[Spoilers] Pericles of the Graeco-Mayans

[Sylon]

I see. I've been wondering about that for a long time, thanks for clearing that up.

[Sylon]

As promised, here are some dotmaps for your perusal.



Green dot is an obvious production city, with five hills, a fish tile, and some grasslands for farms once Bureaucracy comes in. As it has only one food tile, it can only work four of the hill tiles pre-Bureaucracy, but otherwise it is a solid production side. As an extra, it also happens to double as a canal.

Yellow dot will serve as a commerce city. It shares the clams with Red dot (Below), and will use them when Red dot is not. More on this later.

Blue dot is a filler site, probably to be settled much, much later. I might move it down 1S, since that swaps three ocean tiles for two coastal tiles and one ocean tile. It will use the sheep when Athenai isn't growing.



The aforementioned Red dot will serve as a semi-decent GP farm (Blast this high-sea level map script!), using the sheep and clams. In this situation, it would be better to have a two-resource GP farm and a no-resource filler coastal city than to have two average coastal cities, neither of which are particularly capable at generating GPPs. (The cut off portion is resourceless coast)

Grey dot grabs stone, clams, and two spices. It loses the yield of one of the spices by settling on it, but plains spices isn't all that good of a tile. Depending on how things go, this might double as a production site, working the stone and the plains hill from Green dot.

Purple dot, as mentioned before, seals off the Northwestern passage into what is quickly turning out to look like my core lands. It snags three food sources, three lighthouse-boosted lakes, a healthy amount of grassland tiles and a plains spices. Ideally, I would like to settle this earlier than later- the sheer strength of this site will more than make up for the increased maintenance costs, which are in themselves not much to worry about on Noble. If I get an second early GS, he would probably be used to build an academy here.

Finally, the partially-unrevealed White dot seals off my Southwestern flank. It would probably serve as a commerce city, unless those few unrevealed tiles happen to be hiding some fabulous resources.

[pocketbeetle]

Interesting.

Which one do you intend to settle as your second city?
Why do you prefer Red dot over Purple dot or your capital as the GP farm? (They both have more food than red dot.)
Any thoughts on tech path, specifically BW (copper) and AH (Horses) to check possible hidden resources vs those locations?

[Sylon]

Interesting.

Which one do you intend to settle as your second city?
Why do you prefer Red dot over Purple dot or your capital as the GP farm? (They both have more food than red dot.)
Any thoughts on tech path, specifically BW (copper) and AH (Horses) to check possible hidden resources vs those locations?

-Green dot would be my second city. The other two locations are commerce sites, and production is much, much more important than commerce in the early game.

-My mistake. Athenai, Red dot and Purple dot will all be GP farms. With Philosophical and a good shot at getting the Pyramids, Scientist specialists will be quite strong.

-My current tech path is as follows:
Hunting -> Animal Husbandry (For horses and Sheep) -> Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing -> Sailing

As mentioned in my pre-game thoughts, going up the religious tech path will be quite detrimental for me, and as such I intend to pass them over for some time. The loss of the Org Rel hammer bonus is going to be quite the blow, alas, considering my planned infrastructure-heavy buildup.

Depending on how things play out, I might bring forward Sailing in order to try for the Great Lighthouse. We'll have to see how it goes.

[Sylon]

Athenai grows to size 2 this turn. Interestingly, so does Ruff's capital.



Our new second pop gets to work on the furs tile, while Athenai switches to building a worker, due in 7 turns.

Also, note that both Ruff's and Kodii's score has increased this turn.



There are several things to note here in these demographics:

-Ruff may have grown to size 2, but he isn't working an improved tile. With two pop, he is probably working a three food tile and a two food tile, with the capital providing two food for a total of seven food.

-Of course, he could be working an improved five-food tile and a three-hammer tile. But, as he just got the pop at the end of last turn, I suspect that is not the case- the city governor tends to emphasize food. And I doubt he's pulling C&D tricks just yet.

-Kodii, obviously, did not go for a religion. Based on the power demographics, it is likely-no, certain- that he went for Bronze Working out of the gate.

