[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[ljubljana]

idk if there IS a south.... there is water down there to the S-SW, and i think 3S as well judging by what looks suspiciously like the mouth of the eastern leg of the river.... there was a bit more water visuble in the fog to the east as well. there's a fair chance we hit land's end here, which would make SW the likely opponent location...

[aetryn]

As much as I want to see more of that lovely flood plain, I also want to see west of that mountain chain. This is at least a third and possibly a fourth city site, as there's no food and it will be slow even with flood plains, and it's just too far away to connect without a ton of roads. We need west of our city scouted quickly as well, so I'd probably think about starting to head NW soon. Maybe one turn onto the gold hill and then head northwest. When is our second scout coming out? I'd also we really want a third scout, since there's lots of land everywhere we want to see and players to meet.

But at least we know we have gold nearby. That will help a lot. Even less reason to rush someone now.

[Tarkeel]

Regarding demo-scrying/C&D: This game is being played in no-score mode, which makes all of that work a lot harder, as PBspy will not leak information to you. Normally you can easily decode the score changes for the first 50 turns and classify them as new technologies, population growth and border claims (which are delayed by 20 turns). As the game goes on you can still easily discern new cities and whips (unless someone plays dirty to obfuscate them).

Also, units in the queue decay but only after 10 turns of delay. The interface will warn you when you're getting close and when you're actually losing hammers.

I actually had a look at this, as it's one of the mechanics I don't know on the back of my hand. Each unit in the build-queue that is behind the active project gets 1 added to it's decay timer every turn, except for turns that you finish producing something; the timer will increase even in anarchy. Units will start decaying (at 2% of stored hammers) when the timer hits 10, while buildings lose 1% when the timer hits 50. The only way to reset the timer is to have the number of stored hammers reach 0, either through decay or finishing the project. BUG (which is a part of CtH) has an interface warning when the timer hits 5.


Speaking of BUG features; what I find to be the best part is the FOV-slider in the upper right corner, which lets you see more of the map at a time. I usually play with it set at 62, which I feel gives me a better situational awareness of the surroundings. You should try playing around with it to find a level that fits you. Similarly, I spend some time on framing my screenshots to make sure they show what I need them to convey. In this instance it would be nice to see more of the unfogged land to the north to see in one screen how the floodplains connect to your capital.

[williams482]

For spreadsheeting purposes: do we know how big this map actually is (height and width in tiles)? That or a reasonable estimate is required to calculate city maintenance costs.

From rereading old conversations I know the map size is "large", also a useful piece of information but not the same thing.

[aetryn]

For spreadsheeting purposes: do we know how big this map actually is (height and width in tiles)? That or a reasonable estimate is required to calculate city maintenance costs.

From rereading old conversations I know the map size is "large", also a useful piece of information but not the same thing.

Hovering the score should tell you how many land tiles there are. I think that works even with score mode off because you should still have your score? I think?

[Tarkeel]

For spreadsheeting purposes: do we know how big this map actually is (height and width in tiles)? That or a reasonable estimate is required to calculate city maintenance costs.

From rereading old conversations I know the map size is "large", also a useful piece of information but not the same thing.

Hovering the score should tell you how many land tiles there are. I think that works even with score mode off because you should still have your score? I think?

Dimensions and land tiles are two different measures. Also, it doesn't work in no-score mode, but you can use the victory screen domination % to reverse calculate to within a few tiles. I'd ask for dimensions in the tech-thread, pindi might answer.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If we were to replay PBEM 19 I'd definitely storm Russia this time But I agree, even though it's weak strategy, it's poor taste to attack the newbie.

Didn't matter, rushing the Zulu worked out fine.

I actually was able to personally visit Zululand and even laid eyes on Isandlwhana myself since that game, though!

[ljubljana]

somehow this "multiquote" feature on RB just causes the forum to hang for me now lol.... i feel like i used to be able to make this work in olden days, but for now i'm just going to @ folks

@aetryn we're starting the second scout this turn, i think it finishes somewhere around turn 19? i think i agree on that scouting plan; i would reeeeally like to see which neighbor is on the opposite side of the gold from us, but defogging all the first-ring tiles before the settler comes out has to take priority and i'm a little nervous we may get too sidetracked to meet that goal

@Tarkeel thank you so much for this info! i had no idea about the FOV slider, hopefully my screenshot informativeness will improve in the future

@thrawn um.... unfortunately, if we wanted to do AH first in time to improve the cow as the second tile after the wheat, we had to switch research to it 3 or 4 turns ago...... we could still do it after wheat + deer but that removes a good chunk of the motivation for AH-first, so i am planning to stick with BW. re size 2 or 3 for the settler, i don't know yet, i haven't really analyzed when we should grow to size 3 in the BW plan. it definitely could be 2 lakes; N-N-NW does not look like a mountain to me, i see trees in the fog and i believe they don't grow on mountains in the base game

@williams i'm seeing this when i hover over the score



but we have good reason to believe that there's at least a "significant" amount of water on the map, and i'm not quite sure how to derive water tile numbers from the save...

