[Spoilers] SleepingMoogle's thread

[SleepingMoogle]

Some random thoughts during a lull at work..

I'm curious how central the high sea level is to the map design. The landmass so far looks fairly sizable but as an example, what if the map were to consist of 5 large islands with a few smaller ones surrounding them? Ships and naval exploration become more important. Circumnavigation becomes really nice to obtain, and the Great Lighthouse and Colossus suddenly are great prizes too.

It'll be a while before the prevalence of water would really affect the opening play. For now it's focused on setting up the capital as quickly as possible, and then get out a quick Settler to grow. For now I hope that the scouting Warrior's effort can provide clarity one way or the other, because eventually the decision needs to be made whether or not to embrace the idea of a sea-focused Civ or not. And there's considerations to be made in the short term as well. For example, should the northern city be placed on the coast, giving up a food resource to do so, or inland for more land tiles and that third food resource?

Picking up the circumnavigation bonus seems like a good idea regardless, and I'm toying with the idea of sending out two Workboats as scouts in opposite directions (probably northeast and southeast if we're indeed on a tilted axis as may be the case). They are fast and should be safe from barb boats for a while, so the increased hammer cost would be justified.

As for the wonders, at this point I doubt I'd have a serious shot at either unless I intentionally stunt my growth to beeline them. If scooter thinks the Great Lighthouse is an important enough wonder, he will probably be able to leverage his Industrious trait and finish it before anyone else can. And the Colossus will probably end up going to whoever Oracles Metal Casting long before anyone else can reach it. I don't really expect any other tech to be picked (Code of Laws is a possibility, although that seems unlikely). I haven't seen any Marble so far, so for now the Oracle is not in the cards. Those hammers would be better spent on Settlers and Workers.

So far this map is keeping me occupied though.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 3:

Scooter's score has increased by 6, making him the first to researched a tech. Assuming balanced starts for everyone, this would almost certainly be Fishing. Along with Hunting, it's the only tech available unless he went for a high-commerce tile (unlikely, if he went Worker first he'd work a high hammer tile instead). The Incans start with Agriculture so his Worker has something to do already, and this would allow him to start building a Workboat immediately after the Worker to quickly hook up his fish resource. At least this makes more sense to me than Hunting. Best guess is that he'll pick up Mining next. The demographics were unchanged, so for now it looks like everyone's still on Worker builds.

Also, I can now trash my earlier ramblings.



I won't know for sure until next turn, but it looks like scooter and I will be neighbours in this game as well. At least this map promises to get interesting really quickly.

Right now I'm tired, but I'll surely post some thoughts on this tomorrow.

[SleepingMoogle]

Let's just say that I trust Krill to come up with something suitably diabolical to defy expectations in one way or another (Lush? Sure, lots of jungle for you) and look forward to seeing how much that particular assumption holds true once the first turn save is opened.

Three turns in and I'm not disappointed so far.

This'll certainly mix up everyone's openings. No farmer's gambits for anyone unless you can get on good terms with neighbours whose backyard you started in. And it's not the Civ to my north either. I now also have to worry if someone else's capital is this close to me. It doesn't really look like it so far (there's no resources to make the area one of hot contention), but you never know.

Right now, there's basically three things I can do. Go for a quick kill and claim his land, try to choke him to slow down his expansion and take him out later on, or get on good terms and work out some kind of land distribution, enabling both of us to grow.

Option 1 is out. Quick speed makes the speedy kill nigh on impossible, since my neighbour (I'll just refer to him as scooter for now) can build a Quecha before my Warrior would be able to reach his capital simply by working a high production tile. With hill and culture bonusses, there's no way his capital would fall unless I get insanely lucky during combat, and that's not something I'm willing to gamble the game on. I haven't seen scooter's starting Quecha yet so he's probably not scouting in my direction. He won't be able to take my capital by surprise either.

Choking is possible. With Scooter's Quecha scout elsewhere, I could harass him and force him to train more Quecha's to guard his capital and Worker. Similarly, he might have to recall his scout, which could compromise his second city location. Quechas have no bonus against Warriors so as long as I stick to tiles with a defensive bonus, it could be pretty effective.

