RB20 - Miller Time

[Sirian]

New Orange Dot's stone shouldn't be quarried.

Right. Locking it up will mean it won't be used against us, though.


As for the tech, it occurred to me that I overlooked something important: the scoring side of tech. We will, eventually, want to clean up all the old/cheap techs for a few more easy points, and we did not want to "use up" trades on them. This on top of prereq discounts, wherever they may apply (optional prereqs at "Or-Gates" to be sure, but still worth some discount, I think). That tech was FULLY discounted as everybody else knew it, and I took the chance to grab it.

Anyway, weedy or not I did it. Might as well finish it off, and then we can see who does and who doesn't have Theology.


- Sirian

 

[T-hawk]

Polka Dot

What's next, Slash Dot? And hey, did you know that White Dot has its own website?

We will, eventually, want to clean up all the old/cheap techs for a few more easy points

If you do it right, you can actually *gain* beakers on a tech that's old and cheap enough, because of how the overflow is handled. For a fully known and devalued tech, you get a beaker bonus of nearly 30%. The overflow carries over to the next tech you select with that full 30% bonus intact. So if an old tech costs less than 30% of a single turn's beaker production, the overflow will apply *more* beakers towards your next tech (if it's not devalued) than you would've gotten towards it with a straight-up normal turn's production. Strange but true.

 

[mike p]

I thought that the overflow was corrected in the last patch (1.61).

Monotheism was probably weedy right now. Once all of the various freebies are out of play like the GS at Physics or Great Merchant at Economics, then we can backfill useless techs for points (there should be plenty of time, based on the victory conditions enabled ), but I'd rather we get the freebies instead of Mansa!

How likely is it that someone would have just gifted us Monotheism eventually for nothing? And would that count against the WFYABTA limit?

 

[Sirian]

Since we're one of the tech leaders, gifting (on their initiative) would be out. Asking for it for free from a friend, maybe. If we lose the Liberalism bonus by three turns or less you can blame me. Mansa still did not have Paper, though, and with our leader, we pop most of Education in one shot. I knew that if I didn't get the old tech out of the way on my round, I'd still be staring at it again the next time, so I took initiative to clean that up.


- Sirian

 

[BeefontheBone]

Lurker's Comment: Ooooh, Black Dot's back! Yay!

FWIW, I've been under the impression for a while that any improvement on a tile, even a road, will prevent a forest from growing - could be handy for variants like this where they can't be removed. I could, of course, be wrong on that one.

 

[Sirian]

What's next, Slash Dot?

*writes that one down*

Thanks for the idea!


- Sirian

 

[Strauss]

Well, I've played 6 turns up until now, but I'm getting too tired to continue. I'm not usually tired at this time, but this has been a rather draining day. I will continue tomorrow evening.

I do have a question for you (especially for Sirian since he drew up the Dotmap): what if a certain Russian individual beats us to New Pink Dot and settles 2 tiles away from the North Twin Pink Dot.....? Should I go for Indigo (culture clash after first border expansion) or the South Twin Pink Dot (at risk of being cut off when Peter builds a city north of it and perhaps at risk of being attacked by Alex). Or should we re-arrange our dots?

I'm too tired at the moment to think clearly about this and dotmapping has never been my strongest point anyway.

EDIT: I forgot to take a screenie of the last turn's situation, so here is a quickly constructed dotmap.

 

[Sirian]

It looks like the eastern Russian city is 4W and 1N of Indigo? If so, go ahead and settle on Indigo. More decent land to the south of there. Not so much to the north, but there's a hole there we can plug with something -- grabbing those pigs in the hills, probably.

 

[mihau]

Take a look at religions.
There is Big Confucian League with Peter, Toku and Alex who eventually will go after other civs and draw other Confu into conflict. This is a threat.

Frederic is going to grow BIG. Really BIG I mean. With the help of shrine's $$. Have U considered talking Cyrus into war with Fred?

Only Khan (our new friend) is religionless.
I can't see where he is actually placed (broken monitor), but considering his placement Miller should revise spreading Buddism to Khan or not. If Khan is sorrounded by Confu league it is better to leave him pagan than to throw him for the Leauge to be eaten.

 

[Sirian]

We're pacifists! We might send Cyrus a case of beer, but asking him to attack somebody (and then, of course, the inevitable "join us in the war" request, which we would have to turn down) is not our deal.

Don't worry, be happy. We'll roll with whatever they throw at us.


- Sirian

 

[mihau]

Oh, come on we would invite good old Cyrus for a pint or four :BEER: and told Him stories about dreaded Fred. Before we're done Cyrus would be dying to puch the hatered Fred in the nose

Asking for help?
He started ...
.
.
.
.
Yeah, yeah I know the Cyrus variant is not the way to go, but what about Khan?
R we going to be lone buddist on the planet?


BTW: I had 4 pints of beer today, and hope I am not the only having fun

 

[Strauss]

I finally got through my turns. It was fun, in a masochistic kind of way.

