Bartleby's Curse

[Bartleby]

As is a curse that affects me, not me having evil intent towards anybody.

It's the old accidental domination:

In this case however, it would've been hard to spot as the tile picked up was a "peripheral" one:

I was going to beg for another exception, but it felt a bit cheesy and besides, on further dissection of the game, I was too late to trim the 20k city.

I had been checking with SirPleb's ScoreCalc and I was expecting ~38k in 2049 when I had planned (but not wisely or too well, as it seems) for it to end in a Space win. I'd have been pleased with that, because although it's not enough for the Score table, it's a fairly good effort for a non-Agri civ on a Pangaea with a so-so Domination Limit (~36xx).

 

[zerksees]

Sounds like a good reason to keep the remaining tiles around 10. 2 tiles to go is a little close for my liking.

Oh well, now you have an excuse to start another one

 

[Marsden]

Yes, the gauntlet is calling to you. This is a sign.

 

[Bartleby]

Mapfinder is running.

Zerksees, I really can't help myself...I have to be one tile from Domination.

 

[superslug]

Mapfinder is running.

Zerksees, I really can't help myself...I have to be one tile from Domination.

Do you not use CRpSuite to warn you in advance of domination breaches?

 

[Bartleby]

Thing is, Mapstat wouldn't spot that one; New Denzili 3's borders expanded and took the sea tile 2S of the city square -- the coast tile adjacent to this was filled in automatically [i.e. New Denzili 3's influence is less than the Border Distance as far as Mapstat is concerned].

edit: a picture being worth 1000 words: the "expanded" borders of New Denzili 3 and the offending tile. If I had looked, I'd have seen the border was going to expand, but I wasn't careful enough.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Perhaps naming the curse will break the spell.

 

[Marsden]

I'll try and get an excorsim at home kit and post one over for you.

 

[Bartleby]

Is pea soup going to be involved?

 

[zerksees]

Mapfinder is running.

Zerksees, I really can't help myself...I have to be one tile from Domination.

Perhaps that is why it is called Bartleby's curse. Do the math on how many points you can gain from the 9 extra tiles that you will not have. How many turns are you at the limit and how many citizens is it costing you? How many points per turn are not going into the total score. Are those last 9 tiles gaining you 30 points? So 30 extra points into 150+ hours spent...

If that doesn't work there's always the exorcism home kit, or mail your C3C disk to me.

My curse is I can't quit this game. It has termendous addictive powers on me. I have to go cold turkey if I quit since there is no in-between it seems. try to eat one potato chip, try to play Civ for half an hour. Can't do it, not gonna do it.

 

[Marsden]

Is pea soup going to be involved?

Only if it's in the recipe. Don't worry, if there's any bad thing involved you'll be the first to get it know.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

ouch. that's a bad one, all right.

 

[Bartleby]

Here are some pictures from my GIII Xi attempt.

In 1610 AD I abandoned two Tundra towns for 11 tiles, to coincide with the expansions of five towns to pick up 11 Domination tiles an 30 sea tiles. Unfortunately, the dotted tiles here were filled in, and I really should have seen it would happen.

Spoiler :

In 1952, New58 was due to reach 1000 culture and the black border is what I thought would be the shape of the expanded border. Unfortunately, the actual shape of the border includes the red corners; hence the dotted tile was picked up.

Spoiler :

Then in 1973, New 82 was due to grow. Unfortunately, while I was now aware of the correct shape of the border, I had begun playing turns more quickly and had stopped checking the culture tab of MapStat each turn. Since the tile to be picked up was not part of the cultural expanison, there was no warning.

Spoiler :

 

[Bartleby]

Another one bites the dust.

I had a border expansion due, and a couple of towns set to settler-abandon. Unfortunately I didn't notice that one of them was still growing.

 

[nerovats]

Sounds like a good reason to keep the remaining tiles around 10. 2 tiles to go is a little close for my liking.

Oh well, now you have an excuse to start another one

When going for Histo I just sell all culture buildings on the coast to prevent this. Then 1 tile is enough and you can't make a mistake.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

dude, that sucks.

How much less of a score would you have if you gave yourself a 10 tile cushion? 100 points?

 

[Marsden]

Bartleby's curse.

I got that once after I ate at one of those $1.99 buffets.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I've done this little trick myself too many times, and I try to keep a 10-tile margin. 1 tile is too tight, even if you build no culture. Painful lesson, but for civ addicts, par for the course. "I'll never drink another drop!" 2 days later, it's "Order me and my mates another round!"

 

[Bartleby]

dude, that sucks.

How much less of a score would you have if you gave yourself a 10 tile cushion? 100 points?

Zerksees made the same point earlier, but I would like to point out that I missed second place in the Huge Warlord table by only 32 points. This game was going fairly well, I was ahead of Svar at this stage but I think I'd still need every point to try to keep up.

Bartleby's curse.

I got that once after I ate at one of those $1.99 buffets.

Actually, that's probably Montezuma's Revenge.

I've done this little trick myself too many times, and I try to keep a 10-tile margin. 1 tile is too tight, even if you build no culture. Painful lesson, but for civ addicts, par for the course. "I'll never drink another drop!" 2 days later, it's "Order me and my mates another round!"

I was still resettling in this game and the borders were changing quite a lot. It's a little late to still be doing that amount of re-arranging but I had so many settlers that I could max the pop of new cites and metros straight away. Also because of the offshore AI the actual conquest went on for quite a while.

I'm submitting it as a Domination anyway because it still beats my previous entry for that table.

 

[Svar]

Zerksees made the same point earlier, but I would like to point out that I missed second place in the Huge Warlord table by only 32 points. This game was going fairly well, I was ahead of Svar at this stage but I think I'd still need every point to try to keep up.

Wow, I heard my name mentioned. After about a 2 1/2 year break I have started playing Civ III again and the high score games with milking are where I'm starting. I'm currently working on a large Regent test game for reference that is on a world too small for a great score but a great starting position with a great 10 AD start. When I get off vacation I can finish it in about a week and then work on finding a better world with another good start.