Department of Turnplay

[Daghdha]

That I will be more than delighted to do

 

[jb1964]

Any speculation as to why the Korean Council built SoZ?

Previous thoughts...
Zeus
Pro- AC are great, and disbandable in culture towns.
Con- more expensive this game.

I think these guys got screwed out of everything else.

BTW, if you read the SoZ announcement the seem to hint that they're on an island when metioning that this would allow them to protect their shores. It's not overt but it seems to lend support to the idea we're all on islands.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Very nice. I agree with all of those. Priorities were most likely just as ours were Pyramids-Lighthouse and we all agree which is best.

It raises more questions though. We have been trying/hoping to prevent an early GA. Even after GA the impact continues to pay divedends the rest of the game, and an all-team island start means there may be an awful lot of game left. Against ai delay can have benefits since they are predictable. With our pop-power we are quite unpredictable. Delaying other teams GA means we feel the impact more turns, just as we will with Pyramids. Why not one of the wonders that could help enable your GA instead of SoZ and risk your plans being "Gonged"?

A different question is what do we make of the evidence of Palace jumps by Team Free and Saber? I've not seen much need for these in C3C, but I might be missing something.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Sure move the curragh one and skip a turn. We may be on the verge of meeting someone! How grand, hopefully it is the BABES.

killercane, your wish is already granted as a message of contact from the BABES is in the inbox at googlemail as we speak. They hail us and do request a reply scheduling talks. I have been unable to report this due to site downtime and a later appointment for some time. Team should check message and advise how to proceed.

 

[RFHolloway]

Clearly the first priority is to send a message back with a picture. I suggest the one of the Reid brothers! - anybody say beauty and the geek?

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Have you read the message?

Edit: Nevermind it is clear you have. Should we copy the message and post it here, your idea seems pretty good.

 

[jb1964]

Is there any chance that "palace jumps" are the result of a capitol being captured? and/or destroyed?

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think that could be possible, jb, but I would expect a little more disruption in score per turn. What is your opinion on up and down swings in literacy? It would be unfortunate if war has broken out somewhere, but it is a possibilty and we should look for more clues. Maybe players that have executed palace jumps could give input in just why doing this purposefully is so important.

 

[jb1964]

Prince, I had all the same thoughts as you did. I have not looked at the score per turn, I'm still not up on all the bits of data one can find in our saves, but I would also think there would be very dramatic swings if war had broken out.

As one who plays the part of the paranoid when thinking diplomacy I just wanted to throw out the possibility that the jumps were not entirely voluntary.

As far as the changes in Literacy goes I'm a bit puzzled as to why our position has moved in two directions. We've done nothing to improve our Literacy rate (that I'm aware of, need to take a look at that calculation) and the only way see another team passing us on the way to the bottom is if their rate is being negatively influenced at the end of a pointy stick.

Maybe the Korean overture to stay away from their shores is a ruse as they find passages to other lands and wreak havoc w/ a few swords? Maybe the SoZ wasn’t a sad consolation prize?

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'll keep looking for more changes and information to post so you can get a clearer picture of the puzzle. It does seem hard for me to find an explanation for this bounce in literacy other than pointy-stick. It might also have nothing to do with Korea(Council). If the Sumerians(Free) are interested in an early GA, the Pyramids was the best to go for and possibly they moved the palace to a high-shield site to remove corruption to improve chances for this. If true, they could be very close to the GL but they also need HG. We have no knowledge on this but, suppose they felt the need for pointy-stick enabled GA with Enkidu. Saber also may have jumped palace for the same reason to improve chances for GL. I'm reaching here for possibilities, but will continue looking for clues. Perhaps we should revive the threads started by the team earlier to continue discussions as things get more complicated.

 

[killercane]

Well a palace move inland (if maps are similar) to have a third ring around the palace would have good corruption effects, but I dont know if it would be worth it. Maybe they have calculated and it is a good ploy/worth the shields. You can probably check it in CA2.

 

[jb1964]

Last bit on Literacy rate (from me) from Bamspeedy's posts (abridged and abused)...

When ya'll get the literature tech, your literacy goes from a minimum of 0% to 3%, and 3% is added to your literacy rate. So havin' only a library in all ya'lls citys, you gonna have a literacy rate of 36% (percentage of population in a city w/ a Lib, Uni, or Research Lab; 33%/33%/33%). If ya'll have a Scientific Wonder, this reckons as the city havin' all the improvements. All science great wonders and 2 small wonders will add to this percentage, but Copernicus's does not, which is about as strange as uncle Earl's 11th toe.

OK, another team's Literacy rate could fluctuate based upon their population that's living in a city w/ Lib (pop a worker or settler and it drops, add pop to non-Lib cities). However, I still do not see how we, who are solidly at zero, have moved from 5 to 4 and back unless there's rounding error associated to population for those teams that don't even have Lit.

And even if there's some pointy stick action going on out there we would still have to explain a Literacy rank better then 5 to rounding error.

At this point I reckon dat Literacy be havin' no meaning four us.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Well a palace move inland (if maps are similar) to have a third ring around the palace would have good corruption effects, but I dont know if it would be worth it. Maybe they have calculated and it is a good ploy/worth the shields. You can probably check it in CA2.

This is true, but would require quite studied analysis, right? At least it means they are really planning well, which is useful info.

@jb-I need to check, but I think on one turn I actually saw us at #3 in literacy. I'll look closer at this in the next few turns and provide info then, as it is unlikely for us to find conclusive info useful for diplo, atm.

Edit: I could get right on it, if you feel it might be important.

 

[jb1964]

Edit: I could get right on it, if you feel it might be important.