Would it be the right strategy here though?

If I were to try and choke scooter, I'd have to commit to building more military myself, both to reinforce the harassing warrior and defend my own lands and this would slow down my growth in turn. And regardless of whether or not choke proves to be suffesful, I would be looking at an early war, further slowing us both down. At this point I'm not too concerned about scooter choking me. He won't have the element of surprise, and this would actually be a situation where my resourceless Holkans would be very useful. Unless scooter brings axes, I'm not too concerned.

Yet, I don't see how early war would help either of us. It would only give the other Civs a head start if they went the peaceful route. Enter door #3.

Trying to get some sort of early alliance going seems to be the best longterm idea. The area in between our Civs will be a point of contention. While it is possible to place two cities in between our capitals, they'll be in a constant culture war, and would never be great cities. Realistcally speaking, there's only room for one city, and one that grabs several food resources at that.

Suppose we can reach an agreement on this though, then working together for mutual benefit certainly looks possible. From my interactions with scooter in PBEM3, I know him to be reasonable and I'm sure he'll agree that cooperation will be preferable over early warfare. Hopefully we'll be able to find some middle ground that will allow us to get a leg up over the competition.

Now the above is a bit in doubt if those borders turn out to be Holy Roman instead, but it won't really change my initial preference to find a diplomatic solution. Interesting times indeed.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, it looks like my eyesight is still pretty good. Those yellow borders were indeed scooter's (the lack of a question mark next to his score proves contact has been made):





Perhaps in keeping with the yellow borders, it appears he named his capital after a certain dairy product. Here's to hoping the stinky cheese city will be planted away from my lands.

I sent him a quick greeting via email:

Greetings!

It appears that fate has decided for us to share origins on the same landmass. The Malazan Empire greets its northern neighbour, and wishes you good fortune and prosperity in the years to come!

-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

I wonder what scooter thinks of having me for a neighbour again. And how we have contact just 4 turns in. In any case, I'm hoping we'll get along well diplimatically. As noted in the previous post, early war would just slow us both down.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, it didn't take very long for us to ease into the honest, open diplomacy..

SleepingMoogle,

Greetings! I hope you've been off to a nice start thus far! Have to say, going into this game I had not expected to be making contact already on Turn 4! Should be an interesting game for sure. Anything interesting happen for you yet? I mean besides meeting someone on Turn 4!

Well rather than leave it up in the air, I'll just say it. I see your warrior situation playing out a few possible ways:

1. You send your warrior straight at my capital. I have to change from a worker to a Quecha, which is annoying. Due to the amount of shields at my capital, it would finish on time for your warrior to arrive, so your warrior could, at best, choke. I also have combat 1 on my Quechas, so I'm at an advantage in warrior-warrior combat.
2. You warrior rush me. This only succeeds if I don't know it's coming, but I'll be watching demos. This option means we both lag behind while everyone else is peacefully expanding
3. We happily continue on in peace, using this as a good starting point for relations.

Sorry to be so upfront and to the point, but I figured I'd skip the formalities and cut straight to the point since I'll be playing my turn in a few hours, and by then I'll probably need to know if I need to change my build queue. For what it's worth, I'm hoping for option #3 .

scooter

Hey there scooter,

The previous message may have been a tad formal, but it was (and is) my hope to keep the diplomacy in this game separate from PBEM 3, even though they may end up being carbon copies of each other. In any case, meeting another Civ this early has been the most interesting thing to happen by far since I never expected to start this close to someone else.

While I won't deny that I considered the possibilities of early military action to give some elbow room, I ended up discarding them for much the same reasons you noted in your message. There's no way a quick attack would succeed due to the game speed and the lack of surprise, and early wars would just slow both of us down. Instead, forging diplomatic ties and allowing each other to grow would definitely have my preference. If other Civs started next to each other as well, let them fight it out instead while we happily establish a tech lead.

