[SPOILER] Victoria of Babylon - Greens - seifer_md

[seifer_md]

Turn 7 rolls along, and cha-ching! Animal Husbandry comes in!





A quick scan of my known world doesn't reveal horses but such is life. Now when my worker completes next turn I can begin pasturing the cows. I'll let my research head down the Mining --> Bronze Working path as I'll want to adopt Slavery soon, but more important are the forest chops to get my settler out the gate. With Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in the bag and mining soon to follow, my worker should have enough to keep him well and truly occupied. Research drops back to 11 bpt since I no longer have a pre-req bonus. 43/11 means Mining comes in 4 turns, and 104/13 reduces the time for Bronze Working to 8 turns. Beaker overflow is minimal progressing through these techs but my research rate will drop slightly as I change to work the soon-to-be pastured cows.

The tech discovery bumped both my score and power rating up a notch. Additionally both Jowy and Strike received score increases as well. The average power increased by 2000 so I believe only one of these players discovered a tech with a power increase (likely Animal Husbandry by Strike). Jowy didn't settle his capital until turn 1 and since he is after me in the turn order, he has only had 5 turns of research. Assigning a tech to him is a little more difficult since I'm not certain about some starting techs, but it could be Pottery or Agriculture if he didn't already have it. Oh well, I guess I'll find out eventually.

Elsewhere in this game a new window has opened and now allows for the opportunity to conduct diplomacy.





Cyclops has his eye within Malakai's territory, and of course vice versa is also true. No one has grown to size 2 yet so I assume workers were just about everyone's first production pick. The presence of my warrior could potentially cause Malakai to become fearful and swap to a warrior build if this was the case. Of course this assumes his warrior isn't just sitting in his capital already. But if this were the case, like I said, I could potentially delay for emergence of his worker by 3 or so turns.

But before any of that, some diplomacy:

Greetings Malakai!

On behalf of the Babylonian empire I am please to find another civilization in the Incan people. At this early stage it is obvious that we are direct neighbours so our relations will be crucial to the success of our empires.

The door to diplomacy has now opened up between us and we encourage active communication as the Babylonian people are very receiving. As this world appears quite small, we expect contact with further civilizations is imminent. To allow good will to prosper between our people we are open to informing you of others we have and will meet, and could even coordinate meetings between these other civilizations if the Incans would agree to reciprocate.

For now, we wish the Incans well and look forward to dealing with your empire in the future.


seifer_md
Babylonian Empire

Just a little meet and greet. I didn't want to stress peace between our civs just yet in case I can get him to build another warrior right now. I have no intentions of attacking Malakai unless I have a significant tech or army advantage over him. One thing I'll certainly have to consider is the nice valley I located with Cyclops. This lies directly between us both and the nicer city spots are even a bit further towards him. A city there would be very aggressive and so it is something I'll have to be very deliberate about. I look forward to hearing back from Malakai and getting a glimpse into his territory.

[seifer_md]

Turn 8 and Vault 13 completes its worker, Ron Swanson. For those that were wondering about my naming schemes, cities are from the Fallout universe, military from X-Men and workers from Parks and Recreation. I'm not really a huge X-Men fan (maybe when I was 10), I just couldn't think of any better group of characters that might do my army justice.

So Ron gets to work:





Of course I want him to begin pasturing the cows tile, but since moving to the cows alone will eat up his first turn, I figure I might as well stop short for one turn of road-ing first and next turn he will begin on the cows. Worker management seems to be a strong factor in determining early success (as Speaker and Sullla were able to show us) and I'm going to try and remain diligent in my worker management in this game.





So after completing a worker I set Vault 13 onto another worker. As I've mentioned I have the 5hpt fall back for emergency warrior production should the need arise. With multiple workers I'll be able to let Vault 13 grow onto improved tiles to increase efficiency, as well as hopefully boosting the speed of getting my 2nd city up and going by road-ing the way for settlers.

This turn Cull's score increased to 38, in conjunction with a 2000 power increase after 7 turns (~84 beakers). Since Cull started with Agriculture and mysticism I'll put this down as Animal Husbandry. I was keeping an eye on the GNP values and I think Cull may have possibly temporarily worked a tile for 3 extra beakers to make it 87. No size 2 capitals yet, but since my worker just completed I suspect I'll see one or two sprouting up in the next several turns.

I received a response from Malakai regarding our initial meeting:

Greetings Seifer,

I would like to be the first to welcome you to our lands, on behalf of the Incan Empire

I have to say, I am as surprised as you are that we have encountered each other so early on and agree that diplomacy between us as neighbours will be crucial to our futures.

