Gaspar & Noble make their triumphant? return; mostly just get asked about "The List"

[NobleHelium]

Played turns 31 and 32.



We could have settled the copper city this turn but chose not to because we were in Anarchy, so settling the city would not have done anything.  There is a minute chance that Serdoa has a warrior nearby that would see the borders so it is better that he sees the borders one turn later.  Our warrior will catch up soon and will be able to sentry the area in front of the city.  We started the corn farm as well as another settler, although that settler will not complete for a while.  Not until we are closer to being ready to settle the gold city.  You can also see that we have not completed the road connecting the cities.  We could do that next turn but we are going to mine the copper instead - we don't actually need the road to get a trade route because we have a trade route through the water tiles inside our territory.  The copper once connected to the new city will also be connected to the capital using the water connection.  The next worker out of the capital can freely finish the road as it heads south.

As Gaspar mentioned, we are going to tech Pottery before Animal Husbandry.  With no need to improve the cow it is also not urgent to see horses, because we are not in a position to claim any horses.  While I do think the most likely position of the horses is indeed the western area of the Broken Bridge site, it takes a while to tech AH and we would not be able to take advantage of it in a timely fashion.  Teching Pottery first lets us build a cottage for the capital as well as start granaries should we so choose.  Pottery is cheaper than AH.  Hopefully we can pick up some KTB beakers on AH afterwards.  Both SD and Serdoa could reasonably tech AH before we get it ourselves, although Serdoa is missing Fishing which is weird and I really do expect him to pick it up soon.  I do seem to recall him somewhat outsmarting himself in the past with some "we can skip Fishing this way" openings.

The other notable event is that SD settled his second city.  We know his settler took two turns to move which means the city is at most five tiles from his capital, given his lack of roads.  We also know from the demographics that the city claimed 8 land tiles.  I have signed our two guesses as to where the city might be (it could of course also be west of his capital which we can't see).  The southern site is the most logical one if it is indeed coastal, which we can't tell for sure because it's really hard to read the fog there.  The 1S of banana site is pretty bad but it does overlap the wheat and settles towards us in an aggressive fashion, so it would be in character for him.  We would be annoyed if he settled there but not much we can do about it right now. It looks like neither site has a trade route to his capital which is supported by the fact that his GNP dropped on the graph after settling. Remember, if you have a TR your second city is basically always going to be a net positive for your economy, otherwise it will probably be a negative. It is a big deal. Also, he's PRO.





Serdoa also whipped his capital from 3 to 2, also presumably for a worker. What is up with these single whips? I don't think Serdoa played much RtR.

Bobchillingworth - Mining, Mysticism, Hunting t5, Agriculture t9, Fishing t17, Bronze Working t27
superdeath & GeneralKilCavalry - Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working t14, Fishing t21, Hunting t25
Lewwyn - Fishing, Mysticism, Meditation t9, Hunting t14, Mining t19, Agriculture t23
Serdoa - Hunting, Mining, Agriculture t5, Bronze Working t20, The Wheel t30
Rusten & Hitru - Hunting, Mysticism, Agriculture t4, Mining t11, Bronze Working t23
Gaspar & NobleHelium - Mysticism, The Wheel, Fishing t6, Mining t13, Hunting t18, Bronze Working t27, Agriculture t31

Lewwyn is due to finish BW soon. I think SD and Bob are teching either Wheel or AH. Rusten could be teching AH or Polytheism.

[NobleHelium]

@Charriu

The "True AI Diplo" game option is indeed interfering with peacetime city trading. Does not affect this game since we agreed to ban city trading, but I am surprised it has not been discovered before this. I would test every aspect of peacetime diplo as it relates to this game option. I would expect some failure to trade techs in a tech trading game due to WFYABTA, for example.

[Charriu]

Yeah, I will investigate the game option further. I'm not sure that"True AI" is the culprit here as it only removes a check that checks for human vs AI players.

I think there is something else somewhere that causes the AI diplo values to be active in a human vs human trade.

[NobleHelium]

The turn is in and I am looking at it. I was right the first time about the t30 C&D - Rusten did regrow to 2 and did not get a tech that turn. This turn Hinduism was founded which is undoubtedly Rusten. He'll soon go for Priesthood to do his Oracle-CoL play.

I would not be surprised if he goes for Monotheism as well for OR and maybe tries to build the Pyramids if he can claim stone.

[Gaspar]

t33 was played...

Harbour Bridge was settled, and there was much rejoicing!



Or uh, minimal fanfare. One or the other. At least until we have the copper hooked and Serdoa doesn't roll up with a unit. We're putting hammers into that settler right now that we can't really take advantage of, but its the most productive thing to do until the corn is farmed and we can grow. Harbour Bridge starts with a monument because we need the clams to be able to give the deer away again and Harbour Bridge's long term future probably involves stagnating while building foodhammer units.

As previously stated, Rusten founded Hinduism. Noble has worked harder at tech scrying than anytime I remember this game. Good job, Noble. The scout is two turns away from discovering anything interesting. And nothing that interesting really happens with us until the corn farm and copper mine are finished. This game really reminds me why PBEMs tend to be played on quick speed.

[NobleHelium]

In addition to Polytheism, SD teched Wheel this turn and Lewwyn teched BW.  The remaining 1k power increase is from Serdoa growing his second city to size 2.  Since it grew in only 5 turns, we can conclude that it overlaps a 5f tile from the capital.

