[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[superdeath]

I hid the entire maps uranium in that barren wasteland. /nod

[Charriu]

Oh so you found a storage facility for all of the nuclear waste

[scooter]

Turn 43





Whew, ok, lots to unpack here.


1) Is that... a possible city location with... 3 first ring seafood? I have never seen that before. I think I have to settle the southern spot in case I need to culturally fight for the clams. Any chance I can get a WB edit to move one of these seafood to my east?


2) TBS settled his 5th city last turn (tying Cornflakes and passing AT!), and it was right here. That makes this center location pretty awkward. I suspect he'll be able to capture that barbarian city, but he may want to raze it. What's awkward is what happens in the event of a raze and replace from either one of us. Due to where we both placed our own cities, there isn't a good way to fit two cities in this middle area, and there isn't room for any at all until the barbarian city goes. I suspect he'll just capture it. I'm not sure I want to contest it though. I'm already having to invest quite a bit to defend Bigfoot, and another city in this area would make it harder.


3) Cornflakes, don't tempt me like that with your city undefended. I'm about to have a Galley with a unit on it in the area. I want us to be generally friendly, but I'm going to have a hard decision to make if that city is still empty in 4T. Surely it won't be. I moved my Chariot away from that tile after taking that picture so that Cornflakes wouldn't know I got visibility on it. He hasn't seen my Galley on these waters yet (I think), so he may not be aware of the possibility.





Core is still focused on growth and defending that growth. Fan Death's settler was whipped this turn on schedule for the triple seafood. I also started another settler in Moon Landing which will be chop-whipped. This is no time to slow down on settlers. I'm planning to send it to the southern island, but I haven't ruled out Green Dot. Speaking of, I should probably go chop that Sugar forest now while it's worth something. My other cities are all focused on military to defend these cities or things like WB/workers. Flat Earth did slip in a Barracks while growing, so that Archer will get CG2.


I pick up my first Hamlet next turn on the highlighted floodplains which means it'll get FIN-boosted. I have 3 other cottages down in shareable locations, and the two grass river tiles directly south of the Dyes both have partially completed cottages on them too, though they aren't needed just yet. FIN is actually about to take off in the next 10T as I'll be up to several Hamlets and more seafood being worked, hence my need to keep pushing expansion and trust that my traits can make it affordable.





100% science + double prereq + religion culture = overstated GNP spike. I may have to be careful about having too many spikes like this lest I spook other players.


PRO: 3 (164)
FIN: 5 (98)

[pindicator]

FIN is outshining early on! Do you think that's because of the advance start or are we making too much of PRO?

[Zed-F]

I think it’s a typo and he reversed the numbers look at his previous comparison.

[pindicator]

I had a suspicion that might be the case, but I thought this would be a funnier way of pointing it out if it were

[scooter]

FIN is outshining early on!  Do you think that's because of the advance start or are we making too much of PRO?

I think it’s a typo and he reversed the numbers look at his previous comparison.

Oops! Zed-F is correct, sort of. FIN is doing better on a per-turn basis right now, but the totals were reversed. I fixed it. PRO is hitting a bit of a speed bump right now in which the foreign routes with PRO bonus are worth the same as the domestic routes (with the exception of the one island), so it's not actually gaining me anything. That will change once my island city goes up. PRO definitely seems to ebb and flow a bit. Right now it's at an ebb for sure. It'll flow bigtime once I get Currency and foreign routes mature. I do think the Advanced Start + huge river overstated PRO a bit here. Take that river away, and that alone would subtract a lot of the gap between itself and FIN up to this point.

