beestar said:
My laptop's hard drive died yesterday, and I no longer have my Civ4 discs.
Sorry to hear it. Whatever participation level you are able to provide, we will appreciate it!
I, meanwhile, I have a laptop computer that I borrowed which can (slowly) run Civ 4, so I am at least capable of playing again. Perhaps we should slot me in again after magnusmarcus.
I do think that it is time for magnusmarcus to step up to the plate and I am confident that he will put in a solid effort, which will be more than satisfactory for me, no matter what the outcome.
@magnusmarcus: Do your best to make it a fun exercise and treat it as a learning opportunity and I'm certain that we will all be in support of you!
Mitchum said:
To help magnusmarcus out for his turnset,
As a suggestion to you, magnusmarcus, the best thing that he can do that you are the active player is to post messages frequently. Feel free to ask questions. Feel free to tell us what you need help testing (or figuring out via the code or via spreadsheets), so that we can help out. Feel free to say that you are stuck. Feel free to post even a tentative plan. Just remember that we're here you help you!
Mitchum said:
is our high-level plan roughly the same (i.e. bulb Math with GS from Delhi and build the Oracle in Gold-E Locks with marble)? Are we going to build a fifth worker in Zlatorog now that we can no longer build SH there?
I still like the idea of building The Oracle in Gold-E Locks. We really could use the extra Culture there, particularly since we won't be getting a free Monument there, now that we won't be the ones to complete Stonehenge.
I also believe that it has been proven several times now that using a Great Scientist to Lightbulb Math can give your empire a great kick-start, particularly when you need to research a lot of techs. In our case, we want a lot of techs (we want Granaries, we want Catapults, we needed Hinduism, we needed Masonry, we want Fishing... we pretty much want it all, and Lightbulbing a tech like Math helps out a lot in that regard).
If I recall correctly, we're playing the game on normal speed, which means that the first Great Person (such as a Great Scientist) requires 100 GPP (Great People Points). Since we are Philosophical, one Scientist Specialist produces twice as many GPP per turn, i.e. 2 times 3 GPP = 6 GPP per turn. 100 / 6 = 16.67, which rounds up to 17, since we can't hire two thirds of a Scientist. Since that number is an odd number, there is one turn where we could hire just a single Scientist Specialist, then 16 / 2 = 8 turns where we would want to hire two Scientist Specialists, getting us a Great Scientist 1 + 8 = 9 turns later. Of course, since it is easy to forget to hire the second Scientist, my suggestion would be to just hire 2 Scientists right away, to avoid forgetting, and then if we end up with a bit of excess GPP (1 Scientist Specialist's worth of excess GPP) at the end of generating hte Great Scientist, it won't be a big deal, as we'll still get our Great Scientist when we wanted it.
We will want to make sure that we have time to actually press the "Lightbulb" icon on the Great Scientist before we end the turn where we build The Oracle, since we can't Lightbulb Math after completing The Oracle if we are going to get Construction out of the deal.
All of that said, if anyone presents a complete plan that improves upon things, I believe that this team is open-minded enough to consider any such suggestion. So, no, the plan isn't locked in stone, but it is a plan that has been worked on dilligently by many of you and seems to make sense given our goals, so it is probably what we will end up doing unless, like I said, someone presents an even more compelling plan.
As for another tricky thing--we'll want to keep a close eye on what the Barbs are up to. For example, ZPV mentioned that there is the possibility of Barbs in the south--is that possibility still on the table or have we been able to conclusively determine that there is no possibility of wandering Barbs to our south? If there is still the chance of Barb units down there, we might want to make sure that our southern Warriors are not Fortified, so that
we the active player will remember to visually look around the area of each of these units to see if a Barb unit appeared after ending a turn.
It may help you, magnusmarcus, to rewrite LowtherCastle's comments and put them in a format that you will find easy to work through, so as to ensure that you will remember to cover all of the required actions for each turn. I find that it's often easier to write up a plan in a format that works best for me. Each person has their own techniques; personally, I like to build redundancies into my plan, so when I mention a square that a Worker needs to move to, I will mention both the type of square, such as GH for Grassland Hills, as well as the direction, such as NW (for north-west), so that if I make a typo and write "NE" or else forget the difference between east and west when executing the plan, I will have a greater chance of noticing my error.
Here's an example of part of one of my Pre-Play Plans from the last SGOTM:
Everyone will have their own style. Everyone needs to find a way to lay out the information that works best for them. When you are the active player, it's important that the information is laid out in a manner that works well for you, not for the rest of the team, since you will be the one clicking the buttons and pushing our units around the map.
