RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[SleepingMoogle]

Hey there and welcome to the Pitboss 3 thread of team Spectre (comprised of Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse and SleepingMoogle)! In here, we discuss in-game developments, devise strategies to advance our Civ, and conduct diplomacy with the other teams. If you are part of another team or an unspoiled lurker who came here via misclick, then this is the right time to stop reading and click the back-button in your browser. This post doesn’t contain any spoilers to prevent accidental exposure, so no harm done.

To everyone else, we hope you’ll enjoy reading our thoughts and actions on the Pitboss games and welcome friendly comments and suggestions, but at the same time ask to be careful with what you post to avoid spoiling anything by accident. Other than that, have fun and feel free to laugh at our decisions!

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[SleepingMoogle]

Our current turn plan. Depending on in-game developments, this will almost certainly be revised regularly.

An overview of our Civilization (Turn 82)

Turn 82 (Mathematics in 4 turns)

Anoleis: Builds a farm (2T)
Barla Von: Builds a mine (1T)
Chellick: Builds a road (done)
Delanynder: Chops (done)

Citadel: 25/28 food, 18/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7] and cottages [2/0/4]

Feros: (Size 5) 14/30 food, 31/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and spices [2/1/1]

Eden Prime: (Size 4) 0/28 food, 10/60 production (Granary)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4], grassland cottage [2/0/3] and Mine [1/3/1]

Therum: 4/22 food, 12/30 production (Monument)
Working Grassland [0/2/1], +20 production from forest chop


Turn 83 (Mathematics in 3 turns)

Anoleis: Builds a farm (1T)
Barla Von: Builds a mine (done)
Chellick: Moves E-NE onto grassland forest
Delanynder: Builds a mine (3T)

Citadel: (Size 5) 18/30 food, 21/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7] and cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4]

Feros: 16/30 food, Spearman done (6 overflow) 0/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and spices [2/1/1], 6 overflow

Eden Prime: 3/28 food, 14/60 production (Granary)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4], grassland cottage [2/0/3] and mine [1/3/1]

Therum: 6/22 food, Monument done (3 overflow), 0/60 production (Granary)
Working grassland [0/2/1], 3 overflow


Turn 84 (Mathematics in 2 turns)

Anoleis: Builds a farm (done)
Barla Von: Moves S-S onto Jungle rice
Chellick: Chops (2T)
Delanynder: Builds a mine (2T)

Citadel: 25/30 food, 24/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7] and cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4]

Feros: 18/30 food, 16/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and spices [2/1/1]

2-pop whip Eden prime

Eden Prime: 6/28 food (10/24 after whip), 18/60 production (Granary)
Working floodplain cottage [3/0/4] and mine [1/3/1] +60 production from whip

Therum: 8/22 food, 4/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1]


Turn 85 (Mathematics in 1 turn)

Anoleis: Moves SE and builds a mine (3T)
Barla Von: Chops (3T)
Chellick: Chops (1T)
Delanynder: Builds a mine (1T)

Citadel: (Size 6) 17/32 food, 27/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7] and cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4][2/0/3]

Feros: 20/30 food, 26/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and spices [2/1/1]

Eden Prime: 12/24 food, Granary done (24 overflow) 0/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4], 24 overflow

Therum: 11/22 food, 5/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1]


Turn 86 (Mathematics done)

Anoleis: Builds a mine (2T)
Barla Von: Chops (2T)
Chellick: Chops (done)
Delanynder: Builds a mine (done)

Citadel: 24/32 food, 30/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7], cottage [2/0/4][2/0/4][2/0/3], +30 production from forest chop

Feros: 22/30 food, Spearman done (1 overflow) 0/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and mine [1/3/0], 1 overflow

Eden Prime: 16/24 food, 25/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4]

Therum: 14/22 food, 6/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1]


Turn 87 (Next tech in ? turns)

Anoleis: Builds a mine (1T)
Barla Von: Chops (1T)
Chellick: Builds a cottage (3T)
Delanynder: Moves NW and builds a mine (done)

