[PB78 SPOILERS] GT and Magic Science in the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

[Magic Science]

Turn 27 – 2920 BC
   
Change of plans for Buster.
The area across water and by the Gems north of the capital is the closest and most important place yet to be revealed. The plan for Buster to circumnavigate the world was cute and involved fewer turns of trudging through already revealed territory, but it would mean revealing the most important area across the water in the “second ring” last. I need to know sooner. Also, with this plan Buster will still reveal those important tiles even if Raging Barbarians do spawn soon and prevent scouting with Scouts. He might even be close enough to home to make it back and live as a fogbuster if that happens.
So Buster will be trudging through already revealed territory for the next few turns. I have played the exploration poorly so far, but it should still be alright. The Roads are an excellent crutch.

And on the topic of exploration, I noticed that there is on unrevealed tile in the water between us and Gavagai. If that tile has seafood, then it is easily accessible from our side and would affect our dotmap. The tile is adjacent to Goodneighbor’s Crab, so it is probably empty, but maybe not. We will need to send a unit on the annoying trek to the southern shore to see the tile. Buster skipped over that little spot earlier.
The tile 1NE of the Clam is clearly a Peak, by the way, which is why this one remaining unknown water tile is so annoying to reveal.


   
Once upon a time, there was Fallout on the Lake northwest of the Gold, and on the Flat Plains north of the Corn. Now there is no Fallout. Apparently, Fallout can dissipate on its own over time. None of the sources I can quickly find mention that characteristic at all, let alone the details of how long it takes.
This is a really interesting consequence of having Fallout in the Ancient Era when the turns pass so quickly. In the Modern Era, 27 or more turns would be an eternity to be denied your high-yield tiles. In the Ancient Era, we can wait even longer with no problem.
The point is, it looks like the Fallout will just be an aesthetic thing in the very early game and should not affect our dotmap or later tactics at all. We could enjoy working that Lake one day! .

The tile between the Stone, Corn, Fish, and Sheep was briefly in consideration for the second city site, but it is too far away, especially with no Roads to it and no strategic resources.

And Rivet City is at size 3 now. Still no new buildings. I did not pay as much attention to those details as I should have during the dark age of not reporting.
It might be possible to deduce how much seafood Rivet City has in the fog, and so much seafood other Barbarian cities may have in the fog, if I kept a closer eye on that.
Wait, do the Barbarians even have Fishing yet?
What I really want to know is when they will train their Workers and start improving their Gold. If that happens right about now in the unknown closer Barbarian city, then they could improve the Gold before our possible second city steals it. That would be a huge boon for the site. It would probably more than make up for the cost of researching Archery so early.

Oh, yes, I switched back to researching The Wheel this turn. I have much experience with stalling a decision as long as possible. .
It occurred to me that if we do research Archery, it would make sense to discover it most of the way, then leave it with 1 or 2 turns left. We could still get it in time if we needed it, and it would save beakers if we didn’t. Just like how you don’t build Archers if you don’t need them. You might invest 1 hammer to prepare a whip, but no more. Same principle.
The capital’s culture is expansive and we would have multiple turns of warning of any attack.
The point is, I can research The Wheel this turn and it is okay because it is like leaving off those one or two turns of Archery research as we would do anyway, but earlier rather than later.
And if we decide against Archery, we can just keep researching The Wheel.

I think that may make no sense at all. Whatever. I am an expert at procrastinating decisions and I think we can stall the decision longer by researching The Wheel this turn at no cost. .


   
Gavagai is our close neighbor and we met him first, so of course we have his graphs already, though he did spend more than necessary and force us to spend more back on him than necessary. Annoying.
I decided to get Thrawn’s graphs next. Guessing based on the movements of Superdeath/Naufragar’s Scout, I think they do not neighbor us closely. That leaves Dreylin/Coldrain and Thrawn, and between the two of them, Thrawn worries me more. He is playing Boudica, after all, and I recall that rushing is more common in the Civ 6 meta he is coming from. Also, he was excellent in the Civ 6 games and that might translate to being excellent in Civ IV too.
I will try to watch the graphs as best I can to detect if any Chariots or Axemen are trained. No promises about successful Cloak & Dagger, though. At least it will be easy to tell if Gavagai’s Copper is connected.

