[LURKER THREAD - NO PLAYERS] it ain't easy being green

[Tarkeel]

Off the top of my head (I couldn't find the formulas that take these details into account) distance maintenace depends on both formal map size, and the actual size. Smaller formal map size will increase the distance costs, and increase with a larger/wider map will (due to increased MaxPlotDistance).

[greenline]

turn 100 (or so) roundup:

Miro:




Compared to turn 50, Miro seems to have fallen a tiny bit behind compared to the competition. He is no longer leading in cities, and does not have a wonder or a ton of improved tiles to compensate. That's not to say he is in a bad position, only that he isn't leading like he was at turn 50. Miro has not made a lot of detailed city build reports, so this slight downturn appears to be from a couple green mistakes, overbuilding libraries early on compared to workers and settlers. Despite that, Miro was the first to reach currency, and is one of a few players aiming for Hanging Gardens. If he pulls it off it would be a significant boost to his position. His economy is strong for this point of the game and he has more good islands to expand to, although he is basically out of locations to settle on the mainland. With PRO/ORG, being at parity or close to it when the expansion phase tapers off is a good sign, and he has the perfect UU to attack Rome with, so I expect Miro will be in a better position relative to the other players in 50 turns.

Giraflorens:




Giraflorens, on the other hand, is about in the same relative position as they were before. Still trailing the leaders in key demo categories, still having the lategame FIN / Dutch combo to back them up. Gira has added Pyramids to his position, always a good prize. I do not think early Representation will be quite as strong here as it might have been for another trait pairing; high food makes growing on FIN coast rather than running specialists a lucrative option. But it's still good for whichever cities cannot afford to work cottages and denies the wonder to civs who might benefit from it more. Gira has a number of islands left to grab, but is also starting to run out of land on the mainland to grab, being steadily boxed in by new cities from xist and coldrain. 

As a player without a good way to attack and gain land from Rome, Gira may struggle when trying to assert dominance over players who should inevitably eat Rome's land. I predict he will be an important coalition partner for dogpiling whoever the big winner from Rome is.

Coldrain: 







Coldrain has improved his position since turn 50, leading the pack in city count. While this seems to have come at the expense of having workers available to improve all the tiles, it seems to be a winning strategy, as he has aimed at getting a lot of islands settled that can work a seafood right away, or have some kind of high yield tile like forest deer that is good even without having a worker on hand. He has also gotten good use out of the Charismatic trait to power whips, spam totem poles, and to grow his cities taller. He has not used Philosophical very much, which I can not judge if this was a significant mistake or not. Perhaps another lurker can chime in on whether you should have generated a great person with PHI at this point, or if it is fine to landgrab hard first and use the trait later. His economy is a little weaker than the other players due to no pure econ trait, but he still seems to not have an issue getting to currency, which will solve any immediate money problems. He is teching Calendar as well; if he builds MoM, pairing this with PHI for medieval golden age spamming will give him a very strong midgame economy to pursue whatever goals he wants. Totem pole + CHA will also give his units an edge once gunpowder units become the norm.

Coldrain doesn't have a direct route to attack Rome, but will probably end up with a share of what was supposed to be Rome's islands. He may try and attack Rome over the sea, or just harass anyone who tries to eat Rome.

xist10:







Xist has also gone up in the rankings since turn 50, remaining competitive in city count but adding two wonders to his civ's name. Great Lighthouse has been a key economy enabler on this map, with plenty of islands left to settle. Oracle hasn't provided quite as much an immediate benefit, but may generate a shrine eventually for his self founded religion, and was cheap to build since he hooked up marble beforehand. Xist has a direct overland route to Rome and room to grab islands near Rome's shores, which will give him multiple avenues to attack Rickeyclik even if he does not have a UU to counter praetorians. It will remain to be seen if Xist and Miro can work out a deal to split Rome or not; however, Xist10 probably does not need to eat Rome to remain competitive, having a great wonder, a potential shrine, and PRO/FIN with cothons available in the near future. The main weakness I see in Xist's gameplay at this stage is over focusing on wonders. TGL and Oracle are plenty for this stage of the game, but he seems to want to get Hanging Gardens / Stonehenge / MoM too, rather than expanding to consolidate his tech lead.

