[PB 61 - Spoilers] rekenner stands the Test of Time. ... Hopefully.

[rekenner]

Ah, oops. Oasis has a movement cost of 2.

...

New map to come next turn when borders pop.

[Miguelito]

I was planning on waiting on dotmapping until at least t3 when borders expand + I'll have scouting reports from the west.

What are we going to do during the early turns then, if not speculating baselessly?


Fwiw maybe you can delay the decision for or against AH a bit. I think Agri is a near given now with that rice. But whether we need AH already still depends on the second city spot pretty much. Maybe you can start on BW after, or even before Agri, and only change research such that AH finishes the turn before the worker would start pasturing the cow, if you decidethat you actually want the tech early. Doesthat make any sense?

If you think the PH cow is reason enough to go for AH, that is your call of course. I would argue it isn't; an early cycle for the cap can be to grow on 2 deer and ivory, then whip worker/settler at size 4.

Also quoting from my PB59 thread, as it could be interesting for you here:

Since there will be no turn report, here's a puzzle: Plemo in his PB88 thread (login required) is arguing against whipping Imp settlers, instead going with chops and overflow. So his routine is whip worker -> OF and chop into settler, which getscompleted in 2-3 turns.

In part his argument is that when you convert food to hammers you don't get the Imp bonus, but the OF from it gets debonified, costing you a few hammers on a whipped settler if the city can't give away its food. Of course I like myself thight dotmaps with a lot of food sharing, and can't imagine a city with 8 food surplus which it can't reduce to at least 5 by sharing. Still I found it an interesting and unexpected perspective. His reputation of course gives weight to his arguments.

Plemo's explanation is more detailed. Assuming you don't speak German, maybe Google does a good enough job at translating it.  Quoted in spoiler tags so you don't have to register:

1. Wenn eine Stadt möglichst zügig stehen muss, um einen Spot zu sichern oder einen sehr gute Stadt zu gründen, führt kein Weg an einer Peitsche vorbei!

2. Wenn nicht, kann man sich Gedanken machen, wie man , und optimiert. Je nach Leader muss man verstärkt auf achten. Karl/Justi sind Extrembeispiele für Pleitesiedelgefahr, während Victoria/Julius auf der anderen Seite sind. Um mit Karl nicht pleite zu gehen, hatte ich den Fokus auf verschiedene Punkte gesetzt:
a) schnelle dichte 2. Stadt mit direkten HW;
b) Städte 3-6 nicht zu schnell, HW (Straßen) direkt bei Gründung;
c) schneller Ausbau von Feldern (Ressourcen, Hütten) nach Gründung.
Gerade Punkte b) und c) bedeuten früh mehr BTs.

3. Ein einfacher Vergleich der Produktivität von BT und Siedler zeigt:
a) BT erzeugt am Anfang pro Runde 5 (4 Runden Wald holzen), solange genug Wald da ist, oder ein längerfristigen Effekt durch Ausbau von Ressourcen.
b) Ein Siedler (oder Stadt) erzeugt ohne ausgebaute Ressource 4-5 /.
Da der BT günstiger ist und auch bestehende Städte schneller aufwertet, sollte bei genug Wald zuerst der BT fertig sein.

4. Beim Peitschen eines Siedlers wird der Nahrungsüberschuss entbonifiziert. Bei realistischen 8-10 bedeutet dies bis zu 4 Verlust. Beim Peitschen eines BTs wird der Nahrungsüberschuss in für das Folgeprojekt umgewandelt. Bei einem Siedler erhält man so 4-5 extra. Generell finde ich, dass der Überschuss bei IMP-Siedler wenig Überschuss aus haben sollte. Wenn nicht direkt im Anschluss ein weiterer Siedler gebaut werden soll, sogar insgesamt wenig Überschuss.

5. Peitscht man jeden Siedler/BT Pop2, so sammelt man zwangsläufig zu viele an. Irgendetwas muss man also regulär bauen. Meine Vorliebe ist es für diesen Fall halt, an die Zufriedenheitsgrenze (oder eins darüber hinaus) zu wachsen, BT und Siedler jeweils anbauen, so dass nach der Peitsche des BTs in der Folgerunde auch der Siedler fertig wird. Insgesamt kommt dadurch der BT etwas später, der Siedler aber etwas früher als wenn man den BT frühestmöglich peitscht und den Siedler regulär baut. Baut man den BT regulär und peitscht den Siedler schnellstmöglich, sollte bei meiner Variante, beides früher kommen. Ich werde versuchen dazu nochmal ein Vergleichsbeispiel (-rechnung) zu machen.


Ein konkretes Anwendungsbeispiel habe ich:
- Stadt auf Pop4; EH Gründung; bewässerter Ebenenweizen; Grünland-Schafsweide; Ebenen-Kupfermine; Grünlandhügel-Edelstein(Gold)mine --> 6 und 10
R0 BT fängt an zu holzen und Stadt fängt mit BT an
R1 16/60 --> Peitsche 76/60 + 12 Rundenproduktion (Schaf an Nachbarstadt)
R2 Überschuss 28; Wald 20; Rundenproduktion 4 + 8 --> 4+(56)*1,5 = 88
R3 88/100 + 16 =4+8*1,5 fertig
R4 Siedler fertig

[rekenner]

What are we going to do during the early turns then, if not speculating baselessly?