[Magic Science]

I neglected to mention this in the last report, but the pre-placed Barbarian garrison units are also unable to move until Turn 120, and they have Guerilla I for some reason. Both details are probably irrelevant.

There's a weird Barb quirk that can result in their cities disbanding unpromoted garrison units at a specific point in time, even with "Can't Move" setup. Any random combat promotion prevents this, even if the promotion is extremely unlikely to matter.

That is very interesting.
I love how this themed game is driving us to learn such obscure things about Civ IV, even after all this time. Specialist knowledge of all kinds feels good to acquire, the more obscure the better, no matter how niche its application may be. At least to me it does.
I hope you will post in the lurker thread how you found out this stuff about the Barbarians, and how you made them immobile on the map. It’s cool.

[Tarkeel]

I was also thinking that the Barbarians can't have CRE or religion (well, normally, but Scooter didn't give them religion in this unusual game either), and they might not be smart enough to properly wage an existential culture war.

Barbarians *can* have religions; I had a big problem with them founding the remaining religions in PB76. However religion won't *spread naturally* to them, because that requires a traderoute to the holy city, which doesn't happen when they are at war with that city. They will build monuments though.

[Magic Science]

I was also thinking that the Barbarians can't have CRE or religion (well, normally, but Scooter didn't give them religion in this unusual game either), and they might not be smart enough to properly wage an existential culture war.

Barbarians *can* have religions; I had a big problem with them founding the remaining religions in PB76. However religion won't *spread naturally* to them, because that requires a traderoute to the holy city, which doesn't happen when they are at war with that city. They will build monuments though.

Wait, Barbarians can found religions naturally? I assumed they were blocked from that somehow. Either way, I doubt they have the research power to reach any of the religion-founding techs first, and the CivIVCivilizationInfos file indicates that the Barbarian civilization cannot build any of the religious buildings.

But Monuments are not excluded from them, yes.

After more consideration, I do think flipping the Barbarian city is a reasonable idea that could work. I will refine my thoughts and most more later.

[Tarkeel]

Well, it's extremely unlikely that barbarians will manage to research a religion-founding tech before the players, but if that somehow did happen... My issue was that it was an advanced era start, which would hand out religions. IIRC from my tests, if I manually settled five player cities and gave them a religion each, the game would give the last two to barbarian cities. Which was awkward.

Just remember that culture will only extend two tiles away from the continent which the city is on.

[Magic Science]

Turn 28 through Turn 34– 2880 BC through 2640 BC
Part 1
   
Buster reached unexplored territory on Turn 30, then he was lured north by a convenient stretch of Roads and Railroads, and now he is returning south to follow the coastline as planned. He found a lot of interesting stuff.

There is a Barbarian city named Little Lamplight just where I thought one would be. Its characteristics are the same as the others’.
Dreyrain’s starting capital of Kirk is northeast of Little Lamplight in the dark fog, on the other side of the water. I am pretty sure the capital itself is no more coastal than ours is, based on earlier screenshots of the Demographics screen, but it is interesting that its third-ring culture (thanks to Hinduism) is out on the water like this. Gaugamela’s third-ring culture is on land.
Also, I wonder if Little Lamplight’s water body has any 1-tile islands with Tribal Villages? Goodneighbor’s water body between us and Gavagai is confirmed to have none, so not all water bodies, even ones adjacent to starting capitals, are the same. .
Speaking of, you can see there is another Tribal Village on an island north of Gaugamela. I actually discovered that a while ago, but I forgot to mention it until now. The hut gives the best range of results if it is popped with culture, and that can be achieved easily enough because we are CRE and will want to settle a city 2S of the hut to get the Coast Hamlet and help grow Gaugamela’s Cottages.