-Ruff starts with Mining too, and the power graph average just shot up this turn. I suspect that he has just gotten BW too- It would work well with his fast workers. His plan may be to chop out a second worker with his first, then improve his resources.

-2 players are working plains hill hammers. I'm inclined to think that Kodii is one of them, since the rival best GNP just fell from 21 to 19. Then again, that might merely be the loss of the prerequisite bonus. Then again, his second tech was most likely a worker tech, to which he lacked to prerequisites to, since that would be the most sensible option.

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Strategy-wise, I have run into something fairly interesting in a test game of mine, where I sought to familiarise myself with the Pericles-Maya combination. Namely, that swapping to Bureaucracy when your capital is a GP farm is utterly useless.


Screenshot of the capital in the test game. As an additional note, the low pop and high whip anger in the capital is a very good argument as to why you do not want your capital to be in the front lines

The consequences of this discovery is simple: Give up the specialist-capital, or give up Bureaucracy. Normally, the answer here would be to give up the GP farm, but with Philosophical, Pyramids, and an Academy, a specialist-capital is capable of matching the Bureaucracy capital. In fact, when you factor in the fact that diverting part of your Bureaucracy commerce to gold for maintenance wastes part of the Academy bonus, tech-wise the specialist-capital comes out on top.*

There is the production bonus, of course, but as you can see, Athenai has barely any production, save from the whip- and frankly, by the time Bureaucracy comes around, you shouldn't be whipping your capital at all if you can help it.**

Finally, to finish the argument for going specialist-capital, dropping Bureaucracy would mean going for Vassalage. As a builder civ, ditching Bureaucracy and going for Vassalage would be unprecedented and ridiculous. That alone makes it worthwhile.


[COLOR="Silver"]
*Statement based on shifty estimates.
**Let's just pretend I didn't just post a screenshot of my capital with 40+ turns of whip anger.
[/COLOR]

[Sylon]

Exploration reveals peaks and tundra at the end of the world. This lessens the need for defense in Purple dot. Just as well- it would help my tech rate to not have to whip my specialist farms.



Ruff whipped his capital this turn. The only build worth whipping a size two capital down to size one is a worker- and even then, it is debatable. Ruff hasn't lost anything by swapping to Slavery, since he's Spiritual.



And demographics. A little tweaking with Athenai's worked tiles revealed that there are two players working three-food tiles, one player working a two-food tile, and one player working a 0 food tile. Seems like they're going for growth in earnest.

[Sylon]

This turn was utterly uneventful. To pass the time, I decided to get the Espionage section of my cabinet up and running again. In particular, we'll be guessing our opponent's tech paths.

Ruff, as mentioned earlier, probably went with Fishing along with everyone else (T5). After that, he got Bronze Working (T16), swapped to Slavery, and whipped out what is probably a worker.

Kodii went Bronze Working first (T12), as evidenced by the boost in the soldier demographics corresponding to his score increase, got a a score boost 4 turns later, which was probably Fishing (T16) due to the cost of the tech. (Hunting costs the same as Fishing, but would have shown up on the power graph)

Mackoti went Fishing first (T5), then for a score increase 5 turns later, which was probably Hunting (T10), as he starts with Agriculture and Mysticism. 7 turns later, he gets another score increase, which is likely the eighty-beaker Animal Husbandry (T17), since the only other 80-beaker tech is Pottery, and he lacks the wheel.

Pegasus went Fishing first (T5), then possibly Mining (T11), as evidenced by the 2000- soldier increase in the Rival Best portion of the demographics on the same turn. (Kodii, at that time, has only 8000 soldiers- BW would later give him another 8000, bringing the total to 16000). Pegasus could not have gone for a 60-beaker tech, since he started with Agriculture and getting the Wheel would have increased his soldiers by 4000, not 2000.

Or, to sum it up:

Ruff went Fishing -> Bronze Working
Kodii went Bronze Working -> Fishing
Mackoti went Fishing -> Hunting -> Animal Husbandry
Pegasus went Fishing -> Mining

With any luck, my predictions may actually be correct.

