QSC-c1 "Irritated Mao" game progress.

Everyone is doing Great!!!

Please help me catch up here by not posting future savefiles until we get a bit more discussion. You can play ahead and plan on posting the files on late Wednesday but let us try to have a bit more discussion first.

Discussion Guidance: Try to focus on what we have done so far and not to much on the grand future plans, because that twists what other people might do. Remember the multiple approaches to the game do provide some "cross contamination" so it is up to you to try to play like that extra info is not 100% known to you. Both of these factors emphasize a point that Charis has made about trying to set a good game plan and then follow it responsively and compare the results to other players.

Here is the data table for 2590bc to help stimulate discussion:



Notes:
1) I have added a second column for my game to factor out the extra settler effects at least in the short term game
2) There is some highlighting in the table and I apologize for not having a graphic key yet.
3) pink highlighted techs with an "h" came from goody huts.
4) blue highlighted techs with an "T" came from trading.
5) green highlighted techs with an "r" came from direct research.
6) the square boxes indicate what the player is working on in the save file. A square aroung a tech that is fill in indicates what the player was researching at the beginning of the 10 turn round.

I'll have more comments, data, and observations later this evening but hopefully this table will stimulate some focused discussion. Enjoy.

Just a quick comment: It is definitely the contacts that make the most impact on the early round scoring. Those with 4 early contacts have a large advantage over the pack with all the techs that are available. Steve and SJF each have 4 contacts and they are essentially double every one else.

This game show why effective tech trading can make or break the game. I wonder if an always war game with no trading would even be possible. Too bad no one has taken that approach.

Hotrod

I realize that next round may bring the them back to the pack but with a 3 or 4 tech lead it may not be possible to catch them.

I realize that next round may bring the them back to the pack but with a 3 or 4 tech lead it may not be possible to catch them.


Everyone will get those contacts at some point, and can start trading. I had a big trade point when I got up to 4 civs then gave me a huge block of tech also.

However, they did get an edge. The question is how powerful of one, and can they keep it going?

2590 BC Analysis

Lee - General exporation, doing well with huts
Hotrod - W-W-W-S ? Avoiding early granary due to good food
Shanghai 3000BC, City3 2550BC
Jaxom - W-W-W-G-W (still no settler)
Borealis - W-W-W-G-S-Sp
Stwils - W-W-W-S-W-Sp-G Shanghai 2900BC
Cracker - W-W-Wk-G-W-S Clears 2 forests, gets settler from
hut, kills English settler-pair
SJFrank - W-W-W-S-G
Charis - B-A-S-A Shanghai 2900BC. No contacts yet
SteveAriz - W-W-G-S-S irrigates around Beijing- Shanghai 2590BC
Swift - W-W-S Moves a square OFF river to found, Shanghai 3050BC, war with English
Theos - W-W-W-S-S Shanghai 2750BC
Meldor - W-W-Wk-W-S-W shanhai 2590BC founded WAY up
North on choke, War with English.

Ranking on 'Total points' (12 players)
- Steve and SJFrank quite a bit ahead - that's all from tech
- Cracker and Swift, then Hotrod and Lee not far behind -
based on people for Cracker, balanced doing well on all for others
- Theos, Jaxom, Charis, Stwils, Borea and Meldor
Of these tech was reason for Meldor and Theos, people for Charis and
Jaxom (choosing a VERY later settler), low improvements for Borea,
and a balanced game for stwils.

Our warmongers, Cracker, Swift, Meldor, are ahead (by two workers) in people,
and it will interesting to see how they compare to more peaceful folks.
The way they report this is SO matter-of-fact it's clear this
is standard operating procedure for them
Charis' build order shows a warmonger leaning, but he hasn't made any contacts yet
It'll be interesting to see if his rax-powered archers can do anything.

For settling, the two moves that stand out are Jaxom with the slowest settler
but good exploration, and Meldor founding Shanghai WAY out farther than
anyone else, choosing a chokepoint spot. Will it stop others? Will it cause
a war? Will he get a road connected to it before Synthetic Fibers?!?

Cracker and Meldor know well the advantage of workers (in addition to the
frequent benefit of whacking nearby settlers) and make a worker as
their third unit. I think cracker and I were the only ones to mention
chopping forests already.

Swift is the only one not to found on the starting spot, wanting to get the
wheat and cattle in play immediately. Given the cultural expansion in 10 turns
which will bring both in, moving *off* a river to found capital is something
I would be quite surprised doesn't hurt later. He's also the only one to
start research with Alphabet, as if to highlight going by a different
drummer (A good thing to have in such comparison games!)

