[SPOILERS] PB50: scooter's Big Cat Adventure

[scooter]

Hmm, starts all got snapped up. I was kinda hoping for start 4, but this will work. While I think about it...

Do you think Spot 1 won’t have commerce challenges but Spot 2 will? Or were you just only focused on Spot 2 above since it was such a rapid pick?

Also meta question since I’ve not lurked a ‘modern’ RB pitboss - do commerce tiles get pillaged a lot, or do you think it’s unusually likely this game because how close everyone is?

I was mainly just focusing on Spot 2. I haven't played or really lurked a Civ4 game in years either, so I'm nearly as out of the loop as you. But my feeling is mostly based around close proximity.

Regarding pillaging cottages, just wanted to make sure you're aware of the mod change that makes towns (and villages I think) immune.

Other way around. Villages are unpillageable but towns can be degraded to villages. (Although don't trust my memory!)

I like your plan, Scooter. In my opinion, RtR still hasn't solved 'mids, and Phi's the only way to nab them. We need Krill to come back to debate it.  

Could be I'm overstating it a bit thanks to this, but it's just my suspicion. That said, if any start would want a cottage or two, it's this one.

As for Pyramids, yeah. It looks like he tried to make Pyramids a bigger investment, but I think all he did was buff PHI, which is already a trait that would like to get Pyramids.

[Commodore]

So this is you. Only one guaranteed nukes, sweet.

[scooter]

So I picked Rome. Rome has some obvious upsides. The Unique Building gives me a 35% GPP boost, which stacks nicely with the 150% boost I'm getting from PHI. It's not a gamebreaker, but it gives me the best GPP boost of anyone, which synergizes nicely with my longer term gameplan. The Unique Unit is obviously the Praetorian. You may have heard of it. While I'm not pairing it with aggressive or planning a rush or anything, it's a nice unit with a long shelf life, even in its RtR form.

The issue lies in the starting techs. Fishing/Mining is pretty good, but Hunting/Mining is best because it allows me to go straight into BW rather than detour for Hunting for the pigs. This delays BW by 5T, which in turn costs me 5 hammers of copper in the capital. When I'm on a super tight timeline for a possible west city vs Superdeath, that's a problem. Another problem with this plan: the common opening of Worker -> Warrior to size 2 -> Settler doesn't work, because Bronze Working completing causes that Warrior to auto upgrade to a Spear. This means making some difficult decisions. Do I push out a settler without a warrior? Do I go Worker -> Scout -> Settler and defend my first settlement with two scouts?


Given all this, I was starting to lean towards just picking Spot 3 and saving my last Civ as a counterpick, because all the unknowns were pushing me that direction, even though I really wanted Rome. It would be easier to know if winning a settling race was possible once I knew my neighbor's civs, which in turn informs me of how valuable starting techs are going to be. The thing that pushed me back and caused me to pick Rome anyway was denial value. Taking Rome off the board given my gameplan seems really valuable. What happens if one of my neighbors goes Boudica Rome? I likely just die. This combined with the obvious usefulness of Rome in general put it over the top, so I locked it in.

[scooter]

Did this real quick because why not. I'm only guaranteed red. I can likely secure one of blue/orange, but probably not both.


Blue: This is ideal and most important to me. As with all these locations, this city is hot flaming trash, but it helps secure my border. 1W of here is unquestionably a better city, but the defensability of this spot is what I like. The question of whether I could beat superdeath here was discussed earlier, but ultimately it comes down to what he does first. For example, superdeath may instead consider settling northwest of his start for the copper on the west coast first, especially since he won't have to race there since Yuris will be busy trying to get the northern fish location. If that happens, this spot is mine. Alternatively, if I'm in a race and on track to miss by a turn, I can redirect my settler 2S of this location. Giving up a riverside grassland tile would suck, but it's better than the alternative. It really depends on how much superdeath wants those lighthouseable lakes versus greener land in the other direction. Also, I could totally culture bomb this city if I really want to be a dick.


Orange: I mean I have to, I guess. The problem is not only does this have no food, but I can't even chain farm the tiles on the coast here, so this city is literally just claiming land. I could move it 2W which would be more useful, but that would be a lot more aggressive in Cornflakes' direction, so it's risky.


Red: Obvious. Maybe move it 1N onto the coal to be able to share tiles, who knows. Anyway, building Moai here will be a pain, but it's gotta be done. At least it provides me with an IC trade route. This will likely be my second best city, which says more about the general land near my capital than anything else.


Good thing Bureacracy exists, right?

[Commodore]

How about splitting blue into 2S and 1N? 2S isn't *great*, but having a port for naval production might be important and the 1N is more defensible (no hill to land an attack stack on easily).

[scooter]

How about splitting blue into 2S and 1N? 2S isn't *great*, but having a port for naval production might be important and the 1N is more defensible (no hill to land an attack stack on easily).

It's worth considering, but my projections would have me settling at like T30, which I think will be easy for superdeath to beat if he wants to go my way. I'm going to have to be flexible with this first settler. Especially given the picks that just happened. I'll come back to this, time for some quick reactions to opponent picks.


Yuris: Hannibal of Egypt

The least spicy choice from my perspective. Hannibal seems fine. I'm generally of the opinion PHI is straight-up better on this map, but with two PHI civs already out there by the time he picked a leader, and the islands he has to expand to, the pick makes a lot of sense to me. Egypt I'm less crazy about. The War Chariot is fine, but in a world where everyone can have spears the second they tech BW thanks to capital copper, I don't think it's an impact unit at all. I think religion is kind of a sucker's game here, so the Obelisk doesn't do a lot for me either. The starting techs of Agriculture/Wheel are fine I suppose. I'm pretty out of the loop on Civ4 games and how certain players are doing because it's been years since I've consistently followed, but Yuris is probably the least threatening player here if his reputation is still the same as I remember. We'll see if he can make FIN shine.