Turn 1 (1613): Mono comes in, start on Education, 139 turns at current rate. I use the Great Scientist to start us off, this brings the tech to 48 turns.

Turn 2 (1616): Buddhism spreads to Edo.

IBT 3: Liz asks us to cancel deals with Toku, yes. Nappie asks us to cancel deals with Mansa, no.

Turn 3 (1619): Settler in San Fransisco finished, I move him to Brickyard-red Dot. The Buffalo-St. Louis-Philadelphia Route is finished.

Turn 4 (1622): Peter has beaten us to New Pink Dot! I will now go for the Hot Pink Twins

Turn 6 (1628): Peter beats us again! And I misplaced the Dot in the screenshot in my last post. Peter’s city is only 1 tile away from North Pink Dot and too close to Indigo Dot to get much use out of that one. Now I have to go for the Southern Twin Pink Dot.

IBT 8:Mali captures Yue-Chi.

IBT 9: Cyrus cancels his 5 gpt to us.

IBT 10: Buddhism spreads to Yekaterinburg and Genghis converts to Confucianism.

Turn 11 (1643): This is nice! Barbarians have settled 2 tiles away from the Last Pink Dot.

Also, we are ranked 5th in power.

I start training some more troops

Turn 12 (1646 AD): Persia has settled exactly on Dark Green Dot. I move Boston’s Settler towards Light Green.

Turn 13 (1649 AD): I do get a city founded. Denver is founded on Brickyard-red Dot.

Turn 15 (1655 AD): We are currently 3rd in score, behind Cyrus (some 20 points) and Mansa (some 50 points). The troops down at the barb city consist of 2 Jumbo’s (1 still healing) and a Horse Archer (also healing). I think this should be enough, though Tatran could get another Jumbo or otherwise a Catapult down there if he wants. When the city is razed, the Settler is near, I’ve moved him back a bit to stay safe from barbs. There is another Settler near the Pig Hill, I think it’s safe there now.
We also have a Settler moving toward Light Green and he should be able to grab it.
In the east, I’ve sent a few Workers to start building a route to Denver from Seattle.

EDIT: .... something went wrong with this picture

The Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Miller_AD-1655.Civ4SavedGame

And to end in a good mood:

 

[Sirian]

That's OK. A good DotMap(TM) will always have failed dots. If not, then you weren't ambitious enough in your consideration of what is possible.

No midgame DotMap(TM) ever survives contact with the enemy.


- Sirian

 

[mike p]

I just took a look at the save. Research wise, we're not doing so hot. Mansa has Education already. Since we're 12 turns away we'll probably lose Liberalism.

By adding some more scientists back wherever we can, (which isn't too many actually) we can shave 3 turns out of 12. I think for the near term we need to prioritize science where ever we can, even it means lower production.

Our tech path from here should probably be Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, Scientific Method, Physics, Electricity. Once we get all of our mills maxed out we should be able to play catch up. Every windmill will give 3 commerce and every watermill will give 4.

If anyone has a better plan, then go ahead and blow mine away. Let's all get on the same page and execute!

 

[Mutineer]

Lurker comment:
I did not look on save, but Masta tend to go after economic in my expirience and only after that to liberalism.

 

[Dreylin]

Extended lurker comment:

Lurker comment:
I did not look on save, but Mansa tend to go after economic in my expirience and only after that to liberalism.

Indeed, however with a 12+ turn lead he is more than capable of grabbing both before you can even get one ... which is exactly what the rat bastid did to me last night!

 

[Sirian]

Like I said, if we miss the Liberalism bonus by a few turns, I'll take all the heat. Even so, our landgrab efforts are much more urgent. There is no spaceship to race toward. Tech leaders tend to get the wonders, because they have time advantage, but until we reach Rep Parts and have a bunch of our forests improved, we're also behind on shield output.

Those new cities, in their infancy stage, are eating a lot of investment capital. However, it TAKES a lot of investment capital to bring that many new breweries online at the same time. However, we have to keep our people well stocked, you know.




- Sirian


By the way... Where is Tatran hiding? I hope we manage to keep up our impressive pacing so far. Would be cool if we actually finished before RB21, after all that chatter about how long this game was going to run. Not likely, I admit, but would be nice.

 

[Tatran]

By the way... Where is Tatran hiding?

Somewhere in cyberspace ... and I'm not gonna tell you where ?

Well, I'm at turn 7 and I noticed a Japanese stack with fast units in
Russian territory.That stack is big enough to capture/raze a couple
of our cities.I won't risk anything and prepare for war.

Report later.

 

[Strauss]

I might have set a trend with giving a 'hint' screenie halfway through the turnset.

And I see you've founded the two southern cities.

 

[Tatran]

And I see you've founded the two southern cities

Yeh, but those cities aren't settled on the suggested spots. Wait for the full report.