[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[Charriu]

I've integrated almost all BUG features. Yes the colors are not exactly in sync with the UI. I didn't bother to check so far. I guess there will always differences due to the 3D environment and because it's an overlay.

[sunrise089]

Signs added by other players are never removable as far as I know. In MP games if a teammate tries to helpfully mark a city spot or attack path we always have to ask them to later remove the sign, you can't remove it yourself.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

This kind of sign has to be removed from world-builder, not possible otherwise. I made sure to do so before sending the map for 52.

[scooter]

Any idea how much effort is required of Ramk to remove the sign? If this takes like a minute or two, it would be nice to have it removed. If it's a whole ordeal, I can roll with it.

I've integrated almost all BUG features. Yes the colors are not exactly in sync with the UI. I didn't bother to check so far. I guess there will always differences due to the 3D environment and because it's an overlay.

Oh it doesn't bother me. It only registered because the color difference was enough that I thought I misclicked and picked the wrong shade. It's a lot nicer looking than normal signs at least. Is there a way to toggle their visibility on and off without deleting them? I removed them later because I didn't want them up 24/7. I just wasn't sure if there was a way to hide that layer without also hiding other things.

[scooter]

Any idea how much effort is required of Ramk to remove the sign? If this takes like a minute or two, it would be nice to have it removed. If it's a whole ordeal, I can roll with it.

I logged in just now, and it's already gone. Guess that answers my question . Thanks Ramk? I assume he saw this and went ahead and did it.

[Charriu]

Untested, but in the BUG forum they say you can hide it via CTRL + X

[scooter]

Turns 4-6


Yes, that's correct. We played 4 turns today. Simultaneous pitboss with 6 players is magical. We can't possibly keep this pace though. The part of a pitboss where you have to start thinking about your turns happens much quicker than your standard ancient start. This is why standard ancient start is kind of bad!





Cornflakes appeared to my west, and it's going to take me some time to get used to that color being the Netherlands. Are we sure Carthage couldn't have changed instead? The Dutch being something other than orange just seems... wrong. Anyway, I gave some serious thought to declaring on Cornflakes to kill his scout. I even held right-click and hovered it to check the odds, and it took me a full two seconds to remember we're in Universal Peace, and that's why odds weren't appearing. I guess the giant white text in the top-right corner isn't good enough to get through my head. Anyway, this is a great neighbor for me. Cornflakes is a good player, but some of the other players/choices out there are more threatening. I actually ranked him as my second best neighbor choice. He doesn't have a single trait that fuels expansion, he has no military-boosting traits, and he picked the ultimate Build All The Wonders leader. I'm secretly hoping he can just build them and then let me come capture them later. There's a giant catch, though. The East Indiaman is probably the most fearsome UU on this map where I'm increasingly convinced water dominance will decide everything. It's truly terrifying, and PHI is perfectly tailored to help him bulb his way to fairly early Astronomy. I'm going to have to give a lot of thought as the game goes on as to how to approach this. All in all, though, I'm pretty happy with this neighbor. I at least can have a high degree of confidence that it'll be a long time before he has any interest in fighting me. I can probably use that to settle slightly aggressively if I want without too much fear of repercussions. We'll see how it plays out.





This stone suspiciously looks like the exact midpoint between myself and Cornflakes, what with the mirrored pig on either side of it. I probably will get this if I really want it because my next two cities are likely already headed this way as-is. I could probably settle the stone with city 6 by T40 escorted by Protective Archer(s) if that still looks like my best bet. Side note: Cornflakes' scout is trapped and will waste some serious time because he can't declare to pass through my culture for another 4T. Oops! He'll either have to backtrack or sit there a few turns.


I picked up Hunting, and my first worker pops out next turn, and I've got two resources dying to be camped. Bronze Working will take 6T I believe, but that should time up well to start getting some chops. I'm constantly going to be cutting it a bit close when it comes to unlocking worker techs in time for workers to have things to do, but BW ensures that at minimum, they can prechop something if need be. I'm also pretty sure with the way this looks balanced that I'll already have copper in my territory, so I'd like to know where that is. My money is on the grassland hill 1N of Beijing, which is conspicuously a rare hill without a forest. Of course, I don't think Copper naturally spawns on grassland hills, but I'm pretty sure stone and marble are never forested either, so obviously things are highly edited.


The plan I think is to utilize my food surplus + the half-filled foodbox is to blast Shanghai up to size 4 while building a warrior, and then get a settler out with a double whip. That'll go to the rice city, at which point I should have my workers freed up to quick farm the rice. I think I'll be getting Wheel right around that point too, which means 1 road, and that city is hooked to my trade routes as well. That ensures it almost pays for itself out of the box. Reminder: Currency is an uber tech for me.





