[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Old Harry]

Mostly that more cities = more power later in the game, also C has to wait for border pop before it gets any decent tiles to work. I wouldn't build B until all other options have been exhausted mind you.

[Fintourist]

Thanks! Well, I would not found C until it can borrow clams from the island site. I also believe that the power comes mainly through tiles worked and A&B do not get any additional land tiles over C. Of course it might be easier to get 2 half-functional cities up and running than building a major city out of C..

[Fintourist]

Turn 60 & State of the World

This turn brought interesting and kind of worrying news. Sareln already finished the Great Lighthouse. That is definitely a big wonder in this map. I hope some kind of trade embargo will be formed against him (Damn Viqsi already has open borders with him..)

Domestically I triple-whipped a settler in the capital. My 4th city will be founded in 2 turns:



Here are the demographics from T60:



It is of course great to lead the food stat despite whipping 3 pops away. My GNP is also looking good, althought it is boosted by known-tech bonuses from Sailing. Rival best is Sareln supported by the culture from Oracle, TGL and Buddhist Holy City. Production stat is low as ever, but it will also be improved a little bit in the near future.

In the bottom half there are my notes regarding the trade routes. Unfortunately Sareln is the only civ that I'm likely to get a route in the near future Until this turn, I believe nobody has produced any military except warriors. However, this turn Hydra and Viqsi received a combined increase of 8000 soldier points. That could be the first axe in the game, but it is also possible that Viqsi researched Archery. Power increases of my opponents will probably influence whether I farm the sugar or mine the copper first at my 4th city.

Here is again my favorite overview picture with couple of comments:



This time I look weak.. But I'm not too worried. I will go two pop points next turn, one more in T62 and I will settle my 4th city. Additionally I'm 30 beakers short of both Sailing and Mathematics that I'm sandbagging (or what's the term?), so the tech situation still looks okay when counted in beakers. I'm roughly 400 beakers behind Sareln because of Oracle (MC = 600 beakers in this map) and ~300 beakers ahead of rest of the pack.

Please let me know, if you want to see graphs or the score breakdown or something. I should have everyone's graphs in around 5 turns so I can do a report focusing on them. Currently I don't have enough beakers on Hydra.

[Fintourist]

Turn 61

The main topic of today's report is... Whining! Why does Sareln have such a nice site around his copper:



Well, I guess I have been compensated in some other way.. I hope!

In other news, Viqsi is the second one to settle the city number 4. I will follow next turn. Both my cap and RG grew to size 4. Roland Garros will finally whip a granary next turn. That means that my first 3 cities will have granaries in place, and they start to get useful.

Azza offered me cease fire and I accepted. We'll see how our relationship develops. If I'm correct we start gathering foreign trade route bonus at the rate of 3 % per turn starting now.

About the trade routes: I hate to not have any! Need to change that soon, since I don't want to miss any beakers.. Game mechanic question: What do I need to do to get trade route income for my cities? Open borders & Sailing sure. Is it enough to have unfogged coast and have visibility on other civ's coastal tile or do I need to see the city tile as well?

I finished researching Sailing this turn and I guess I will finish Maths next. After that I'm undecided. Calendar? Currency? Masonry-Monotheism-Monarchy? IW? MC? Too many options there for my little brains.

[Fintourist]

Game Mechanic question part 2

How did the turn order mix up with trade route calculation?

EDIT: I was able to find our Expoilts thread with google so nevermind. Regarding that bug: Damn.. I'm very likely to lose a bunch of beakers in the future..

[Old Harry]

You just need to have sailing, open borders, unfogged water and visibility of one of their coastal tiles (I'm not sure if the city has to be able to get to that tile though - I wonder what happens if you settle away from the coast?) Uncovering the city tile is unnecessary (but could be useful for other reasons...)

I'm last in turn order in PBEM46, but I didn't look up the trade routes bug as I didn't want to get depressed. How bad is it?

