90 - Sachsens Glanz und Miguelustens Gloria

[Miguelito]

aaaaaaand the winner is....

Achtung Spoiler:

I, ugh, believe this might actually be better than the original red tile?

To the few among my readers who missed out on German 1990s trash television while growing up: the upper picture is from a game show* presented by the gentleman, where losers would not go home empty handed, but instead were presented with the Zonk stuffed animal in order to top off their humiliation. The show is so old that I struggled to find a decent picture via Google. Importantly it features a Monty Hall problem, so later on I had an easy understanding of that and it was all worth it.

*after further research, apparently it's a spinoff of the US's Let's Make a Deal, and they actually trade in "zonks" there, so your ignorance is due to an avoidable lack of culture

Ramk had given it away beforehand, sort of:

Nice lottery idea, but kinda tragically funny.
I've read stories of other players and abstain from voting because of it.

Actually sort of a spoiler to tell us that lack of copper is not a particular Inca perk. Not that it would affect our game in the foreseeable future. On that note, Ginger also told us in the tech thread that they lost a settler to a low odds barb :alright: - and apparently the referee and lurkers decided to return them, seeing as they did found a city last turn? I believe the word that applies is flabberghasted? Well maybe there's more to the story that I don't know yet.

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Now without copper we have to decide on how to proceed with micro. Rusten, still around?

There are two ways to approach the next dozen turns. My original plan, as posted earlier, was living up to my "Good Micro is when no Overflow" credo: Fishing and Sailing both finished with just 1 spare beaker and no gold left, terrace chopped 60/60, settler whipped from 40h, workboat whipped into a 50/50 galley (with a just in time chop) the turn after finishing Sailing. City growth also always without OF and making maximum use of the granary. The nasty part is the last turn, where we whip the settler and build the galley, because in order to achieve the latter MEißen (city #2) has to work 2 plains forests when it really should be taking both food tiles. So I ran a sim where galley and settler are delayed by a turn. So, on t55 we come out at:

t50 galley / settler:
Dresden (cap): size 3, food 20/26, workboat finished t54 with no OF, 5 turns whip anger remaining
Meißen (city2): size 2, food 12/24, terrace finished t54 with 5h, OF 4 turns whip anger remaining
Leipzig (city3): founded t53, food 10/22, 2h in terrace
research: 107 beakers into the tech after Sailing (incl. 20% arrow bonus), 8 gold in treasury


t51 galley / settler:
Dresden (cap): size 4, food 13/28, workboat at 29/30, 6 turns whip anger remaining
Meißen (city2): size 2, food 12/24, terrace finished t54 with 3h OF, 5 turns whip anger remaining
Leipzig (city3): founded t54, food 5/22, 1h in terrace
research: 129 beakers into the tech after Sailing (incl. 20% arrow bonus), 3 gold in treasury

So, the delayed overseas settling yields us a better developed capital (~1 turn ahead) and about 13 raw commerce more.
Otoh going for the galley/settler asap obviously has city 3 ahead by a turn, and also has the advantage of starting the whip countdown a turn early, and marginally more hammers produced (4 total). Rusten, do you want to opine which you would prefer? - Und Du, werter Leser, was meinst DU?

I've been writing on this post for a few days aready, while also simming and trying to recover sleep despite my daughter's best efforts to keep me from it, so it's a bit delayed. Have a recent screenie:

We did faster granaries in PB59, but we were Exp, so this is still crazy early. The game also sets a personal record on latest ever first whip; I think in all the previous ones I had whipped by turn 30 at the latest (PBEM64 I'm not sure tbh).

Demos still look discouraging:

At 100% on AH (2 arrow boni) we are first in GNP, and second with a tech with one arrow, so that supposed strength of this start might be coming into play. Anyways, I keep telling myself that with the terrace our food is just so much better than other peoples' (assuming they don't get granaries themselves...)

[Papa Bear]

The Terrace sure is one of the most useful unique buildings, surely :Japan:

Oh, by the way: people here still use the "Zonk" word when they describe "bad luck" situations. The show was indeed "Trash TV" as its best, but it did have a cultural influence, that cannot be denied. In the country of Goethe and Schiller, no less

[Miguelito]

The Terrace sure is one of the most useful unique buildings, surely

Aber bisher tut die Terasse für uns nicht mehr als ein normaler Kornspeicher auch würde, außer dass die Hauptstadt 3 Runden früher den dritten Ring kriegt und wir dann etwas weiter übers Wasser schauen können. Aber natürlich ist der Kornspeicher das stärkste Gebäude im Spiel, und die Terasse hat eine der stärksten UB-Wirkungen. Ich freu mich drauf

Those options are pretty similar, I don't mind either way.
Whip timer matters less because our first two cities have so little food.

