Turn Discussion

[cav scout]

Yeah, we aren't behind. Demographics will fluctuate. Sometimes we will be #1 in a category and other times not.

It doesn't make any sense to play our game off the demographics. If we change up our goals every turn based on every little tidbit of new info we will be like a cat chasing it's own tail. Lets maintain our focus.
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It very well could be the Wikings... or perhaps the 2nd Indian city? The sooner we find out and make contact the better.

 

[TyBoy]

I think we're in a position for another round of voting. Let's lock down some competing plans then have some polls.

I think we have all the relevant information to atleast decide on:
Our capital build order up through our next 2 settlers.
and
Our worker actions atleast up to the founding of our second city.

The only reason I don't also say our next few techs is that I think we need to see what kind of quick deal our diplomats can work out.

Couldn't that be the third ring of their capital anyway? That's about what our coast would look like to a workboat near the city location labeled axiom on our map. They're probably functionally similar, but I wouldn't assume that the home islands we're on have identical geography.

Our northern workboat is only a few turns behind the eastern one. Since it looks like we're going to have to go the long way to meet india/vikings it's entirely possible that it will meet another civ first or at the same time, depending on how the islands are oriented.

 

[Provolution]

When the cottage is built, the worker will build a roads towards future Quatron, in order to speed up that settlement, as well as connecting that eastern Wheat to our future tradegrid.

 

[cav scout]

Provo- could we get more detailed turn reports please? Specifically screen shots of our island and the Continuum city screen. This is pretty standard MTDG stuff and all the other turn players have done it. The team needs info to participate.

And the worker doesn't need to build any more roads besides the two is has now. Yes it might make sense to to get a turn or two in roading while moving to the 2nd city wheats. But we need screens so we can decide the micro together.

 

[Provolution]

Will do sir

 

[Earthling]

We already had the wheat connected I believe, or are we referring to the one in the capital BFC? - we have two tiles roaded I think. I thought we had time to build two full cottages - probably if we're not doing so yet go build the southern one first and then the northern one (both on already cleared-from-forests-tiles I believe) if that would cost a turn of movement otherwise.

About voting on plans/diplomacy and more: I would be fine with putting some ideas up to vote, and our build order, and tech path are probably the top two to take nominations for, but anything is welcome. It's not like we have bad plans laid out, just different options with slightly different priorities, but I know we want a team decision.

Other thoughts - it could be their third ring, certainly possible. However the key to note imo is that if it's not India, any other civ would not actually have a third ring yet. (Or, anyway, it's not the Dutch who are creative, but they are Orange). India should have a third ring by now due to religion, pretty sure the religion founded in their capital well before a second city. But who knows, could be some odd setup/surprise anyway. I agree it's even possible our other workboat finds the civ to the west sooner or at the same time even.

 

[cav scout]

Which tile did the worker build the cottage on? Is Continuum working the new cottage? Could we get a screen shot of our island every turn with grid and tile yields turned on please?

 

[Provolution]

On the very tile West of the city, by the river, as someone already started. I will post these things if I do something new according to plan.

 

[cav scout]

See I thought the plan was to cottage the tile south of that one first, which would have saved us a worker move when we head to the new city site.

Rushing to play turns without getting input from the rest of the team is no good. Many minds are better than one. And this is a team game, not a succession game or some merlot set-up. And lack of screens so we can follow what you are doing keeps us in the dark and compounds the problem.

The right technique is to post ahead of time what moves you plan on making and let the team vet that before you execute.

 

[Provolution]

All I could read of the plan, was to build two cottages by the river, so I did nothing but follow the general consensus.

I haven't rushed to play without team inputs, so the criticism is generally erroneous, so far we are moving ahead according to plan. There has been no changes to tile usage and there is no general agreement to worker actions after this cottage is completed. In fact, if nothing, I think this process flies much better than the previous team game I observed, to be quite honest.

Right now, the main topic of contention is the next technology choice (Iron Working or Writing), the choice of the third city site, as well as the next build after settler (galley, worker or another settler). I have also introduced the idea to mine that hill SE of Continuum, in order to boost productivity, as we are already well ahead in the pace of research, in place of the 2nd cottage.

If you feel you want to impose a certain way to handle micromanagement, I suggest you set up polls on decisions you want to have enacted.

 

[Earthling]

I actually agree in general that our team has been much more on the same page compared to previous/other games I've participated in. If we all make an effort to keep up and we have a good group I think it's fine, minor things always happen sometimes. I think part of the problem is the pace of the game, if it stays at 48 hours for a few more turns I'd actually recommend we take that as a default and adopt back to it, playing only in the latter half of the turn with time for discussion. I think we as a team could also manage 24 hours, or at least sometimes, we can always slow it down if we have specific troubles. The problem is other teams have been horribly inconsistent, like just going through a string of full-timed-out turns, and if they continue to do so we might as well take more time too.

Anyway - I think the second cottage is preferable right not. The turn of worker movement might not even really matter, not sure when the timing of the settler is. But probably the worker gets to the wheat by the time the city is founded anyway - if he loses a turn building part of another road that's fine.

Certainly though the worker gets to the second city as soon as it can, which means we would not have time to mine at this point; if we were to mine anything it would have been that grass forest hill in the west end of the BFC, but it's too late for that. Wheat => silver=> other wheat at the second city probably takes that worker most of his free time, and then of course depending on what we build amongst workers or settlers or galley we'll eventually have another worker to send around. The capital has 2x wheat, 2x silver, 2x cottage, and a spice tile, so it's reasonably good through size 7 the way things are.

The decisions you listed I think all have been put up and yes I know there is much to discuss, as a team, but we'll make some call on tech, our third city, and next thing to build.

