This is a Spoiler thread - Dreylin, PB28

[Dreylin]

However, I was reading Joey's PB22 thread(*) and he made some interesting points on the subject during the post where he discusses why Gawdzak's late-game economy will falter compared to his (I think, I can't find the post right now).

Just a note...Gawdzak did not in fact falter and that economy roared to an impressively fast space win.

Oh for sure, and his thread is certainly on my list to read as well, but I'm working my read-through of that game starting with the "North Korean" neighbours for obvious reasons and haven't got there yet. Although as a counter note...Joey's late-game economy was torpedoed by the Gavagai direct & proxy wars so the proposed comparison was rendered impossible anyway.

Regardless, the main point I was aiming for was that there were several well-constructed posts in his thread that had caused me to look at certain parts of the game in a new way and consider different options - which is what we all look for when trying to improve our own game. His happens to have been the latest I've read end-to-end (which seems to often have more impact on me than reading the daily updates) and with semi-relevant comments, which is why I flagged it here.

[Dreylin]

t85 -

Cities!


When I first saw the city name (before I saw the borders) I thought that "Foreign Affair" must be an Island city, but I guess not. At least he's broken the string of cities without first-ring food (Peace on Earth is still crap). I think that Grimace and I may have finished settling into the centre of the island now; my "Central City" location is now unavailable (still want to settle on that Peak!), there's no space between his last two cities to put another, and I suspect that neither of us is particularly bullish about putting an aggressive plant up further. I could theoretically put one between the Sheep and Deer, but I don't have military support if it pisses off Whosit. Grimace could similarly put one North of the middle Deer, but that's a bit of a reach and hard to support. I think it's up to Whosit to settle the rest of this area and then it'll be readjusted when the conquering starts...

Map trade with Fenn came through and I can see all of Adrien's territory. Looks like the border city that Jowy took was not unreasonably placed vis-a-vis distance from capitals, so it must have been planted without enough support to avoid being "Jowy'd"

Overflow from Granite's Settler whip gave me a 1t Worker, and now it's growing on Military. Serpentinite is growing on a Lighthouse build, and Breccia grabbed some food back from Arkose and paused the Worker build there to grow while getting 5h into an Axe. Granite is putting a few more hammers into its Barracks, but will then start slow-building a Settler. Island city settling is proceeding as planned.

[Dreylin]

Met Adrien & Mardoc this turn:


Little likely direct benefit to me since I already have Fenn & Jowy's, but maybe it will make up for the fact that I'll be declaring war on him next turn....

[The Black Sword]

Thanks for the update Dreylin. It was a bit more detailed than just an overview shot.

[Dreylin]

No problem; turned out once I got started I just kept going....

I do have a question for the Lurkers: Circumnavigation (if available), if 2 people trade maps and it completes for both of them - is it a coin flip for who gets it? Or is it who accepts the trade and therefore is logged in when it goes through?

[Krill]

Coinflip, but there needs to be over 55% water for circumnavigation to be possible.

[Dreylin]

Is that not the case here? I thought I remembered seeing that it was, but I guess I could be remembering another game.

[Krill]

I don't know the water/land ratio for this game. Just saying what the XML says is hte limit. You can work it out easily if you know the total land score and the map dimensions.

[Dreylin]

Thanks, I'll take a look at that this evening; whether it's available or not will affect how I play the next few turns.

[Dreylin]

t88 -

City #9, Obsidian:


Galley will drop the Axe off to the SE next turn.

Finances before:


and after:


A touch better, and once the WB nets the Clams next turn it will go up by another 2c (working the Ivory this turn). ORG Lighthouse first build, then Monument, then Granary.

OK, so let's check for Circumnavigation availability (zoom of the Military Advisor):


Bars should be 10tiles long. N-S is verifiable as 40tiles since I have the whole loop from Fenn's exploration. W-E looks to be about 89tiles, however if I recall correctly the map shows the same line of tiles on both sides, so that would be 88tiles width.

40 * 88 = 3,520 tiles

From the Score display, I have 59/1584 Land.

1,584 / 3520 = exactly 45%.

So that doesn't seem like it's a coincidence. However, the question then becomes, is 55% water enough, or does it actually need to be >55%...?

Since there's a non-zero possibility that Circumnav is enabled, I think that I'm going to take my WB along the southern of Adrien's 2 linking islands - i.e. the second the WB gets to, rather than the first. This may take me longer to meet anyone on the 3rd island, but I /think/ it takes me on a route more likely to get easily past them and back to my island. I'm also going to see whether I can spare the resources to quickly put a WB out of Basalt to send up past Grimace along his linking island to meet up part-way. It also means that I won't be able to trade maps with anyone on Island #2 when I meet them for fear of losing the 50/50.