With terraces in both cities from t54 on they should both be able to do 2pop cycles of a little under ten turns. Actually that is how I even justified the second city on the island. Granted, reaching 2 red faces from whips will for more than a few turns (so the city will regrow into anger) will take some time, and hopefully we find more luxuries by then.
Probably should start a worker to continue cottaging the island afterwards, although we also really want to settle the northern landmass soon.

Do you have a worker plan set for chopping and then whipping the terrace on size 2 in city #3? If the window for that is tight then the later settler could make sense.

Good way to look at it! We can ferry over the worker after he finishes the terrace chop for Meißen (#2). With either variant the chop comes early before the city has made 10 hammers to enable whipping after the chop. So the variant with the earlier settler stays exactly one turn ahead for city 3. Btw we'll have to avoid growth there for a turn arriving at a neat 22/22 two turns after the whip.

Is the barbarian situation under control? If that's a big continent I presume they can start entering borders pretty soon as everyone settles there. On that note, I wonder if this map is inspired by one of my favourite HoMM 2 maps when I was a kid, called seven lakes. The player started on a tiny island with almost no resources of value and had to quickly expand onto the bigger continent.

Achtung Spoiler:

I have not seen a single animal or barb so far. Just double checked that there is no "no barbarians" option discernible on F8. Might be coincidence, but it could also mean that the landmasses we're seeing are also tiny islands? Is this an archipelago?
Fond memories of HOMM2 as well, although I never owned it, just used to play it at my friend's in elementary school. So obviously never scratched much farther than the surface. The oceans to our east and northwest make it not look like we have a contiguous landmass around us, but that might be deliberately misleading as well.

edit: Our commerce is fantastic. Really going to pull ahead there. Need to start thinking of how to leverage that in terms of wonders. What's the most useful wonder in the first 100 turns that requires some teching? You mentioned The Oracle already, anything else? This is completely unmodded right? Standard BtS applies?

Re: commerce, mind that there are 3 other Fin guys. Our early Pottery places us near the top, but we do have competition. Last turn there was a rival with 40 GNP, which we can only surpass at 100% on 2-arrows-AH. Remember that the starts were balanced for leaders, so we have a hefty handicap.
Btw, with the copperless islands, Mansa of Mali is SO good. I hope the mapmakers accounted for that.

Standard BTS yes, only with corporations (Mining/Sushi) nerfed. Colossus and GLH are banned though.

I left both variants of the opening viable for the time being. My instinct goes towards the speedy settler, although I also like how the other variant has Dresden at size 4 when Meißen gets the granary and wants to start growing, so going to continue pondering.

Another big question - what next after Sailing?

• Polytheism - finishing eot55 or 56. Buddhism just fell (no idea to whom, maybe Piccadilly with Wang Kon?). I guess the chance at Hindu is fairly small, but we can save gold on it and then roll the dice. To be followed up by an Oracle attempt, although I'm much less hot for Oracle if we don't have a religion.
• Writing - do what I planned going into the game, and play a pure and honest Currency beeline.
• Archery - with no copper in sight yet we might need it in order to keep our offshore holdings viable?
• AH?

I think if the third city has no first ring copper, and if it is not certifiably a tinyisland, we will really need to look into Archery, although possibly after Poly.

[Miguelito]

It's turn 47, and so much is happening!


The capital popped borders a bit before everybody else's courtesy of the terrace, and we can see a bit more of the land to our north. Rather unexciting, and I'd stay with the proposed x for city 4. We can plant another city further west later on, if it seems profitable. The new sights go against my suspicion of the other landmassesbeing tiny islands as well, however still no barbs have been seen.
Also visible, on turn 47 we eventually improve our capital's wet corn :mischief: :shhh: . With that even the demos look less terrible:

The capital will use the quechua overflow and all the good tiles to bring the settler to 40/100 next turn, then finish growing to 4. My tendency right now is to wait until t49 to decide whether to get the settler asap or delay a turn, and make it dependent on whether Hinduism falls. Delaying has a bunch more commerce, and we could finish Poly a turn earlier. Still hard to believe that we'd get a plausible shot with an eta 55.

