[SPOILERS] naufragar is in for a penny

[BRickAstley]

Mackoti's army has a message for you, curtesy of his MFG:


(Sorry.)

I can't listen to that song without the mashup immediately entering my head.

[naufragar]

I can't listen to that song without the mashup immediately entering my head.

Neat. My first time hearing this. I've got to admit, I find Semi-charmed kind of life really grating, which is odd, because I'm probably the right demographic.

Falling behind on reporting, but no cataclysms to mention. Mackoti is clearly a juggernaut. Founded a city of his own, recently. Hasn't taken Aretas' last, though.

I'm getting sloppy (-er). Here's the latest evidence:


I founded Factory Drift a turn or two ago, and I must've been asleep at the wheel. I didn't know that the continent ended there and that I would end up stranding a grassland. I also, for whatever reason, decided to do this with no worker support. Also, there's not going to be any food for a long damn time. Also, because I have a fogged coast tile, I don't have a trade route to this city. All this city did was delay my currency date by a turn. Speaking of, I did some tile switching or finished a couple libraries or something and got currency down from 6 to 5 turns, so that's why it looks like I over-saved for it. I mean, I did over-save, because I didn't sim, but I wasn't completely clueless.

This shot also shows an island between Adrien and me. Adrien's axe is fortified, which I didn't check until after I moved the scout. He also has a fortified warrior on the plains hill 2SW of Cairo's warrior. This looks like a sentry net? I need to find him. I want to make a play for that island.

[naufragar]

Aretas endures. I can't see his city, so I don't know what he's got or what he's facing, but good on him.

I did meet an axe of BGN's.


I'm tempted to stick around to mess with him grabbing that barb city, but so long as neither Rusten or Mackoti get it, I don't really care, I think. I'm interested in it because calendar (or monarchy) happy has been kind of rare. I wonder that there are two at this spot. The virtues of Boudica by the way? That Axe has Combat 1 and Woodsman 3.  

Mr. Cairo is being nosy.


I misclicked the spear on the deer (SoD?), and moved him to the forest north of Greenhouse Gate rather than into the city, but there isn't any way that chariot can beat him back, so we should be fine. I think Cairo just wanted vision on the city. There's a lot of military in the screenshot, much of which is moving south to deal with a barb axe that already pillaged a mine.   You can see another barb's legs to the north. I've got a pair of chariots now playing zone defense, but on defensive terrain, axes aren't guaranteed kills for them.

I'm falling behind where I want to be in the demos. Mackoti with Aretas' land and TBS with his gigantic pop boom from the Hanging Gardens are out of reach for now, but I'm falling behind plenty of others too.


It looks like I'm comfortably ahead of the average, but that average is being dragged down by Aretas' one city empire. I've got two settlers in the pipe line. I only have a spot for one of them. I'm running out of natural expansion room.

Made peace with Commodore and declared war on Plako. I might be blocking his galley, so we'll see if the work boat is alive next turn. I'm four turns out from currency, which I in my childlike optimism hope will solve all my civ's woes and lead to all my opponents resigning on the spot.

[naufragar]

I could really screw with BGN...


...but nobody's killed my work boat yet, and I'm feeling like paying the kindness forward. Actually, just having that chariot there might be reason enough for BGN not to take the city. Oh well. I'm moving it along next tun. This city has no food, so I assume it never reached 2 pop and would auto-raze, but I don't know.

Oh, and Rusten declared war on superdeath.

[naufragar]

Ok. I can't keep quiet any more. I know with 100% certainty I'm about to jinx everything, but I'm two turn rolls away from the Great Lighthouse thanks to four Mathematics-boosted chops about to land.


I've been slow building the Lighthouse for a while now (emphasis on slow: settled this city 6th, built the granary and lighthouse with tiny natural production). I originally settled this city specifically for TGL because of the 4 forests. Which kinda made me go Mathematics and then I went straight to Currency. I originally thought that this would just be some nice fail gold for the Currency push. (Didn't think I'd get Currency this fast.) And every turn I expected it to fall, and I would've been emotionally prepared. Now that I'm so damn close, suddenly I'm invested.

