[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[Plunder]

If Boldy want to take out Sisub, does he really need to change 5 different civics and start a golden age for that?
Sisub is so small that it shouldn't require that much preparation. I would definitely keep an eye on Boldy, and check if he can boat us suddenly somewhere.

[WilliamLP]

If Boldy want to take out Sisub, does he really need to change 5 different civics and start a golden age for that?

Well Sisub is comparable to Kuro or slightly ahead in terms of production, and you see how much we need to take out Kuro! And our power graph is way ahead of the rest of the world. With Civ, it's impossible to have too much of a military advantage - it just makes things more and more efficient in terms of gains and losses.

Like us, he doesn't just need to take out Sisub, but he needs to simultaneously have enough to keep his other borders safe.

Sisub is so small that it shouldn't require that much preparation. I would definitely keep an eye on Boldy, and check if he can boat us suddenly somewhere.

He couldn't be representing peace more strongly, really. A neutral first step would be closing borders - we see his troop movements pretty well as it stands. He hasn't done this, even after adopting Mercantilism! (Foreign trade routes aren't needed.) He is getting a couple of happiness from us with favourable deals. Would he really be willing to give us an accurate map of his lands for nothing if he wanted war? It would be quite a devious move to lull us into a sense of security.

But yeah, paranoia is a thought. He's definitely going to have trouble hitting us by the sea since we have caravels and he doesn't. And it's going to take him a long time to get an organized sea attack going.

[Plunder]

True,
I should be checking up on the game more often. I didn't know his naval techs were behind on us >.<

Then again, "He couldn't be representing peace more strongly, really" is also the best base to start a massive backstab from.
I don't think it is likely he will attack us, but keeping a close eye on him is none the less a wise idea

[WilliamLP]

Kuro appears to have moved everything into Standard Oil, and has only 3 units in SW, so it opens up a flanking attack opportunity, for 6 camels and 7 horse archers. Next turn the plan is to raze Sam Walton and plant a city 1SE of it.




FSM's lair was planted on the new island. Work boats and workers are lagging behind but not that far. This is going to be a great kick-starter site, and it's basically safe from attack for quite a while.






Boldly's power has shot up, and we see 11 cataphracts in the shot above. It seems unbelievable that his plan is anything but a decisive destruction of Sisub. He does need a lot of military to do it, both from the inherent defender's advantage, and also because both Suttree and Oxy would probably love that land and have nice armies themselves. I don't see any hints of a boat attack, and I also can't imagine he's thinking "man, I'd really like to use these to run into fortified pikes inside castles right now".

Education is finished, and the 7 universities for Oxford are either started or will next turn with whip overflow.

A golden age might happen in 3 (65% chance).

For the next tech there are several good arguments:

- Printing Press for the raw commerce boost.
- Philosophy, to run Pacifism during the next golden age for triple GP points in every city. With this we could probably crank out the next three GPs for yet another 12 turn golden age. The downside is that it replaces Org. Religion which is also very nice, and also increases the cost of our large military. My gut is no with these trade offs, but I admit Great Person play is a glaring weakness with me.
- Econ, to run Free Market. +1 trade route in each city (other than the handful with castles) is absolutely no joke with this many cities.
- Gunpowder for safety. But for the short term, Pikes are probably better anyway.

I'm thinking, if not going for Philo, it's going to be better to save gold for a few turns anyway, so we can turn on science with universities up. Also Printing Press is the next scientist bulb so if we don't get the golden age we can grab most of it immediately.

[Commodore]

I'd definitely recommend looking around at a plan for your Great People. You're in a rare position with the MoM of the three-person GA probably being worth more than bulbing, but even that isn't certain. Review you longer-range goals and try to build GPeople to match.

[WilliamLP]

Long range goals, huh? I guess a victory would look like: holding more land than anyone else and getting a tech lead, while being invulnerable to attack. A concession would be an implied spaceship victory probably, although that's unlikely to actually happen in a PB game.

I hate trying to calculate the worth of big things, because I'm sure to miss important factors. But a golden age can probably be valued in terms of the big three factors: extra beakers, hammers, and GP points. (And the last one makes it a recursive function.)

For my own education, I'm considering what's the value of a scientist used for bulbing?

Beakers = 3 * m1 + 3 * m2 * (1500 + 3*pop) / (gp_num * 100)
(m1==multiplier for libraries, etc, dependent on integer math. m2==gp multiplier for pacifism, NE, GA, etc.)
Beakers = 3 * m1 + 3 * m2 * (15 + p) / gp_num
(p==3*pop / 100: for us it's about 5-6 now, for 2000-2100 beakers from a GS bulb)

gp_num for us is only 5 right now (soon to be 6 when we spawn the 500 point GP). This actually makes the bpt number a large one!

Downsides:
- Food sustainability
- The number only applies if the city produces a g. scientist eventually. Otherwise they're like an immature cottage with no food.
- Techs are limited to the bulb order, and capped at the tech's cost but at this point in the game all the beakers can be used.

Ok, I think I've just convinced myself there's a really massive effect here, when the gpp per turn multiplier is increased to 3x. And it's one I haven't been taking advantage of. And it's a big number even when the number of great people gets pretty large, even though every GP spawn makes the next ones inherently less efficient.

[Commodore]

Yeah, although there are lots more to consider; GM cash bombs are probably the most beaker-efficient, but deep beelines are good for obvious reasons, and the GSci is just lovely for those in the Ren->Industrial->Early Modern time period.

The GA is also, particularly for a non-Spi like yourself, going to affect civic considerations. If you have a desired endgame configuration, your last GA should be timed to get you into those civics at the end; revolts are horribly expensive. But dips into Caste/Pacifism can more than make up for the "loss" of GPs spent on the Golden Age as well.

Like I said, it's complex, and approaching it as "how do I maximize all stuff overall" is hard. Better to have a plan for making that land lead/tech lead, goals/realistic timings/wonders/techs needed, and try to plan your GPs to support those particular targets.

[NobleHelium]

How is a Merchant worse than a Scientist for a deep beeline exactly?

[Commodore]

Assuming pure bulbs, GS is more beakers per bulb, and in a heavy burst of teching at a target I typically set fire to large stacks of hammers on wealth builds to go max speed anyway. Obviously in a normal gold/tech cycle where speed is averaged out the GM is most efficient.

[WilliamLP]

Anyway, enough talk of post-beginner level Civ.




There were two longbows and two spears in Sam Walton behind walls. My idea was to weaken the top defenders with horse archers, then finish with camels.

C2 Horse Archer vs CG Longbow (3.3%): ... Win !?!

(Ok, I didn't deserve or need that kind of luck! Sorry Kuro.)

C2 Horse Archer vs CG Longbow (3.8%): Withdraw.
C2 Camel vs Spear (60-70% - I forget exact odds): Win
C2 Camel vs Spear (60-70%): Win
C2 Camel vs (wounded) CG Longbow (~75%): Win




So zero losses is an incredibly lucky RNG result, all told. Though, I don't care much about losing horse archers at this point anyway.

The city survived with decent infrastructure, granary, lighthouse, and market, but I don't like the location so I razed.




I planted Carbonara - it's a better location for not wasting silks, being closer to our capital, and allowing for a filler city to the north eventually.

Kuro's main force:




I count 13 longbows, 6 spears, 5 axes, 7 catapults. I have to give him credit for whipping up an army using what he's got, at least. Though, he could have been more of a pain putting something like this in the way of our first wave.

The question is whether to press forward against this or wait a while, maybe for rifles or Cuirassiers. There's certainly no tech race - longbows will be state of the art for Kuro for the rest of the game, surely.