[Miguelito]

Today's personal first: messing up micro due to playing sick. Should have asked you to play Rusten. I whipped the settler a turn too early, so we miss out on some yields and pay a turn of extra maintenance (oh wait I can just finish him next turn, great ). Pretty bad, but probably not super bad.

We also got an event:

Lovely.

[Miguelito]

Tremendous excitement, as we're setting sails, finally:



there is copper on the map!

I say we very much settle on top. We still only have one worker who is supposed to spend the next 8 turns chopping out two terraces. The copper plant speeds up the third city terrace, making it so we don't have to set avoid growth, great . Also undisturbed availability of axes and hill plant both seem very important for the barb avalanche that awaits us at some point.
On that point, the wolf confirms that the landmass can bear barbs, hopefully it remains at just doggos for the while being. There's a bear visible on the northern landmass this turn as well. Landing a Quechua next to a bear would suck.



As does paying 3 gpt in unit maintenance . One of the reasons why the new city will bring in a direct bonus to our finances, despite generating immediate costs of >4 gpt. Actually, with ICTR and Fin fish it is quite profitable from the get go.


Meanwhile back home next turn I fear we will have to do the unspeakable and leave the fur unworked for a turn, in order to fast track the capital's growth . Otherwise we just senselessly pump food into Meißen without a terrace (we will already need to avoid growth for a turn). My blunder and the bad event really messed things up .
I have to run numbers though to see if doing so delays our anyhow far fetched Hindu attempt.

[Miguelito]

I'll be damned, looks like I royally screwed up Hindu as well. On turn 55 we'll end the turn with 4 gold left, and 3.2 beakers short . If it comes to it, we can debate working coast over food in order to secure the coinflip .

[Ramkhamhaeng]

Maybe you could give your second city both food resources to speed up growing there?
The new citizen can produce 3 more gold. The research factor of 1.2 can increase this to 4

[Miguelito]

Das geht, aber dann gehen die ganzen Brote mit halber Effizienz in die Stadt ohne Terasse - und das ist es mir dann auch nicht wert. Ich glaub ja eh nicht recht dran, aber wenn Runde 55 echt sonst noch keiner Hindu ist, dann würde ich wohl wirklich eine Runde Küste statt Hirsch belegen. (Mal mutig angenommen, ich hab mich nicht noch woanders verrechnet)

[Miguelito]

argh.


Vodka gives us 50%. I like to gamble, but the iron rule is that these are always losses, so I kept the settler on the boat and loaded up the second quechua (and pulled the third from the city such that he can upload next turn if needed).
I also decided to leave the fur unworked for 2 turns even. In the long run it costs just 1h/1c per turn, since the cottage loses a future coin for every turn that it isn't worked. Does that make sense?
My Polytheism eta had a silly error anyways, so we were already not making it for eot 55; all due to my ill-advised whip and the event on top. Tissues ready for when it falls on that turn.

[Papa Bear]

That is like those galley fights, which Barbarians win 80% of the time, while showing 32.something percent odds

[Miguelito]

[EDIT: I am apparently blind and failed to see the wolf, and therefore said mistaken things about the odds. Here's hoping the Q survives and gets a promo though!]

The Quechua appreciates your encouragement, and I can report that he indeed did survive, although he did not get a promotion:

I did not expect that

In other fun news, Plemo(!) (Asoka!!) oracled freaking Code of Laws!!! He also had his 3rd city down t50, which is 3 turns earlier than the fastest we could have done. Need to get that dogpile going.

Meanwhile Piccadilly (Wang Kon) is up to 4 cities. Either the other Fin leaders (and Org India ) had a much lesser nerf to their starts, or those guys are performing super impressive openings (while we are playing a Pottery first variant). Or both. I feel like we are at least ten turns away yet from a 4th city. Anyways, Oracle should really have gone to someone like Brennus, Monty or Ramesses. Org India being able to snatch it on turn 54 with Writing researched seems quite dubious.