It is probably way too early to touch on anything but non-aggression towards each other, but I would be interested in exploring further opportunities once we have a better idea of the map and the geo-political situation. The one thing we may want to discuss soon is what to do with the small strip of land that lies between our capitals. Unfortunately I cannot send you any maps in this game until Paper tech, but until you scout it yourself, I can say that while it would be technically possible to plant two cities, they would be in a constant culture war with each other, and never have the potential to really become big cities.. Realistically, there's only room for one.

I hope that this message is sufficient to not give you pause having my scouting warrior near your borders. Perhaps we can exchange scouting information with each other, as I'm a bit undecided whether I should seek passage around your border and continue towards the north, or turn west instead. For reference, my Warrior is currently on a hill two tiles south southern border.

Best wishes,
Emperor SleepingMoogle I

SleepingMoogle,

I actually have said the same thing in my thread - that PBEM3 diplomacy and this game's diplomacy will be completely separate. Good relations in one would not prevent bad (or good) relations in the other, and vice versa.

I figured you would at least consider it - in fact I probably would be disappointed in you if you didn't at least weigh the possibility, but glad you agree. I've always felt that making a good friend early on is critical to these games, so I would also be interested to see how things shake out between us as the game progresses. I figured if you met me that quickly that we would be a bit cramped, so I'm not surprised that you say there's only room for one city. I guess the big question that I don't even know myself is how much land there is west of us and how critical is the island that I'm seeing off of my coast. Do you have one right off your coast as well? 5 gold says you do . I scouted directly north, probably taking the same path you did...

In the interest of goodwill, I will say that I met Dazedroyalty on the same turn in the same manner you did. The land south of his capital is nearly identical to the land south of my capital, and if I'm understanding the tile you are talking about, I'm actually currently sitting on the same tile near him. In fact, I'm betting the land I've scouted that way will look very similar to the land you've seen to my south - green land, couple forests, some fish, and a river a few tiles inland. This has some interesting implications as far as the map goes...

I have one request if you don't mind, as this is a request Dazed made of me... Would you mind not coming right at my borders for the early part of the game? Meaning staying at least one tile away from my borders for at least the first 15-20 turns? Or just until my borders pop again basically - can't remember how quickly that comes on quick speed.

scooter

Scooter,

From your words, it does indeed look like all of our starts have been similar (yes, there is land just east of my capital across a narrow canal, but demographics already hinted at this, I'm sure ;-) ). It's also interesting that Dazedroyalty is directly north of you. So far no one has approached me from the south (although this would be the turn for them to come out of the fog I suppose), but it definitely sounds possible. Perhaps everyone has started in one vertical line, with duplicate lands to their east and west? In any case, if you'd like to let Dazedroyalty know of my presence, I'd appreciate it and would be happy to return the favor and share the general location of your lands to other Civs met if you so desire.

With Dazedroyalty to your north, my preference would be to move my Warrior around your lands and establish contact and gain in-game benefits for meeting other Civs. If I keep my Warrior at least one tile from your border, will this be acceptable to you?

-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

If Dazedroyalty is immediately north of scooter, then I'll probably find either Serdoa or Twinkletoes to my south. Once the Worker is finished, I'll knock out a quick Warrior while researching fishing, and send him south to see if that ends up being true. My best guess for now is that we all started in a vertical line from each other on a map that likely wraps around. So sending out a quick scout to the south may be a good idea for picking up circumnavigation that way.

Tech: Agriculture (finishes next turn) -> Fishing (3 turns) -> Bronze Working (8-9 turns)
Unta: Worker (finishes next turn)-> Warrior (3 turns while working Ivory) -> Workboat (?)

In the sims, the Workboat finished on the same turn Unta reached size 2 (which allowed it to work the Corn and Fish for fast growth), but if I've met 2-3 other players already by that time, research time may shave off a turn.

[SleepingMoogle]

Something to keep myself occupied while the turns roll by. Here's a first real shot at a turnplan until about T25. This will probably be altered after in-game developments, but it looks fairly solid for now. The main consideration is whether I should get out a second Worker before the first Settler.