[Sylon]

The planning board has been updated.

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I've been thinking about how this game has been unfolding so far, and how it will most likely unfold, and have come to the conclusion that if I do not build the Pyramids, I will most likely lose as a result of my weak traits. On a map like this, Philosophical is heavily crippled from the inability to build farms, while Financial is heavily strengthened by the coastal tiles. I've already gone into that on several occasions before, so we'll skip the remainder of the comparison.

The Pyramids, or more specifically, Representation, fit well with my leader/civ. Half-price Ball Courts for +3 Happiness, with Representation for another +3 Happiness to the three largest cities will allow me to grow my cities quite well. 6 beaker scientists and the 25% library multiplier will produce 7.5 beakers per scientist- Basically, 2 food for 7.5 beakers. This is the approximate yield of a gold tile at 100% science. This disparity is heightened with the presence of an academy, where each scientist makes 10.5 beakers.

At a glance, with Caste System, I should be able to work 5 scientists in Purple Dot (37.5), two in Red Dot (15), 6 in Athenai (63), and one in Blue Dot (7.5). All this, before the turn of the calendar.

Of course, that is where it ends. While my tech rate my get small boosts from irrigating more farms, from Education, and from building wonders that boost my tech rate, it's not going to grow much from there. At the same time, the other civs will be growing their cottages into villages and towns, and eventually I will be left in the dust. Before then, I may have to take some drastic actions. But that's much later in the game.

[Sylon]

So! Civ 5 has been released today! Unless, of course, you happen to be living outside America, in which you will have to wait another three days. Not that any of that matters to me, since I have grown skeptical of buying games off the shelf.

But anyway, we have some interesting news for you today. We have met Ruff!



It's a good thing I kept Euthymenes (That warrior next to Ruff's) back! It could have gotten ugly had Ruff popped up next to my empty capital.

I sent a quick message to him.

Greetings, Ruff_Hi, ruler of India. The city state of Athenai extends its hand to you in friendship. Surely the gods must have precipitated our meeting, for our scouts to have met on such an auspicious day! The dawn of the fifth era shall mark our meeting, and be a sign for all future generations that the gods have destined our two peoples to live in harmony!

So, are you getting Civ 5 today, or are you a skeptic like me?

Sincerely,
Sylon, First Citizen of Athenai

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I imagine that our relationship will be one characterised by distrust, unless I can make him drop his guard against me. Based on what I've seen in PBEM 1 and 3, Ruff does not have qualms about withholding information or telling deceiving his opponents. This does not mean I think he is dishonest- Far from that!- but that he is fairly competitive.

Thankfully, I have a little trick up my sleeve. Ruff- and indeed, all the other players- most likely don't think much of me. This could bring advantages- cripple the stronger neighbour before he gets too powerful, while leaving the weaker neighbour for later; or disadvantages- annex the weaker neighbour, then use one's newly gained advantage to cripple the stronger neighbour. Needless to say, if they attempt the latter, they will not find me a pushover.

For now, I intend to scurry back up to my capital. With a warrior in there, Ruff probably won't try to take it.



It seems I might not need iron working after all- the jungle doesn't appear to extend far. This, however, is also unfortunate, as jungle tends to contain some happiness resources; furthermore, I had hoped for the jungle to act as a buffer between myself and other players. Obviously, Ruff's arrival has dashed that hope.

Demographics-wise, it seems all the other players but one has hooked up a resource (Probably fish) and is working it. The last player appears to be working a forested grassland hill (1F 2H).

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So, returning to our initial topic. Are you getting Civ 5? Are you waiting for reviews and for it to be patched? More importantly, is anyone even reading this, or is everyone busy playing Civ 5 and its demo?

[Twinkletoes89]

I'm reading and I won't be getting Civ 5 just yet. I'm about to head off to uni so need all the money I can get and I only buy games I am really confident I will enjoy.

I don't have the PC for it and don't want to run it in strategic view all the time. Plus the lack of PBEM!

KUTGW!