For the record, considering that our main disadvantage is making the whip available really late: While we whipped 2+1 pop on turn 50, Plemo whipped twice for 2pop (t37/47), and Piccadilly only once, for 2pop as well (t42). I'm really curious how they lead us well in excess of 100h already (more like 200 probably - well I guess 2 fast workers chopping? But still, to even have as many forests...), while apparently at least Plemo also has a tech edge.
I would say nothing if these were some leaders from the Monty/CdG/Genghis group, who are supposed to have an early edge by map design to make up for their worse late game. But I would expect for Wang Kon to have an only slightly better start than us, and for Asoka to be on a similar level.
Looking forward in awe to read on their masterful starts (no bitching here) after the game.

[Miguelito]

The last few paragraphs are great news, if things go wrong you can always blame the mapmaker now.

Yes, I am very pleased with myself that I already managed to blame purely hypothetical mapmaker errors for our so far also still mostly hypothetical loss :nod:


We finally, gladly, get up our third city. What is going to happen to that lion? Just going to stay there until a quechua is feeling lucky?
The worker gets ferried over by turn 57, in orderto chop the terrace in time for the whip.

As you see I also have made sort of a plan to drop an axe/settler pair on the northern hill on turn 62. I don't love it; the 40 hammers into the settler being the bottleneck means that 13 of those have to come from food, which of course is a poor use of our terraces. The ideal way would be to grow Meißen to size 4 and whip the axe for 2 pop, overflowing into a galley. But that will take like 2-4 turns longer. Or maybe just one?

Meißen food: 4 (t55)+4+4+7+7 = size 4 on t60.
Dresden foodhammers: 9 (t56) + 9 + 5 + 5 + 13 -> settler whippable t61. Food deficit of -2 on the two turns not working food.

That feels better. In any case I left that option open until next turn (by not putting the 6 OF hammers into an axe this turn), but we'll have to decide then.
Rushing that city also means founding city 4 with just one worker empire wide, but we should do that for the meme value alone, and with Fin coast it is justifiable, somehow, I hope.

With overseas trade we actually get a top position for once:

Don't anybody look past the first row!
Going by the original plan we were finishing Polytheism this turn and would have had our shot at Hinduism, which incredibly is still available. My micro fluke when sick, the bad event and the animals preventing us from settling last turn delayed that for a turn. I'm steeling myself to be able to bear with the disappointment.

[Miguelito]

Good catch on the barb city Rusten. I looked in that direction yesterday but didn't notice it; probably it sprang up in the interturn, or maybe it has gone unnoticed for a while? The most recent screenshotI found, where it definitely isn't, is from turn 47. I did check culture bleed this turn, still nothing. But we do get some exploration news:


Looks like we missed out on a pretty good hammer city 1W. But I'm still happy the way it is, because we wouldn't connect copper for another ten turns otherwise. And hopefully that hammer city just goes SW of the corn or something. (maybe rather plant offcoast?) Next moves for the scouting Quechua S-SW? OR want to catch possible ocean seafood that we'd see from W?

So the lion just buggered off. I am advancing the nearly healed Quechua with the following in mind: IF we get Hinduism AND it falls in Leipzig, THEN the riverside grass tile is the more attractive to chop for the worker that is getting dropped off the galley next turn. Vodka gives me 16something odds against a single lion on defense, which is too high a risk for the worker - but if the Quechua steps on the forest next turn and sees no lion (or bear ) adjacent, then I'd send the worker to chop that tile, and by t58 it's within borders already. Makes sense?

Ahem. I'm meant to be commenting here, aren't I? :smoke:

Those demos look fine to me. Sure food is concerning but you know your start was handicapped and you're playing Fin/Ind Inca against poor schmucks with Suleiman and Brennus. And you're about to land a religion in an 18-player game, which will culture-bomb your new island. I wouldn't stress too much yet.

Oh, you wanted useful comments? I, uh, don't have those yet. I do have an annoying request for brief explanations of your city names though.

Thanks for the encouragement (also Rusten). Yes I'm fine with being behind in expansion at this point. What has me nervous is being far behind Plemo (Asoka) and Piccadilly (Wang Kon), who should enjoy nerfs on a similar level, and we know that the former is Sid Meier's Only Begotten Son, and the latter a very capable player (who may have an axe to grind with us? Nah I don't think he's that kind of character).


More importantly:


Dresden, the proud capital of the State of Saxony.

Tbh, our in game capital looks so un-Dresdeny that for the first few dozen turns I had named it after the nearby, and mostly unspectacular Elbe river island by Pillnitz (where incidentally the royal summer residence is located):


The Civ 4 palace even bears some semblance. However, if we're doing Saxony Dresden has to be the capital, so I have come to accept that.

