[SPOILERS] naufragar is in for a penny

[naufragar]

Ok. So, last we left off, I was sad but understanding that the turn was being held until we figured what was up with superdeath's resignation. I practically had a foot out the door when I noticed the turn in fact rolled. So I figured, eh, it'd take all of twenty seconds to play, so I fired it up.




Hello, Carter Page, patriotic scout of BGN. I can't stop him from getting vision on my cap but hopefully he heals up for a while. Then, I did the smart thing and commit all my EP to Rusten so I can get graphs on the neighbor I think is closer.




(This is the step I skipped on the replay.  I went in after I ended turn and fixed it, but I doubt this will actually work. If this was illegal, please let me know. If it's ineffective, I'll find out for myself soon.    )

I assumed based on the 100% for Rusten, that Rusten too had 2 EP into somebody (not necessarily BGN, but that would be simplest). I had to run out, so I figured I'd just log back in to check at the end of the day. Replayed the turn (promo Scout to Woody 1 since we're gonna move to a forest next. Pigs pasture is finished. Made sure to work it instead of the ivory.) Check EP spending:




Interesting. I was wrong about the 100% thing. I might log back in later to check that. So Rusten either hasn't met anyone or has remembered to put EP on me.

You can see in the first screen that I am the only member of the Just Starting Techs Club. Mr. Cairo and Elkad both got Bronze Working. I could've sandbagged my second worker to get Bronze Working faster, working the floodplains instead of the ivory, but that just means that fewer chopped hammers are going into my settler. I think I'm ok with this path so far.

You seem to be counting warriors as 1k increases in soldier points. This was the case in the original Civ4, but they account for 2k in BtS.

Thanks for point that out, Coeurva. I knew that at one time. (I had a public freak out when rival top power went from 6k-8k and I thought somebody went warrior first.) But things keep slipping from me. I was even referencing that page, so no excuse. I need to take the time to have a serious sit down with the demos numbers, but until I can do it seriously, I should probably just drop it.

[RefSteel]

I went in after I ended turn and fixed it, but I doubt this will actually work. If this was illegal, please let me know. If it's ineffective, I'll find out for myself soon.

This was perfectly legal, and will be completely effective! In a pitboss game, ending turn just signals to the game that whenever everybody else has ended turn as well, you are willing for the turn to roll. You can do anything after ending turn that you could do before ending turn, and it will be equally effective, so long as the turn has not actually rolled. Fair play (what's "legal") is more complicated, but going back and correcting something you forgot to do on a replay to something you actually did the first time through is not only acceptable but preferable (or even required if it was an irreversible action like a whip or a unit move).

Generally speaking, you should try to make all of your moves before ending turn, mostly so that other players will know whether they're before or after you in case a turn split situation (war or settler race) comes up. But even with that caveat, if you log in again after playing your turn because while thinking over the turn or writing your report or asking lurkers a game mechanics question and receiving an answer that surprises you, you find there's a change you'd like to make, that's generally fine as long as there is no actual turn split in effect. (It's also fine if there is a turn split, but you play last in the turn - i.e. if you're player B in your example above - and mostly okay but much more frowned upon if you're in a turn split with someone playing after you, and that player has not yet logged in for the turn by the time you log in for the second time.)

I guess that was a lot of detail - I hope it's helpful though!

[naufragar]

This was perfectly legal, and will be completely effective!  

Thanks Ref! And thanks for your post. It was incredibly helpful. I had thought that the interface would just lock up or something. I think I tried changing tile assignments when another player was connecting, and I assumed a similar freeze would happen. It's nice to know that barring turn splits, I can correct mistakes (not that I'm gonna be trying that frequently). I always spend a long thirty seconds making sure I didn't forget something even when it's just time to move a scout. (Because, as we see, I do forget things.)

If anyone is watching civstats, they'll see I've logged in and out 3 times this turn. Wonder what they'll make of that. This most recent time, however, was for a good cause.




All this time, I'm trying to read tea leaves for who's met whom, and I've got a handy foreign advisor screen right here. Ok. BGN and Rusten have met. Rusten has continued to put all his EP into me. BGN has put those into another rival.