And there is a Fort between that water body and the one with Little Lamplight and Kirk (I need to name the water bodies around us). That Fort will act as a canal even before Mathematics as soon as it is in our culture, which could be shortly after we settle for the Copper, depending on where exactly we decide to place that city. A canal there could be useful. With access to that water body, we could reuse the Galley that will be necessary for Megaton (the much-discussed Barbarian city to our northwest) to steal Little Lamplight and maybe some huts from Dreyrain. I don’t see any good spots for ports on that water body, so without a canal I’m not sure if we could get any ships there anytime soon.

A final few things to note: The signed Workshop on the Plains Hill by the Gems is just like a pre-built Plains Hill Mine, but the ways to improve its yield will come a lot sooner than for an actual Mine.
There is another source of Stone in the north. It is guarded by the Barbarian Samurai. Still no Marble anywhere. I think that is good for Industrious us. . And I wonder if any of the UUs of civs actually in this game exist in Barbarian form on this map somewhere? Fast Workers, of course not. Quechas, too weak. Dog Soldiers and Vultures, too vulnerable to Chariots. Immortals, too vulnerable to Spearmen, even with defensive bonuses. Thinking out loud, probably not.


   
After much consternation, I have decided about our second city spot and our research path.

As you can see, we settled our second city in the northwest on the City Ruins. The yields are just too good to pass up. And the opportunity to flip a Barbarian city is too plausible and too cool to pass up. I should have thought about that as a possible perk of CRE from the beginning! More on that in a minute.
And I think we really can get away with delaying Copper until the third city. The second city itself is behind the capital and therefore is even safer than our capital. I strongly suspect that the Raging Barbarians are neutralized, so all we have to worry about are the other players. They most likely will not rush us, but if they do, we can see it coming with the Power Graph and at least survive by researching Archery and training Archers. It is also possible to hook the Horse without settling another city, and to hook the Copper in a hurry by settling on top of it. Not even that bad of a city spot.


   
The research path will be, I hope, I think, finish The Wheel --> enough of Archery to be within hailing distance in the event of danger --> all of Fishing --> rest of Archery.

The best path in the absence of danger would be The Wheel --> Fishing.
I do not know exactly when the Workers will want to start building Roads, but I am sure it will be sooner rather than later.
Fishing of course for the second city’s Fish and Crabs and the capital’s Forested Lake.

However, the actual research path I chose will still work for three reasons.
ONE: Dreyrain discovered The Wheel just recently, and Superdeath/Naufragar has of course had it from the beginning. 2 known players with the tech is enough for 1BPT of KTB for us. And Fishing has been known by 2 known players for a while now, though I’m not sure who other than Thrawn has it. These KTB beakers will be vital for just barely getting the techs in time.
TWO: Fishing is not really needed for a while, so delaying it to partially research Archery is acceptable. The second city must train its own Work Boat, because the capital is not coastal, so it will take until, off the top of my head, Turn 43 for the Work Boat to be in position to improve the Fish. Since this is CTH, we don’t actually need Fishing until then. Not being able to work the Forested Lake at the capital will cost us some commerce, sure, but not any foodhammers compared to an ordinary Flat Grassland Forest.
THREE: Beakers in Archery are not really a waste. I think an Archer will be necessary to settle for the Copper safely, so we will need Archery soon even if no Barbarians or players rush us.

So that is the research path. I hope it will work. .


   
Behold the much-discussed Barbarian city of Megaton!
The little boat sprite on the Fish is the ultimate photographic proof that the so-called “Barbarians” know Fishing. If their population growth rate was not proof enough.


