Anyone up for an EitB SG?

[Brian Shanahan]

I forgot to check how many civs are in the game while I had the save open. Anyone know how many more we have not met?

We could end up taking over the Doviello, who are in a pretty tough position. They do have space to expand to the north and west, from what I could tell. But their capital is not strong, especially after we took out their farms. Do we want to consider an attack on them to try to prevent that, or do we just want to push expansion and let the chips fall where they may?

Standard number for Standard size, so I think 8 AIs total.

Edit: I was wrong, see above.

[DaveV]

Save downloaded, playing.

[haphazard1]

Good luck, DaveV!

[DaveV]

Whether because of haphazard's wishes or just good karma, I did have some very good luck.

Summary: I meant to play 15 turns, but played 16 due to not being able to subtract, I guess. I plopped down two more cities, put in a lot of worker improvements, and finished research on Bronze Working. Here are my screenshots:



We're the right alignment this time. Tough choice: great prophet is probably better long term, but shaving a few turns off bronze working would let us get our splody zombies out sooner. Wait, who cares about the long term? I went with the research boost (+143 beakers, shaved 3 turns off the research time).



Nice mutation.



Sure, why not?



We're looking good.



Overview. I was hoping we'd flip that incense tile away from Rhoanna, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. That would have been a nice commerce boost. A stack of pyre zombies would be another way to get cultural control...

[haphazard1]

Looks good, DaveV! Two more cities, more growth and development, and Bronze Working tech for our pyre zombies. Good stuff.

Did the Malakim's map reveal anything interesting? I will have to look at the save later, not on my Civ computer right now.

[DaveV]

Did the Malakim's map reveal anything interesting?

You can see them on the minimap in the last two screenshots, and they appear to occupy the western end of the continent. I'm guessing the continent is shaped like a Z or U, and the missing civs are to the south of the Hippus.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'll give Parkin to Saturday to say if he can pick this game up and if I don't hear from him by 7pm Irish time, I'll take the game myself.

I'm guessing the plan is "go asplode some heads!"

[haphazard1]

Took a look at the save. A few thoughts:

- The Malakim, according to what we know of them, have two cities, and not very large ones. So how do they have roughly 70% of our score? Score is pop, land, techs, and wonders, right? At least those are the categories that show up when you hover over our score, with about half being pop and about a quarter each being tech and land. Tiny bit for wonders, which I guess means our palace in this case. So how can the Malakim be that close to us in score with so few cities and so little pop? They don't have any world wonders (only one shown is the Heron Throne, built by the Calabim). They do have Exploration since they traded maps with us and can get open borders (do we weant to do that, btw?), but surely they could not have all that much tech that we do not.

I know there is a delay before land points apply -- you have to control the tile for some number of turns before you get points for it. So with our multiple newer cities maybe we have not gotten many land points yet. That might explain some of the difference. But with half our score being pop, and the Malakim not even close to us in pop...seems very odd.

- The coastline we can sort of see across the water to the southeast -- I wonder if that is part of our same continent, connecting south of the Hippus, or if it is another land mass.? Either way, it seems likely the Balseraph and the unknown civ are over there somewhere.

- There is less land to the west than I thought, with the continent ending just beyond the Malakim. Definitely less room for the Doviello to expand into than I was thinking, with most of what they do have available being yucky tundra and ice garbage to the north.

- I still have no idea how we got contact with Alexis. I never saw any Calabim units that turn, and I did look for them. Their power graph line was doing big jumps and drops at that time -- could it have been a summons of some kind that made contact, then disappeared? But what could she be summoning this early? Or maybe it was contact across the water somehow? Any ideas?

[DaveV]

I'm guessing the plan is "go asplode some heads!"

That's where I was going, as you can tell from my build queues. You are, of course, free to make your own changes.

- I still have no idea how we got contact with Alexis. I never saw any Calabim units that turn, and I did look for them. Their power graph line was doing big jumps and drops at that time -- could it have been a summons of some kind that made contact, then disappeared? But what could she be summoning this early? Or maybe it was contact across the water somehow? Any ideas?

The AIs love to capture animals, and will often make contact from far away if they happen to capture a griffon.

[Brian Shanahan]

OK I have the save. I think we can slot Lord Parkin back into third place on the roster and if he doesn't call for it this time round, we'll put him on a skip til further notice.

Back again soon with the game. I'll take the game to 110 just to even up the numbers from here on out. We're getting to the point where ten turn sets are enough.