Citadel: 31/32 food, 63/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7], cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4][2/0/3]

Feros: 23/30 food, 13/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and mine [1/3/0]

Eden Prime: 20/24 food, 26/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4]

Therum: 17/22 food, 7/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1]


Turn 88 (Next tech in ? turns)

Anoleis: Moves W and builds a farm (4T)
Barla Von: Chops (done)
Chellick: Builds a cottage (2T)
Delanynder: Moves W and builds a farm (3T)

Citadel: (Size 7) 22/34 food, 66/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7], cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4][2/0/3] and mine [1/3/1]

Feros: 24/30 food, 25/35 production (Spearman)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and mine [1/3/0]

Eden Prime: (Size 3) 12/26 food, 27/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4] and grassland cottage [2/0/3]

Therum: 20/22 food, 8/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1]


Turn 89 (Next tech in ? turns)

Anoleis: Builds a farm (2T)
Barla Von: Builds a farm (4T)
Chellick: Builds a cottage (1T)
Delanynder: Builds a farm (1T)

Whip the citadel for 1 population

Citadel: 28/34 food (30/32 after whip), 72/90 production (Library)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7] and cottages [2/0/4][2/0/4][2/0/3], +30 production from whip

Feros: 25/30 food, Spearman done (2 overflow), 0/25 production (Archer)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and mine [1/3/0], 2 overflow

Eden Prime: 16/26 food, 28/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4] and grassland cottage [2/0/3]

Therum: (Size 2) 1/24 food, 9/60 production (Granary)
Working farm [3/0/1] and copper [1/5/1]


Turn 90 (Next tech in ? turns)

Anoleis: Builds a farm (done)
Barla Von: Builds a farm (3T)
Chellick: Builds a cottage (done)
Delanynder: Moves SE and builds a farm (4T)

Citadel: (Size 7) 21/34 food, Library done (15 overflow), 0/60 production (Worker)
Working rice [5/0/1], sheep [4/1/3], silver [2/1/7], mines [1/3/1][1/3/0][0/4/1] and cottage [2/0/4], 15 overflow

Feros: 26/30 food, 14/25 production (Archer)
Working 2 farms [3/0/0][3/0/0], horses [1/4/1], stone [1/4/1] and mine [1/3/0]

Eden Prime: 20/26 food, 29/90 production (Library)
Working floodplain cottages [3/0/4][3/0/4] and grassland cottage [2/0/4]

Therum: 2/24 food, 15/60 production (Granary)
Working farms [3/0/1][3/0/1]

Longer term:

Citadel: Move to Settler after worker
Feros: Continue pumping military units and build a stable
Eden Prime: Finish library and focus on growth
Therum: Finish Granary, focus on growth for the moment[/quote]

[SleepingMoogle]

At the end of the snake pick, we ended up with Hannibal (Financial/Charismatic) of Byzantium. Given our central position in the list (10th out of 17), we are pretty happy with the result. Here’s a quick rundown on our choices and the motivation behind them:

Our first pick was the Byzantium Civ. They come with the Cataphract and Hippodrome unique unit and building. The Cataphract replaces Knights and has 2 additional strength points, but loses the immunity to first strikes that Knights have. The Hippodrome is a Theatre replacement that gains happiness from Horses rather than Dyes and provides an additional free happiness point, and allows to further increases happiness by 1 for every 5% on the culture slider, as opposed to 10% for regular Theatres. Byzantium has The Wheel and Mysticism as its starting techs.

When it was our turn to make a pick, most of the desirable leaders were already chosen. We discussed potential leader picks, but agreed that instead of picking a mediocre leader and Civ combo, it would be more beneficial to get a strong Civ and pair it with one of the remaining leaders during the second round.
Byzantium is a popular Civ choice. Cataphracts simply decimate all other units in the medieval era. Only pikes have a decent chance against them, and even that is a coin flip. The Hippodrome is a pretty decent unique building to go with it because of all the happiness bonuses. Plus if we survive to drafting, the culture slider bonus will definitely come in handy to offset unhappiness. As Byzantium was still available, we jumped on the chance pretty quickly. The trade-off was that we would end up picking our leader almost dead last (15th out of 17).

