Sirius Intra-Team Pitboss Game!

[fed1943]

Played my turn.

Spoiler :

building workers and research AH

 

[azzaman333]

So, what turn do people think I'll settle my first Zulu city?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Next one?

My guess is you're moving it to be closer (or next door) to your other capital. If so, that's an interesting strategy... will certainly make it easier for you to defend, if not attack.

 

[Allan79]

Not bad, Altjung. Plenty of food with double Corn (one irrigated to boot), and tonnes of forests for chopping. Heading for Bronze Working early will serve you well. You'll want a Worker ASAP too, to start improving those Corn resources and chopping those forests.

It also looks like you could have either Horses, Copper or Iron on the tile 2N of your capital, due to the very obvious gap in the forests. So it'll be worth going for Animal Husbandry before too long if you don't get Copper there after Bronze Working.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if one of us went strait to alphabet so we could exchange techs?

 

[azzaman333]

Next one?

My guess is you're moving it to be closer (or next door) to your other capital. If so, that's an interesting strategy... will certainly make it easier for you to defend, if not attack.

I wish I had thought to do that instead of what I actually did...

 

[Lord Parkin]

Wouldn't it be a good idea if one of us went strait to alphabet so we could exchange techs?

You don't need Alphabet to exchange techs on teams; both of you automatically get all techs you research. Also, you'll probably want to combine your research (both researching the same thing), because this way you discover new techs twice as fast.

I wish I had thought to do that instead of what I actually did...

Oh? What's that? Searching for a better location? Well, not a big issue, as long as you don't get eaten by a barb animal... what turn do they start spawning, again?

 

[Allan79]

Is anyway we can communicate in the game?

 

[Lord Parkin]

If you click on Altjung's name, it will bring up the diplomacy window for multiplayer. In the lower centre of the screen, there is a typing box. Type what you want and press enter (you may need to repeat this a few times as the number of characters is limited). Once you're all done, press "Offer Trade" (not the most intuitive button, but it works), and Altjung will recieve your messages when he logs in.

Sometimes this message system can be unreliable though - for instance if you get a faulty connection attempt where you have to log in twice in a row, the message will sometimes not display. Other times it will just randomly disappear. So all in all it's more reliable to use the PM system, but if you'd really prefer to use the in-game system, then by all means go ahead.

By the way, caveman1917, you're the last one left to play in this turn. Hope you can play soon.

 

[pindicator]

can i reasonably claim that i've grabbed the first hut of the game?

 

[hell_hound]

Nope

 

[caveman1917]

can i reasonably claim that i've grabbed the first hut of the game?

So what did we get?

 

[DaveShack]

The turn timer has been lowered to 36 hours, effective start of the next turn. We'll see how that goes...

 

[fed1943]

Turn played.

 

[hell_hound]

An eventful turn for the franco-ethopians.

First of all the Ethopians follow a previous map towards the supposed sight of a secret hut only to discover:

Then the French thought they would check out there friendly neighbour only to be greeted with cheers and taught the secret trade of mysticism.

Only then did the Ethiopians, while organising a great feast to celebrate this achievement, notice that they had enough culture to control more land and make an interesting discovery of what lays in the distance...

 

[Lord Parkin]

I also got a hut on turn 1, but it was just gold as far as I recall.

Not this turn, though! I actually got Mining from a hut! Yay!

 

[pindicator]

So what did we get?

A little bit of gold, a few turns of deficit research, nothing as awesome as say Mining or Mysticism

 

[Irgy]

With apologies for reopening an old, off-topic and now essentially irrelevant argument...

It helps because the amount of EP required to steal a tech is much less (usually about half or less) than the amount of beakers required to obtain that tech yourself.

This was the point of difference then. I had another read of:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/espionage_cost.php
and concluded that you are indeed correct. I think last time I read it I stopped at the comparison of the multiplier buildings, without appreciating the effect of the other bonuses.

I tried this espionage-tech strategy in my 7-players-all-me multiplayer game (it's actually still ongoing after a sneak religeous victory attempt that I was expecting to work failed), and fairly soon discovered a weakness: The counter-espionage mission. For a very small investment on your target's side, they can completely change it from being more efficient to being noticably less efficient than straight teching.

Not trying to reopen the tech trading argument or anything though.

It's interesting to note though how different the rules for the intra-team game have ended up being compared to the main game - huts, tech trading and dual-civs. I actually think it's kind of a good thing though, the intra-team game will still do the job of giving people experience and practise, but we get to try a few different things that people were keen on. Particularly the dual-civs thing, which a number of people on the team were keen to try (including me for all that I voted against it for the main game).

 

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, that's true I guess... but your opponent has to have the Spies in position to do so, not to mention the espionage points. Still, it's a valid point, and I hadn't considered it. However, if you think about it, if there's one or two people running away into the tech lead and all the rest are trying to catch up, then the tech leaders would have to perform counter-espionage against EVERY civ, pretty much constantly. I'm not sure that'd be a worthwhile or feasible investment on their part. So while it's tricky for one nation that's behind to catch up with a pack of players that are ahead, it's fairly easy for a pack of nations that are behind to catch up with one or two players that are sticking out in the lead. (And in my experience, the latter is much more common in these sorts of games.)

So thanks for bringing it up, but I still think things will work out. Even if they don't (and I doubt that), we'll all still have had a valuable and fun experience, so it's hardly a loss either way.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Since I did it in the other thread, I figured I'd do it here too.

For anyone interested, on Noble difficulty level (which we're on in this game), these are the probabilities for huts (assuming my files are up to date):

Gold: 35% (large amount 15%, small amount 20%)
Barbarians: 15% (few 10%, lots 5%; ignored if the unit is a Scout)
Free Unit: 15% (warrior 10%, scout 5%)
Map: 10%
Experience: 10%
Tech: 10%
Healing: 5% (ignored if unit is at full health)

That means for a Scout at full health, the probabilities are adjusted to:

Gold: 43.75% (large amount 18.75%, small amount 25%)
Free Unit: 18.75% (warrior 12.5%, scout 6.25%)
Map: 12.5%
Experience: 12.5%
Tech: 12.5%

Remember this only applies for Noble level. These probabilities vary as the difficulty level changes. Generally the higher it is, the less likely you are to get something really nice (like a tech, a free unit, or gold), and the more likely you are to get barbs. In fact the only two things that remain constant across all the difficulty levels from Settler to Deity are that you always have a 5% chance of getting healed if you're damaged, and you always get a 5% chance of getting a Scout. Everything else changes.

 

[fed1943]

I noticed I still have to "end turn", and just that. Perhaps I made a mistake.