Bobchillingworth - Mining, Mysticism, Hunting t5, Agriculture t9, Fishing t17, Bronze Working t27
superdeath & GeneralKilCavalry - Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working t14, Fishing t21, Hunting t25, The Wheel t33
Lewwyn - Fishing, Mysticism, Meditation t9, Hunting t14, Mining t19, Agriculture t23, Bronze Working t33
Serdoa - Hunting, Mining, Agriculture t5, Bronze Working t20, The Wheel t30
Rusten & Hitru - Hunting, Mysticism, Agriculture t4, Mining t11, Bronze Working t23, Polytheism t33
Gaspar & NobleHelium - Mysticism, The Wheel, Fishing t6, Mining t13, Hunting t18, Bronze Working t27, Agriculture t31

I am sad to report that the sandbox is no longer accurate.  We only have 1g maintenance in the sandbox but 2g in the game.  This means that the sandbox has bigger map dimensions than the game, but since we don't know the correct dimensions I cannot fix it.  We will have to periodically remove gold from the sandbox to compensate.

[novice]

This means that the sandbox has bigger map dimensions than the game, but since we don't know the correct dimensions I cannot fix it.

Goto into the fog? When the suggested path switches from going e.g. east to going west, you've found the other side of the world.

[Gaspar]

This means that the sandbox has bigger map dimensions than the game, but since we don't know the correct dimensions I cannot fix it.

Goto into the fog? When the suggested path switches from going e.g. east to going west, you've found the other side of the world.

Per extremely late night gchats that I slept through, Noble scrying lead to a 32Hx52W mapsize and a suggestion that we are aligned as such:



Gonna be a tight one.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 34.

So I'm not sure how much attention novice is paying to the other threads but I'm sure everyone else has noticed that there has been quite a flurry of activity.  Unfortunately we cannot really see it.  However given our recent discoveries about the map here is a random assortment of statements.

1) I checked EP allocation again and SD has also met someone else.  He stopped spending 4 EP on Serdoa after 44 points starting on t32, so that is the latest possible date that he met a third player.  But really we have no idea who he could have met and when, it could have been anytime in the last 20 turns or so.
2) I checked EP again (twice) and Serdoa also started spending only 1/turn on SD starting on t29.  So he met yet an additional player on that turn.
3) I should have noticed the EP bit earlier but I've been a bit deflated by the game recently, mainly because a variety of factors have caused this game to be nothing like I envisioned it.  When I discovered Civ4 and specifically CtH was active on RB I had high hopes and probably an unrealistic vision of how a game might look like.  And the game has really turned out to be nothing like that, starting with the map.
4) I've come to remember that basically every map is disappointing for various reasons.  Perhaps I just have unrealistic expectations of how good the mapmaker can be, given that I've never actually made a map for someone to play.  But if I ever had a great idea for a map I would make it, similar to the time(s) I hosted werewolf games.  Granted, those didn't come out great either.
5) I was rather annoyed that I had forgotten the bit about scrying the map size and really all I needed to do was pan back the field of view slider and we could have had that information starting from the first turn of the game.  Many people think that I like to correct people - I don't, really.  Really what I hate is things being wrong.  So above all I hate it the most when I am wrong or when I fail at something.  I am happy to say when I don't know because it's much better than being wrong.
6) I dwelled a bit about how we might have played the game differently and scouted differently if we had known about the map size at the beginning of the game.  Maybe I would have even objected to the game being played with this map size, although I doubt pindicator would have been willing to remake the map from scratch.
7) Gaspar implied that maybe the map is one big continent after all, and that does indeed seem to be the case.  It is still entirely possible that we are on two V-shaped continents that are separated from each other, but given that our neighbors are actually quite successful in meeting additional players, it just seems that we are at the edge of the continent.  That and the fact that we had basically given up trying to find people due to our mistaken assumption that pindicator would not make a map and then put SD right smack in the middle of it and consider that balanced has caused us to be very far behind in meeting other players, which is a decided advantage.  So I am quite bummed about this fact.
8) Don't worry pindicator.  You are still my friend.  I am very loyal to my friends.  Failing at map creation is not a betrayal. Serdoa failed catastrophically at making the map for PB16 and he is still my friend also.
9) Rusten had a big score increase and may have settled a third city.  I am too tired to verify the C&D to check whether that is indeed the case or not.  Perhaps he settled his holy city (his second city, not the third) in Bob's face or something which is why there is sudden activity there?  But really we have no idea and it doesn't really matter, because we are in our own little corner of the map.  I guess we will just focus on trying to secure the valuable land that we have nearby and then settle some islands.

I still need to rebuild the sandbox from scratch with the correct map size and yes, replay every turn up to the present.  This is not the first time I will have rebuilt the sandbox for this game.

We kept tech off for one more turn because we don't need Pottery yet and we can save enough gold to burn through to complete AH. Other than that nothing happened this turn as all the units are doing the same thing they were doing the previous turn.



Bob settled his second city. Maybe that's why he updated and it has nothing to do with Rusten. I also know that Serdoa updated, but I also requested that he post an update in his thread like a week ago so it's not surprising that he updated eventually.

[Charriu]

3) I should have noticed the EP bit earlier but I've been a bit deflated by the game recently, mainly because a variety of factors have caused this game to be nothing like I envisioned it.  When I discovered Civ4 and specifically CtH was active on RB I had high hopes and probably an unrealistic vision of how a game might look like.  And the game has really turned out nothing to be like that, starting with the map.

I would like to know more about what you envisioned it to be.