If this was directed at me as opposed to Killer then my reply would be, no, I don't think it's that important. I'll keep it in the back of my spacious head. If it doesn't get lost back there I'll mull it over at a later date when we have more to go on.

Last random thought... although Literacy wasn't tied to technology in Bam's thread I wonder if there would be an underlying tie-breaker based on known technologies? Say every player is solidly at zero Literacy based on the fact that they do not have Lit or a Science Wonder. The Demographic's screen still needs to assign a rank and somehow sorting the players based on roundoff error doesn't quite work for me. If however a tie-breaking score is figured based on techs researched then that would explain a bit of the early position swapping. I would float this idea in the public forum but it just screams "Gong doesn't know Lit!", which could be the punchline for a sick pun.

 

[killercane]

I checked the palace calcs in CA2, I dont see much of a difference with current population and running monarchy. Maybe once we are in Republic. I also looked at a possible switch to Republic in GA to see if we come out better in the long run, and the answer there is no (too many unit costs-workers). There is less than 20 gpt improvement in Republic after those costs are factored in. After our GA is probably the perfect time to change, assuming we trade for Rep.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Last random thought... although Literacy wasn't tied to technology in Bam's thread I wonder if there would be an underlying tie-breaker based on known technologies? Say every player is solidly at zero Literacy based on the fact that they do not have Lit or a Science Wonder. The Demographic's screen still needs to assign a rank and somehow sorting the players based on roundoff error doesn't quite work for me. If however a tie-breaking score is figured based on techs researched then that would explain a bit of the early position swapping. I would float this idea in the public forum but it just screams "Gong doesn't know Lit!", which could be the punchline for a sick pun.

This sounds like a distinct possibility and we could check some of our own saves to find out. We already discovered earlier that in C3C discovering philo also gives +3% to literacy even without lit. or any science buildings/wonders when I checked my saves to find out. My saves were such a mess recently, I chucked out most of them to reorganize, so it might take a little time for me to find out. On track for a #1 20K with no start save--sheesh.

I checked the palace calcs in CA2, I dont see much of a difference with current population and running monarchy. Maybe once we are in Republic. I also looked at a possible switch to Republic in GA to see if we come out better in the long run, and the answer there is no (too many unit costs-workers). There is less than 20 gpt improvement in Republic after those costs are factored in. After our GA is probably the perfect time to change, assuming we trade for Rep.

It's this not much difference that makes me wonder why so much effort. Every bean counts, but...

It's good to check what a new gov't. might offer as conditions change, but I don't think we want to have to research this ourselves and we are probably going to need it sometime. I agree we shouldn't even consider it until after GA. We still have very good chances at the GL, despite likely competition, and this would give it to us. If it slows talks with Babe we might not be too worried about not having it yet, but that means a trade for it later and the cost is probably going to be high. The other teams might be interested in forcing us to spend time on it. Even if we could get it in 4-turns, this delay could be costly. Maybe an offer with Babe could include something like "we won't trade Monarchy to other teams until x-turns after you have HG." Still looking forward to updates on diplo, but I think many might have even better ideas, so these are just some suggestions. Is it even possible under the rules to have a deal ready before the next turn?

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Good news, fellow Gongers! I've started the turn. We have two sources of iron! I saw it in a dream at Sugar Mountain last week and it is there! Workers will complete a mine next turn standing on it, and it will remain unconnected. We also have iron near Rockaway Beach in the Northeast. Here's a screenshot with science slider at 0% still in WLTKD.

Spoiler :

In some bad news, I opened the Foreign advisor and tried to send 69 gold to the Babes. I don't know if it worked or not since we still have 69 gold in the treasury. I assume it was sent and the gold remains in the treasury until I hit end of turn. I'll leave the turn open until someone confirms this. This will give me time to crunch some of the numbers the much appreciated overworked Diplo team was expected to do. I'll add edits to this post as these are confirmed, but is expected to take some time.

Here's the info I have so far:
1. No fog remains at the Gong Show.
2. Research is off.
3. Huts are scheduled to pop when we receive math from the Babes.
4. 104 turn estimate on Glib at DSOTM and MoM at Sugar Mountain with 8-9 turns of WLTKD is still solid. This will cost ~600 gold to meet an accelerated production schedule with no payback if we lose out to Saber.
5. FP first, then GLib attempt at DSOTM with no more WLTKD is turn 113, with 3-turns of WLTKD turn 112


EDIT:1. We can do 4-turn research on both construction and currency during GA with no scientists on currency and construction and an easy 4-turns on philo arriving in MA on turn 112 popping no techs from huts. Turn 108 with 1 tech and turn 104 with 2 techs

 

[jb1964]

I've never played a turnset so I don't know the mechanics but I'm betting the gold goes "flush" at the end of the turn. In the regular diplo screen there's always someone there to accept here we have to keep mental track of what we've offered so as to not get into negative numbers.

Great job on the numbers Prince. It certainly helps to know the deadlines.

I'll get Sabre's tech list form the Babes to see how we can work them into a false sence of security. I'm concerned they'll turn a pre-build into the Great Lib the moment they think they're getting played so we'll have to make it good.

BTW, I can't see the pic.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

BTW, I can't see the pic.

I put it in the usual spoiler, did that help?

 

[killercane]

As long as you send it accepted it should go through. I would rather give them some gpt, as lump sum gold is more valuable, maybe we can send them the appropriate amount of gpt along with the 69 gold? Like 4 gpt I guess, and send the other lump sum difference next turn. If they dont like the gpt, we can blame it on the Prince! Would you be ok with that?