Finding a suitable leader depended on the game settings and our general strategy. Given the leaders still available, we eventually agreed to go with either Zara (Creative/Organized) or Hannibal (Financial/Charismatic). As the team prior to us picked Zara, Hannibal was the easy choice and he will be the one leading our glorious Cataphract charges. His Financial trait gives one extra commerce bonus to every tile that already has two or more commerce, and reduces the production cost of Banks by 50%. The Charismatic trait gives all cities a happiness point, one additional point for a Monument and Broadcast Tower, and cuts XP needed by units to level up by 25%.

Hannibal was chosen because we considered him the most interesting of the remaining leaders. Our general strategy at the moment is still pretty rough, but we have the idea of making a quick beeline to the Guilds tech for early access to Cataphracts. There’s a few ways to go about it, but since the desirable Philosophical leaders were not available anymore, using great persons to bulb our way there wasn’t as strong an idea as it could have been. We may still end up using a GP or two, but we fairly quickly moved back to considering a Financial leader.

Financial is a very strong trait by itself, even in a game were tech trading is possible. Picking it up meant we’ll have an edge on commerce (and research as an extension), especially when using a cottage-based economy. The faster we can enable those Cataphracts, the better! At this stage in the pick, the number of Financial leaders still available was fairly limited. Pairing it with the Charismatic trait was eventually decided because we feel it’s an interesting an underused trait. We’re looking forward to seeing how it will perform in this type of game. It also has some good synergy going with our Civ.

In the early game, we will benefit from a large amount of happiness bonuses over other teams. One point from the trait itself, another from monuments, and yet another once we can start building Hippodromes. This will let us grow our cities quite nicely before Hereditary Rule, and actually allows us to ignore Monarchy for a while. We might try for an early Aesthetics > Drama beeline, and then trade those techs around for the ones on the path to Guilds. If we have access to marble, we may even have a good shot at the Parthenon and Great Library!

Our starting techs are a bit of a mixed bag: The Wheel and Mysticism. We made the decision not to focus on an early religion before even we picked the Charismatic trait, so Mysticism loses a bit of value. However, we won’t have to spend turns researching it later and can build Monuments right away. The Wheel opens up Pottery and roads immediately. Unfortunately this leaves us without any real worker techs. So instead of chasing religions, we’ll focus our early techs on allowing our Workers to hook up nearby resources.

Our general early strategy will most likely focus on growing to get to Guilds quickly. We’ll start with a Worker over a Warrior to hook up resources as quickly as possible while scouting the immediate area around our Capital, close enough to prevent possible scouting Warriors from taking a shot at eliminating us early. We hope we don’t end up next to one of the more aggressive teams out there, of course!
The specifics on how to get there are still a rough idea at this point. If possible, we'd like to get Metal Casting early to whip out a Forge and work an engineer. After that we'll follow the top of the tree to pick up Drama and Currency, and work up a great merchant either through a Market or the Caste System civic. The idea is that we can trade the upper-tree techs for the lower ones, then suddenly bulb Machinery with a great engineer, and Guilds with a great merchant. That should make for a nice surprise, at the very least. In how far it will be possible.. we'll see.

Just being Byzantium may be enough for other teams to consider early aggression against us, and we will try to prevent this by not neglecting our defences, and by forging strong diplomatic ties with other teams. One of the first things we agreed upon as a team is that we wish to conduct our diplomacy in an open and honest manner, and present ourselves as a good ally that honours the agreements it makes. We were actually one of the teams that proposed the possibility of Permanent alliances in this game because we felt it would make teams consider friends and foes more carefully. While this was unfortunately shot down in the polls, it doesn’t mean we plan to change this stance. We will still be on the lookout for opportunities presenting themselves of course, but overall we want to be the good guys, both in word and deed.

