Spotted a Gold tile to the northeast, which will be quite valuable, but also tricky to hook up due to isolation and rough terrain. The tile SW of my Scout is freshwater Desert, and the tile 2W is a forested Lake. Since the map is flat, I'm guessing that this region is my back line, which reinforces my desire to settle along the river to the west.
Someone has a GNP of 21, which means our CRE player Ginger also finshed Hunting last turn, and is now teching a 1-prereq tech. He now knows Wheel, Agriculture, and Hunting, so that could be Pottery or Archery. I'll have a better idea in 6 turns, since Pottery is 80b and Archery is 60b, and the latter adds Soldier points as well.
I wonder who was still at 5 crop on turn 6? Everyone's borders should have popped by turn 3 at the latest, and I can't imagine anyone having a tile better than the 4/0/1 to work. Top MFG being 2 means no one is working a 3/1/0, so maybe a 3/0/3 Financial Oasis? Financial flood plains with a +1 commerce resource? I'm not sure if that fits the data either, it should've raised the average GNP. Anyone have any ideas?
We've now uncovered Ivory and Wine in addition to the Gold from earlier, and these two are in a much more accessible region. Our first Worker finishes at end of turn, and will proceed to put one turn of farming the plains Sugar before camping the flood plains Deer, as planned. The Scout should take another couple of turns to defog the southwest, and then I should be able to start dotmapping while Initial 64 grows to size 3.
Speaking of which, Initial 64 refers to the introduction of each Cal pregame show, where the wedge advances to midfield while playing "Big C" (1:00-1:22 in the video). Each individual halftime show is uniquely choreographed, and the pregame show varies year to year, but those first 64 steps have been the same since 1961. While moving forward for 22 seconds may seem trivial, locking into the director's tempo and maintaining the unity of form and intonation can make or break a performance. The last graded test in a new recruit's audition/training includes a successful performance of Initial 64 (and the Tunnel Transition leading into it, which I'll cover in another post).
Ginger gained a tech, and global power went up by 6000, which means that our Babylonian neighbor now has access to melee-countering Bowmen. Lovely. From the map dimensions, maintenance, and lack of contact, it doesn't look like an early rush should be in the cards for anyone. I'm going to keep an eye out on the demographics to see if he's actually producing Bowmen or not, but for now I plan to stay the course. Diverting hammers into Warriors doesn't seem like it would actually benefit me, even in the worst case scenario where there's a Bowman at my borders in ~20 turns. The 23-GNP still has to be Ginger researching a 2-prereq tech, which could only be Animal Husbandry.
Adrien also finished a tech that didn't add power, but due to how PBEM counts turns, I'm not sure if he put 5 or 6 turns of research into it. In fact, Archery finishing this turn for Ginger caught me off guard. When I saw on my t4 that Adrien had finished a tech, he had already put 1t into a new tech. It's now my t8. I think that means Adrien put in 5 turns of research, but I'm not sure. If so, that means he teched Mysticism, which would be plausible, but surprising. If it turns out he put in 6t of research instead, that would indicate Agriculture, which seems far more likely. I've got to go for now, but I'll test this more thoroughly later.
EDIT: Spoiled for inaccuracy. Disregard.
I went back and did some tests. Based on demographics, I'm confident that everyone had the same 1st-ring 3/0/1 and second-ring 4/0/1 tiles to work.
a) From Ginger's route, going Hunting->Archery results in Hunting being researched on t4 and Archery being researched on t9. In the PBEM, I saw those score increases on my t3 and t8. Makes sense so far.
b) From Adrien's route, going Hunting->???, the only tech that would've been finished on t9 would indeed be Mysticism (the other candidate is Archery, but global Soldiers would've risen by 12,000, not 6,000).
c) Meanwhile, Khan hasn't finished a second tech yet. If he gets one next turn, it would be Agriculture or Masonry (both 6t). If not, then he went straight to Animal Husbandry (8t) or Bronze Working (9t)
I'm going to write those down for now, and would expect Adrien to go for an actual religion next. Maybe he's starting his Oracle attempt already?
EDIT:
I thought about it some more. The demographic data I actually see is from Adrien and Khan's turn N, but my and Ginger's turn N-1. Put another way, by the time I'm playing, Adrien and Khan have already ended turn, and the game has run their next turn's start-of-turn growth/production/research. Ginger and I, on the other hand, haven't yet. That means I'd actually see his most recent data at the start of my next turn.
