[SPOILERS] Nyles Standish goes full retard

[BRickAstley]

FYI: putting your images in the [ screenshot ] tags would be preferable, they are rather large for those of us with smaller screens.

[DaveV]

FYI: putting your images in the [ screenshot ] tags would be preferable, they are rather large for those of us with smaller screens.

... and I, for one, stop reading when it requires horizontal scrolling

[NylesStandish]

FYI: putting your images in the [ screenshot ] tags would be preferable, they are rather large for those of us with smaller screens.

Fixed.




Second city 1NW of corn looks good right now, or 1W of gems.

I probably should have moved that warrior to this hill first turn, since it would have opened up the possibility of founding my capital near the corn on Turn 1, even though I probably wouldn't have settled there. I'll probably move to the hill 1N of corn next turn. It would have been 2 turns to the hill 1N of corn anyway if I had moved onto the grassland.

Gavagai still hasn't founded his first city. Two turns behind won't kill him, but I wonder what he's holding out for.

[NylesStandish]

I found a goody hut!




Also, the water tiles to the south showing through tile bleed have waves, which I think means they're coast, not a lake.

Some demos:







Serdoa and CH popped hut techs. Global soldier points increased by 4000 when Serdoa popped his and 2000 when CH popped his. That means The Wheel for Serdoa and Hunting for CH.

Gavagai finally settled. He has city tile yield + 1F and 2 or 3 Hammers. He has 9 land tiles.

REM has city yield + 1F 2H. He has 8 land tiles.

Those numbers (except land) could be off if people switched builds in between demo screens (not included for brevity and because I don't expect anybody to do C&D for me).

How much does this information really help me? Not very much. What others have won't change my opening build at all, unless I see warriors being built, and even then it's unlikely that any of my neighbors walks a warrior into my capital. I'll get graphs on my neighbors and better information with less effort eventually. This is mostly just to sate my curiosity about the map.

Of the 8 competitors whose demos I think I've nailed down, only 3 of them could be working a 1F3H tile like I am. I don't have any 2H tiles and I beat everyone but DonovanZoi in demo tiebreakers so I generally can't tell whether someone has 4 or 5 total hammers. This means my 1st ring unimproved 4 foodhammer tile is probably pretty uncommon. It only shaves 1 turn off a worker if somebody goes worker first and they have a 4 foodhammer tile second ring, 2 turns if they don't have one (for non-expansive), so it's not a game-breaking advantage (especially in my unexperienced hands), but an advantage nonetheless.

[NylesStandish]

I got hunting from the hut.



Here's what the scout saw:




A tundra forest deer, a plains sheep, a lake and a... grassland hill forest marble?

Demos:




Rival average soldier points remained the same, meaning nobody went full retard and went warrior first on a 3 hammer tile.

Fishing comes in next turn and the work boat the turn after.

Also, I've been overlooking the GNP stat. 20 GNP = 9 palace commerce + 2 palace culture + 1 city commerce + 1 free beaker + 4 palace espionage + 1 creative culture + 2 tile commerce. Somebody who is creative is working a 2 commerce tile. Willem, Zara, Pericles, and Sury are creative. Molach starts with Mysticism and Hunting. Adlertao starts with Fishing/Agriculture. Plako starts with Hunting and Mining. Commodore starts with the Wheel and Agriculture. Molach going for a religion makes the most sense.

Getting this much GNP means one of a few things:
Somebody with fishing (Adlertao) working an unimproved coast or lake (unlikely)
Somebody without fishing (most likely Molach) working a 2 commerce unimproved land tile
Somebody without fishing (most likely Molach) settled on a 2 commerce unimproved land tile and is working a 1 commerce tile

My theory:
Molach is working a 1 food tile with a luxury resource on a river with no forest. He settled 4000 BC and could only settle on a luxury resource if it were on a tile with no forest, and it would only be useful it the tile was also on a river, in which case he could just settle next to it and work it and not lose the resources he would get from improving it later. I'm pretty sure he's not working an Oasis. Whoever is getting 20 commerce switched tiles after Turn 0, and they appear to have ended up switching to a one food tile. I'm guessing the resource was second ring and he moved off the coast to settle next to it. Getting less foodhammers that should be going into workers by emphasizing commerce only makes sense if going for an early religion, and Molach is the only one who could both have these demographics and a shot of landing it.