The people of Inca will be pleased to keep you apprised of any future encounters we make between any other civilisations in exchange for you doing likewise...and we also feel that co-ordinating meetings between such cilivisations will be mutually beneficial.

I have sent you an invitation to open up more immediate communications, but in the meantime wish you and the Babylonian Empire all the best.

Kind Regards

Pretty standard stuff. It's good he's willing to help out with meeting the other players. I'll probably send a further response back this turn, something along the lines of:

Dear Malakai I (the 1st),

We of the Babylonian Empire are pleased at your response. Consider our mutually beneficial agreement to inform one another of future contact between other civilisations agreed upon.

One thing we would like to raise with you is an additional agreement on espionage spending. Currently we both are spending 4 EPs against each other a turn. To further goodwill between our nations, we are willing to stop spending EPs on you after demographics are available (31 EPs). Hopefully by that stage we will have met other civilisations to swap our EP spending to, or perhaps I will have discovered how to turn spending off by then...

That's all from us for now,

seifer_md
Babylonian Empire

Just wanted to let him know I've agreed about helping each other out and to clarify espionage spending between our two civs. I don't know if it's possible to reduce your EP spending so if anyone could clarify that I would be grateful.

[seifer_md]

Turn 9.





Ron Swanson moves and begins pasturing the cows to be done in 3 turns.

There were no score increases this turn. Looking at the demographics some more, the average production over the last 10 turns has been about 1 hammer. I guess most capitals must be on flat land. Also the crop yields have been between 4 and 5 food. Assuming worker starts for everyone (40H), on average it would take 10-14 turns until their worker was done and they could begin to grow. That plains hill for my capital has given me a huge advantage then since I got my worker out within 8 turns. It takes 14 food to fill the food box so that would be 3-4 turns for most. I guess I should expect to see size 2 capitals popping up around Turn 13 onwards then. Since this will show up in the player's score, from here I should get a pretty good understanding of the production (hammers and food) each player is getting. =)

Elsewhere Cyclops continues to scout around Malakai's borders.





Malakai has some nice land south of his capital. Hopefully he sees this and chooses to settle south first rather than towards me. I probably have nice land closer to the coast or further towards the corner of the map as well. Bronze Working will be done by the time my first settler gets out the gate so I'll be waiting to see if any copper pops up before I select a 2nd city site.

Interestingly, looking at some tile bleeding in Malakai's territory, I haven't spotted any resources yet, but he has an ugly peak in his BFC and it appears his capital was settled on flat (grass)land. This is good because he looses out on the defensive and production bonuses I receive from settling on the plains hill. Although his capital may be nicer than mine in other respects (perhaps 2 food resources for example?).

[seifer_md]

Other than the playing times being shifted 12 hours, nothing special for Turn 10 today.





Here Cyclops scouts more of Malakai's territory, looking for a 'corner' tile that may get me visualisation on his capital. =)

Kyan's score increased again this turn by six. Another technology, and I believe this to be Animal Husbandry. The pre-req boost pushed his GNP up two, and after 7 turns and the additional overflow from Mining, he would have 92 beakers (A.H is 87). If this was true, I'm a little confused why Kyan chose to go Mining before Animal Husbandry. My initial thoughts we're he'd chase Bronze Working but the power score increase and beakers don't suggest that at all. I don't know if I should be reading into this, does that mean he has a resource such as gold in his BFC that could be mined for boosted research. Or is his first worker that much slower than mine that it didn't matter which order he researched the techs and this just left Bronze Working open if he wanted. For my sake I hope the latter.

I'll end the turn with some diplomacy. I received this reply from Malakai:

Dear Seifer

I do not see any reason why we cannot both agree to stop spending EP's on each other once demographics are available, however as I am sure you can appreciate this also depends entirely on who else we both meet in the meantime, as far as I am aware there is no way to turn EP's off entirely and furthermore as some buildings are built the amount generated each turn increases.

By default the game distributes available EP's fairly evenly between CIV's you have met, although the distribution of these points can be altered it can only be altered to CIV's you have met in game and furthermore it is likely that other CIV's will seek similar agreements, but as it is impossible to turn this game feature off, it would be impossible to stick to such agreements with everyone we meet.

However that being said, I intend to focus my EP expenditure on other civ's once demographics become available and will do my best within the confines of the game mechanics to do this.

...

