[SPOILER] Dark Savant's thread: Competition for limited resources remains a constant

[Mardoc]

  I have a lot of pet peeves. 

One of them is the British military causing strange emphases in what people know.  Example: prioritizing knowledge about South Africa and the Zulu over sub-Saharan Western Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

You'd think Americans would emphasize the latter; most African-Americans are descended from slaves taken from sub-Saharan Western Africa, and Christianity in Ethiopia has a very long history. 

I don't think it's the military, so much as the sources.  Specifically, the language of the sources.  It's hard to study things that aren't written about in your language, and history and language learning are separate skills.  Some of that is self-perpetuating, too.  Without much general high level knowledge, it's hard to realize there's an interesting question to study.  It's not like there's a shortage of history, even restricting yourself to one region there's more than can be learned in one lifetime.  

Granted, the military has some effect, since they tend to write exciting things down.  But I think the real effect here is that there is only American general knowledge on places written about in English, and to a lesser degree Latin/French/Spanish.  Even German-speaking places get scant coverage, let alone places with difficult or less-useful languages.

You can see the same effect in people's knowledge of Asia and even Europe and South America: it's not nearly as much about the importance of the events as the ability to study it.  Brazil, Eastern Europe, the 'stans: neither written in English nor in the common languages we learn, and thus deemphasized.

[Dark Savant]

  I have a lot of pet peeves. 

One of them is the British military causing strange emphases in what people know.  Example: prioritizing knowledge about South Africa and the Zulu over sub-Saharan Western Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

You'd think Americans would emphasize the latter; most African-Americans are descended from slaves taken from sub-Saharan Western Africa, and Christianity in Ethiopia has a very long history. 

I don't think it's the military, so much as the sources.  Specifically, the language of the sources.  It's hard to study things that aren't written about in your language, and history and language learning are separate skills.  Some of that is self-perpetuating, too.  Without much general high level knowledge, it's hard to realize there's an interesting question to study.  It's not like there's a shortage of history, even restricting yourself to one region there's more than can be learned in one lifetime.  

That's a significant part of it, yeah.

But it's not as if South Africa was the only part of Africa the British got their hands on.  They also colonized what's now Nigeria, and English is still a major language there today.  It's partly because Nigeria is one of those countries that is an artificial European construct, and deciding to use English is a convenient way of getting around the problem of "so which native language do we actually use?"  (Nigeria is roughly evenly split between Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa; choosing one of the three as the main language will upset the other two.)

But you don't hear as much about Nigeria, either during colonial days, or now, even though Nigeria is far larger both in population and economy than South Africa.

South Africa gets a lot of attention partly because it's frankly a mess in so many ways.  Plane crashes attract a lot more attention than safe plane landings!  (If you do hear about Nigeria, it most likely has something to do with either a 419 scam, or Boko Haram.  This despite American national television routinely showing a literal Nigerian prince.  )

There is good reason for a Civilization player, specifically, to know about the Zulus:

• In the Battle of Isandlwana, a small number of British rifles were overrun by a swarm of Zulu impis.
  
• In the Battle of Rorke's Drift, a small number of British rifles managed to hold off a swarm of Zulu impis.
  

Two good real-life examples of "so what happens when a small number of technologically advanced military units take on huge numbers of not-so-advanced units?"  

(Also, wow no one picked the Zulu in a 16-player game.  Impis aren't so hot on this map script, I suppose.)

Granted, the military has some effect, since they tend to write exciting things down.  But I think the real effect here is that there is only American general knowledge on places written about in English, and to a lesser degree Latin/French/Spanish.  Even German-speaking places get scant coverage, let alone places with difficult or less-useful languages.

You tend not to hear much about the history of German-Americans even in the United States!  Though that has an obvious cause: the two World Wars caused the suppression, both voluntary and otherwise, of the once-vibrant German-American culture.  If that hadn't happened, I think German would still be the most common second language in the United States.

Going back to Nigeria, there's a separate reason why you don't hear about British military ventures there.  They didn't get there in force until the early 19th century, and by then the British were hell-bent on suppressing the international slave trade.  Lots of African-Americans are descended from Yoruba or Igbo sold by indigenous slave traders, and the British went out of their way to try to snuff out slave-taking activity once they had the capacity to do so there.

Personally, I think that's an inspiring story that deserves more attention, but you can probably think of reasons why liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans would not want that.

You can see the same effect in people's knowledge of Asia and even Europe and South America: it's not nearly as much about the importance of the events as the ability to study it.  Brazil, Eastern Europe, the 'stans: neither written in English nor in the common languages we learn, and thus deemphasized.

I wonder if that's going to decline with the easy availability of knowledge these days?  It hasn't happened yet.

Then again, I don't think people know enough about, well, everything.  

