[Spoilers] Victoria of Korea - Mardoc and SevenSpirits

[SevenSpirits]

Had a nice 234-line chat with GES today, some of it game-related.

The main relevant thing we discussed was that I mentioned about the possibility of building early wonders (stonehenge/oracle) to him, and he said he was considering them (mostly oracle for metal casting) but didn't want great prophet points interfering with his academy. So I mentioned the possibility of us trading for his prophet, for the Hindu shrine. (That's literally it - I just mentioned the possibility. Don't know if this is a good idea for either of us.)

The actual reason this chat was good though is that it solidifies our friendship/alliance a bit.

[novice]

Had a nice 234-line chat with GES today, some of it game-related.

The main relevant thing we discussed was that I mentioned about the possibility of building early wonders (stonehenge/oracle) to him, and he said he was considering them (mostly oracle for metal casting) but didn't want great prophet points interfering with his academy. So I mentioned the possibility of us trading for his prophet, for the Hindu shrine. (That's literally it - I just mentioned the possibility. Don't know if this is a good idea for either of us.)

The actual reason this chat was good though is that it solidifies our friendship/alliance a bit.

Generally I feel that an early scientist is more valuable than an early prophet. We could get the prophet up front for our second scientist, but that doesn't really solve GES's problem. Really he should just produce a GSci in another city, or trade with a philosophical player (plako).

[SevenSpirits]

Played the next turn, put 1 turn into Polytheism (we'll want to finish Pottery first, but may as well start this now I think), and moved our worker onto a forest to chop. I moved him 1N since he'll want to go to our second city anyway.

Adlain got a tech, and at the end of the turn, everyone got 7 land points.

[Mardoc]

Sounds good. I assume the plan is to aim to finish Hinduism on Turn 25 or so, right after our second city founds?

I have to agree with Novice, we'd rather have an Academy than a Shrine; but it might be worth making that trade with GES anyway for the sake of diplomatic relations. Of course, the counterargument is that our relations are pretty good that way anyway, so it's not worth the cost.

Still, I'm glad to see this game starting to move again

[SevenSpirits]

Sounds good. I assume the plan is to aim to finish Hinduism on Turn 25 or so, right after our second city founds?

I have to agree with Novice, we'd rather have an Academy than a Shrine; but it might be worth making that trade with GES anyway for the sake of diplomatic relations. Of course, the counterargument is that our relations are pretty good that way anyway, so it's not worth the cost.

Still, I'm glad to see this game starting to move again

Looks like we whip our settler T22, and then he has to walk for 3 turns. So found and finish Hinduism on T26. I think we have just enough time to finish Pottery before that too - together they are 8 turns of research and we started them on 19! For this to work right, we just switch to Pottery at any time before Hinduism is one turn away. (Since the significant overflow from Pottery will save a turn.)

[Quaznar]

Looks like we whip our settler T22, and then he has to walk for 3 turns. So found and finish Hinduism on T26. I think we have just enough time to finish Pottery before that too - together they are 8 turns of research and we started them on 19! For this to work right, we just switch to Pottery at any time before Hinduism is one turn away. (Since the significant overflow from Pottery will save a turn.)

If a discovery overflows with quantity X into another discovery, and the second one only needs Y < X to complete, does the remainder continue to overflow?

[novice]

If a discovery overflows with quantity X into another discovery, and the second one only needs Y < X to complete, does the remainder continue to overflow?

Hi Quaznar, and welcome to RB. The remainder will indeed continue to overflow. You can research a series of cheap tech and build up enough overflow to finish a really expensive one in one turn. SS and Mardoc aren't exactly in a position to do that in this game just yet though.

[SevenSpirits]

Played T20.

We grew. Also, plako got a tech. Next turn we should reveal some new tiles near the marble.

Here's the latest exploration from GES btw. Looks like a city planted on the stone would not have a food resource; too bad.



But... I think we'll be settling towards the NW early on anyway. Recopying our best image of the area, posted earlier by Mardoc:

That, plus there are more flood plains above the visible ones (at least 6 total) and a gold NNW of the corn. The northwest is just amazing.

Our first city should claim the wheat and deer, and should probably go on the forested plains hill (given the free border pop from hinduism). The one drawback of this is it blocks a city from being planted on top of the marble. Scouting out the marble site will tell us how much we are giving up by removing that option. (Probably not much.)

Message to GES:

Thanks GES, even the absence of information is information. Settling on the stone isn't looking as good anymore, with no food in range.

We will start revealing a few tiles around the marble next turn, as our second warrior and returned scout converge on the area. I'll send you a picture when we do!

Seven

[SevenSpirits]

From GES:

M7,

Scratch that about no food in range. Hit the resource motherlode this turn, and honestly, I almost didn't move there, with only one tile to defog. But the lack of a forest made me curious, and my curiosity turned out to be correct.

GES

I won't copy in yet another picture, but... the tile east of the stone has a pig!

I replied:

Oh wow!

That might be a really strong early city to grab; it has amazing production at size 1-3.

We're committed to Hinduism at this point, but if you can get a settler out quickly you might want to settle there, research Myst/Masonry, and pump out Stonehenge really quick. But even if neither of us takes advantage of it for the stone it's a great site to know about.

Seven

[Mardoc]

Yikes! That's a lot of good cities already, plus some decent ones, and still more to explore. I'm not convinced on top of the stone makes sense unless we're racing for an early wonder; sacrificing the production in exchange for being one square off the ocean doesn't sound worthwhile to me. But that's a short term vs. long term question. I do agree on the plains hill for city #2, assuming we're on track to land Hinduism (maybe call it Game, for a strong but not overwhelming site?).

Makes me glad we ended up with Victoria and not Huayna - Imp seems clearly superior to Ind on this map, particularly with both marble and stone available. I didn't recognize that at the time; I had thought that GES had the better pick, but now I think otherwise.

With lots of good, cottageable lands and coastlines, we ought to be in a very nice GNP situation as well. I wouldn't be surprised if despite toroidal we can afford to grow quite quickly, so long as we keep up with workers. Plus, that nice bonus of merely needing to connect to the rails and immediately getting trade with everyone.

Given the nice lands and the great distance between capitals, I think as long as we keep enough military not to be an obvious paper tiger, we ought to be safe for a while as well. We just need to keep that in mind, and not let anyone think they can kill us for free.

Finally - an interesting thought for the distant future: Copper only exists in one spot, we believe, which is close to the ocean. If we're lucky, other strategic resources will be like that, easy to cut with a city-razing expedition. And since we'll know where they are, even if we haven't officially scouted - a Pearl Harbor might work quite well, should it become necessary.