 

[cav scout]

Provo- Can we get those screens your promised before the turn rolls?

 

[Earthling]

I can get a bunch of screenshots, I won't move any units or other things this turn, just where we are currently. It probably will do some good, I'll post them here shortly.

 

[TyBoy]

It might be worthwhile to create a thread specifically dealing with micromanagement and worker issues and keep the discussion there limited to small impact decisions that will take place in the next turn where the discussion can be fast paced and to the point. It would probably resolve miscommunications of this sort since the most efficient course of action is usually pretty clear cut there wouldn't be a lot of debate.

 

[Earthling]

Well, we have a strategy thread for overall issues, but if you feel the need to split things further, we could. As we actually get a larger empire there may be some more need for focusing on smaller scales/invidual cities and all, but that would require a bunch of us keeping track of different things, say each person to get screens on a couple of cities.

But anyway, I got current screenshots and a couple things to point out/discuss, mostly just the screens speak for themselves. Nothing's been moved - the workboats still move again this turn, also worker hasn't moved yet.

Here's our capital; settler out in four turns no matter what we do. Looks like the worker has time to build a second cottage, that's what I would do, after that it may lose a turn of movement but it still gets to the second city by the time it's founded. The capital finishes the settler then finishes that partly built warrior; after that I'm not sure we had entirely decided. Already queued up by Provo I guess was another worker which is four turns after that; we also need to talk in the mid-term about when to get galleys etc...

Spoiler :

Overview of all the land we've explored:

Spoiler :

The peninsula between us and CDZ, with two possible city sites. So this pertains to debate for Resonance or this Asymptote city going first between each other. And I'm not sure if hills or mountains run down the middle, but it's look like they continue through most of the "petal"

Spoiler :

CDZ's domain specifically, what we've explored around their land. Note that they have clams too, though slightly differently spaced. But this could mean that the main continent only has clams for anyone, and crabs and fish are only reserved for some team's starting island.

Spoiler :

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Here's India, the Mavericks, we see a good deal less of them, but as expected their culture expanded, not all the way to the coasts though, which again is probably the norm for all teams

Spoiler :

Next the tech situation. Techs we have and are researching, though after Writing we could do something else. Also the turn time could change as we get more commerce/beakers with city#2 and more growth.

Spoiler :

Last thing is demographics. Top 5 city screen tells nothing new, except probably Willem of the Dutch (Sirius) have the #2 most cultured city.

Important things to note - people have high gnps, likely everyone working their golds/gems etc... and two cities helps as it does in other fields. In population, most teams have 2 cities; no one else is at size six but looking at a lot of size 5 + size 1. Still, looking mostly even and all right.

Spoiler :

In other things, I threw up a couple of different signs, just with city names, but one of them was a concern. The city named "Aridia" just doesn't seemed to be placed as well as it could - it might as well capture another clams and more grassland, where we had Axiom before. I left both signs there. And elsewhere city names staying the same, added asymptote in as we discussed, but we now have a pretty solid list of different city names and I'm of course fine if things juggle around.

 

[cav scout]

It might be worthwhile to create a thread specifically dealing with micromanagement and worker issues and keep the discussion there limited to small impact decisions that will take place in the next turn where the discussion can be fast paced and to the point. It would probably resolve miscommunications of this sort since the most efficient course of action is usually pretty clear cut there wouldn't be a lot of debate.

Well I envisioned that was the purpose of this thread- A place where we can discuss the detailed micro for the turn coming up.

The way i'd like to see the format is:

1. Turn player plays turn and reports what he did in the turn tracker.

2. Turn player then comes to this thread and lists what he plans to do the next turn.

3. The team discusses. If important issues get raised they can get their own threads, polls etc. A general agreement for the micro gets hammered out by the team.

4. When things seemed decided or time is running out the turn player executes the turn based on what the will of the majority seems to be.

 

[cav scout]

Based on the screens it looks like we could have made contact with CDZ earlier. Their culture "bridge" seems to be near that river down there. Thanks again Earthling for the screens- the yields turned on are what makes it stand out.

So is a trade route possible through this bridge? If so, do we want to go back with our workboat to make the trade linkage? It sucks we missed it earlier.

 

[TyBoy]

Whatever is best. The micro is not something I'm going to worry much about anyway. What you described seems like a good use for a thread. This one seems to contain anything which is a response to things seen in the official turn tracker, which is broader I think. It would be good to have a thread that does nothing but discuss micro and worker management.

 

[Provolution]

I have no particular plans for the next turn, but did as everyone expected, I moved Rio Grande straight east and Ganges straight north, and started working a new cottage south of the first one.

For the planning ahead, I hope I get the support for a worker right after the settler, and then go for a galley and another settler in order to get Resonance right after Quatron. We need to get to the continent as early as possible in line with growing our cities, as well as positioning Continuum for a library build as the city grows to 8.

 

[cav scout]

Well its the little things like missing the CDZ culture bridge that we miss out on when we don't have multiple voices discussing the moves for next turn. If I had seen a screen with tile yields back at turn 40 I would have been able to spot the bridge. And this isn't about beating up the guy in the hot seat, it's about ensuring max participation.

"Routine" moves sometimes aren't as routine as they may seem. We could have gained efficiencies with the worker if we had hashed out which tile he would cottage first. So what's the harm in the turn player posting the desired screenshots giving the team a heads up and an opportunity to comment before he moves?
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@ Provo- couldn't you have waited to move the Rio Grande east until we've had a bit more discussion about possibly backtracking the workboat to the CDZ culture bridge? There is still a day left on the timer.