Department of Turnplay

[Daghdha]

Watch out boys. We should expect more harassment from Barbies.

 

[killercane]

Indeed I had AI to 1 after I reinstalled a month ago. Its now fixed. With restless barbs though we should have seen some a long time ago I would have thought regardless of NoAIPatrol.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Pyramids town (formerly Gergovia) is renamed Dark Side of the Moon. The warrior in the capital has adopted Gene Simmons as his moniker. I do enjoy some GS Family Jewels.

The demographics are indeed the same. It is probably the Council and BABE who have philo and are making a run at Republic. This would make the most sense for the isolated start as it is best for food/production/commerce. If they get to Republic before we get to Monarchy, we should know as we will have a corresponding drop in family size (all towns then get 3 food in city center). Only the one who won the Philo race has a chance to get Republic before our Monarchy.

Where does the next settler go?

Heh, I like GS' Family Jewels show as well. And I've learned quite a bit I didn't know about getting info from demographics. Settler placement is something I need to improve in my games, so I would go with where you think as best from your dotmap w/54-55 cities mentioned earlier. Strategically speaking I do think we need one or two more coastal sites soon to expedite curraghs when alphabet is available in 20 turns.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

IIRC barb horsemen appear only when two civs know HBR. If this is true and we are third in literacy and still first in annual income, doesn't this give us some information about the situation of the other teams. It was mentioned earlier that the starts are balanced in these maps, so if each team has two luxuries available as we do, can we assume they have no strategic resources yet? I doubt they could set up a trade route yet even if they have met which would also give them +1 to annual income. Since Council and Babe are most likely the civs with philo, how likely do you think the other two teams researched/popped their way to HBR? Would that be a likely tech path for both the Sumerian and Ottoman teams? If not, then perhaps some contacts and tech trades have already taken place. Perhaps its just idle speculation, or I'm just wrong about the barb horsemen.

I'll knock on wood about the chances of an SGL to grab the Pyramids from us. Worst case scenario we'll still get some wonder, but could also continue this pre-build until TGL was available, I think.

Also, I did do some tests about hut popping with both old saves and new games on huge maps with only one opponent. I set research to CB in these games with all the different exp. civs and several more times popped a more expensive tech first. I then reloaded, taking research off CB, and regardless of which tech I set research to always popped CB instead of the more expensive tech. It seems that you do indeed pop the least expensive tech first, unless research is set to that tech. I didn't do enough samples to know what the percentage chances of this happening are, but it seems that you still have a greater likelihood to pop the least expensive one than not. All I know is that is possible, but probably not really worth the time to do a proper statistical analysis. BTW, the turnplay being done is excellent and I have seen no reason to suggest different moves.

 

[jb1964]

I've been a bit detached but I suspect the Powers that Be (TPTB) have orchestrated a scenario whereby many of us would consider the culture victory. That is, we all have isolated islands with the only method of contact being suicide galleys until Astro.

So what is the value of contacts? Tech swaps and relationships.

Where do we stand on the tech front? I know we planned a tech path based on one or two monopoly techs, Myst and Poly?

It would be nice to be able to trade while we still have a good shelf life on a few of 'em. What is the prognosis on building a few curraghs?

 

[jb1964]

What do we fall back on if we get beat to the Pyramids? Also, if we do build the Rids, do we want to build the Hanging Gardens as well to deny the Iro and Sumeria a wonder golden age?

I love the HG's. They're beautiful in the spring.

OK, without doing ANY of the math, is it possible, reasonably possible, to get both?

 

[RFHolloway]

If we are going culture it might be worth crunching some numbers on TOA - few others will have poly. It should work for a fall back if we miss either pyramids or HG. Ideally I would be building the libraries in our GA or pre building them at least.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

If we don't get the Pyramids, our only shot for a wonder-generated GA will be the HG's and another religious wonder. I'll keep knocking on wood for the Pyramids.

 

[Daghdha]

Any wonder cept the military ones are cool w me. 'mids of course as #1, but HG's are great too. ToA is ok but we build cheap temples anyway so maybe not the best investment.

 

[jb1964]

ToA is ok but we build cheap temples anyway so maybe not the best investment.

Excellent point.

BTW, are we playing against any spam wielding Vikings?

 

[RFHolloway]

Any wonder cept the military ones are cool w me. 'mids of course as #1, but HG's are great too. ToA is ok but we build cheap temples anyway so maybe not the best investment.

Agree pyramids is first priority - TOA is not ideal, but here is my analysis.

Upsides

1) 30 shields per temple - 50 cities on the continent = 1500 shields saved for the cost of 500. (compare with SOZ at 300 for 40 shields every 5 turns - would take 115 turns to acheive the same ratio)

2) Denies someone else 60 shields * 50 cities =3000 shields for 500 if they are going for 100k

3) we have an advantage (probable monopoly) on the tech so should be safe to rely on it as a "cascade to" option for a while

4) no upkeep on 50 temples

The downsides are

1) you don't get the doubling with the free temples

2) you can't build any uni's without rebuilding all your temples.

 

[killercane]

No Vikings, just agriculturals and scientifics (Iro, Sumeria, Korea, Ottomans). None are building any wonders in their capitals.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Without contact, we won't know who is building a wonder or a palace pre-build.

The only bad thing about the ToA is that it expires with Education. You lose the 1000 year culture boost, and then you have to build the temples anyway.

 

[RFHolloway]

Bugs wants some steel factories (warriors for an upgrade or archers?). These need to be high shield low food cities (high shield high food should be building settlers, High food low shield should be building workers) Best candidate I see from the list last posted is We Built This City. I propose switching this to a barracks then cranking out somemething pointy.

 

[Daghdha]

I propose switching this to a barracks then cranking out somemething pointy.

Something pointy aye. No one is going to settle on Our Island and stay alive....No One!

 

[RFHolloway]

next tech alpha I think - there may be some smaller islands 2 curraghs 1 clockwise one anticlockwise is a standard manouver

 

[jb1964]

2 curraghs 1 clockwise one anticlockwise is a standard manouver

Yes! Woohoo!

 

[jb1964]

On the demographics front we look good, and seem to be the first to switch governments. No one seems to have pulled off a Republic slingshot.

It would make sence that rather than go for the grand salami there were a few teams that just wanted to ensure the free tech and opted for Philo prior to CoL.

Fine by me.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

We can pop a goody hut in 2 turns. Do we want to? Or do we want to delay it until the 3rd turn when alphabet comes in? Research is on. Alphabet in 3 with 33 gold at -1 gpt.

I think popping masonry would be more useful than BW allowing us to research to lit., possibly in time for our golden age. Of course, we could still pop the wheel or no tech at all.

Are we still thinking of going for TGL? Do we need a pre-build or let DSOTM build it during the GA? If we were beat to it by another team we could still switch to the HG, assuming we aren't beat to the Pyramids. I guess it also depends if we can make contacts, since jb pointed out the possibility of needing astro to reach the other civs.

 

[RFHolloway]

I think popping masonry would be more useful than BW allowing us to research to lit., possibly in time for our golden age. Of course, we could still pop the wheel or no tech at all.

Are we still thinking of going for TGL? Do we need a pre-build or let DSOTM build it during the GA? If we were beat to it by another team we could still switch to the HG, assuming we aren't beat to the Pyramids. I guess it also depends if we can make contacts, since jb pointed out the possibility of needing astro to reach the other civs.

Its worth the 1 turn wait I think to have a chance at a full tech rather than the last turn of one, particularly as can we switch to a tech we don't want to block it if we have no beakers invested.

Are we in danger of running out of names for cities or units - how many are left unused?