This game feels very impish

[Mardoc]

More threadjack (sorry!):

was talking about something other than pressure.

That was pretty much my point, yes.  Units have meaning.

A metric ton per square centimeter sounds like an awfully unpleasant amount of pressure to experience though, no matter how briefly!

It's about two to five times the pressure exerted by a bullet coming to rest in a body.  Depending on which bullet and which assumptions you make.  So, yeah, 'unpleasant'.

Also pretty clearly not a pressure exerted during any sport short of gladiatorial games.

I mean, it doesn't really interfere with Japper's point, that padding's effect on sports safety is unclear, rather than an obvious good, which is why I called it a nitpick.  I just don't like to see numbers lose their meaning.

Back to civ: I definitely agree that score isn't really an accurate judge of someone's position, especially early. Way too many important factors that aren't captured. Even late, I'd treat score more as a general indicator than an actual assessment of people's chances.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, at this stage in civ4's lifespan I'm sure most readers would know that score is not a great way to judge performance. But there is some correlation and when I'm the one on the bottom it feels nice to remind myself of all the extra caveats.

[The Black Sword]

Met Pindicator to the south. Agg/Org of China, still 2 cities. It's just his scout so he might be some distance away. Slightly worse neighbour roll than the other two IMO, but still quite reasonable.

I'm considering crashing the economy and then recovering with a Math bulb. That would allow me to hard tech Iron working, which seems like a very decent target, unlocking the gems at my third city and probably some other city spots.

[The Black Sword]

5 pop, working 5 six yield tiles. Just beautiful.

Third city was settled a few turns ago.  Cube Lock is what I would classify as the third meta defining deck of the K&C expansion. I said my tech switching didn't make a difference but I was actually one turn too slow making it to Pottery, it will cost that city 4f IIRC.

Next city is heading up to the stone spot. I was simming out a bit further and realised that the stone is not that useful. Teching masonry to unlock it is a steep price to pay. So I'm no longer completely happy with my moves up here but it's still pretty good I guess. That city also looks very good to build a wonder in, but I need to decide what to target. My only worry is that I'm delaying the capital, which I want to get working scientists and flood plains. I need to decide whether to go for that ASAP or get the value granary in conjunction with the silver city.

Regarding Dreylin, I'm still feeling pretty decent that he doesn't have good units out. I doubt he has copper at the cap if I don't. He either has a barracks or monument in that second city. If he went for monument then he needs mysticism and it's hard to see him getting AH and Wheel by now, certainly not in time to line up with his power bump. If it's a barracks that's 3k power explained and I'm not sure there's enough left to fit a chariot in there. He doesn't have his Ivory hooked either which is another point against him having AH.

[The Black Sword]

Bit of brainstorming:

Short term:

Fishing
Writing
Sailing
Archery


Medium term:

Iron working
Maths
Calendar
Currency

Pyramids+masonry
MoM - seems pretty weak but Calendar is good
TGL+Parthenon+NE (+ToA) - big tech and hammer detour, need to think about opportunity cost. Into Music?
Hanging gardens - don't like it in big games, need at least 10 cities.
Moai - island city, not urgent 

Metal Casing - post IW and when you have a bunch of hammers to spare
HBR/Construction - something to think about

Alphabet - seems weak unless I find civs on another continent

Long term:

Golden age around T100 with ~100 pop? Particularly good with Mids.
Bureau cap
Music Artist
Late religion

Knights+ Banking (Merc)

Bulb all the way to Lib - mack is other phi civ

Bulb to Astro - where is the missing land?

[Ichabod]

5 pop, working 5 six yield tiles. Just beautiful.

Last place in score says otherwise.

[The Black Sword]

I can't believe you only looked at the score. So shallow. This civ is beautiful on the inside. 

[The Black Sword]

GG DS. The dragons went extinct in 2200BC. 

Got superdeath's graphs, getting pin's next. Here's a dump.









Looks like I'm outdeveloping them but the power graph is worrying. Put your hammers into settlers and workers! I already feel my 5 warriors is a bit much to have built at this stage, but I'm considering slotting in archery next. Creative borders plus the ability to 1 whip archers would make me feel safe and the aggressive-ish city is on a hill. I don't really want to connect my own copper source for a bit longer. I also find out whether horses are at the capital next turn, and I'm pretty confident that information will be mirrored about other starts.

[The Black Sword]

1. Horses are outside the capital, pretty weak location for me.

2. A dog soldier.  Surely that's too expensive to go scouting with, is he that close? Dreylin had another power bump too. I'll have to think about what to do. If he sticks around then I really can't settle there. If I have a small window I could settle and chop an archer and I can't see them moving me. Otherwise we can fall back to the silver/rice site. I'm really regretting not settling that earlier instead.

3. Meangingless 3rd ring land points, suck it field!

[Mardoc]

3. Meangingless 3rd ring land points, suck it field!

Now there's a Creative benefit I never considered before!