Indeed a good start by all
Next report at turn 60 should be quite interesting!!

And to cracker, *THANKS* for all your hard work composing this!
(BTW, PtW has been nothing but zippy fast with small save files for me, original version, 1.04 and 1.14)

Charis

Charis: IRC I am building settler number 3, with 3 turns to growth and 3 turns to complete settler.

Is still no granary , don't know yet. We'll see how I compare in the next round, after virtually everyone else completes their granary.

The only other different approach I took was my tech choices, I realized based on Cracker's writeup of the map that tech trading will be key, couple that with 2 food bonuses, I chose to bypass my usual granary and go for the wheel first, more expensive yes but a free tech for only Japan, a civ that is not in the game. I was hopeful that it had a high tech trade value. Same thing goes for HBR.

By chosing these tech I think I was able to trade more effectively. This allowed me to avoid trading contacts this early in the game.

Hotrod

Huh, I didn't CHOOSE a very late settler. I built 4 warriors but have only 2 left, the other 2 were killed by barbarians. Other than that, good analysis

Meldor founding Shanghai WAY out farther than
anyone else, choosing a chokepoint spot. Will it stop others? Will it cause
a war? Will he get a road connected to it before Synthetic Fibers?!?

Click to expand...

If you are worried about the "Road to Shanghai" it is already completed, the settler used it to get most of the way there. It was completed using one full worker going towards the spot and the two slaves going towards the capital.

The idea being to hook up the wines as soon as the misunderstanding with the English is cleared up. I am sure they will see the light here shortly.

The mystery I would like to know - how did 2 people get 4 contacts already. Looking at my logs I get the 4 contacts several turns later.

I will be interesting to see if the super early contact for Steve and SJF let them hold the lead.

Great summary Charis.

I want to highlight the fact that Swiftsure was the only play to move the initial settler. Everyone else founded right at the start position.

Swift's move to get the cow and wheat under the hood starting in turn two can be looked at as an early advantage that comes at a later cost of having to build a 100 shield aqueduct but that may not be a big deal in light of the low corruption of the capital and limited access to luxuries close at hand.

Shifts move away from the start position cost about 10 power point in turn 1 in terms of lost food/shields/gold. Then being located to get the cow right away boosted food production right away to 3 extra food per turn. The power difference between the unimproved cow (3/1/0) and the unimproved bonus grassland square next to the river (2/1/1) is zero overall but the mix is different.

You had to look close to see that the plains square that Swift moved to was not technically adjacent to the river and this meant it would not get the free ride to pop 12 and also would not pass watter through to let you irrigate the cow and beyond. (very interesting approach here Swift).

I would not have seen this move as an option based on the opening view of the map because you could not see the cow or the wheat in the first view. Moving the worker onto the mountain to get a look around definately revealed this option.

------------------------

As soon a Beijing was founded in the original start position this would have revealed the cow and the wheat.

The other opening plays fall into a couple of major groups:

Irrigate and road straight to the Cow - theos and stwils
Road/mine all Bonus Grasslands first - Jaxom, Steve, Borea
Rd/mine G+ sw of Beijing then go to Cow - cracker, charis, meldor, LKendter, Lee, Hotrod (SJF is sort of in this group but only roaded the G+ square.)

This last group can be further divided into the three players who chose to mine the cow (cracker, charis, and meldor) versus the three players that irrigated the cow (Lee, Hotrod, and SJF).

Noting again here that swift's opening settler move put his game in different thought process category because it basically burned the settler's first turn and the worker's first 4 moves to go for the safesex hut pop.

I'll add some graphs of some of these data elemenst after we get to turn 60 so there will be more trends to talk about (no this is not an invitation to start postion more turns report yet.)

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I want to emphasize for the record that "I am not a warmonger". Libby's conscript warrior and settler just fell against my ax and died. Now charis the bow whore is a warmonger (barracks+archers = yeah you look friendly). Charis's game here is exactly an example of what this game format is about for the higher level players. Choose a strategy and play it to the best of your abilities and then see how it stacks up against other players under similar circumstances. We could spend weeks just analyzing and discussing what we are about to see in just the next 2 to 3 rounds of play.

Lee gets the "hut monger" prize for the opening round with a total of 121 points out of huts and Steve was a close second at 94.

Meldor and Hotrod are tied at zero for the "Huts Schmuts" or the "We don' need no stinkin' Jabba freakin the Huts" award.

Technically stwils gets the "Oh, huts can kill me award" even though she started over with a sprinkle of holy water.