Add that all up, and that confirms that Ginger got Archery when he most recently pressed End Turn (his t8->9, almost a full day ago), and Adrien got Agriculture when he most recently pressed End Turn (his t9->10, just a few hours ago). This also means that Khan can't have gone for Agriculture, so I should expect to see him getting Animal Husbandry or Bronze Working. This sure gets confusing, even with only 4 players :D
Adrien grew his capital to size 2, but Khan must have queued up another Worker or Settler. Khan not getting a tech yet has to mean that he followed with Bronze Working. I'm curious to see if Ginger grows next turn or not, it might mean that he's building Bowmen.
I'm starting to regret not getting one of AH/BW earlier, this way is better for growth, but I'll have to hope to either get lucky with strategic resources, or settle one with my third city, in the face of possibly-belligerent neighbors with UUs I don't get great straight-up odds against. I'm going to send this Scout clockwise after finishing its initial loop and try to meet the other players. I'm probably leaving some seafood fogged, but my first couple of cities will be inland and to the southwest, so I should have time.
Here's what I'm thinking for where to found the first two cities. Red can share some cottages while whipping out Workers, while also serving as a free road connection towards Blue. I like Blue on the Ivory tile, because Ivory isn't a great tile to work but provides a bonus hammer to the city tile. It also saves me the time hooking up the luxury, which is relevant because the city wants its five 1st-ring tile improvements as soon as possible. Ideally, there's a good site in the fog to the southeast, and then I can keep shuffling those Workers counterclockwise like so:
Light Grey and Dark Greys pending scouting. Peach is a filler production site. Orange is going to generate specialists. Lavender hopes there's some seafood over there. Yellow and Green work cottages in their river valleys. I sure hope my strategic resources aren't on those 2 riverside plains :D
Those gems to the south look like the halfway point towards one of my neighbors. Normally I wouldn't feel confident about being able to secure land against a EXP player and a CRE/IMP player, but I still think that maintenance will catch people off guard, and Ginger so far isn't playing a strict REX opening.
We're starting to see some interesting divergence here. Adrien and I grew our capitals to size 3, Ginger grew his to size 2 , and Khan is staying at size 1. Khan's t12 score increase was Bronze Working, and it makes sense that he's going to chop in a Worker/Settler. I'm not sold on this opening, because the land quality is above average, and chops are below average, and this cuts down on the number of forests he'll have to chase Oracle with, so we'll see how it all plays out. Adrien's two score increases are his population growing. Ginger is where things get interesting. From the MFG demographics, someone is working a 2-hammer tile. But, if I'm reading the Food demographics properly (rival average is 9, so rival total is 27, minus top and and bottom leaves 27-8-13=6, which due to Civ rounding could be no greater than 9, because 29/3 rounds down to 9, but 30/3 is 10)* and we've all improved our Deer but no other resources, that's a 1-food 2-hammer tile, i.e. a grass forest hill.
In other words, huh? I'm rather confused, so let's dig into this a little bit deeper, and probably find out that I'm wrong about how the game works :D.
Rival best Crop Yield is 13, which has to be Adrien (2+6+3+2 indicating the deer, a flood plain, and a financial calendar resource). We know from the score changes that Ginger and not Khan is size 2. Therefore, Ginger's the one working the 1/2/0 hill. He's presumably not building a Worker, since the 3/0/1 flood plain would be strictly better. If he's building a Settler, the IMP bonus (which I just checked and does NOT show up in demographics), so it beats out the flood plain in foodhammers in exchange for the commerce. On the one hand, this would be a very reasonable sequence. On the other hand, I checked, and the governor will default to a flood plain when building an IMP Settler with the choice between a 3/0/1 and a 1/2/0.
So on the paranoid side, I did a quick sim, and if he had wanted to, Ginger could've gone Worker -> Bowman, with 2 turns in between due to Archery not finishing yet. If he grows on t11, but doesn't work the 1/2/0 until t12, then I'd expect him to either:
A) grow on his t14 and produce a Bowman on his t15 (if he put hammers into a Warrior/Barracks during those 2 turns)
B) grow on his t15 AND produce a Bowman on his t15 (if he put hammers into a Worker/Settler during those 2 turns)
So that's my hypothesis: on my t16, I should see an increase in top and global power corresponding to a Bowman. Should this in fact be the case, I'll have to consider diverting to Archery myself, so that I'll have enough time to build or whip out an Archer if I see him coming - there might not be enough time for Impi, and those wouldn't do well against Bowmen in any case. Alternatively, if t16 comes and there's no increase in power, then he was building a Settler all along.
