[NO PLAYERS] 82nd Airborne Dropping in to Lurk

[El Grillo]

I hope yuris playing Frederick of Germany has better luck than poor Freddy in AI Survivor.

[RefSteel]

(This of course is where I find I utterly misjudged what the players were saying and they'll all be super upset that I didn't balance things more.  Thanks very much for the suggestions, MJMD and xist10 - I'm sorry I didn't feel I could use them as fully as I'd have liked given what I was being asked for!)

I'm attaching the final WBSave to this post; if anyone sees anything that looks wrong, please say so!

[Mjmd]

I wrote a question asking about why moving was a mistake and then realized its a variant start so 2nd ring foods bad as he already has worker. Just writing for anyone else who forgot.

I've gotten less picky about exact balance over time, but approximate is nice and a gold at capital is a bit too far for me normally. But on a mostly random map it is probably within limits.

[Mjmd]

I don't like Commodore moving. Did he really just put both his foods including a wet corn in second ring? Sure Ottowa dreams are nice, but so is instantly starting to improve a 6f tile.

[RefSteel]

He could see all but one tile of the new BFC before moving too - including the two flat deserts and two flat, dry plains. He picks up six new riverside tiles, five of them grasslands, so at best, that's ... +1 commerce per turn per size beyond 5 up to +5 at size 10, and then maybe another +1 commerce at size 13? It's not a lot of gain for basically just setting at least 15 early food on fire. (15 is the lowball estimate too, assuming he revolts to his religion as soon as his border pop comes in. Scooter should do this too rather than waiting for the first Settler to be out; yuris can wait for the Settler since he'll have an improved food resource by the time the religions are founded.)

I think Scooter's move is fine - the advantages and disadvantages are complex, and I did intentionally leave this option open when I changed the start to the space 1N.

And updated map trivia: I believe the moves mean the shortest distance between actual capitals remain 17 tiles, for each of Commodore-scooter, Cornflakes-yuris, and yuris-scooter. (I believe these are also the only three border distances that would have been less than 30 tiles if I hadn't moved any of the starts.) The longest distance is Commodore-yuris, at I think exacly 25 tiles. And I believe the other two pairings (Commodore-Cornflakes and Cornflakes-scooter) are both 19 tiles.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out!

[El Grillo]

Does anyone know if the city capture counter increments if the same city is captured/recaptured by its original owner? If so, then I imagine razing is mandatory.

Oh, and surely this doesn't come up, but would culture flipping a city count as capturing it?

[Sullla]

Under this game setting, all cities are instantly razed with no options available so it's impossible for anyone to recapture cities. I even have an ancient MP report from 2005 depicting what this looks like in action: https://www.sullla.com/civ4_ccc2.html

[Magic Science]

German camouflage. Incredible.

EDIT: Like a snowshoe hare in the winter snow. Undetectable.

[El Grillo]

This coming up in a 3-city elim game in particular is just too good. Really hoping the barb axe stays away and yuri gets away with it

[Magic Science]

Everything in this game feels exciting to lurk because the stakes are so high. .
1/3rd of Death itself lurks around every corner!