Now, about flipping Megaton:
Every turn when we have more culture on Megaton’s city tile itself than the Barbarians do, there is a flat 10% chance the city flips to our side. The population and buildings will be unharmed, the garrison units will all die, we will get a free Archer in the city, and there won’t even be any turns on anarchy. Great. That’s it.
Human cities take two revolts, with some turns of anarchy in between, to flip. Also, there is another check about cultural garrison strength vs. revolt power that must be passed in addition to the flat 10% chance each turn. But Barbarian cities take only one revolt and always fail the other check.

All cities get 2 free culture on their center tile when they are founded.
However, the thought just occurred to me that Scooter could have added culture to Megaton in Worldbuilder. It is easy to do. But any more than 9 culture and the city would have its second ring, and I’m not sure that adding culture to a city in Worldbuilder would directly do anything to the culture on its center tile anyway. Probably not a problem.
Anyway, if there is only 2 culture on Megaton’s own center tile, then all we need to do is attain third-ring culture in New Tehran. This will happen in 50 turns, of course. That will reach Megaton’s city tile with our culture, and at +2 CRE culture per turn we will have the majority culture in just a turn or two. Then it should take only another ten turns or so to revolt and flip.
Approximate date of flip: Turn 90. .

What could possibly go wrong?
Tarkeel, you were correct that the culture of a city can only extend two tiles away from the continent the city is on. I did not remember that at the time and I thank you for reminding me. That could have been terrible to not know.
HOWEVER, in this case, this flipping plan is alright anyway. As you can see, Megaton’s city tile is within 2 tiles of that Peak to the north, and that Peak is on the same continent as New Tehran. Our continent surrounds the enter water body containing Megaton’s island. I doubt that there are any tiles on the whole map more than 2 tiles away from the main continent. This is a Toroidal muddle map and all the water bodies are puddles.
The other thing that could still go wrong is Megaton attaining some culture. The only way this could happen is if Megaton builds a Monument. Barbarians cannot build Wonders, religious buildings, or most culture buildings. A Monument is the only way. If Megaton builds a Monument, New Tehran could defeat it for the first ten turns 2 to 1, but then Megaton reaches second-ring culture and gets the extra +20 culture per turn on the city tile. Yes, that’s right, the city tile is counted the same as the first-ring tiles and does not get +20 culture per turn until the second-ring expansion. It is not counted as “zeroth ring” or anything like that.
We need to flip the city before it reaches second-ring culture. I doubt that it will be practical to reach fourth-ring culture in New Tehran to counter that. If Megaton gets 10 culture, then we should just conquer the city normally.
I do not know if the Barbarian governor of Megaton will build a Monument to soon or not. What are the flavors of the Barbarian leader? Do the Barbarians even have Mysticism yet? They have Fishing. What has Megaton been building all this time? 35 turns and nothing is produced yet. Would the Barbarians adopt Slavery anytime soon? I have no idea. .

What can we do?
Build a Library in New Tehran, obviously. We are CRE and it is a good city for Scientist specialists anyway.
Build a Monument in New Tehran, but I think this is a bad idea. Mysticism would be a detour. Also, if Megaton already has a Monument of its own, our Monument will make no difference. If Megaton does not have a Monument of its own, then ours could easily be a waste. And a Monument is inferior to a Library.
Religion? No.

Is this a good plan? What is the reward?
Well, despite all the text typed about this plan, it is not expensive at all. Just settle a city where I already wanted to settle a city and build a Library where I already wanted to build a Library (maybe a little sooner than otherwise). Then just wait, watch, and hope.
And the reward is excellent, even though flipping the Barbarian city will not sequence-break Civ IV, unfortunately, as cool and possible as that is. I mean that it is possible to seize a city on another landmass before Sailing and Galleys by culture flipping it. But in this case, it will not happen that fast. We will probably have researched Sailing by the time Megaton flips, if it ever does.
But we can still acquire Megaton faster by flipping than by fighting. There are 2 Longbowmen and 1 Cho-Ko-Nu in that city. The Barbarians might train more defenders. I have not used any Vodka on this scenario yet, but surely that would require at least 6 Axemen to defeat at the very very least? Certainly more. Swordsmen. Horse Archers. Catapults. Barracks. Doomed units. Units out of position against other foes for turns on end. Expensive stuff! And could we even profitably manage that by Turn 100? I don’t know.
But flipping Megaton costs no units at all. In fact, it actually gains us a unit. .
And Megaton is a good city. 1 Flat Grassland Gold uneachable from elsewhere, probably another seafood in the fog, cultural influence on the other side of the water, safety for New Tehran. Good stuff.