Finally, here are some initial thoughts on the decisions of the other teams that we threw around while the snake pick was ongoing. It will be interesting to see afterwards how close our predictions were to the truth:

*Broker33 + dsplaisted + Swiss Pauli (Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind) of Mali): A fairly obvious wonder chaser pairing. This team will probably turtle at the start and go for early Metal Casting, build some cheap Mints and then focus on wonders to improve their commerce and teching. Early aggression seems unlikely.

*Ruff_Hi (Napoleon (Org/Cha) of the Aztecs): A rather odd choice. Ruff probably picked up the Organized trait for cheap Altars, but why pick Napoleon when Zara and Hammurabi are still available? Either way though, early aggression is likely. The amount of whipping he can do just demands it.

*Sockboy + ad hoc + WarriorKnight + Pegasus (Zara (Cre/Org) of the Ottomans): Both leader and Civ are pretty good picks, but there's no real synergy. Of course, there doesn't need to be with Hammans and Janissaries. We're not really expecting this team to be an early aggressor.

*Lobo.Thibron (Peter (Phi/Exp) of Korea): Cheap Seowons looks to be the idea here, which implies a growth strategy. Hwachas are a decent unit that remains useful for a long time all by themselves as well. Lobo.Thibron may adopt a specialist-based economy over a cottage-based one.

*meatbalz + dazedroyalty + Ilios (Mehmed II (Exp/Org) of the Holy Roman Empire): HRE was probably picked to get cheap Rathauses out which isn't too bad a strategy. Whether this team will go for early growth or aggression will most likely depend on their start.

*Sandover + scooter (Kublai Khan (Agg/Cre) of Rome): Well, this one is about as subtle as a shotgun blast to the face. We really hope we don't start anywhere near these guys; if we do they'll most likely plan to run us over with Praets before we can return the favor with Cataphracts.

*Krill (Ghandi (Spi/Phi) of Egypt): One of the more oddball combos out there. Krill may be planning to go for a priest-based economy to crank out early religions and prophets (and because he looks to be the only one so far, it may just work.) Whatever his strategy is though, he is not a player to underestimate.

*darrelljs + regoarrarr + sunrise089 + sooooo (Bismarck (Exp/Ind) of India): Is every well-known player picking oddball leaders? Ah well, expansive is fairly obvious to get Fast workers out quickly, and I'm guessing they picked Industrious as the second trait since there's only one other Ind leader (Huayna). All in all, I expect them to focus on growth rather than aggression with this pairing.

*Cyneheard + haphazard1 + antisocialmunky (Suryavarman II (Exp/Cre) of England): England was a pretty late pick. It's a decent civ, but there's not too much synergy with the leader. Expecting growth rather than aggression.

*Cull + RefSteel + Maniac Marshall (Ragnar (Fin/Agg) of Maya): A fairly late Civ pick. Maya was probably picked for the combination of early spears and happiness from the Ball court. We wouldn't be too surprised if they attack a neighbor early.

*Exploit (Darius I (Fin/Org) of Sumeria): El-cheapo Ziggurats is the likely reasoning here. Unless Exploit is planning to do something funky with Vultures though, early emphasis on growth seems likely.

*athlete4life10 + Jowy + Kalin + Nakor (Joao (Exp/Imp) of the Incas): Meet the rapid expansion Civ in this game It's doubtful they'll train more than a handful of city guards early on.

*Kyan + Twinkletoes89 + Whosit (Pericles (Phi/Cre) of Babylon): Not that much synergy, but the Bowman is a decent defensive unit, and the Garden is almost a small Hamman. The question would be whether Whosit's presence is a cause for increased aggression. :-)

*Morgan (Elizabeth (Exp/Phi) of France): Poor Lizzy.. :-) Ah well, Morgan gets his hands on Musketeers which we already agreed is a very nice UU.

*Dantski + Mukha (Willem (Fin/Cre) of Portugal): Portugal seems like a rather weak choice, even considering the limited number of Civs still available. Danski seems to be making some rather choices in his games.. then again, he'll probably be laughing if we end up on a water or island-heavy map.