Historically Dresden was a bit of a late starter (hm ok that is fitting), rather insignificant through the middle ages, but then propelled to prominence as the residence of the Albertinian dynasty that ruled Saxony until 1918. It is famous as a historic center of the arts, and as a newcomer from outside I have been impressed by how much many ordinary people care about activities like opera, classical concerts or expositions, something that I have not seen to that degree elsewhere. There is also a lot of movement in terms of contemporary arts and music, although I'm not a good judge.


Furthermore the city is known for its baroque and classicist architecture, see above, and it turning to dust in the bombings a few months before the end of WW2 [obligatory: the myth over the bombings is overblown and a product of propaganda - reportedly Goebbels just added a 0 to the right of the casualties number, and later on the GDR went with it because it had been the vile anglosaxons. And now that figure is back with the nazis. Dresden was an important transport hub and garrison city, and the destruction was no worse than in other German cities, or cities bombed earlier by the Germans. Not to say that in isolation it wasn't horrific, just that in context it wasn't particularly so]. So all the historic places that you can visit today are no older than 70, and mostly 30 years; and the conversion of ever more parts of old the city into an open air musuem is ongoing. It does look nice, although I sometimes get the feeling of there being an effort to undo decades of history, and restore the supposedly pristine jewel that so unjustly got destroyed. What I find fascinating is that the city used to have two complete fortification rings (one on each side of the river), including water trenches. As a remainder, our Saxon-Incan capital does have a waterside terrace both in game and in real life (I could not find a good picture, but there even even some gardens on top).

The birthplace of the author Erich Kästner (*1899) is a block from where I live. He's a staple in German children's literature and afaik has been widelytranslated as well - it is more than a bit dated, but I'm of the opinion that that is just right for children if they are receptive to it, and my son has been enjoying even the parts that I thought would be just incomprehensible to a person born in this century. More to the point, Kästner among his grown up works also wrote two autobiographic works that I'd recommend to anyone interested in the period, and his childhood account naturally features Dresden prominently:

Should I indeed not only know of what is awful and ugly, but also what is beautiful, then that is thanks to my fortune of growing up in Dresden. I was allowed to breathe beauty, as a ranger's children forest air. (bad translation mine)

So that's aspirational for the game I suppose. Not sure though if we'll get even one measly wonder in there tbh.

[Miguelito]

:jive: :band: :jive:



Incredible that it's turn 57. We're very lucky for this to have worked. There is a little imperfection in it falling in Meißen and not overseas in Leipzig, where it would have been more immediately useful and also a prophet would be easier, but I won't complain, and maybe this is safer.
There seems to be a tendency of Hinduism falling later the bigger the game is, cue PB59 with t54(?). Is that due to higher tech costs (here Deity, back then the Huge map), or is it because nobody tries, as it's so risky with so many competitors? Both games also had quite early Buddhism.


Rusten! Lurkers! What should we research next? In the order of my preference:

1. Priesthood - get a temple up in Meißen with the 2pop whip after the axe, for a prophet around t100. I really want the shrine, and I have mentioned before how I'm interested in monk wonders and particularly AP in order to have everybody feeding the shrine. A second priest for a theo bulb would be very handy for that goal, and we could put Meißen to work 3 priests for another 22 turns in order to achieve this. The shrine is probably not terribly useful immediately, but the more the game advances the more difficult it becomes to get a prophet, with just one slot from a temple. Anways, we don't need the tech immediately, as the temple is one whip cycle away anyways. However if we want it we should also grab the arrow bonus into Writing.
2. Writing into Maths into Currency - the reasonable route. I'd love to run for Calendar and MoM instead, but we don't have a single plantation resource. With all the overseas trade Currency is very strong, obviously.
3. Metal Casting - Ind forges calling, but I'm unenthusiastic seeing as we don't have spotted any precious metal yet. Under those circumstances I guess it's better to leave it forafter Currency. Colossus is banned.
4. AH - well we haven't seen a single husbandable (?) animal, but maybe Rob hid some horsies for us? We are supposed to research the tech at some point, and doing so before Writing gets us another arrow into it. Not a terribly serious option.
5. Don't see a reason for any of the others.

Regarding the whole religious play, maybe with how the map is laid out we should rather focus on getting some scientists up and bulb Astro? Fwiw Theology kills that bulb option by enabling Paper.

I have not ended the turn so we can discuss.