[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Old Harry]

I picked the right thread to lurk then.

Will you be able to reach Hydra pre-astro? More importantly was it a carnival in Germany or a German carnival in Finland?

[Fintourist]

I picked the right thread to lurk then.

Exactly! Thanks for your company!

Will you be able to reach Hydra pre-astro?

Yep:

This could well be my preferred battlefield in ~70 turns. Currently it looks like that Hydra is the one falling behind. I think my 8th or 9th city will be placed 1S of Fur. It gets a sheep resource in the first ring that is not really visible in the picture.

Meanwhile in the SW:

I think I will settle my 7th city next to spices and fish. Cows+Furs city will also be settled soonish (8th or 9th city)

More importantly was it a carnival in Germany or a German carnival in Finland?

German Carnival in Germany That's basically a huge party that goes on for several days. I have lived in Düsseldorf about 2 years so I know the region and it was not difficult to convince couple of friends to join me and we flew there for a long weekend.

[Fintourist]

Turn 79

A mini-update:



1. Calendar is in!
2. Capital is at the happy cap and has to put hammers into settler during the next two turns. This is basically the cost of going Currency before Calendar -> I don't regret that decision.
3. Hydra accepted open borders with me. (no extra cash as Sareln's and Viqsi's cities provide enough routes at the moment)
4. CC produced my 2nd galley that will be extremely useful in different sentry/transport tasks
5. My C&D suspects that Azza has now 2 Chariots. I will one-turn Hunting in the near future so that I can whip spears just in case he launches some kind of attack. That's an extremely unlikely scenario, but I'll need Camps soon anyway.

[Fintourist]

Turn 80 & State of the World

Main actions for the turn were double-whipping a library in RG. I would get a Great Prophet on T105, but I want my first GA sooner so I'll put in some scientist turns in that city. Otherwise, it was a nice economic turn as I got 3 new population points (1 though in RG) and completed Masonry with overflow from Calendar.



But let's move on to the main focus of today's report. Let's compare the situation between us newbies playing this game. Let's start with EOT80 demos:



GNP: This is the stat where I shine. 102 GNP with 0 % research. Thanks to 40 % pre-req and additional known-tech bonuses I could have reached a GNP close to 170 last turn. Sareln is doing fine here too, he is the rival best and I believe that his rate is also without tech multipliers since he just finished a tech. Azza and Hydra are fighting for the last place here.

Production: I have been moving close to average here, which is good news. Viqsi has been the leader in this stat for the whole game.

Food: Azza is the relatively new leader here with his 7 cities. I have been trailing him for the last couple of turns. I'm pretty satisfied here since I'm significantly above rival average.

Other categories: I will evaluate soldier points separately, the rest provides only little useful information


So here is again the illustration of the overall situation of the game:



Azza has improved his position significantly during the last 20 turns. His fast horizontal expansion is clearly visible in this graph. However, in the tech front Me and Sareln are clearly ahead of the rest of the pack. I estimate that I'm 250-300 beakers behind sareln but 600-900 beakers ahead of the other three. We'll see if Azza and Viqsi can use their population and speed up their research in the near future.

Hydra is clearly in the last place currently. If he has couple of settlers on their way to new sites or almost finished wonders in the build, that could compensate for the situation, but for now he seems to be falling behind. However, nobody is here out of the race. This kind of water-heavy map provides opportunities for all kind of tactical manouvers and I'm sure that we will see some kind of surprise attacks in the mid-game. Hopefully I'm doing them instead of being a target..

So here are couple of graphs regarding score and soldier points. They should be pretty self-explanatory:



My take from the power stat is that I should not start worrying yet. However, I must hurry and get somekind of sentry net up and running. At this point everyone would see their city razed if a galley with 2 axes appears in an unpleasent location.

So, that was it for now. If I knew how many workers and granaries (and other infra) everyone has I could maybe try ranking us at this point.. T81 is already in my email so let's get the game moving again

[Old Harry]

Would naval sentries be more use than units on this map? Galleys can only come from three directions can't they?

[Fintourist]

Would naval sentries be more use than units on this map? Galleys can only come from three directions can't they?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm planning to do. And yes, there are roughly only 3 directions where an attack can come from (SW, SE and NE). However, there are couple of different attack routes in each of them so I think I would actually need 6 units for a semi-reliable sentry net. And it only gets more difficult as I expand to further islands.