[Dark Savant]

Okay, all of the remaining picks are in.

BaII is Mehmed (Exp/Org) of the Khmer.  The Khmer still don't really look good in an Ancient start, though maybe BaII just really wanted Hunting/Mining as his starting technologies and was disappointed that both Ethiopia and Germany got taken.

Pindicator is Pacal (Exp/Fin) of Arabia.  The synergy here is that Financial helps to claim an early religion, and the main reason to take Arabia is for easy Great Prophet generation to back that up.

Borsche is Suryavarman (Exp/Cre) of the Persians.  Suryavarman is too early-game-minded for my taste on this map script, though Borsche didn't have many choices to pair Expansive with the Persians; Peter was the other good choice.

Commodore is Wang Kon (Fin/Pro) of Mongolia.  I'm not sure what the game plan is there.    It should work out well enough, though.

OH/Hitru are Victoria(Fin/Imp) of the Inca.  Nothing really stacks with the Incans now, but this should be fine; they couldn't take Pacal after all if they wanted to be Financial.

That's a lot of Financial leaders that got taken late, huh.

Also no one took Philosophical.  Really?    No one wants to try for the game's quickest Astronomy?

And no one decided to be a third person taking Industrious.  That's good for me, but I thought someone else would want to take that for a spin with this many players.  That suggests there may not be as many forests out there as I suspected.

[Dark Savant]

The two neighbors I really don't want are still Boudica of America and Shaka of Rome.

In the latter case, I should still be okay if I can fortify a choke point city on a hill, as is not unlikely on this map script.

There's not necessarily much I can do about the former.  I don't think superdeath is as suicidally aggressive as his reputation is, but he does still like early attacking, and Boudica of America means he will try rushing with Woodsman II axes if he sees so much as a vague hint of an opening.

Also, wonders.  Unless I luck into a situation where choking someone else with skirmishers will actually pay off, I have to build some of the early ones in order to have the economy to keep up with all the shrines and Financial civilizations.

Bismarck of Mali faces the task of expanding borders, which I haven't had to deal with in multiplayer before.  So Stonehenge is definitely on the table, and with the only other Industrious leader being Aggressive (mmm RtR-barracks giving +1 culture), I have the best shot at it.  I don't have to really plan this until about turn 17 or so, when I'll know more about what's around me ... but if I build Stonehenge, I may unavoidably generate a Great Prophet before I can spawn another Great Person.

What am I going to do with a Great Prophet?

• Build a shrine?  It's unlikely I can get an early religion.  Pindicator and GeneralKillCavalry made choices that basically said they want early religions; an Organized leader of the Aztecs now wants to reach Monotheism early, and there's no shortage of Mysticism starts on top of that.  In order to have any real chance at all, I may have to beeline Monotheism after Bronze Working.  That may lock out all of Agriculture, Pottery, and Sailing.
  
• Bulb Theology?  Dubious at best.  It'll get me a religion, but how am I going to generate a second Great Prophet for the Church of the Nativity?
  
• Fire an early Golden Age?  I may not have the technologies for any new civics at the time the Prophet spawns.  It'll help me come out of the crashed economy I may have at that point, at least.
  

Maybe I could arrange to also build the Oracle quickly enough for a forge to beat Prophet generation, but even if I could somehow land both of those, that's just asking to cripple early expansion and/or lead to me becoming an irresistible early lunch.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, let's look at focusing on the Oracle.

If I build the Oracle as my first wonder, I can whip out   a forge and have the Great Engineer beating the Prophet without difficulty.  And I should have less competition for it than normal for a 16-player game here.

As Gavagai's leader and civ choice basically say "I want to build the Oracle", though, I wonder how much trying to compete with him will work out.  I still likely have the edge on him if I really want it, but it may be better to take his "suggestion" and go for other early wonders instead.

I'm also assuming that no one is going to build the Oracle or the Great Lighthouse on just one or two cities, which will beat an Industrious leader building them while trying to expand.  It's happened here before, after all; it never seems to end well, but that hasn't stopped people from doing so.

This also assumes that going out of my way to generate a Great Engineer for the Pyramids is worthwhile.  At least no one is Philosophical, which is another way of putting out an early Great Engineer.

[taotao]

What am I going to do with a Great Prophet?

One option would be to simply build Stonehenge for the culture and and let the great prophet hang out for a while before launching your first GA when you're ready for it. 
Usually you want to use GPs asap as you've given up stuff to produce them and want to catch up with your snowball, but here, once the wonder is built you're not required doing a single thing to get the GP.

I'm not familiar with the full of resources mapscript, but on regular big and small I do find "free" borderpops incredible useful when it comes to placing cities and getting them productive. So, without cre/agg/spi/inca and ind to boot I feel like chopping out SH in say your third city (if it hasn't fallen by then) could be quite powerful.