@CMF oh wow, that is so cool!!! i am a bit sad that Isand isn't going to make it onto our list of city names as it would have with my backup theme idea, which was civ3 zulu cities please feel free to zulupost in this thread, i definitely feel that the balance of flavor here so far has leaned towards the tokugawa end of the scale, and that could use rectifying but i am not too qualified to perform that

@Turn 12 - Zululand

i carefully move our new worker (!!!!) to the wheat and click the "farm" button



Thrawn is correct. Those must be the saltiest seas on the planet, neither with an outlet, deep in the desert. Calling this "fresh water" seems pretty questionable to me, and I'm not sure I'd like to be among the first settlers here...

Two golds, and getting both would require a seriously exposed plant. We'd also really want them both in the first ring most likely, or our Cre and Cha neighbors will be sorely tempted to plant 3 tiles away to steal one.... if we are even down to perform the level of pinkdotting that taking this entire border region would likely come across as. While a great city short-term, anything in this area would cap out at about 11 useful tiles, which may not be better in the lategame than a city working 20 "real" tiles....um, not that there are many spots around that seem likely to do that, either

Once again I'm conflicted on scouting... I feel the pull of the other gold hill to check for more such surprises in the area, especially as turning north now might waste a turn getting around that mountain range. 8t until the second scout, and my plan is a worker before the settler, so I don't think we're in much danger of accidentally failing to defog the correct second city site if we rely on the second scout in the west. As thrawn says though, a third scout soon would be really useful, most likely in the NE where there still could plausibly be big food bonuses just out of sight in the cottagey river valley...

[aetryn]

The correct thinking is “This area will help me greatly to win the game. I picked AGG/PRO Zulu precisely so I can have my say in the early days and claim areas such as this one.”

While this may change upon further reveals, based on what we see I’d do two cities here. The first on the plains N-N from the top hill and the second between the hills. Farm all 4 floodplains and this will give you enough food to bootstrap the cities with granary/ikanda/walls/library/etc. Each city can work one gold not to encumber the food supply too much, and you can cottage the 3 plains and start working them when you run our of floodplains. At some point but much later, replace the farms on the floodplains with cottages too. The only problem with the settlement is that it will require a substantial foodhammer/worker investment to get going and even more to defend, so you’ll need to first found at least 2 cities elsewhere before you can commit the necessary resources.

You’d be mad to go NW now without exploring around the second gold hill! I’d at least do a fairly wide circle around it, and in general I think it would be a waste to bring the scout back at all. Much better to send it to find the neighbour/s who would contest the area. My direction would probably be generally west with slightly northwest up to the expected distance of around 14 tiles from the capital, and then counterclockwise circle at that distance. Make contact since we won’t be rushing.

Re the capital’s build order, I'd challenge the need for a fast second city that only brings a cow that’s not even grass-fed, and would settle it for copper wherever it may be and from there go for the best food spots that are at defendable distance. Also I'd build at least 3 more scouts because finding just one location with 2 food resources will quickly pay for all of them. In all PBEMs people criticised my scout first builds and moving the setlers far instead of settling closer worse locations, but all of these decisions paid off well and much better than the alternatives without exception.

I actually was able to personally visit Zululand and even laid eyes on Isandlwhana myself since that game, though!

Beautiful. One benefit of playing civ at least for us non-historians is appreciation of historical landmarks.

It's pretty strong to get ANY second city down that's reasonable as long as you can connect it via roads just to enable +4 from commerce trade routes, but beyond that I don't mind slightly farther settles. Just make sure we can actually cover the territory with troops. It does no good to have Impi if they can't get to where they need to defend when a stack of Horse Archers appears from the fog.

I'm less sure on splitting the gold if there's some actual food resources that could cover both in the fog just south, but it's not looking good.  These are decent but not great city sites so far but so far that's about the best the map has to offer.

[Tarkeel]

somehow this "multiquote" feature on RB just causes the forum to hang for me now lol.... i feel like i used to be able to make this work in olden days, but for now i'm just going to @ folks

Instead of using multiquote I copy the "reply" part into notepad for manual editing.

@williams i'm seeing this when i hover over the score

It looks like Charriu fixed this then; what it tells you is that the map has 2678 land-tiles and you're getting the score for 0 of them right now (because tile scoring is offset by 20 turns).