Lastly, I am guessing (perhaps wrongly) that as your envoy arrived in the outskirts of my land from the east that this is the direction of your own territory, perhaps you would be able to confirm this? Also perhaps you can give me some kind of idea how many squares are currently between my own cultural border and yours so that we can begin to agree on what is fair for each of us to claim as our own between us?

Furthermore a little information I have gathered thus far that may or may not expedite your scouting. As you will most likely already know, we appear to be near the northern border of the map and as your warrior either has already gathered or will soon gather, there is a waters edge not far south of the cultural border of my land.

I think that is all for the time being but do let me know if you have anything else you wish to discuss.

Kind Regards

Malakai the 1st
Incan Empire

So that seems to be the case with Espionage Points. You can tell I take a whole lot of heed of them when I play Civ, huh? Actually that just highlights one of my inexperiences. Fortunately in this game there will be no spies so EPs will just be for C&D work really.

The last part of Malakai's message is to try and gain some information about me. More specifically he wants to know the direction of my Civ from his, in exact tile numbers. I have no problems with suppling him with this information since most can be worked out with a bit of thought (he just wants confirmation). It's Turn 7 when I make contact, a warrior can only move 1 tile a turn without promotions/roads, therefore there's 7 tiles plus the combined distance of your warrior from my capital, and however far your warrior started from yours. There's a mere 13 for those that are interested. My concern is by telling Malakai the number of tiles, he can begin drawing up settling rights without too much exploration of the land, and since one of my advantages is early expansion, providing this information may be more harmful to me in the long run. It's at this point I wish I had more diplomacy experience. What would Sullla say to get himself out of this one... It seems the trick is to be vague and withold information rather than lying, or just providing distracting information as it were.

Dear Malakai the 1st,

Thank you for clarifying the issue of espionage spending. After a little playing around I thought this may be the case. However I'm certain we'll have met others before long and this won't be too much of an issue since I predict only friendly relations between our two empires.

You were most certainly right about my capital lying to the east. It is difficult to say the exact number of tiles (since there still remains unexplored territory between us), but I can tell you it's looking around 13-14. Since I haven't had the pleasure of coming across your own warrior, am I right in assuming you sent him west to explore instead?

You mentioned we are both on the northern coast of the inland sea which I would agree with you. As far as the map is concerned I was thinking there would be 3 of us along the north and 3 along the south, in which case I assume you'd be in the middle with two Civs either side in the corners. Does that sound likely to you? If you did send your warrior west, how far has he travelled now? I was half expecting you to have run into another Civ if my thoughts about the map layout were reasonable.

Until next time, best wishes.

seifer_md
Babylonian Empire

Yeah I couldn't really hide any information from him since I'd pretty much have to be lying then. I don't want to be the guy that is untrustworthy and stabs people in the back. After following a lot of the PB2 game I can see a fair bit goes on. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast but I don't think I would feel that great if I won without playing honourably. I gave him distance between our capitals to make it seem further. Naturally I didn't bring up settling rights...

To throw it back at Malakai I also included my own questions regarding his exploration. He may be able to provide me with some useful map information. Also by confirming that he sent his warrior west is also telling me his capital was left unprotected... Nah I wouldn't! Like I said, maybe if I had a line of sight into his capital and it wasn't on quick speed I'd consider. But if he slips up on this one then I'll reassure him my peaceful intentions and hopefully earn more trust with a potential long-term ally.

[seifer_md]

Despite some problems, here we are at Turn 11.





Firstly, Mining came in this turn, so now onto Bronze Working. My worker has finished with the pasture on the cows giving me a nice 4F2H tile to work now. This has shaved a turn off my 2nd worker but it also added a turn of research to Bronze Working since I can no longer work the flood plains for the extra commerce. It'll work out best in the long run

Some score increases this turn (and a warning – boring C&D analysis coming up!). Malakai’s increased by 6 points meaning a tech was discovered. Eight turns of research and an increase to the average power score, I’m guessing Animal Husbandry. This is a little hard to say for sure since other factors influenced the power score this turn.

Most interesting was Strike's score increase by 5. For me, that was an unexpected number to see the score increase by, but I'm guessing that's how much population increases are worth in this game. Not sure how the game works out what that’s worth. One game I was getting 6 points for population increases, whereas PB2 seems to increase by 3 points. Either way, the top 5 cities screen confirmed a size 2 capital (Strike's). I take into account the 1000 point power score increase for population and assume Strike’s capital is also a ‘two hammer’.