I mentioned that BGN seemed to be following Krill's game plan in PB37 for superpromo'd units under Boudica. I certainly wouldn't know how to play Boudica. Aggressive? I really don't know. BGN, from what I've seen, is very detail-oriented, so maybe he uses great micro to overcome the lack of an early game econ trait? (If we don't call Chm that.) Khmer is fine. The elephants are a wacky unit. Should be interesting to see what he does with them. I want to like the baray because +food is awesome, but then you're building aqueducts. BGN got a tech on turn 9, which I decide to call Agriculture, because I liked the sound, so he wasn't going straight for bronze working first. Other than that, I know nothing.

[naufragar]

BGN decided he didn't want to wait 8 turns to get vision of my capitol.




On the one hand, I suspect he declares war next turn, moves to the river grassland and then to the deer or plains. On the other hand, he could've declared war this turn and moved to the hill just south of my ivory. So perhaps he's at least trying to signal non-immediate hostility. (And it would take the concentrated effort of a real jerk to camp my pigs, so I think we're safe on that front.) Again, I don't really know anything about Rusten, except he's experienced, but I know BGN is a killer from first hand lurking.

(I was thinking the other day about neighbors I'd like to start next to, and honestly? This entire roster is pretty tough. The timing didn't work out for me to join greens games in the past, and I think we're reaching a stage in civ4's shelf life where the people left around are toothy. Part of why I was ok with joining this one is that if I get rolled, it shouldn't unbalance the game too much...)

You can see research set to wheel. I desperately need to update my sandbox, maybe tonight. The original thinking was that wheel gives us stuff to do and I don't want to farm the tiles that can be farmed here because I'd just redo them with cottages. Luckily I haven't found any grains and I can settle for pigs or sheep in the immediate future. Not shown in this screen is the worker moving 2S to start chopping next turn. He needs to move to this forest to be in range of the sheep. I checked the timing and even founding on the third turn of my settler's life as opposed to the second, I still need to double up workers to get the sheep pasture done in time.

Which I guess is a hint that I still want to found for the hilly pigs by the NW peak first. My thinking is that it's the closest spot I can pick that adds its own first ring food to the empire. The deer and corn tiles to my SE look great but it will be a long time before I get the needed techs.

City #3 will be settled for copper. (I guess I forgot to mention: Look! We have very close copper! Wonderful!) I have no idea where city #3 will be settled, but it will pick up copper. The grass hill south of the cap's sheep is sensible, defensible, and way too conservative. It really just kinda sucks. I'm very tempted to found on the desert south of the hill, just so I don't have to work a desert tile. That ridge of desert hills will hopefully form a natural boundary and delay any southern aggression. (As stated before, flatland is the devil.) I'm way too paranoid cautious to do anything cute like found for first ring corn and deer and get the copper with border pops. (Although, given that I've seen nobody too near... No. No. Not waiting on border pops for my copper.)

Man, that scout needs to hurry up and heal. And I need to hurry up and sim and dotmap.

[BRickAstley]

If anyone is watching civstats, they'll see I've logged in and out 3 times this turn. Wonder what they'll make of that. This most recent time, however, was for a good cause.

In lategame of big games, it isn't uncommon for a player/team to log in and out 10+ times on a single turn. so you're in good company.

[naufragar]

In lategame of big games, it isn't uncommon for a player/team to log in and out 10+ times on a single turn.

I'm happy to let my mind wander to the game occasionally at work, but if I had the ability to log in and reinforce my paranoia, I'd become a basket case. Let's hope I make it to late game, so we see how I react...

I'm feeling warm fuzzies to BGN.




Past events have proven your good nature. I'm happy he didn't declare war. (Not that I'd really care if he trespassed to get through, and I understand the desire to get vision on a cap. I'm more happy that he might be signalling peaceful intentions.) I'm kinda confused about the move though. He could've moved to the plains 1E of where he is, saw that there was another hill 1S of the forested one and gone there to get the same vision, I think. I could be wrong about vision rules. Perhaps he is hedging and hoping that the forest hill might provide a shred of hope to his 0.2 health scout? But I'm grasping at straws. Maybe he heals up on the more defensible tile. (And how does that scout not have a promo? Feels like he must've tangled with something worth 2xp.)

In SP, sad to admit, I pay little attention to espionage because it feels a bit Sisyphean.




One day we'll get there, and graphs won't be just slipping out of reach.

In the first screen, you can see that worker about to put his first turn of chopping into that forest.