* I find it rather odd that the demographics screen went out of its way to expand population and soldier points (in an admittedly roundabout way, but you can usually find out the exact figure), while rounding GNP/MFG/CY in a slightly obtuse way (which also leads to Quick speed forest chops taking 2.66...=3 turns).
I'm going to skip the detailed theorizing, since it's getting a bit trickier and no one seems interested enough to start up a discussion. I'm still keeping track of score increases and demographics in a spreadsheet, so to summarize:
T15: Ginger +6 from tech (1-prereq and 7t, so AH), top power increased by 3000, and non-top other power increased by an additional 3000. I'm slightly confused here, because I thought Bowmen contributed 4000 power, so without barbs to lose units to, or 1000 from a population growth, I don't see a way to get these results.
T16: Khan grew to size 2 and Ginger grew to size 3. I finished Mining, accounting for 2000 out of the 6000 increase in global power. As I understand it, growing to even multiples of population, e.g. from 1->2, contributes 1000 power, so that's another 3000 increase that I can't pin down.
T17: Adrien finished a 1-prereq tech (10t, so BW) and started a 2-prereq tech (AH). Top power increased by 2000, and non-top other power increased by 2000. I'm almost certain that these are Warriors.
T18: Khan finished a tech (7t, not sure how many prereqs, but no power change (which rules out AH), so maybe Agriculture?).
On the home front, my Settler will be finishing in 2t on t20, and found its city the turn after, t21. The capital will slow-build another Worker after that, then grow on and whip its Granary. On the foreign front, my Scout met Ginger to the south. I believe his capital has popped 3rd-ring borders, so I won't be able to get a look at it without declaring war, which I'm rather hesitant to do. I haven't read any of Ginger's previous games, but he seems like he might be easily provoked, and misread my intentions as well. Considering I'm not sure if he went for an early military unit or not (damn those unexplained 3000-power increases), it just doesn't seem worth it. Instead, I'll backtrack and defog along the coastlines between my land and his, then I'll either send him westward in search of more contacts, or keep him in the area to track Ginger's movements. There's a lovely double Sheep, double Gems, Pig city site right between us that could conceivably be my 4th city, but a lot would have to go right.
Our borders are barely visible to the north and south. Red is my currently planned 3rd city, and blue would be the contested site.
I'm going to skip the detailed theorizing, since it's getting a bit trickier and no one seems interested enough to start up a discussion. I'm still keeping track of score increases and demographics in a spreadsheet, so to summarize:
T15: Ginger +6 from tech (1-prereq and 7t, so AH), top power increased by 3000, and non-top other power increased by an additional 3000. I'm slightly confused here, because I thought Bowmen contributed 4000 power, so without barbs to lose units to, or 1000 from a population growth, I don't see a way to get these results.
T16: Khan grew to size 2 and Ginger grew to size 3. I finished Mining, accounting for 2000 out of the 6000 increase in global power. As I understand it, growing to even multiples of population, e.g. from 1->2, contributes 1000 power, so that's another 3000 increase that I can't pin down.
T17: Adrien finished a 1-prereq tech (10t, so BW) and started a 2-prereq tech (AH). Top power increased by 2000, and non-top other power increased by 2000. I'm almost certain that these are Warriors.
T18: Khan finished a tech (7t, not sure how many prereqs, but no power change (which rules out AH), so maybe Agriculture?).
On the home front, my Settler will be finishing in 2t on t20, and found its city the turn after, t21. The capital will slow-build another Worker after that, then grow on and whip its Granary. On the foreign front, my Scout met Ginger to the south. I believe his capital has popped 3rd-ring borders, so I won't be able to get a look at it without declaring war, which I'm rather hesitant to do. I haven't read any of Ginger's previous games, but he seems like he might be easily provoked, and misread my intentions as well. Considering I'm not sure if he went for an early military unit or not (damn those unexplained 3000-power increases), it just doesn't seem worth it. Instead, I'll backtrack and defog along the coastlines between my land and his, then I'll either send him westward in search of more contacts, or keep him in the area to track Ginger's movements. There's a lovely double Sheep, double Gems, Pig city site right between us that could conceivably be my 4th city, but a lot would have to go right.