Jaxom, may be getting the worst end of the barbs pointy stick, up to this point, because those evil conscript barbs are killing and eating his regular warriors.

I think we all need to remember that this game has alot of RNG related events (some crappy; some fun) built into it. This is one reason we have to compare things from a technical discussion standpoint and not just "my truck tires are bigger than your truck tires."

I love it - Hotrod is one of the other two players to go for irrigated cow. I guess he learned to appreciate a hyper-growth settler factory after playing in LK34 sg. The question now comes into play - how fast do Hotrod, SJF and myself get more settlers in the next 30 turns.

@Hotrod - I had the same tech research thoughts - heads to note that other civs would not have the wheel

@Jaxom
Oops, I skimmed through the reports a little too quick. I missed your 2750 line on the settler, and saw '1 city' in the table

@Meldor - good luck clearing up the 'misunderstanding' - surely the wines will be a great aid to this!

@cracker
> You had to look close to see that the plains square that Swift
> moved to was not technically adjacent to the river and this
> meant it would not get the free ride to pop 12...

Actually there's a very easy method that most know but some might not. Right-click on the square and get 'terrain' info. If you see +1 extra gold on the square, it's on the river. In general that's far more accurate than trying to see if the river actually
hits the square, because sometimes the graphics lie, while the +1 gold never does!

Agreed though, moving the worker up on the mountain for a view is an interesting choice that sometimes nets a great spot. (For example if it saw wheat and cow just OUTSIDE the 21tile limit of the founding spot)

> I want to emphasize for the record that "I am not a
> warmonger".

That's what they all say!! And my rax is just for defense!!

j/k !

@lee - in most other games I would have irrigated the cow too. But it's not *settlers* I plan to crank from Beijing

I'm off to finish off my next set of turns now. Hopefully I'll make a bogey, er., "contact"

Charis

Lee I am learning, we managed a win in LK30 even with some moves.

The key I think will be if the "earlier" settlers vs. the granary. It came up in the Handy game and I want to see it play out. It should be interesting to note just how many cities behind or ahead as the case maybe. It is interesting to note that only I and the Charis & meldor haven't even started granaries.

As far as the contacts go I think it helps that England, Zulu and America all have scouts. I think we will be hard pressed to find any un popped huts.

Hotrod

One question for cracker though is why Jaxom has Orange in the Contacts/embassy area?

Hotrod

Here's a sample graph of the power progressions up to 2590bc to give you all a feel for relative positions in the pack.



The scale is deliberately having Steve and SJF off the charts at this point so there will at least be some seperation between all the other lines.

A great deal can change in a game like this because the AIs are not dead yet and there Barbs and the evil RNG God can still bite anyone right in the shorts.

Hotrod,

The orange contact boxes for Jaxom might be a better question for Jaxom to answer. I thought he should have contact with two civs based on his fog rollback but his histograph display and diplomatic contacts showed no contacts.

(just to save us forty three posts about the swift-rightclick option in the foreign advisor screen, Yes, I know you need to shift-right click on the vacant orange bubbles to bring up any missing leader heads.)

The Green contact boxes for Steve and SJF are just to highlight the brilliant (and lucky) move to trade contacts with other civs to a civ that has Writing so then you can use your Writing to trade more contacts and techs with the other civs you know. This "bootstrapping" can also be used to trade maps even when you don't have the ability to make maps on your own.

I explored the SW choke before the English town showed up, I still need to find a warrior sturdy enough to survive a barbarian attack and send him there to make contact with Liz. I have seen the Zulu border 2 turns ago but Shaka is doing nothing to help me meet him. All in all, a very bad start for me but the game is still young.

So when are the next 30 to start?

Looking at the results so far I would say I got lucky here - not all of my lead was due to skill

I think a number of you will catch up in the next couple of rounds as my city management breaks down a little once I have more than four or five cities. I've played out to about turn 100 now, and some of my moves (you'll see in the summary) can definitely be classed as / / / ...

I think we have had a very good opening discussion and hopefully we will have even more give-and-take after we see the next round.

Please go ahead and upload the additional turns reports and save files for:

2190bc (turn 40)
1790bc (turn 50)
1525bc (turn 60)


(semi spoiling moderating guru's tip to all the less experienced players - plan ahead for how you will deal with barbarians at the time the second civ on the map enters into the medieval ages or you may have a sad day. For most players this event will occur somewhere in the turn 70 to turn 90 range)

and good luck to all players.

Cracker, what is our time frame for getting the next 3 sets of turns done?

stwils