I predict Xist to either attack Rome aggressively in the next fifty turns, or to just tech ahead and bide his time.

Ricketyclik: 




Ricketyclik, unfortunately, has fallen even further behind since turn 50, barely adding any new cities and settling the cities he did add in cumbersome locations. His dotmap for his first few cities might have been workable if he had creative, but given that he is Shaka of Rome, it meant waiting ages for monuments to expand borders to grab the second ring food and copper resources. Compounding those errors, he went Writing and Iron Working before Sailing, and then for Monarchy into Currency, meaning he still does not have any island cities boosting his economy, and leaving his coast vulnerable to his neighbors. He also overbuilt barracks and libraries in his cities and did not settle for any immediate, useful happiness resources, like the silver + fur to the south.

While Ricketyclik does have aggresive praetorians to defend with, he unfortunately neighbors protective China, who is teching Machinery. Ricketyclik can not really do anything against Cho-Ko-Nus, especially without construction, and I am not sure he would even bother putting up much of a fight given his level of play thus far. I don't say this to mean anything rude against Rickeyclik personally, just that he definitely needs more practice on the Civ4 front to do better in these games.

[civac2]

xist is considering the wonders you mentioned but I got the impression he has looking for one or maybe two of them, not all.

Imo there is still plenty of time to do PHI stuff.

[ljubljana]

thanks so much for these overviews!! honestly whether or not there is someone out there regularly giving updates on the gamestate makes a huge difference in at least my engagement as a lurker, it is very much appreciated

[greenline]

Turn 108

I keep pushing back the city overview (too many to do at once), so I’ll include a few here. But first, we’re at T108 now, so time for a new overview of north and south parts of the realm:




Calendar was done in T104 and masonry a turn later. Spice plantations and a sugar plantation have been completed, more will follow. Stenn Desert 2-pop whipped library for some overflow (didn’t optimize this fully) and started Mausoleum. Workers are chopping to complete it faster.

In south, I founded city #15 on island, directly on PH cow. I had completed a WB in advance, so I estimated that faster access to the fish is worth it over founding another city later on tundra sheep island. Another island settle is in position in east, near Ricketyclik. I think I’m encroaching on his side of a 50-50 split of these territories, but early bird gets the turf I guess? I have to admit, I didn’t expect so many islands to be in reach based on the starting area. Maybe ORG or PRO would have been quite powerful here?

My gut instinct is that it's late enough in the game that the benefits of founding on the cow to get the first ring fish are outweighed by the long term benefits of however long it would take to found for the first ring pigs and waiting for a worker to connect them. What do the other lurkers think?

[El Grillo]

PH cow is a 2f/4p tile and definitely worth keeping in play, as are all 6-yield food+hammer tiles. I'd probably settle on the plains hill 1N and steal the netted crabs to grow onto the 4f2p pigs and then the 2f/4p cow. That's already quite a strong city, even before chops and border expansion.

[klops]

me too, I'd probably steal the crab because the other city has plenty of food.
If there is already a workboat... why not scout a bit until the next settler for tundra-island arrives?


What I am even more surprised about: Coldrain sees a foreign axe next to his worker and it is still undefended the next turn. I guess a few players would take that opportunity, especially if there is only a tiny border.

[ljubljana]

anyone have an idea of what's going on with ricketyclik's milpower? seems like it's been dropping unaccountably, and everyone who has mentioned it suspects someone else of being the cause.....

[greenline]

No one's declared war on him, so it has to be barbs. From what I can tell he's chronically underbuilt military and then loses praets to barb axes somehow...

[Tarkeel]

I just want to say that I think all of the returning players are showing a marked improvement from earlier games, and both Coldrain and Miro are doing a pretty good job. Xist is probably my personal favorite at this stage of the game.