Our borders are barely visible to the north and south. Red is my currently planned 3rd city, and blue would be the contested site.
Nice! But think you can beat the IMP civ to the site?
I haven't seen his Scout or any other units yet from anyone else yet, so it's possible that Ginger doesn't even know about this area. Even if he does head this way, I'd be happy to settle 1N of my current blue site, or even 2NE of it.
Lots of turns in the past three days, and no time to report, let's remedy that.
T19:
Apparently I overwrote my screenshots from T19, but I at least have the relevant demographic data:
T20:
T21:
T22:
I thought I had taken more screenshots.
T23:
Post-EOT Copper Locations:
T24:
T25:
T26:
T27:
Graphs from Ginger:
Quick summary: I was first to my second city, which worked 1t of the FP cottage so that the capital could finish my second worker in time, then swapped onto the Wheat to grow. The capital grew to size 4 and 2-pop whipped its Granary at 8/16f, overflowing onto some Warriors that I probably should've built earlier, in hindsight. Plan from here is to regrow to 4 on a Warrior for the second city, 2-pop whip a Settler while the Workers improve tiles for the second city, which fortunately gets 3rd-ring Copper from the capital without expanding its own borders. I'm still not sure about if/when to make a try for the Oracle. It'd be fantastic to have and to deny the IND players, but I don't want to forego too much growth for it, especially if I end up being beaten to it anyways. No one's teched a religion so far, nor even Mysticism by my estimate. Ideally, I'd like to lower my opportunity costs first by adopting OR before spending any chops or overflow, and with my earlier Cottages I think I can definitely get through Polytheism->Priesthood before them, but the viability of OR pre-Oracle will hinge on how soon the other players head that way themselves, and if either or both of them decide they want Stonehenge.
We also spotted a 1-tile Stone island in the inner sea. No food visible yet, but definitely a medium-term goal for the intercontinental trade routes and to help build Moai.
The second city's name, Onramp, refers to the first real taste of Cal Band antics for new recruits, which is a heavily stylized and scripted recitation done as the buses depart Berkeley for training/selection in Sacramento. There's a lot of bizarre, thinly veiled claims made about the bus driver, a song that would be indecent to reprint in its entirety, and ultimately the recruit's realization that he or she has to direct everyone to stop repeating the last, horribly discordant chord.
In this game, Onramp will dutifully swap food/cottage tiles with the capital between whip cycles. It'll never be as great as a city planted farther away to work more of its own food resources (like my planned third city), but it gets off and running a few turns earlier, requires no roads for its trade route and only 2 roads for the Copper, and should contribute just fine while the happy cap is relatively low. In the short term, I'd like to whip out a couple of Impi to scout to my west and southwest (and elevate my Power to respectable levels), and then perhaps an OR missionary if it doesn't naturally spread to my capital.
In foreign affairs, we got Ginger's graphs (he's been splitting EPs with someone since I met him), and it turns out that he did have large increases in Power that have to be Bowmen (either 2 and a tech, or 3, not sure). That prompted me to keep my Scout in the area to watch out for any signs of aggression. He's incredibly late to a second city, despite being IMP, so I'm feeling pretty good about his opening thus far. I'd definitely move my planned Gems city 1N on top of the plains hill for the defensive bonus at the expense of a Pig, but I checked the odds and fortified Impi should hold just fine against Skirmishers, even before 2nd-ring cultural defenses.
Initial 64 picked up the Wheat as the Copper mine finished for Onramp, allowing the capital to finish its Warrior in time for growth, while also filling up the food box so I can line up a subsequent Settler whip and immediate regrowth. Onramp will manually finish its Granary, then should become the Holy City so it can fill up its granary box while happily growing to size 5, at which point I'll whip a Worker, while regrowing on Impi. My Workers at Onramp will unfortunately need to waste a turn getting to the Pig, I'll have to test if it makes sense for them to road those two forests en route, or just move on.
Also, am I wrong, or has Ginger still not settled his second city? Did he find something so good in the middle of the map that he rushed there straight away to lock it down with CRE borders?
EDIT: I'm confused with my sandbox. I've updated it and played my turns as I did, but I'm down 1 GNP somehow on t26, even when I'm only working 4 tiles total between my 2 cities. Is this KTB on AH? I also had a silly event come up that depleted all of the food in my capital, so I'll have to reset on a map with that option turned off :D