*Mr. Nice Guy + Shoot the Moon (Pacal II (Fin/Exp) of Carthage): A surprisingly strong pick for the last Civ. The Numidian cavalry can be very strong early on, and the Cothon will certainly help boost commerce if they start near a coast.

[ManiaMuse]

Cool, awesome first posts. Is the plan to use the 2nd post for a Sulla like overview of the empire every 10 turns or so?

I agree with pretty much everything you've written there obviously although if we are going worker first we will have to be very careful in the opening, we don't want to get eliminated by a single warrior. We also should consider how early we need the key military techs (BW/hunting/archery). That might depend on our neighbours to an extent. Also I think parthenon/GL are probably out, since getting NE up early is worth more than Parthenon and I suspect several other civs will be chasing GL. I guess we will ignore Stonehenge unless it doesn't go for ages and our borders are secure enough, though free charismatic monuments are always nice.

Buddying up with another agressive civ might be a good plan if we can give them a sweet enough deal to keep them off ours backs. Also we should think about what we should do about the teams with mostly lurker players that we don't know much about. Obviously we can't be friends with everyone so we should try and work out from an early stage of the game which ones are potential targets (and that goes for the more experienced teams as well if we get the chance).

[Sullla]

Great introduction! I hope you don't mind me editing in some spaces to that earlier post, the summation of other teams was almost unreadable in that one massive paragraph.

[SleepingMoogle]

Getting BW out early is important for whipping and chopping. Ideally we research it early and revolt into Slavery before planting our second city. Animal Husbandry is important to reveal horses and enable pastures as well. But I suspect our first tech will be either Agriculture or Hunting or to hook up a food resource. After that, Mining > BW would be good.

If we have access to either horses or copper and are not under any immediate threat from neighbouring Civs, we can probably skip Archery for a while. But we shouldn't wait with it for too long. Ideally we get out the worker techs first (including Pottery), after that researching Archery to improve our defenses is a good idea.

Maybe I am a tad optimistic about our odds to build early wonders, true. But it's not something that should be discounted out of hand either. Wait and see, I suppose. A wonder like Stonehenge would be interesting if we start next to Stone, otherwise I'd rather skip it and instead focus production on vital infrastructure.

Great introduction! I hope you don't mind me editing in some spaces to that earlier post, the summation of other teams was almost unreadable in that one massive paragraph.

No worries about the edit Sullla and thanks for the compliment. The summary indeed looks a lot more readable now.

[Bobchillingworth]

Briefly logging in to say fantastic summary!


If you post a screen cap of the start I'll try to comment on it when I'm available. Otherwise, I won't be able to actually play until I get back from work at about 11 PM your time. Feel free to make any and all moves without me

[ManiaMuse]

Here is our glorious empire



It's an...interesting start. Doesn't look particularly natural with that jungle silver. Irritating that it means we'll need IW before we can work it. Plains sheep and river rice aren't the best food resources but at least we have some. I assume all the starts will be pretty balanced and it is going to be a more cramped map so I wonder how much it is worth moving the settler or not. Tundra to the south.

Still, has potential for production and a bit of cottaging. Annoying that the warrior is on the same tile as the settler but that's a worldbuilder issue.

Moogle and Bob have you been trying to connect yet? I came across an error the first time I tried to connect which I presume is a firewall conflict of some sort. Civ is on my list of exceptions though I'm not sure if that is the problem or not. Might be worth checking your firewall settings if you get the same message.

[Bobchillingworth]

That start...

Okay well agr first, that seems pretty obvious, which hill do you want to move the warrior on to?

Also if we settle on the silver we get it hooked up much more quickly.

I haven't tried connecting yet, I probably should only after we've moved... I'd rather not screw up our first turn :P

Unless I'm the one making the moves, I guess.

[Bobchillingworth]

The spamming begins...


Okay I say move warrior onto plains hill SW to see if settling on silver makes any sense. I'm on teh G-talk if you want to chat- this forum probably isn't ideal for that, alas.