Worker's at 41/60. City makes 8 foodhammers.
End of Turn 19, worker's at 57/60, chop comes in. Overflow is (57+8+20-60) 25 hammers.
Turn 20, we start a warrior. Hammers going in is overflow (25) plus base (2). We'll overflow 12. Worker 1 moves south to the forest. Worker 2 moves south to the other forest.
Turn 21, we start a settler. Overflow (12*1.5=18) plus base foodhammers (9, thank you Imp).
Skipping to Turn 23, the settler is at (18+9*2) 36 hammers. The chops come in for 60 hammers (thank you Imp). Add the base 9, and we complete the settler EoT 23 with (5/1.5) 3 hammers overflow.

After that, we probably build a warrior to completion at the cap. We revolt while the settler moves. The two workers pasture the sheep and move together to the forest grass hill SW of the capitol. (This is the only move that doesn't waste worker turns in transit. Maybe that's not reason enough to do it.) I need to check, but if memory serves, one mines while the other chops in order for the cap to grow and get the warrior out before the chop comes in. This is sort of barbaric and seems so, so wrong, but it appears efficient? I think we lose hammers to overflow otherwise. Will double check. We put the chop into another settler, I believe, while the second city builds a worker after growing. (It doesn't have time to complete it's warrior.)

After that, who knows? It feels like we're lightning fast to three cities, but then what? We can't put hammers into granaries. We don't want to build too much military. Workers, as stated way back on page 1, are the potential for stuff rather than stuff itself, and we want to get away with building as few as we can, and even as Org, we could very easily overbuild settlers.

This opening feels interesting to me. I enjoyed trying to be efficient, and back when I originally did this sim, it was a fun exercise. It's neat how some of this feels like my choice, and other parts feel kinda forced upon me: drawing Julius Caesar of Germany strongly suggests I should go BW first to get the Imp bonus on chops and whips. Once I did that, I felt locked into 2 workers first because, again if memory serves, going work-war-settler saves us little to no time. That second worker pays itself off with chops quickly. So, my leader and civ decided a lot of my opening. Once I knew I wanted a fast second settler (and who knows? Maybe what feels fast to me is small potatoes to this field.), which forests to chop were also kind of decided, because, in my opinion, the advantage of a fast settler is lost if you need to travel a far distance. (Even leaving aside things like difficulty of worker support.) So I needed to settle quickly, and I didn't really have good tiles to work, and it makes sense to share the best food tile that cap has. (Yet another parenthetical aside: if we had to play the next seven turns right now, I'd plant south of the peak. I'll try to make time to figure out if going for bronze first is better, but I can't imagine it is. I want the new food. Oasis barely counts.)

I would not say I'm confident that this opening is good. I would say that I'm confident this is the best 24 turns possible for my skill level.

[naufragar]

We have graphs!




Now, what do we do with these again? Looks like as of two turns ago (graphs are 2 turns delayed, right?) Rusten has not built a warrior. That's nice.

BGN still tiptoes around.




As far as I can tell from his scout's facing, he went SE to the grassland and then up to the hill. Man's being thorough. (If I ever play another game at RB, something for future opponents: I would not take it personally if BGN declared to move through. If I then had a warrior in reach, I'd pop his scout. That's just scouts and warriors doing what scouts and warriors do.)

Rusten has been paying better attention to his EP spending than me. As far as I understand this screen, he knew exactly how much EP to put into me and then shifted off:




That's the kind of focus on details that I don't have and will eventually separate the vets from the greens, I guess. In response, I moved my EP off Rusten to BGN.

The scout finally healed up. Yippee.




I was apparently too excited at finding silver to show the scout's final position. He's dancing in the trees now.

A nice luxury and all these nasty plains or desert hills is making me really wonder if this isn't meant to be a natural boundary.

[Cornflakes]

I believe 43 is the magic EP number to shoot for

[naufragar]

I believe 43 is the magic EP number to shoot for

Ah, thanks. I am also very glad that RtR removed active spy missions: I'd feel silly trying to figure out each player's production every turn....

[Coeurva]

Espionage costs for passive missions (i.e. those not involving spies) are m * (100 + x), where x is the amount of espionage points your opponent has invested in you, and m is a modifier depending on mission. Graphs are 0.3, research is 0.75, city vision is 1.25, and full vision is 2.0.

43 is the lowest integer for which 0.3 * (100 + x) <= x, or in other words, ceil(30/0.7).

Give a man a fish...