I feel great about this flipping plan. .


   
Darius III the Screw-Up Worker has gone to New Tehran to Pasture the Pigs, then chop the Tundra Lumbermill (sorry), then build Roads back.
The Other Worker has gone to Camp the Ivory. No reason to delay any longer.
The overflow from the Settler, especially from the superfluous third chop, was put into a third Worker. What else? Unfortunately, that required allowing 1 hammer invested in the 14/15 Warrior to decay away. And then 2 more hammers while the Worker is finished, because the Warrior is not urgent and I think 1 Worker-turn is more valuable than 2 hammer. I could be wrong. I do not know what I could have done differently to avoid this dilemma.

At least I learned a cool interaction from this. Did you know that hammers can still decay during anarchy? It’s true! But there is no harm in technically setting your city to produce the thing that is decaying during anarchy. No hammers are invested in the thing, because it is anarchy, but no hammers decay either.
What I mean is that I trained a Worker T32, revolted T33 and set Gaugamela to the Warrior for that turn, then went back to training a Worker T33. So I will only lose 3 hammers in the Warrior instead of 4.
Of course I did revolt to Slavery as New Tehran’s Settler travelled. The revolt is pure downside for at least another 10 turns, but this is the least bad time for it as usual.

[Magic Science]

Turn 28 through Turn 34– 2880 BC through 2640 BC
Part 2
   
Lastly, foreign affairs.

On Turn 31, Gavagai became the first player to settle his second city. I have no confirmation of where it is, but I still strongly suspect it is on the marked spot between the Corn and Copper and Clam. I will watch the Copper’s hover-over text every turn. The Corn has no hover-over text, because although it is unimproved, it also cannot be improved. Interesting that the Oasis’ nature supersedes the Corn’s nature for the hover-text.

Gavagai also built Stonehenge afterwards. Overflow from the Settler? And some chops? Did he whip? Was this his plan all along, or did he have his doubts about The Great Wall too and decide against it after seeing immobile Barbarians and no animals? Well, I will keep in mind how this enables him to settle and that he will get a Great Prophet in 50 turns.

Will Gavagai research Meditation, then? And that makes me realize something. It is revealing that Dreyrain researched Polytheism instead of Meditation. They must have incorrectly anticipated competition. .


Lastly, before I forget, two things:

ONE: On Turn 28, Thrawn’s Scout was seen south of Gaugamela. So he must have met us on the northern side earlier. I do not know what this might imply about his intentions and location. Whatever. All Scouts are safely zooming across the map and all things will be known to all players soon, including us. Unless…

TWO: On Turn 34, Superdeath settled his second city. That makes 3/5, for 8 player cities total on our continent. Let’s see what the Barbarians do now. .


EDIT: I hovered over the tile but forgot to mention it; . Gavagai's capital Pig is not improved with a Pasture, so I guess he does not have Animal Husbandry. Good.

[Magic Science]

Turn 35 and Turn 36 – 2600 BC and 2560 BC
   
Two unexpected things occurred on Turn 35.

ONE: The Ivory is not just improved, but connected too. Without a Road on its tile. Being on a different river than Gaugamela. Interesting.
I checked, and this happened in my sandbox too, I just didn’t notice it beforehand. . I guess that the Ivory tile’s river must technically extend to the Grassland Hill 1W, and Gaugamela’s river does too, so trade can portage between the rivers through that tile.