If I have any shot at all, it's because I teched an early Masonry for stone and Sailing for lighthouses of the normal sort. Xenu, who founded Judaism, obviously has Masonry, but he already took the Pyramids (I think. Going back to check my screenshots, I'm not sure. I said it before, so I'll trust my past self. By the by, Pyramids for Hatsheput of Greece is outstanding.) Other than that, any of the Ind civs could have gotten it or could get it any second. When superdeath landed the Colossus, I said I wonder how long it'll take to get that operational, and the same holds true for TGL. It looks like there's about 1 island in the seas between each player. Anything else needs to come from coastal settlement, and we're running out of available real estate. I have 5 cities on the coast (or, as I like to call them, ready to be boated), and I think I see space for two or three more. I admit I do not know much about trade routes in civ4. I am vaguely aware that trade routes can fill up. I'll need to look that stuff up, come Alphabet. But my gut tells me that this will be a worthwhile pick up. (I warned you way back at the beginning that I would start flying by feel, and the empire's definitely gotten more complicated.) If someone finishes it this turn, it would be painful, but I'll have only lost 70 hammers and twelve turns of worker labor. The worst case would be if someone completes at the same end of turn I do, because then in addition to the above, I also lose four forests. In all of this, if I've made some glaring math error, like TGL actually costing 250 hammers or something, please don't laugh.

The game is getting more interesting on the international stage, too.


TBS is not at war with superdeath. I don't know what's going on here. So long as it keeps Rusten focused East, I'm ok with it. Because of the water, I'm really only exposed to Rusten through one city, while I'm exposed to Mackoti, Mr. Cairo, and in time Adrien through a whole lot of avenues. I would love it if long term, Rusten and I were able to demilitarize our border. Unfortunately, because of a peak tile in his territory, he'll always have vision into my front-line city, whereas I won't be able to see him.

Below is a map stitch, spoilered for size, although I think the image still always loads regardless, so it doesn't save any bandwidth.

I know it looks like I'm not building much military. I'm middle of the pack currently. I'll pick it up again soon. Axes, I think. I think in the far north, we glimpse BGN's culture. I thought he would've been more west. If you have any idea about what border I should make with Rusten, I'm all ears. I've got a settler going roughly due north of Plex Anthill, but I just don't have food on my side here.  Here are some more shots of my other borders. Let's think about how they should develop.



This is my border with Mackoti. I think my feelings about my relations with Mack should be obvious. He's a killer, and it is a matter of when not if he invades. I think I can grab the deer, although any spot up there will be surrounded by his original territory and his Aretas conquests. I don't feel comfortable grabbing the second wheat. If he gets cultural control over that peak, he will have vision into Harmony Valley. I've built walls(!) in Harmony Valley, perhaps as a sign of my advancing paranoia. (Ignore the worker micro. I certainly am.)





This is the Cairo border. The north is a bit more straightforward. That land doesn't have much to it. One of us will grab it eventually. I'd like for it to be me, but there are no resources and any city would be on flatland 3 tiles away from the enemy. The south is a mess. Despite having a sheep and cow in the area, any cities either of us plant would be very food poor. Strategically, both of us probably want some kind of fortified position on a hill looking into the other's culture. That has to be balance with just how upset either of us would make the other. I'm moving my spear to get a luck. I don't think I could dislodge protective archers from hill cities, but given how poorly I'd sleep with a city there, I might be forced to try.

I'm having a lot of fun with this game. It helps that I haven't been attacked and no one has taken my precious wonder yet. I am very curious if building it is worth it. We shall see, I guess.

Before I forget:


I applaud the optimism. Aretas snuck out a settler before Mackoti could wipe him out. Those hammers could have been archers, but it's his game.

[Coeurva]

Just wanted to say that I've been enjoying your reports for this game.

[naufragar]

Just wanted to say that I've been enjoying your reports for this game.

Thanks Coeurva! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I hope it's been easy to follow. I worry that because I'm familiar with the map, I don't give enough signposting for people to follow. Do I remember right that you had a hand in designing the map? If so, great work! This has been really interesting (head-scratching) to play.

As for the turn report:





MOTHERFUCKER!


Fuck you, Plako! Unless you weren't the one who built it, in which case, sorry for the profanity and thanks for letting my work boat inside your borders stay alive!    