07/31/2020 12:19:11 43 TBS logged out
07/31/2020 12:14:37 43 TBS finished turn
07/31/2020 11:12:52 43 TBS score increased to 286 (+7)
07/31/2020 11:11:51 43 TBS logged in

I told you guys he could still win. He's now third in cities with 6, and I logged in to verify that new city was not the barbarian city, which I'm still expecting him to take since I'm pretty sure he's top in soldiers. Just to reiterate, TBS -2 cities still has more cities than his Imperialistic neighbor at T43. Cairo has 5 cities, which he could have had in the first 5-6 turns and still only spent half his starting gold. I think TBS would be at 9 if he hadn't had those early wars. Mao is no joke on this map, and might be the only leader better than my own, especially when pairing with Carthage. I experimented with Pacal, and definitely considered it due to how ludicrously fast I could get 5 cities + 5 granaries, but it was so commerce-starved for so long that I couldn't give up PRO.

[pindicator]

PRO is hitting a bit of a speed bump right now in which the foreign routes with PRO bonus are worth the same as the domestic routes (with the exception of the one island), so it's not actually gaining me anything.

I'm not following this. Are you not getting this due to being at war previously with AT and not having open borders with other players?

[scooter]

PRO is hitting a bit of a speed bump right now in which the foreign routes with PRO bonus are worth the same as the domestic routes (with the exception of the one island), so it's not actually gaining me anything.

I'm not following this.  Are you not getting this due to being at war previously with AT and not having open borders with other players?

Check out this post for some background: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid739318


I have Open Borders with Cornflakes right now. He has 5 cities (well, he just added a 6th minutes ago, but let's stay with 5). 1 of those is an island, so it's getting me 3C to my capital, so that's +1 to Protective. It would be worth 2C right now if not for Protective.


However, I'm not getting any other trade routes with him right now. That's because Cornflakes' 4 other mainland cities right now are all worth 2c because we are below 100% on sustained peace bonus. That means Protective is a wash in my next 4 cities. If I didn't have it, I would be getting 2c routes in all of them to Cornflakes, which is no different than the 2c domestic routes I'm getting. So I'm getting +1 from Cornflakes in the capital, and +1 in two of my cities that would not have a Cornflakes city to get routes from, but nothing more than that.


This will actually get worse soon. I'm going to settle an island city soon, which will be worth 3c in every city. However, shortly after that, all of Cornflakes' mainland routes will also be worth 3c. This effectively means PRO will once again be worth nothing in all cities that would have gotten a Cornflakes route. Given that I can just settle another island by the time Currency arrives, I actually am thinking Protective is pretty pointless for me right now, and Financial will pass it way sooner than I expected. With all this in mind, I'm not sure how sold I am on PRO = busted anymore, because the enormous early game benefit I got was more a function of the map + settings than anything else. If no islands were available at all OR lots of islands are available, it's probably busted. In this world where everyone has the ability to settle 2-3 island cities, it's actually not very good right now.

[scooter]

This will actually get worse soon. I'm going to settle an island city soon, which will be worth 3c in every city. However, shortly after that, all of Cornflakes' mainland routes will also be worth 3c. This effectively means PRO will once again be worth nothing in all cities that would have gotten a Cornflakes route. Given that I can just settle another island by the time Currency arrives, I actually am thinking Protective is pretty pointless for me right now, and Financial will pass it way sooner than I expected. With all this in mind, I'm not sure how sold I am on PRO = busted anymore, because the enormous early game benefit I got was more a function of the map + settings than anything else. If no islands were available at all OR lots of islands are available, it's probably busted. In this world where everyone has the ability to settle 2-3 island cities, it's actually not very good right now.

This paragraph is mostly wrong, upon re-reading it . This is all so difficult to keep straight, which I think is an argument in favor of simplying PRO quite a bit. This may have to move over to the mod discussion thread.


What's actually going to happen is I'll get 3c in every city. If I was NOT Protective, I would be getting 2c in every city, except in cities with foreign IC routes. So it would be worth a couple less than however many cities I have.


Of course, counting this is a bit weird, because it's causing me to play differently. If I didn't have PRO, I would be signing OB with everyone who settled an island ASAP. Here, I don't have to, because it's not necessarily worth more. Also, PRO has allowed me to wait longer than the others on settling an island city, so I could claim more mainland stuff without wrecking my economy. Anyone else's head hurt?