[SPOILERS] First time RtR

[Erwin]

I played your turn according to your instructions. Set your civ password to changeit

[B4ndit]

Thanks a lot. If I do not manage to setup wine version of Civ today evening, could you just continue moving scout: 1NW (plains) + 1NE and then clockwise?

[B4ndit]

I have clicked my turn. Thanks again Erwin.

[RefSteel]

It's great to see you got everything running so quickly! Now, as for RtR threads that are worth a read ... there are a lot to choose from! Some suggestions, spoilered only for length:

One problem with RtR is that the mod is a moving target: Krill keeps updating it, and the changes can be significant between games. In fact, I think the only game played so far with the current version of Creative was PB37, and the only player with a Cre leader in that game was Gavagai, who ... doesn't post very often. That said: The closest thing you'll find in RtR to the PB2 Spulla thread is probably one of Krill's. He has a very, very different style from Sullla (and Speaker) but he does report many of his games very thoroughly, explains his reasoning, attracts other experienced commenters to his threads, and answers questions from curious passers-by and newish players as he goes. One issue is that he is much more likely than Sullla to skip over important steps in his reasoning process and expect the reader to keep up anyway. His PB37 thread, as Boudica of Inca, is
here. I haven't read all of it, so I don't know for sure how informative this specific thread is, but there's a lot of good general stuff that can be mined even from what I just looked over in the first few pages before anybody makes their civ picks.

There are a couple of other good threads from PB37, which I'll highlight just because it's the one game I know of that's played with (almost!) the same version of RtR - with the important caveats that map trading was enabled in that game, it was a much smaller game, and there may be large differences strictly because of the map. Still, there were several players who were new to Realms Beyond and RtR when they signed up for that game, and they not only learned the ropes as they went (and in some cases did really well in the game) but in some cases had dedicated lurkers with a bit more RB experience than they had:

Coeurva not only described his decisions and reasoning in meticulous detail, but had Bacchus as an active dedlurker. Bacchus is very smart, quite a capable civ player, and an excellent instructor: He's good at explaining not just what to do, or even why, but how to think about your planning to better figure things out for yourself. He tends to mostly restrict himself to strategic advice, but there are plenty of micro notes to wade through in that thread if you're interested. Chumchu (OT4E's dedlurker in this game) also participates in that thread, and ultimately took over the civ, for what it's worth. Coeurva did really well for most of that game; he was eventually eliminated, mainly because of a couple of key strategic mistakes, culminating in an ill-fated attack on Krill.

And then there's the team that won the "thread war" (highest post count and most numerous thread views) in that game: JR4's. He played a terrific game, and wound up 4th in a field of 9 in his very first MP game, ahead of one of the game's deadly veteran sharks, and in spite of occupying what the game winner called the most difficult position on the map. He documented his game thoroughly, and his dedlurker (errr ... me) provided some interesting early microplans and later strategic thoughts (and some silly stories about our civ throughout) in spite of the fact I'd also never previously played an RtR MP game in my life. Don't read that thread for how to leverage Spiritual, because we really, really didn't; don't emulate us too closely in general for that matter: We were responding to our specific situation, and anyway we misread a number of strategic points in the game (e.g. we were constantly worried that GJ and dtay might invade us when that was the last thing on their minds). I also don't think I'm nearly as good an instructor as Bacchus, though I was lucky in this case because JR4 and I worked really well together as a team. But if you want to see new players doing well and having a great time with the game, and want to see how they did it, then yeah, I can recommend that thread even though I'm in it.

You can also check out the list of completed games and their outcomes to see which were running RtR and then find the players' report threads in the completed games subforum - just beware those mod changes. (For instance, PB27 had some fascinating threads, but it was played on a 3.x version of RtR mod, and in many ways that made it a totally different game.)

I hope that's helpful - and I'm glad you're getting the chance to play in this one!

[Coeurva]

I'm flattered but I don't think my thread is instructive (especially in relation to its length), there are just too many mistakes I made. The obvious lessons from that can be condensed to "don't fight anyone pre-Construction/HBR unless you can confirm they don't have copper; don't fight over islands with a high-potential naval power eclipsing you in both output and XP output when your land neighbour is twice your size, and also said naval power is checking the apparent game leader; don't underestimate how a veteran can pull himself out of a hole".

PB13 was played with RtR 2.0.3.x but has some amazing threads (Commodore (images broken now), dtay, FinHarry, mackoti...)

[B4ndit]

Small update from me. Here is my situation from the previous turn



It appears that I'm at the end of the map, which I generally consider a good thing. However my biggest problem so far is that I didn't make any contacts with the other civs and didn't explore the map... All of this is because some annoying unlucky dice rolls. Super early in the game I have lost a scout in a defensive battle vs lions (9.9% odds of loosing on a forest tile... you even see this freaking lion in the corner of my screenshot), then I lost a warrior again in a defensive vs a bear (~25% loosing odds - I was on a forrest hill tile..) and just couple of turns ago I've lost another warrior in a defensive battle against a barb warrior (if I remember correctly that again were 9.9% odds of loosing on a flat land forrest tile)   Odds of loosing all of those battles was 0.2%   Even not counting lost beakers, lack of contact and lack of situation awareness may prove fatal for me.

Now that I have vented myself, I will try to build a workboat and explore the coast line. Also I'm sending vulture to explore in a north west. Also I will have to try grab as much as possible land to the north/north west from me.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for the update! Sounds like some ugly pRNG. Hopefully the odds will even out as the game goes on!

[B4ndit]

Unfortunately Gavagai attacked me with his war chariots possibly with the worst timing for me Couple of turns ago I made small gamble with building two settlers and postponing some long overdue additional spearmans. Once I was about to do it, I had to fight of barb pillaging my copper resource and I had to fend of this barb with my spearman, thus moving it away from Gavagai. Lack of copper postponed my military catch up a little bit. Also in the turn preceding the attack I whipped some cities, which left me with no pop for emergency whipping on the border with Gavagai :/

In a hindsight my biggest mistake was neglecting protection of the copper and lack of scouting on some directions. The second part would be easier without those unlucky rolls at the beginning

In case if someone will have to jump in for me for one turn or so:
- first of all please do as you think is best and as situation will demand
- whip spearman wherever possible
- whip barracks in south most city