TWO: There is a Barbarian Archer in the northeast! . Shit. This is bad.
I was too complacent once I noticed that the Barbarian animals weren’t spawning and realized the possible implications of the immobile Barbarians. In one of my tests, I even noticed that Raging Barbarians don’t act the same as Calm Barbarians regarding animals. Calm Barbarians must wait for animals to die in battle or be despawned, but the Raging Barbarians spawned in huge numbers immediately. There must be a spawn cap increase with this setting, or a separate spawn cap for the Barbarian humans, or something. I don’t know.
I bet wrong.
With that said, the situation might not be too bad overall. I still think that the immobile Barbarians will at least reduce the normal Raging spawns, even if they don’t eliminate them. There might not be very many mobile Barbarians at all, it’s just that, with the Raging Barbarians setting On, they are at maximum aggression as soon as they spawn. There could conceivably be just one mobile, maximally aggressive Archer on the whole map for all we know at this point. Probably not, though.
Oh, and I guess this confirms the Barbarians started with Archery as they normally do on Monarch. And I was just starting to feel sad about picking Persia for the Immortals, too. Mixed feelings.


I decided that the Worker from the Ivory should start Roading to the Horse, since a Road on the Ivory is not worth building now anyway, and the new Worker from Gaugamela should join him. What we really need to deal with the Archer and any more that come is a unit that can run out and kill it on the attack to pre-emptively protect my improvements, Workers, and cities. An Immortal can do that, but Warriors and even Archers can’t.
I am glad to be CRE and have the Horse already in our culture. And now I question to wisdom of hedging against disaster by researching some of Archery, if my immediate response to actual disaster was to go for Immortals instead. .

With that said, I will still finish researching Archery now. The previous plan was to leave Archery with only 1 turn left to go. Fully researching Archery before Fishing will only cost 1 turn of working the improved Fish at New Tehran, MAYBE, and nothing else. I might be able to profitably speed tech by a hair and still get there in time. It could save the day against the Barbarians if something goes wrong, and I will probably want Archers soon enough anyway. I must not underestimate the Barbarians again.
The real cost of Archery will be delaying Pottery, Writing, and Sailing.

Lastly, I finished training the 12/15 decaying Warrior. Then…


   
This was a double-turn for me, so I watched the Barbarian Archer move in real time. It seemed to me that it’s true that the Barbarians move at the beginning of the turn, but with a slight delay. I expect this delay to increase as the turns become more complicated, so it might be possible to double-move the Barbarians if you play last and click quickly. That trick is from GermanJoey’s Pitboss 22 thread. That trick seems too risky and dickish to try, but it is cool to be reminded that such an obscure thing is possible.

I hoped the Barbarian would move 1SW and proceed directly to attack Gaugamela suicidally, but instead he used the Roads to occupy the Corn Farm. Shit. I did not expect that. Any chance that he won’t pillage the Farm on his next turn?
The Warriors just fortified in Gaugamela, which will produce another Warrior with overflow. It is too dangerous not to. If the Archer moves towards the Pig and New Tehran, then the Warriors might try to intercept him. I really hope the Archer just attacks Gaugamela and dies.

Meanwhile, New Tehran is undisturbed and happy. .
For now.

[Tarkeel]

The river does not extend to the grasshill W of the ivory, but the way the game calculates trade on rivers is funky. Charriu has documented this in his mysteries thread.

[scooter]

I hoped the Barbarian would move 1SW and proceed directly to suicidally attack Gaugamela, but instead he used the Roads to occupy the Corn Farm. Shit. I did not expect that. Any chance that he won’t pillage the Farm on his next turn?

It seems very unlikely to me. My basic understanding is barb AI defaults on beelining the nearest city, but periodically (every turn?) does a dice roll on whether to stop and pillage - changing unit AI to pillage mode. If the barb diverted off the beeline path, it seems likely the pillage coin flip came up heads.


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/b...ns.324961/


But I'm going off vague memory from reading this thread.