Tech order:
Agriculture (T6)
Fishing (T9)
Bronze Working (T17)
Hunting (T21)
The Wheel (T25)
Pottery (T29)

Worker path:



Build order:
Worker (T6)
Warrior (T9)
Workboat (T14)
-- Build order is less certain after this point
Warrior (T16)
Settler (T20, aided by whip)
Warrior (T21)
Workboat (T22, aided by chop)
Worker (T25)
Warrior (T26)

(Kind of) indepth turnplan:

T6:
Start Fishing research (3 turns)
Unta works Ivory tile [2/2/0]
0/14 Food
0/10 Production (Warrior), 1 overflow from Worker
Worker moves 1W and builds a farm for 1 turn (3 remaining)

T7:
Worker moves 1W and builds a farm (3 turns remaining)
2/14 Food
5/10 Production

T8:
4/14 Food
9/10 Production

T9:
Fishing research finished, start Bronze Working
6/14 Food
Warrior finished, start training a Workboat (3 overflow)
Warrior starts exploring towards the south.

T10:
8/14 Food
7/20 Production
Worker finishes farm, move worked tile to Corn [6/0/1]
The additional Commerce shaves a turn off of Bronze Working research

T11:
Unta grows to size two, work the Corn and Ivory
Worker moves 1N onto grassland hill
0/16 Food
9/20 Production

T12:
Worker starts mining the hill (2 turns remaining)
6/16 Food
13/20 Production

T13:
12/16 Food
17/20 Production

T14:
Unta grows to size 3
2/17 Food
Workboat finishes (1 overflow), moves 1E and hooks up the fish resource
Worker finishes mining the hill
Start training another Warrior, set worked tiles to Corn, Fish [5/0/2] and Mine [1/3/1]
Added commerce reduces BW research time by another turn

T15:
Worker moves SE and farms for one turn (2 turns remaining)
10/17 Food
6/10 Production

T16:
Warrior finishes (1 overflow), and Unta grows to size 4.
Warrior starts moving to second city site, or stays to guard the city if one of the other Warriors will protect city 2.
Unta works Corn, Fish, Mine and Ivory
Worker moves 1N onto forested hill
Start training a Settler
1/18 Food
0/65 Production

T17:
Bronze Working finishes, research set to Hunting (3 turns)
Depending on where Copper appears, change second city site and Warriors to suit.
Revolt into Slavery
Worker starts slow-building a Mine (4 turns remaining)
1/18 Food
16/65 Production

T18:
1/18 Food
16/65 Production

T19:
1/18 Food
31/65 Production. 2-pop whip Settler, 71/65 production after whip.
Set Unta to work Corn and Fish

T20:
1/18 Food
Settler finishes and moves towards second city site (17 overflow), Train an additional Warrior

T21:
Hunting research finishes, set research to the Wheel (4 turns)
10/16 Food
Warrior finishes (9 overflow), train a Workboat
Worker finishes the Mine, production from chopping is enough to finish WB in one turn.

T22:
Unta regrows to size 3 (Working Corn, Fish and Mine)
Worker moves 1E onto Ivory tile
3/17 Food
Workboat finishes (4 overflow), start training a Worker (3 turns)
Workboat either moves towards the second city's seafood resource, or starts scouting the island to the east.

T23:
Worker starts building camp on the Ivory (2T remaining)
3/17 Food
19/40 Production

T24:
3/17 Food
33/40 Production

T25:
The Wheel finishes, research set to Pottry (4 Turns)
Worker finishes Camp, move Unta's worked tile from Mine to Ivory [2/3/1]
3/17 Food
Worker 2 finished (5 overflow), starts moving towards second city, placing a road if needed.
Start training a warrior

T26+
Finish warrior, regrow Unta to size 4 or 5 and whip another Worker. Regrow and build a Settler next.
Worker 1 roads the Ivory, then either chops the forest to his north, or finishes the Farm west of Unta

I'm not certain I like delaying the second Worker this much. If the second city goes inland, I'll probably want to get the second Worker out to start building a road connection as quickly as possible. And I should try and juggle the plan around to have the whip and chop go into Workers for some bonus hammers as well.

[SleepingMoogle]

A continuation of diplomacy. I didn't take a screenshot of this turn since no new tiles were revealed (I think). Agriculture and the Worker both finished after the turn was ended.