Here’s where I am a little unsure. There were no other score increases this turn but there is an unaccounted for 2000 power increase somewhere here. Looking at the techs that are worth 4000, only The Wheel is really obtainable this early. However Malakai should be able to discover The Wheel in 6 turns tops, and we have 8 turns of research...

My other thought was, now that Strike has been working on something other than a settler or worker, perhaps he built a warrior (1000 power increase each). That’s when I started digging into the numbers a bit more to see if it was possible to build a warrior and grow to size 2 at the same time by turn 11.





Looking at the demographics I can see the leading crop yield is 11 food. That could only be Strike’s since he is size 2 now. Attributing 2 food to his centre tile, there’s 9 more to be accountable for. Since he has only had his worker for a few turns I believe there was only sufficient time to improve one tile. The tile that could yield the most food at this stage would have to be an irrigated corn or wheat farm, or pastured pigs. Difficult to say which since Strike has the technology to improve all of these tiles. This gives a 6 food tile, and the new citizen is working a 3 food tile (food resource or flood plains). That would give 11 food in total. Therefore growth would look something like:

Turn 7: 0/14 (3 food resource)
Turn 8: 3/14 (3 food resource)
Turn 9: 6/14 (3 food resource)
Turn10: 9/14 (3 food resource)
Turn 11: 1/16 (6 food resource) size 2

Despite a few assumptions, that’s fairly straight forward. Looking at production is a tad more confusing. If Strike was to produce a warrior as well by Turn 11 then he would need to produce 10 hammers. The demographics state that the Rival Best is 2 hammers

Turn 7: 0/10 (2 hammer capital)
Turn 8: 2/10 (2 hammer capital)
Turn 9: 4/10 (2 hammer capital)
Turn 10: 6/10 (2 hammer capital)
Turn 11: 8/10 (2 hammer capital)

This leaves the warrior 2 hammers short of completion. Assuming no overflow from the worker build since the max production was 5 hpt and the worker was 40 hammers, I don’t see how this increase could be due to Strike. My only other ideas are that Malakai actually went for The Wheel after some stuffing around with research, or others built warriors before their worker was done because their territory might have been scouted out by another player. I would like to think this was Malakai as I intended, but at this stage all I can say is it wasn’t Kyan or Cull, the respective rival best and worst in power. For now I’ll just leave a questions mark there.

Malakai responded to my last message.

Dear Seifer,

Actually my scouting warrior had not traveled far at all he had gone north to explore...and then bumped into the northern edge of the map (so i guess north was a bad direction to head) he had just begun to explore a little when you arrived so I cannot really tell you if your guess is correct but it does sound plausible.

I am not sure how many possible combinations of positions there are for 6 civs on an inland sea map and it does partly depend on the size of the map i guess.

Regards

Malakai the 1st

I briefly forgot he was Inca and actually has Quechuas instead of warriors but regardless he didn't have much to offer in terms of map information.

Dear Malakai the 1st,

Sorry to hear your scouting efforts haven't been too successful as of yet. I personally am quite glad no one has come across my territory yet, since like you, I decided to focus on getting out a worker first, potentially leaving my defence in question. Having said that though, despite knowing you may be vulnerable at this point, the Babylonian Empire has no intensions of aggressive behaviour towards your civilisation. We are looking for a strong ally and looking after our neighbours is a good start to ensuring we find one. Until we talk again, all the best!

seifer_md
Babylonian Empire

Just trying to gain some trust really. Who knows if Malakai will make a strong ally or a nicely buttered up civilisation with his guard down to take some territory from. At best I just want to make the guy feel bad and reconsider attacking me because I was so nice to him. This may be useful if I am to go ahead with some low defence early expansion like I plan.

[seifer_md]

Turn 12 came around quick with not much to say for it.





Ron Swanson now beings to road the pastured cows. This may not seem like the best option at first look, but I did run a World Builder simulation which allows me to do this before moving down to farm the flood plains as Vault 13 grows to size 2. Maybe getting a little ahead of myself but I also have it worked out so my worker starts chopping a forest (the turn Bronze Working comes in) which completes the turn my capital hits size 3 and starts on a settler. Hey, I gotta take what I can get since my worker management will probably fall flat on its face after 50 turns or so.

The only score increase this turn was Cull’s capital growing to size 2. This also confirmed population increases score 5 points. Since Cull is after me on the turn order, I see how he played out his current turn the following turn. He therefore seems on par with Strike and myself (2 hammer capital and an improved food resource). Haha, I wonder how embarrassing this will be to look at the other threads after this game is over and see how wrong I was... Oh well, I’m new-ish, and this game for me is about learning a thing or ten.