I also like the engineer into mids thought, but a fast Oracle really is more about the tech than the production so I'd expect stiff competition. Especially from spiritual leaders who can benefit from that path.


(will be ded-lurking you this game, but probably won't be very active and sadly can't cover if you're in need of a sub)

Edit: made a table of players (not a tier list) for a quicker look:

[Dark Savant]

Oh hey, I didn't realize you were still around!

What am I going to do with a Great Prophet?

One option would be to simply build Stonehenge for the culture and and let the great prophet hang out for a while before launching your first GA when you're ready for it. 
Usually you want to use GPs asap as you've given up stuff to produce them and want to catch up with your snowball, but here, once the wonder is built you're not required doing a single thing to get the GP.

Yeah, we could do that; it's likely the right thing to do.  But something feels so wrong with having a Great Person sit around for dozens of turns.

I'm not familiar with the full of resources mapscript, but on regular big and small I do find "free" borderpops incredible useful when it comes to placing cities and getting them productive. So, without cre/agg/spi/inca and ind to boot I feel like chopping out SH in say your third city (if it hasn't fallen by then) could be quite powerful.

Two cities may be right if we want Stonehenge.  It's not that unlikely, given our back to the ocean, that we'll want to lay out three cities in a conga line.

And enough people build Stonehenge on 1-2 cities that I'd wonder about the ability to land it on three, but I'm expecting this crowd to not try too hard since they know there's a good chance I'll beat them.

And yeah, you can definitely use the free border pops on this script.  Relations with neighbors can be very different, but not that.

I also like the engineer into mids thought, but a fast Oracle really is more about the tech than the production so I'd expect stiff competition. Especially from spiritual leaders who can benefit from that path.

The competition is what I'm concerned about, but at least no one can hook up early Marble and have it help.

I'm known to try hard for the Great Lighthouse, which is probably also strong, so it's totally okay to go for as well.  I'm not sure which will be less contested.  I don't think we'll see a repeat of PB39, where the Oracle didn't fall until something like turn 86.

Unless someone tries for Stonehenge off of one city (you can get away with that and do okay-ish), of the three early key wonders that's the least likely for me to see competition.

Stonehenge alone isn't adequate payoff for burning a trait on Industrious without the ability to build a shrine, I feel, though.  I should try for one of those two, hard.

(will be ded-lurking you this game, but probably won't be very active and sadly can't cover if you're in need of a sub)

Thank you!    It's okay if you won't be very active, you always sounded busy whenever you've showed up and real life is important, too.  

Edit: made a table of players (not a tier list) for a quicker look:

That's a lot of shades of purple and brown, isn't it?  

That's going to be some stiff competition.  Oh well, this is technically a test game.

[JR4]

I`m dedlurking you as well. Good luck!

You do have the option of building some shiny wonders with Ind/Exp. Stonehenge has a lot of value and will likely be heavily contested. I like going for the Great Lighthouse if it`s a watery map. Third time`s a charm, right?

Skirmishers are hard to beat in the ancient era, especially on a hill. I`d even consider settling up on one of your neighbours with a couple of those.

[Dark Savant]

I`m dedlurking you as well. Good luck!

Wow, that's a lot of ded-lurkers, thank you!
Maybe I'll actually have what it takes to compete!  

You do have the option of building some shiny wonders with Ind/Exp. Stonehenge has a lot of value and will likely be heavily contested. I like going for the Great Lighthouse if it`s a watery map. Third time`s a charm, right?

This script places coast almost everywhere.

We might be on a round-ish continent where we won't get actually that many coastal cities.  It occasionally happens with this script, but it's very unlikely with this back-to-the-ocean start.

So yeah, the Great Lighthouse is valuable.  Likely so valuable, in fact, that I wouldn't put it past someone else to beeline it on a low city count.  That may even make sense with an isolated start.

Skirmishers are hard to beat in the ancient era, especially on a hill. I`d even consider settling up on one of your neighbours with a couple of those.

That depends very strongly on where the neighbors are, of course.  Odds are good there is a choke leading to any land neighbor, and the most likely number of land neighbors is two.

[Mardoc]

I wonder if that's going to decline with the easy availability of knowledge these days?  It hasn't happened yet.

Then again, I don't think people know enough about, well, everything.  

Perhaps very gradually...the trouble is for something to be general knowledge it needs to pass the hurdles of 'elementary and middle school teachers know a lot about it' and 'written into the curriculum'.  And both of those are chicken and egg problems.  Hard to convince a curriculum committee to expand the requirements, especially for something that's not STEM.

Personally I've been enjoying filling in some of the gaps in my history knowledge with podcasts.  I tend to go from the edges of what I know outward so I still haven't made it into Africa