Cornflakes has gone for an interesting start. He gave himself two cities to start, and he bought population in both of them. This is different than my conclusions after the first turn, which makes me think I had the complete wrong read on what some of the score increases mean. That aside, he pushed them up to sizes 4 and 3 extremely quickly. That suggests to me he bought some improvements as well, and he hasn't started a worker yet, although he may have bought one.






That said, his food is just 2 higher than mine, despite the 7 to 4 population edge. So he must be living off just 2 hooked foods rather than 3 like I am, or he'd surely be much higher. I initially thought his start was very similar to most players, but he's obviously gone a unique direction like Cairo has. Finally, AutomatedTeller picked up 21 points which was initially the strangest part of the turn. I was so puzzled that I checked to see if it was a religion, but no. Ultimately, the best I can figure is this is just the usual things all happening to line up. 2 population + a tech probably gets you to right around 21, so that must be it.


Fin: 2,2,2 (8)
Pro: 3,3,3 (21)

I've already gotten 21 commerce from Protective alone in just 7 turns. If we keep it simple and call it 21 beakers, that's a full turn of break-even tech for me. That's pretty ridiculous. I think this trait is straight-up excellent in this mod, and these game settings + this river to connect cities juices it up even more.

[sunrise089]

Fast turn pace is nice.

Scooter can you talk a little about the AI diplo rule (that is the rule, right? I can’t find a game ruleset and am guessing the community has heavily normed on certain settings which no longer even get discussed) and what options it entails as well as how it could play out on a Wheel map?

[scooter]

Scooter can you talk a little about the AI diplo rule (that is the rule, right? I can’t find a game ruleset and am guessing the community has heavily normed on certain settings which no longer even get discussed) and what options it entails as well as how it could play out on a Wheel map?

Yes, this is the rule. There is a catch. The AI Diplo I've come to know has been upgraded in this mod. RtR may have it too for all I know. Specifically, someone has added the ability to use some of the other options AI have in diplomacy, such as offering to "Stop Trading With" or "Declare War On." I think that's nice, as it eliminates the games of trying to interpret cryptic trade offers. It may prove to be a downside as other players use it to try to force people out of trading with Protective players.


Anyway, AI diplo basically just means no talking, but you're free to do whatever on the trade screen that doesn't involve typing anything. In effect, it makes dogpiles much harder to execute, which puts a bigger emphasis on outplaying people. One common tactic in tense situations is the war-peace agreement, in which you take advantage of the 10T enforced peace mechanic to lock in an ironclad 10T NAP. I'd like to avoid these if I'm playing a trade route game, but it's ideal in some circumstances. Another angle is it encourages you to get creative. You may not be able to dogpile a top rival, but I feel like people get more creative about propping up their targets because you can't really talk. Stuff like gifting strategic resources, sending map intel, etc.


I think the Wheel map will have a way bigger impact on the geopolitical game though. The main thing is the way Wheel essentially parcels out chunks of land that are "yours" and links them with thin spokes.





So far, it looks a lot like the top image here, where I'm orange, and Cornflakes is white. I think this will tend to result in stalemates early on along the connecting areas, because you'll have one-city fronts with neighbors, which makes it really easy to stack your border city with defenders and not worry about it. This makes me think this game will go kind of deep into the tech tree unless somebody manages to run a neighbor over early. That said, there's two complicating factors.


1) This all changes once naval attacks become viable, primarily at Astronomy. Commodore ought to know this best because his first game at RB was PBEM19 on a Wheel map in which SevenSpirits and company ("RL7") ran people over with early Astro and continued naval assaults to force a concession. From our favorite spreadsheet summary:

GES's well-executed standard cottage/liberalism game was overtaken by RL7's wonderspam, early golden ages and a decisive knights/galleons war to conquer MNG's land blob. RL7 ended the game via a climactic modern era amphibious razing spree crippling the other three opponents, amidst diplomatic controversy.

2) The center of the map apparently doesn't suck in this game. Normally it's a frozen tundra and barely worth fighting over, meaning everyone is in the same 2-front scenario where they barely interact with the other 3 players. From what little bit I've seen, it's definitely not frozen tundra. The idea may have been to spur on fights over it. I haven't totally figured out the ramifications of this. It feels like a mild disadvantage to me because it'll expose me to more than 2 neighbors, which isn't necessarily the case for those in the corners. I may have more options, though, which probably balances it out? I need a lot more map intel before I really know anything further. Obviously Wheel is the base, and you can see the similarities, but it's also obvious that a lot of hand editing went into this, so I have to be careful about my assumptions.

[superdeath]