Conclusion, I will need both units and sentrys. I try to get those ~6 galleys/work boats out there and Axes+Spears in the most vulnerable cities. I think I almost have to accept the fact that at some point in this game I will lose a city for a surprise attack.. Fingers crossed that I still get 25 peaceful turns... After that I have the resources for organizing more serious defenses.

[Fintourist]

Turns 81-82

So what has happened since the last update. I got 3 pop growths on T81 including growing my capital to unhappy size 8. That issue was solved by hooking up the Sugar. I have also finished 4 techs during the last 4 turns. First Calendar, then Masonry, Monotheism and now Hunting. Hunting allows me to tech Archery in 1 turn in case I feel threatened.

Here is the overview shot of my core:



128 beakers with 100-% research. My two libraries bring 15 beakers in. Beat that GLH!

And let's show my island site in the north too. Wimbledon will whip granary in two turns. After that it will build either an axe or a lighthouse depending on how confident I feel about my defenses..



C&D&Random News:
The tech Sareln researched on T80 was Calendar (he has sugar hooked up). He can see that I have hooked up sugar as well and I hope that he thinks that he is in a great MoM race. I have no doubt about his plans to build the wonder. I simply hope that he will suffer by doing it

Azza offered me open borders and I accepted despite the fact that I think he researched Currency on T81. I don't benefit anything from the deal yet, but I expect to unfog a route to him in the near future and I want to stay friendly with everybody for now. Neither of us has put any EPs on the other one after getting graphs. Azza also whipped 4 pop points away and gave me thus a comfortable crop yield lead. If those whips went into settlers he indeed is expanding fast.

Viqsi got Maths and Hydra Monarchy on T81. Thanks for the known-tech bonus Hydra! I'll collect cash for two turns and burn them while researching Monarchy & CoL. My GNP stat will look kind of big during that time because of 40-% pre-req bonuses.

I expect to reach circumnavigation on T86 unless something unexpected happens. I would have it already next turn unless my work boat had not spent 10 turns discovering a dead end I'm sure at least Viqsi is fairly close. I'm crossing my fingers, extra naval movement would be HUGE in this map!

Btw, I have been posting demos only every ten turns because I am already spamming a lot of stuff. If somebody wants to see them or any other screenies, just let me know and I'll provide.

[AutomatedTeller]

curious as to how many workers you have going.

[Fintourist]

curious as to how many workers you have going.

Only 6! Well I have only 6 cities too. Until now it has not been a problem (I have not worked any unimproved tiles since early game) mainly because of following reasons:
1. I got to 4 workers pretty early and they have been busy ever since
2. I have 3 sea resources netted, which of course removes work load from workers
3. There are not so many forests to chop
4. I am not planning any wonder races currently (partly because of reason 3)
5. I have tried my best when planning micro and only wasted a handful of worker turns (I can remember three and they were all necessary)

If I remember correctly my tentative plans, I will whip two settlers on T88 with bunch of overflow that could go into two new workers. However, I'm wondering whether I need them at all yet How I see it, one should have exactly so many workers as one needs, no more, no less, if one wants to play optimally. (Ok, that's surely not a new thought..)

Of course I could find tasks for additional workers and they would would provide flexibility... But I can also find other targets to those foodhammers.

[Fintourist]

Ok, I've done some sandboxing. So here is what I expect/hope to achieve:

T87 City 7 founded
T89 CoL finished
T91 Golden Age launched (Hinduism, HR, OR & CS revolts), City 8 founded
T92 City 9 founded
T97 Civil Service teched
T98 Academy, Iron Working teched (Bureaucracy & Slavery revolts)
T100 MC finished
T101 City 10 founded
T102 City 11 founded

My T100 demos should look something like 300 GNP (with tech on and teching MC), 140 Food, 45 Production. 120k soldier points.

Major differences are additional trade income that I get in the actual game and all kind of moves that my opponents come up with I would be extremely interested to see what kind of demos Vets are getting right now and compare if my current and hypothetical future stats are competitive. I think they have just about played 100 turns. Of course I realize that we are playing totally different games.