Ok, so I'm pretty sure Plako landed this. Good on him. I was super late, and while this isn't the most archipelagic of maps, TGL is still a nice wonder. (Still, losing it by one turn...   ) Question for lurkers: I haven't gotten my fail gold yet and the Lighthouse is still in my build queue. I still have workers poised to finish chopping. I would like to get the gold, but I would also like to start a different build order in Solid Domain now. If I put in another project, an axe say, will I still get fail gold next turn even though the Great Lighthouse is further on down my queue? Haven't ended my turn, so I can figure this out.

Aretas was eliminated, and I'm about to head to the tech thread to offer condolences. From civstats it looks like BGN did the deed. The city was the one pop refugee camp, so it auto razed, I believe. In the course of his war, Mackoti got 4 cities, three from Aretas, one from Rusten, bringing him up to 14. He is dominating the crop yield and mfg graphs. Oh, what's this?


Mackoti hooked up spices and incense? How did he do that? He has gold to trade? Weird. How come no one else does?

If you're lurking here, you probably know the answer. Mackoti already has both Currency and Calendar. Thank you pillage gold and double great scientists. I realize I should be checking this screen to see when people reach Currency.

What are we going to do, folks? What are we going to do?

I should add: I obviously have no ill will towards Plako. Just ranting for effect. Despite losing the wonder race and seeing my militaristic neighbor become global top dog, I'm still having a blast. I won't issue another warning for melodrama, so let this one cover the rest of the thread.

[Dark Savant]

Just wanted to say that I've been enjoying your reports for this game.

I am too, incidentally.  I can't really comment much, for obvious reasons.

Question for lurkers: I haven't gotten my fail gold yet and the Lighthouse is still in my build queue. I still have workers poised to finish chopping. I would like to get the gold, but I would also like to start a different build order in Solid Domain now. If I put in another project, an axe say, will I still get fail gold next turn even though the Great Lighthouse is further on down my queue? Haven't ended my turn, so I can figure this out.

You'll get credit for any hammers already invested in the Great Lighthouse (the bright part of the bar, not the medium-dark middle section).

The case where you don't get failgold (in RtR) is if you put hammers in to a wonder in one place, and actually build it in another to try to give yourself intentional failgold.

[Coeurva]

Since you asked: I had almost no input at all on designing the map (be thankful), outside of a small correction to one or two starting locations; I only played postman for the sandboxes. The map is mainly the work of Cornflakes, Krill, Mardoc, and RefSteel (iirc -- there may have been others), as well as GermanJoey's MapCAD creation/balancing tool.

I've had no difficulty following, but a T100 "grand update" could be especially nice for general lurkers, since other players might be inclined to do the same for the jubilee.

[naufragar]

Glad you're enjoying it, Dark Savant! Also, thanks for the info. I've changed the Lighthouse build to an axe. And then put one chop into it because I'm a monkey mashing keys randomly? I had thought about letting my chops go into the Lighthouse for even more failgold. I'm worried about my tech rate for reasons I'll clarify when I finish currency. I thought better of that plan when I realized that coastal cities value every hammer they can get.

a T100 "grand update" could be especially nice for general lurkers, since other players might be inclined to do the same for the jubilee.

I'm looking forward to doing this. I've settled a couple cities I never mentioned. (One was Solid Domain, because I was superstitious about the wonder build.) So that update will be a chance to defend my dotmapping. Here's hoping I live 7 more turns!

When I logged back in, I took another peek at the graphs. Mackoti's gold saving rate has gone up to 74gpt, exactly double mine (37gpt). But a picture is worth a thousand incoherent whimpers.


You can see on the graph where I turned on research after saving gold for a million turns (or, ~10 turns), so my GNP isn't truly awful, just mediocre. But boy. Graphs, am I right?

Does anyone have a good resource for reading up on civ4 trade route mechanics? I know how to calculate trade route value, and I know that cities default to trading with their most valued possible partner, but other than that I'm a bit at a loss. Is there a way to tell if another player won't be a good trade partner? (Already filled up on routes, for example?) And if trade is symmetrical (barring things like harbors in one city but not in another), how are there trade deficits?

I ask because I've been noticing that it looks like my island city is giving routes to like 4 other cities, while on its own city screen it only shows the expected 1 route. I realize it's a big question, but I can't find a civfanatics article which is usually my cheat sheet.