Wheel) The combo designed to Min/Max Stonehenge. Beyond that it seems pretty strong, I'd be happy to try this. The techs are terrible though, and the PB2 chop the second worker opening is off the table. This combo really wants two or more food with the first worker tech. I really don't know about the players. They're newcomers and from what I've seen, players who are good, start out by being good.

Gavagai: Mao of Carthage (Fishing/Mining) Gavagai is a bright guy, kind of erratic. If he knows I'm over here, I'm not sure if this guy considers me his best friend. I would fear him a lot if he were committed and dedicated to this game and doesn't lose focus. That's a very valuable skill in this game.

German Joey: Genghis Khan of the Zulu (Agriculture/Hunting) I think Joey is extremely smart, and slightly insane, but with enough self-awareness about it to make this a very dangerous combo. I think he is adapting to the RB metagame where the games are more about relationships and non-diplo diplo than where he came from. I wouldn't want to start next to him, but I also think he'll act more rationally in self-interest than Gavagai will.

Commodore + dtay: Sitting Bull of Inca (Mysticism/Agriculture) This is the modern Speaker / Sullla. (They've even both been suspected of being their smurfs.) This combo, plus it being Dtay, means they already know exactly on which turn they will reach Lib. Dtay always wins the early middle game and Mikehendis it up with fantastic econ and micro, and gets crashed on by someone calling him on lack of defensive preparation. Commodore's strength is experience and the acquired intuition for battle, and paranoia, and ruthlessness, and he (imo) isn't up to the very top tier in economic play. So these guys, at best, could maybe compete with anyone at all. Or... maybe we get both their weak spots together? Hehe.

[WilliamLP]

Why would I help some retap smurf dude that I don't even know? Where's my friend retep? And who's Pedro?

Pedro is actually the name of the main character of the book I'm writing!

It took me a little while to read his name backwards!

Also, yeah, sorry, not sure this will be as fun for you as a Gaspar thread...

Edit:

well, unless we can get Retap to post a tier list. ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

[Ichabod]

Also, yeah, sorry, not sure this will be as fun for you as a Gaspar thread...

Gaspar is indeed a modern version of Cassandra, with a slightly different curse: he can bring infinite joy to the world, but only at the cost of his own misery. And that's why we all love him.

Either way, a good troll trolls with what he has.

[retap]

I'm to tired to do this right now but a few things:

- In the first one you are putting hammers in a workboat
In my attempt you need to work: pigs, corn, PH mine. Yes I know that before I write forest hill that was a mistake (danm tables this is why always do pen and paper ) And everything will finish T30.

-Your second one exchange early workers turns to growing early. To be honest I like it since those early turn there isn't anything vital to do with the second worker.

One thing that could be done is in T26 both workers move to a grass hill, T27 mine, T28 finish mine. This way you only need 4 more hammers to finish the settler in T30. The way to get those hammers could be delaying finishing the warrior before the worker so when the worker finish it would have 2H overflow which means that could give 22H in the first turn of the settler in T26, that way the settler finish T30.
Now I don't know if you actually get that 2H overflow from the worker.

-I don't think one worker before settler is a valid option anymore.

-I have been trying to make an oponent analysis but I don't know what to said that haven't said before, regardless I'll try to do one tomorrow.

-Hey Ichabod are you writting my biography?

Now off to bed!