Nobody in this particular game starts with both Fishing and Mysticism. Somebody could both have Mysticism and emphasize commerce in the way I suspect Molach has done, but not have 20 GNP due to not being creative. I don't see anywhere in the logs where Molach could have switched tiles to emphasize commerce before the turn rolled, so he must have ended turn on the 2 food 1 hammer tile I had him pegged on. If my calculations are correct, Molach lands Buddhism on turn 8, but could have landed on turn 7 if he had been working 2 commerce the whole time. Molach beats somebody with Buddhism working with no commerce from worked tiles but coinflips with somebody who worked a 1 commerce tile the whole time, unless the game gives the religion to the person with the most overflow beakers. Not sure how that works.

[NylesStandish]

Well, it looks like Molach isn't going for Buddhism. Turn rolled and most players got a 6 point score increase from tech, including Molach. I'm great at this, aren't I?

I selected my next tech, Animal Husbandry, and then...




I'm #1 in GNP. Actually #1.

After thinking for a moment I realized why my GNP is #1 and why all of my previous calculations regarding GNP were wrong: prerequisite bonuses. I'm getting a 1.4 double prerequisite bonus for Animal Husbandry, taking my 11 beakers/turn to 15.4 beakers/turn, which rounds down to 15 and boosts my GNP of 17 by 4 to 21. Most people hadn't assigned research when I played the turn, so it's likely that someone else will outdo that when they play their turn and start getting prereq bonuses. Whoever had 20 GNP was probably just working normal tiles with a multiplier instead of using high commerce tiles.

Here's what the scout uncovered:




More sheep, more furs, more fish.

[NylesStandish]

Report for turns 5, 6, and 7.

Turn 5:




Borders popped this turn. I also got the work boat and improved the fish, which, combined with the overflow from the workboat, gives me an 8 turn worker.

Wait, what's this?









I can safely say I've never seen that before. Practically, all it means is that improvements are even slower to build than they would be on normal desert floodplains.




Scout moved; didn't find much, but spotted more ice floodplains in the fog.




Turn 6:

Moved the scout again. Not much to see here.




Turn 7:

Buddhism was founded this turn:




I think it was HitAnyKey that founded it, since whoever got it would have to have been researching it from the start. Everybody else who had a score increase was already at 35, meaning they had either researched a tech or popped one from a hut. I don't think anybody that popped a hut tech and had a score increase starts with Mysticism. I also predict that, since he starts with Mysticism and hasn't researched techs yet, that Adrien will finish Polytheism and land Hinduism next turn.

Does the state religion show up next to the player names even if I haven't met them yet?

I also found another goody hut in the east:






Demos:




Somebody is researching a double prerequisite tech, which means Masonry, Animal Husbandry or Pottery.

If I work the grassland cow, my rank in crop yield drops from 2 to 10, which means 10 people including myself went workboat first and are working seafood right now.

[BRickAstley]

It is technically slower but not a lot (a Farm on ice floodplains is 8 turns versus 7 on a desert floodplains)

[BRickAstley]

Also congrats on having sole possession of first place!

[NylesStandish]

Also congrats on having sole possession of first place!

Thanks! :D

Serdoa tied me after the turn rolled, though. It was fun while it lasted. I should probably surpass him again when I research Animal Husbandry. England starts with Mining and Fishing and Serdoa popped a hut tech and presumably researched the other 2 starting techs, so I should get AH before he gets anything else.

Reporting the past turn before I play the next one. This one had a lot going on:




I got Mining from the hut. It would be really nice if I could get Mysticism as well. This is where I pulled into 1st place for the turn

I decided to move the scout onto the plains hill to the southeast, and I find this:




One of my neighbors is Plako. He's pretty much universally acknowledged as a top tier player around here. I've certainly got my work cut out for me. I just hope I have a less scary opponent on the other side. With my luck it'll be Krill.

In other news:




Hinduism was founded (by Adrien) and Buddhism now has twice the population. Random spread? Nope. HAK grew to size 2. His score increase, the top 5 cities screen and the demographics confirm.




I don't think this is a good play. Sure, he's got twice as much pop as anybody else, he's almost certainly responsible for that 6 MFG stat, and probably a warrior for scouting and defense to boot, but at some point he will need to build workers. The fact that each extra citizen consumes 2 food means that each extra citizen (which can work at most a 3 foodhammer tile before workers, unless somebody has 2 or more unimproved 4 foodhammer tiles in their starting BFC which would be broken as fuck) only increases the production into the worker by 1 hammer. Anybody who went worker or workboat first will get improved tiles way earlier than he does. The fact that he founded Buddhism makes him a bigger target, that wasn't a guarantee when he originally chose his build and I don't see the 1 early warrior making much of a difference.