Ah, you've caught on to the exact reason why I'm waiting. =P

Fwiw maybe you can delay the decision for or against AH a bit. I think Agri is a near given now with that rice. But whether we need AH already still depends on the second city spot pretty much. Maybe you can start on BW after, or even before Agri, and only change research such that AH finishes the turn before the worker would start pasturing the cow, if you decidethat you actually want the tech early. Doesthat make any sense?

My Hunting -> Agri -> AH plan works out s/t the worker starts the pasture the exact turn AH is finished (and the Hunting -> BW plan the same for the chop starting), so that .... would be a touch painful, I think.

And as to the Plemo talk, I do not speak German, no. Some poking at GTranslate ........ is painful. I might return to that later, however, as, uh...

[rekenner]

Folks, my brain is full of fuck.

   

That's 14 resources, 3 flood plains tiles, 2 oases, and 2 fresh water lake tiles.

.... Dotmapping this is going to be painful. I'll ... probably think on this, for a bit.

(Edit: It's only mostly joking to say that I'm glad I played Civ2 where ICS and cities with minimum placement were how to play, because good grief, this is almost too lush.)

[rekenner]

Someone in my (second) Gloomhaven group (.... yes I'm playing through a second campaign of Gloomhaven, I did say it was my favorite co-op boardgame) that's also somewhat Civ4 knowledgable so I've been chatting with him about the start pointed something out to me.



My starting area is somewhat similar to the actual area around Gloomhaven (rotated for it to fit)




   



A bay, a forest, a river opposite the bay. To be fair, that's a very natural place to found a city in terms of real world city geographic considerations. But it's still amusing.

[rekenner]

Alright, a couple days of Analysis Paralysis, starting and scrapping and starting and scrapping dotmap plans later... I still don't have something I'm happy with, because I still want to do more scouting. Argh! You ever just want the map to be *less* lush?

   

Annoyingly, either of the two sets of plains hill noted as "1" orphans the other.

My first thought, from foggazing at my opening screenshot, was putting the second city on "A" - which, I think is a very good plant in a more normal map. It shares the resource clump W of Gloomhaven, but in terms of high quality tiles, it only adds the Oasis and the Desert Hill Stone, which is more of a long term tile improvement. It also shares 2 cottages with the capital. It .... might still be reasonable, but the problem is that it makes getting the fish a bit more awkward, but my first warrior is going to walk down to the Plains Hill N of the Marble to scout that area out more thoroughly.

The Fish S of the capital has been what's really throwing me for a loop and is difficult to figure out, because it's sorta throwing off my plans for my first city and how to dotmap out both the area immediately E and W of the capital. Mostly because there's only 3 tiles that I see so far that can actually work it and one of them is a grasslands marble that I obviously don't want to pave over. So far, it's F1 and F2 as possible spots for that. Both cause... a bit of frustration. F1 prevents founding A, F2 is nice because it can work the freshwater lake with a lighthouse for a 3/0/2 tile.  ... Basically I'm hoping to see a great land tile location south of F1 or F2. (Edit: Hm. Fog-gazing S of F1 seems to indicate that..... it's not a land tile, but there is a tile S of F2.)

However, I think C and D would be pretty reasonable plants E of the capital, although planting one N of C to reclaim a desert is reasonable (unless that's a flood plains, but my fog-gaze-foo isn't strong enough to tell), that can be decided with a bit more scouting. If I found F2, then E looks reasonable. E could also be one tile W instead for better foodsharing, though the hills plain plant is hard to pass up, especially when it also means paving over a grasslands river tile.

Y could be on either of those two tiles depending on what I see N of there.

Z feels like an obvious city location, but it's not one of my first cities. It nicely captures a cluster, it's a Plains Hill.  And then at some point, I think a City at one of the two Y spots makes sense, depending on what I see to the North.

X is a possible spot to go with Z, shares grassland river cottages, gets the wet wheat. But that's speculative.

Also, my map position, now that I've seen the start of the Jungle belt, feels like it's South-Central. So the natural "barrier" of the jungle belt means I probably want to expand directly E-W, so city spot like Y is fairly safe and is sorta "backlines". The bay makes me wonder if the middle of the map pinches inward a bit?

Ugh. And I have to decide now, really, between Agri or BW. I can do BW -> Agri before my second city gets founded.

[El Grillo]

Huh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that “screenshot failed” event text before. Any idea what triggered that?

I see you have many thoughts on city placement. I can’t speak to the specifics, but before you stress too much about it just remember that copper/horse locations will probably force you to reconsider everything anyway :D

[rekenner]

I had thought of that, *but that doesn't help*. =P

As to the screenshot message, unsure! I think I just did alt-print screen, though I normally have Civ4 open in a smaller window and I increased the resolution in game, which maybe made the game confused? I was also fiddling with flying camera and whatnot.

[civac2]

I'm so used to RB maps that this is just normal to me. Map makers here have on occasion created maps that are significantly more lush than this (not by resource density, but rather having nearly exclusively grasland).

As for the cities, I don't think A is necessarily a great plant as it does not gain anything valuable enough unless you really want the stone for a wonder.

Is there a specific reason you didn't end your turn?

[rekenner]

Taking the time to ponder my tech path. I was hoping sleeping on it helped.

It didn't.

re: A as a city spot: I think in a typical random gen map Civ4 game, it'd be a good plant, but these maps are different enough to probably make that not the case, yeah.