[PBEM22] Friends with Benefits

[roland of gilead]

Loving the Civ 4 retro element here are well. I still watch Sulla play civ 4 whenever content is available. I bought civ 4 and had almost given up on it as it was so complicated then i found Sullla's site and from there realms beyond. That would have been almost 20 years ago.

Better to be lucky than good indeed.

Have read through so much of your content here over the years Krill.

I still play civ 4 Epic 4 all the time. it's just so fun i go back to it again and again trying to perfect it.

[roland of gilead]

Lol, I just looked at a lot of numbers and concluded Forge mostly sucks but give me a moment to change my mind again

In any case Forge has one very nice quality of life benefit that alone might be worth it - it will simplify microing a lot. With Forge a longship costs 24 production which is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and just under divisible by 5. So at these production points I can just set and leave them until they grow. Without Forge a longship is 26 production which is divisible only by 2 and 13, so I'll have to check where each city is each turn and adjust or we are losing a lot of potential yields like gold from crabs where the production would have gone to overflow. And if I have to spend time on this I'll be spending less time coming up with ideas about how to break our opponents.

Otherwise it doesn't suck entirely and will produce a few extra ships but nothing that will make or break the game. On the other hand it's the same with the plantation pantheon, so it seems that they all suck and it doesn't really matter.

The thing that will make or break the game is being efficient with the longships and putting them to the best possible use at every moment. Micro and pantheon are insignificant in comparison. But let's say Forge for now and I'll mule over it a bit longer until T25.

How does the GOTF mechanic work. 25% to base hammers?

[Krill]

So it's not really an issue to create labourer cycles for 2-3 cities with only a few shared tiles, provided you tell me what needs to be achieved eg if we need to get cities to produce 26 production over 2 or 3 turns and we need to alternate between 12 and 14, or 8, 8, 10 production etc, I can do that.

For context this is relatively trivial micro compared to standard micro in civ 4 and it's one of the challenges I enjoyed most, so if you want to set that as a problem and I give those instructions I'm happy to do so the turn before. I do not think that we should pick a pantheon just because it makes micro simpler (although if we think it makes micro possible that leads to greater output and hence more boats this is obviously different).

And on an unrelated note, where are you actually settling? I think I'm settling on the bare plains hill and buying the eastern turtle on the turn of settling, but still not certain of your intended city location. It is the bare plains hill, right?

[Krill]

Lol, I just looked at a lot of numbers and concluded Forge mostly sucks but give me a moment to change my mind again

In any case Forge has one very nice quality of life benefit that alone might be worth it - it will simplify microing a lot. With Forge a longship costs 24 production which is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and just under divisible by 5. So at these production points I can just set and leave them until they grow. Without Forge a longship is 26 production which is divisible only by 2 and 13, so I'll have to check where each city is each turn and adjust or we are losing a lot of potential yields like gold from crabs where the production would have gone to overflow. And if I have to spend time on this I'll be spending less time coming up with ideas about how to break our opponents.

Otherwise it doesn't suck entirely and will produce a few extra ships but nothing that will make or break the game. On the other hand it's the same with the plantation pantheon, so it seems that they all suck and it doesn't really matter.

The thing that will make or break the game is being efficient with the longships and putting them to the best possible use at every moment. Micro and pantheon are insignificant in comparison. But let's say Forge for now and I'll mule over it a bit longer until T25.

How does the GOTF mechanic work. 25% to base hammers?

I would like to know this as well, especially when there are multiple production modifiers stacked on top of each other.

[Krill]

So to build a long ship if you have a city amenity neutral producing 12 production with maritime industry and vikings and gotForge you make +175% for 33 production per turn and 2 turn boats but if you lack gotForge you would be stuck with 3 turn boats? That doesn't match what you said about 26 production. I'm confused...

[Krill]

I'm good with spam. I finally have relevant questions to ask.

So the question I then have is can you get 12 production in those two cities? Pfh sheep pH city and gfh is 9 with UP. Is the plan size 4 and add in a plains hill for 12 in the cap plus a pasture? And city 2 is pfh pH city banana and gfh and sheep for 12 with UP at size 4?

If so GotF all the way. There are no plantations available until, what, t65+? Denial is one thing but to see no advantage until then is absurd...bursting out the longships then swap to conscription and Colonization seems like a sane back up plan disregarding anything else available.

[Krill]

How much gold is the trader purchase? Can't you buy it the turn settled if I send you gold? I should have enough gold to purchase one tile on the turn settled and then the next tile 5 turns later (generating a further 40 gold). I could send you another 40 to 60 gold there?

[Krill]

With all that planning, what are the odds that City 2 takes the stone over the turtle?

[roland of gilead]

Thanks Thrawn i get the numbers now on the longship production.

While I expect you won't entirely take the teams by surprise unless they get some kind of head start on you that's going to be hard to deal with.

I don't see them being that prepared.

They could settle off coast like me and Sub did but that's a mistake.

[roland of gilead]

You are welcome.

Yeah, someone is bound to make some mistake or have other needs and leave us an opening.

One or two cities off the coast can be ok, but more is suicide. I'll only need pillage the harbours and it's game over for them.

In fairness it did what we wanted to some extent in that even by the end no one could take us out. Though that would have come. 

It made us irrelevant largely though earlyish. 

perhaps with no nerf goddes or later frigates in the tree and better usage of niter from us but i wouldn't do it again.