[Fintourist]

If I understood correctly the bug causes more harm if you are playing water heavy maps. Island cities of players that are later in the turn order are the main sufferers. (They miss possibly intercontinental trade routes since the mainland cities reserve them first). I don't think that this is a big thing for PBEM 46, but here I might easily lose e.g. 20 beakers per turn later in the game. However, this will also depend on how my open border agreements turn out.

Another questions on trade route mechanics:
I believe Sareln has not defogged a trade route to me yet. However, I will plant my new city so that he has unfogged one of its coastal tiles. Will he get trade routes for his cities with me despite the fact that he does not see the new city?

[Fintourist]

Mid-term Tech Plan Vol 1.

Ok, I created an ambitious tech plan that aims for swapping into Bureucracy in roughly 50 turns from now and getting Academy into capital soon after.

Here is the preliminary tech path:
1. Calendar
2. Currency
3. Masonry
4. Monotheism
5. Monarchy
6. Code of Laws
7. Civil Service

I will get a Great Prophet EOT 104 thanks to Stonehenge. I will swap into Hinduism, HR, OR and possibly into Caste System at the beginning of the GA. I plan to finish Civil Service during the GA and swap into Bureucracy (and Slavery). I will use the GA boost to produce a Great Scientist, who should be able to build Academy ~T124.

Biggest question marks:

• Can I tech fast enough? I'll need to reach an average break even rate of ~50 raw beakers. Currently I'm at around 30. In ten turns I will reach the value of 40. Can I keep improving that or do the rising maintanance costs that come from expansion stagnate my effective tech rate? Can I get trade routes?
  
• Is it a mistake to postpone that I can get from Monarchy or Hinduism that long. With gold I have a happy cap of 8 in the capital. I have sugar, spices and furs in the neighbourhood, but I'm not sure whether I can hook all of them fast enough. I think this approach could be a way of utilizing CHA and I hope that I'll be competitive with a size 9/10 capital.
  
• Can I organize an appropriate defence despite focusing on research. Can I afford to skip military techs such as Archery and IW.
  

As you know, this is my first multiplayer game and the first time I'll do detailed planning and speculation like this. Consequently I have no experiences to rely on when evaluating this plan and no clue whether it is feasible or not. Most likely the plan will still change as the game develops..

[Fintourist]

Turn 62

Major event for the turn was founding my 4th city, "Diving Volley". If I remember correctly Merovich suggested this name for my heroic epic city. I'm not sure whether this city will ever get HE built, but it will definitely pump out some military units.

Here is the "puzzle" for the day. How would you play this situation and get the new city started? Improve copper first? Or farm the sugar? (Borrowing the sheep from capital is not an option, since capitals growth to size 5 and 6 will be dependant on that tile and delaying the growth there is in this case a losing plan)



My thoughts:

I did quite a bit testing and I'm pretty sure that in this case the optimal solution is to proceed as follows:

Workers:
1. farm the sugar immediately with both workers
2. improve the copper
3. chop the forest 2N of "DV"

Tiles worked:
2 turns unimproved sugar (6/22 food)
3 turns farmed sugar (18/22 food)
2 turns copper
3 turns sugar + copper
In ten turns the granary will be finished with exactly 60 hammers and 12/24 food in the box. This approach came ahead everything else I tried (maximizing food, maximizing hammers etc.).

In other news:
I whipped granary in RG and finished Mathematics
Hydra settled also his 4th city and Sareln double-whipped his capital (probably finally a new settler).

[Old Harry]

My gut feeling is that the copper gets you a granary quicker and improves your growth curve that way. It depends if you're chopping the granary.

Assuming you're putting 30 hammers in from the chop it looks like farming the sugar gets you to 2 pop three turns earlier, to 3 pop two turns earlier, but you don't have anything stored in the granary, whereas by going copper first you get your granary 5 turns earlier and grow to 4 pop one turn earlier. So yeah, my gut feels good...

Checking your spoiler

Ah, I didn't think to use the second worker to speed things up after/instead of the chop, that probably throws my timings off a bit, also I couldn't see a tile yield for the grass copper - should it be 2/4 or 2/5?


On turn 10 I've only got seven food stored, but I'm 11 hammers ahead of you. I'm claiming a moral victory...