That’s two size 2 capitals now. My guess is I’ll probably end up having the last size 1 capital, but that also depends on if anyone finds my territory soon. Interestingly, Cull’s population increase was the only contributor to power scores this turn. This means Strike might not be working on a warrior after all.

No diplomacy this turn. I’ve only met one player so far and I’m already looking forward to lapses in communication. It really goes to show just how misunderstood Tokugawa truly is... =)

[seifer_md]

Turn 13:





Cyclops continues to scout Malakai's borders. Turn 25 is when most borders expand (except for Kyan's which already have) and I lose any chance of seeing Malakai's capital without Open Borders. It would be great to have an eye on Malakai's production but I'm going to have to get lucky with a hill tile being on the diagonal or a lake.

In a few more turns I'll have enough EPs against Malakai to see his demographics. This should help out big time with the C&D since I'm having to guess on a lot of things. Kyan is the Rival Best and Cull/Jowy are the Worst, so having Malakai's information will also provide Strike's by process of elimination.

Kyan's population grew to size 2 this turn and Cull discovered a tech. There was a big increase in average power so since Cull lacked The Wheel, I'll put it down to that.

[seifer_md]

Turn 14.





Ron Swanson finished roading the cows last turn and is on his way to farming the flood plains to give me a better food surplus for my initial growth period. Since it would take one turn just to move to the flood plains, Ron stops and completes the 1t road on the way and will begin the farm the following turn. My 2nd worker will be out next turn and I can focus on growth. The two of them should be able to carve up my land and help me with some early improved tiles boost.





As it stands it's just Jowy and myself with size 1 capitals, and that could be because he's also building a 2nd worker or just because he was slower out of the gates - Jowy settled Turn 1 and is also after me in the turn order (so demographically I see things a turn late). Malakai's capital hit size 2 this turn and Cull's leading the pack being the first to size 3. What is a little confusing is Cull's score increased by 6 points rather than 5 for all the other population increases. I really don't know what the deal is here. I believe power increases only happen every 2nd population increase, but I assume score is increased every time, and it seems a little premature for Cull to be collecting another tech. Fortunately none of this stuff is particularly crucial, I'd just like to be able to follow it. It doesn't look like anyone's made a move down the religion's pathway yet. I don't think I'll attempt that path since I want Bronze Working, Hunting and Archery to come in first. We'll see what's still on the table after that maybe.

[seifer_md]

Turn 15 and we welcome a new member to the Babylonian Workers Department, Ms. Leslie Knope. It now looks like I was the only one who opted to go for 2 workers out of the gate.





Leslie's first task is to head north and plant a mine on the grassland hill tile, while Ron begins farming the flood plains. Choosing to build 2 workers has stunted my growth and I'm definitely in last place in that regard. However I now have the advantage of my cities growing on to improved tiles and besides, those other teams will need to build a 2nd worker sometime. =)





While my capital grows to size 3 my next couple of builds will be warriors. The overflow from the last worker gives me a warrior in 1 turn. I'll need to send these warriors out in order to find a definite site for my 2nd city. Bronze Working is 5 turns away so maybe that will help me decide as well.





Elsewhere Cyclops continues his reconnaissance work. Moving onto the hill gave me sight (even if it is just tile bleeding) of Malakai's north-western territory. Unfortunately with hills and forests in the way, it doesn't look like I could get eyes on his capital. There's still the north-eastern side that hasn't been scouted but I wouldn't waste turns moving Cyclops back around just to gamble on getting a glimpse of Cuzco. So it looks like its further west for Cyclops. Malakai hasn't mentioned anything about meeting another Civ west but there's got to be someone out there!

There were some score increases this turn. Jowy left me as the last Civ to have a capital at size 1. His score rocketed up 11 points so I guess there was a tech in there as well. I think Strike also discovered a tech. The leading power score is now 17k (previously 11k by Kyan). This has left me wondering about previous assignments of points. While this may be a continuation of Kyan's lead, it could also mean Jowy discovered Bronze Working. I'll look into this later to see if I can slot things in a little nicer. By the looks of it I might have Malakai's demographics at the end of next turn and this should help me out considerably. That’s all for now!

[Square Leg]

Nice turn updates - I am enjoying your thread - the only thing is that your pictures are very big and even on my work connection take a little time to load up!