SleepingMoogle,

Yeah I'm trying to figure out what's up with the land as well... Dazed just told me that he found a west coast to the land we're on, so I wonder if it's a strip that's 7ish tiles wide with maybe islands on both sides? They'd have to be pretty sizable islands though because we're looking at room for like 2, maybe 3 cities apiece on this strip. I'm going to try to calculate the land tiles based on the demo screen later if I get a chance, because I haven't done so yet.

That would be great - if you just loop around my capital you should run into Dazed. I'll let him know that you are below me and you'd like to contact him.

scooter

Hey there scooter,

No real news, but I wanted to let you know that I have started to move around your borders towards Dazedroyalty. As per our agreement, the first turn consisted of the Warrior moving west to not come too close to your border.

I'll be away next week on holiday, which will most likely delay diplomacy. If I can find a moment to quickly address messages, I'll most certainly do so, but I can't promise that everything will receive a speedy response.

Emperor SleepingMoogle I

This is also a call to anyone reading this thread, as someone will need to play my turns from Saturday onwards until the 30th of July. My official time slot is mornings GMT, but so far the turns have been passed on during the evening hours, so that shouldn't pose too many problems.

I'll write out instructions for every turn, and will check in from time to time to see what the scouting has turned up. All I'll need are quick updates, and depending on how the scouting turns out, a screenshot or two to determine the warrior's moves.

If anyone feels up for doing this, please don't hesitate to let me know.

[SleepingMoogle]

Scooter sent a quick acknowledgement of my last message. It doesn't really need a reply at this point, so this game's diplomacy part is nicely tied up in preparation for my holiday.

SleepingMoogle,

Thanks for honoring the agreement! Don't worry too much about the diplo issue - I'll understand. And besides - there's not a whole lot to talk about at this stage so I don't think it should be too big of an issue.

scooter

Both Serdoa and Dazedroyalty finished techs in turn 5, leaving Twinkletoes as the last Civ to remain at 30 points. The starts appear to have been more or less mirrored, so I'm guessing both Serdoa and Dazed picked up Agriculture. Serdoa will also have finished his first Fast Worker, while Dazed will need one more turn. Twinkletoes started with Mining, so he's probably started out with Bronze Working, perhaps to quickly chop out a second Worker. The Demographics have started to vary a little, some emphasizing production and others food, but it's not something I'm going to analyze in too much detail.

Scouting continues at a respectable distance from scooter's border. Here's a current dilemma:



Should I take the faster NW, or the safer W-NW? I'm not quite sure at which point barbs start appearing, so it's something to think about.

In the meantime, the earlier turnplan has already become outdated, as Fishing would take 4 turns instead of 3 if I was to work the Ivory tile over the Corn. It looks like I'll still be able to finish both Fishing and the Warrior in 3 turns by working the Corn for one turn, and then switching back to the Ivory, but this may end up delaying Bronze Working later on. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

This didn't change anything for the Worker though (whom I forgot to name). He moved one tile west and spent a turn building a farm on the grassland river tile. I have no idea whether I'll actually finish the farm, but at least the turn wasn't wasted this way. Next turn he'll move onto the Corn and a Farm there to completion (4 turns total under Quick speed)

I'm curious what Serdoa will do with his Fast Worker. Assuming our starts are mirrored, he will finish hooking up the Corn and mining the hill two turns before I do. There won't be much to do with his Worker afterwards.. perhaps he'll research Hunting before Bronze Working and build a camp on the Ivory?

[SleepingMoogle]

Whoo! Looks like the game won't be held up because of me after all. Thanks again to Krill for offering to help out!

Okay, the turn should be fairly simple.. Worker needs to move 1W and start farming the Corn, and the Warrior scout W, and NW next turn. Playing it safe seems like the better idea, and this would ensure the river continues to be fully defogged for possible later trade routes.

The worked tile in the capital should be moved back to Ivory, and keep Fishing research at 2 turns to complete while completing the second warrior at the same time, then switch to a Workboat.

[SleepingMoogle]

Also, I suck at typing using laptop keyboards.