[SPOILERS] DTG hip, hop, hapaxifies

[DTG]

PBEM 70 spoilers below.



Naming theme = hapax legomena, in various languages.

[DTG]

The picks:

1. AT: Ragnar of Zulu
   
2. Commodore: Hannibal of Egypt
   
3. Alhazard: Catherine of Sumer
   
4. Bob: Joao of China
   
5. DTG: Zara of Mali

Creative Mali is a culture bully: it starts a little slowly, but gobbles up all the good land with obnoxious plants and saves further hammers by building Skirmishers > Axes/Spears for defense. The biggest challenge, then, is to balance expansion with economic development: Organized civs need to reach Code of Laws to compete with the Financial, and to reach Code of Laws in good time you either need multiple commerce resources or a wonder of some sort. A river rich map does more harm than good, since rivers simply allow the Financial civs to push the early tech pace beyond the reach of everyone else.

I don't think I've read any games involving AT and Bob. Joao of China can REX well but might struggle on the economic front; Aggressive Impi are great units, but shouldn't trouble my Skirmishers.

I know Alhazard from a couple of earlier games. He is playing as Sumeria in PBEM 66, and presumably intends to leverage early Ziggurats here in lieu of an economic trait. Catherine is a strong leader, perhaps ranked among the top 5 in the hands of the AI.

Commodore seems quite good and is very experienced. From reading his threads, he seems to love, in no particular order: (a) synergy, whether real or perceived; (b) UBs and UUs; ( c ) typecasting players; (d) a good story. I expect he will either try to build Stonehenge or spam and exploit Charismatic War Chariots.

[GermanJoey]

Your start:



sim: http://media.rhizzone.net/civ/pbem70.dtg...wordWBSave

[DTG]

Thanks for the test file, GermanJoey. I finally had a chance to use it today. The opening before had seemed pretty self-evident: Agriculture ---> Animal Husbandry, with AH conveniently finishing a turn after the Worker had finished its Farm. After this, Fishing seems pretty good. I can work the unimproved Fish while building a Settler, and this lets me skip mining the Grass Hill in favor of roading towards a second city. And with the extra commerce from the Fish, I can speed my way to Bronze Working. I'll probably 1-pop whip a WB and improve the capital's Fish.

Early pics:

[GermanJoey]

Wow, y'all are up to T12 already? Zooming!

and no prob, hope the sim helps.

[DTG]

Woooooosh. That's the sound of PBEM 70 passing by: we got through three turns yesterday. With five players

Anyway, this is me at EOT23




I've decided to grow Sesquipedalian to size 4. I need three turns to grow from size 3 to 4, but I gain back three turns through a combination of +1HPT from the extra tile, roading towards the second city spot, and revolting into Slavery while the Settler is in transit. I had originally intended to settle 1E of the Ivory, but then my second Warrior found some Pigs so I'll need to rethink things. Being Creative, I will be able to improve the Horses before the second city is founded.

Demos:




^^^^ only one other player has a size 3 capital, so my crop yield should be –2F compared to most, to account for the extra citizen.

[DTG]

No problem Brick, and thanks.

Re. Warriors/Scouts, I'm happy to go with a "no war dec until T25" rule, as long as the circumnavigation bonus is removed or delayed by the map's geography. [edit: "delayed"... i.e., an initial starting Scout can't circumnavigate the globe on his own.]

It looked like you guys were leaning towards non-all-scout starts, with the caveat of no wardecs till T25. So, I left the warriors for everyone but Mr Zulu. Sent the save to DTG... the game is afoot!

Any suggestions?

[GermanJoey]

What do you mean, suggestions? There's only one move you could possibly make!

[DTG]

Thanks for the carefully considered feedback.

I hadn't mentioned that my Warrior was slightly wounded:




Upon reflection, I decided that the best thing to do would be be to heal in place. Moving towards the Worker would be overtly aggressive: it would achieve nothing (the Worker would just move away) and risk my Warrior to a unit hidden in the fog (a small risk, but still), whereas healing is... well, healing. At least I have an excuse. More importantly, by fortifying in place, I would force Commodore to deviate from his preferred opening by making him build a unit to cover his Worker. I assume that he wanted to settle the Pigs/Sugar/Rice spot, since he was roading in that direction, and he'd need at least two Warriors (ideally three) to dislodge my own.

The plan was flawless, and Commodore had to build another Warrior (I think):




His capital grew another pop in that time. And who cares? I get the defenders bonus. .

But then, on the same turn, I spot:




Ugh. Woodman II. I had to switch to a Warrior of my own, delaying my Settler by a turn.

Here's a visual representation of this early, earth-shattering non-conflict:




Well, I backed off, and Commodore backed off, and now we have a 10-turn enforced peace. I think we both benefit from this: I don't have to kill or worry about Commodore's Woodsman II Warrior until I have better units, and Commodore doesn't have to worry about me killing his Woodsman II Warrior. The result? We'll live happily ever after (maybe).

Some quick city shots:




Sesquipedalian, originally sesquipedalis or "a foot and a half", only crops up once in the works of Horace and once in the works of Martial. Horace uses it to mock the incorrect use of tragic bombast by writers of comedy: Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque | proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia uerba, | si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querella ("Telephus and Peleus, when they are both in poverty and exile, throw aside their rants and sesquipedalian expressions if they have a mind to move the heart of the spectator with their complaint.") Martial proceeds to prove Horace wrong.

Anyhoo, something sesquipedalian in English is "characterized by long words," or "long-winded." So I thought it was a fitting hapax for my capital.

City #2:




Flother: a word that only appears once in a thirteenth century English manuscript, meaning "snowflake." It has an iconic feel, which I like, just as I like the city itself.

EOT36 demos (I play first, so they're a bit inflated):




I just met AT, who has two cities. Commodore is still at one, but will found his second this turn.

[DTG]

Quick overview/update:




I started a new job two weeks ago, so I'm mostly playing by intuition. My civ feels very middle-of-the-road at the moment: Al is outexpanding me, with 5 cities; Commodore is doing interesting things, like building Stonehenge. Bob is the only player I am yet to meet, which is a bit surprising considering how quickly Joao can expand.

My third city is named Sassigassity, as in: "the sassigassity of that dog is indeed surprising" (Dickens).

It's a shame the GLH was banned on this map, otherwise I'd have a more interesting short-term target.