Superdeath: Boudica of America

Oof. I feel slightly vindicated for pointing out that superdeath might take Boudica. Give him Armory on top of that, and this is pretty scary. It doesn't hurt that his starting techs are excellent. I think a lot of the game is going to come down to his choices in the first 30 turns. He's got a well-earned reputation as neighbor-wrecker who tends to kamikaze someone, so I need to hope he goes north. The sliver of good news here is I would guess he does exactly that. To the north is greener lands including a copper and a floodplains that are available to claim, and there's a less threatening player with a slow start occupying that area. Meanwhile to the east are two lighthouseable lakes but not much else, a creative civ, and Praetorians. He could definitely come my way, but I think the risk/reward is better in the other direction. I could well be wrong if he values stopping my gameplan instead. The other thing is my start is less worried about getting settlers and workers out compared to everyone else, and I have the best food surplus, so I can afford to pump out military sooner than Yuris can, for example. Fingers crossed here, because if he does pressure me, I've got more bad news from my other neighbor.


Cornflakes: Lincoln of Babylon

Speaking of, it's someone who appears to have my exact gameplan. I think his leader pick is excellent. He honestly may have preferred Lincoln to my Pericles choice because I'm not sure the culture matters as much for him on the islands, which will be his focus. Babylon hammers home the obvious signals of "please let me builder away." The fact that he's the only person not neighboring superdeath really helps too. The issue for me here is his picks can absolutely contest Pyramids against me. Now, if superdeath random kamikaze dice roll comes up Rome, it'll be tough. If he goes elsewhere, I'm pretty confident I can beat Cornflakes, to it, but it will require a sacrifice or two. His lack of creative makes me want to consider settling 3N of my capital and pressuring him slightly. I don't actually want to try to conquer him early, but I do want to scare him off the MC beeline I'll be doing Boudica-willing. Cornflakes is probably the best all-around opponent I think? I'm not sure anymore, honestly.



Overall, I'm wondering if I overvalued Creative. It's quite possible I did. I considered Lincoln, but my feeling was Representation lessens the need for Charismatic happy, and I'd rather have the extra border buffer to survive the early game until my gameplan comes online. I'm still happy with that choice.

[scooter]

Turn 0

Before settling, I did check demos to make sure everything is as expected.




Confirmed. Everyone is working their food and likely going worker first. Nothing too surprising here. Commodore suggested an Australia theme for naming cities, and naming cities based on their actual physical location. This is a great idea! Possibly in a harbinger of things to come, I ignored this good advice and went with my dumb idea instead.




Hopefully we'll get enough cities to honor a few more of those lunatics.

The plan here is to get vision on everyone's capital first. I'll head west to superdeath first and then make a quick clockwise jaunt around Australia, and then I'll probably come back and use him to keep an eye on Superdeath. The rough plan here is worker -> grow to sz2 -> settler. Tech path will be a fairly tight beeline to Metal Casting. I'll have some more thoughts Soon on which techs exactly I'll need to detour for along the way.

[scooter]

Alright, what’s it going to take to get to Metal Casting. The harshest beeline possible is Wheel, Pottery, Bronze Working, and Metal Casting. That’s 789 beakers pre-discount. However, I obviously need more than that. Hunting is obvious and my first tech. I’m going to want Animal Husbandry, because I’ve got safe horses, and it’s safety in case superdeath sends axes at me. Agriculture is going to be useful to farm the floodplains, and Archery is another cheap but useful self-defense tech. I can skip all of the religious techs, Masonry, and Sailing. Sailing I do especially want to get that sweet IC route, but it can wait. I’m even going to delay Iron Working until after Metal Casting too, because Axes, Spears, and Chariots should be enough to defend myself. If they aren’t, well I’m probably losing the game anyway.


So that gets us to 1,069 beakers, and once adding in the various 20% and 40% discounts, that comes down to 840 beakers. How fast can we get that? Well, my first 20 turns I’ll be getting 10bpt. However, on T21 the gold comes online, and the tile is good enough that I’ll be working it indefinitely. It will immediately double my tech rate to around 20b/turn. I haven’t simmed it out or anything, but I think I can safely ballpark my tech rate will stay around 20bpt for awhile, give or take. Assuming that’s the case, I’ll complete Metal Casting ~T52. I’m going to save both of my chops for the forge, and if I combine that with some overflow and maybe a whip, let’s say I can finish it in ~5T. We’ll then say I start working the Engineer at T58, which would complete him EoT71, giving me the Pyramids on T72. I think that’s reasonable. Tech costs spoilered here for future reference:

I can probably speed that up a bit, and those estimates are all really fuzzy. I think it’s a good starting point and baseline. After that, I’ll probably grab Sailing, Iron Working, and Writing in some order, and then it’s on to Aesthetics-Literature. I’ll try to get a second Engineer which Pyramids helps with, and Great Library will be the goal there. Then I try to generate a Great Scientist for an Academy. If I can get through all of that I’ll be really cooking with gas. Reality is that things could get bumpy along the way, so nothing is guaranteed, but overall I feel like I have a really solid plan. All that said, you know that bit about plans surviving first contact with an enemy...


Commodore, any glaring holes in this plan? Other than "try not to start next to a kamikaze playing Boudica."

[Commodore]

Commodore, any glaring holes in this plan? 

Well, there's a small but critical one...you really do want to have Masonry researched by t71 at the latest.

[scooter]

Commodore, any glaring holes in this plan? 

Well, there's a small but critical one...you really do want to have Masonry researched by t71 at the latest.

Minor detail.