[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul and Timski go To War: Brennus of Spain

[timski]

Map theory:

The inner island layout looks like it will give an inner island parallel to each mountain range, so each player will contest 2 inner islands with their neighbours. Nice and balanced, but makes early boats in the water pretty important. Outer islands (your "large island") could be an astronomy target, or just further layers of Galley REX.

C&D (End of turn 6):

Standard caveat on reading with caution, given the ease with which I made my earlier error:

GingerEagle and ourselves grew to 2 population, since we're both at 45 score, while everyone else is still at 1. That has to place GingerEagle as rival best 10 food, since 2 tiles are required to hit that. Which implies they also netted Fish, since only seafood in their first ring could have been improved so fast. All agreed.

Minimum hammers is 2, even for GingerEagle, which means GingerEagle also has a plains hill capital, plus an unimproved 3 food tile (likely the governor defaulting at end of turn, like us - at least I assume our governor hasn't seen the micro plan). Their layout is slightly different, since the initial land area was different, but our starts are very similar.

Since rival average food is 4, and the worst is 2, Dazed, Commodore and Kyan are likely working only hammers - it's possible that one of them is working a single food tile, allowing for possible rounding down.

We're rank #3 on hammers, in spite of having only 2, along with GingerEagle. Which means that one of Dazed, Commodore and Kyan are also has only 2 hammers. Combined with the food observation, one of those 3 players is likely working a 2/1/0 tile (which either suggests to some slick micro action, or a poor start, with no strong hammer or food tiles in their first 2 rings). Hammer rival best is 5, which from a single population has to be working a forest plains hill, with a plains hill start - I wouldn't be surprised if this is Dazed, who I'm inclined to rank as the middle play on skill. Due to rounding, it is not possible to say precisely how many hammers the final player is working - either 3 or 4.

Note that GingerEagle is Financial, so their coastal Fish is yielding 3 gold, placing them at 19 rival best GNP. They have a very slight tech edge there, although whether that's enough to, say, reach their third tech a turn ahead is unclear. Since we are 3rd with 18, there are 2 players with 19 GNP, including another one that is non-Financial with a single population - is that even possible?

Land area is quirky - why are we rank #2 in spite of matching the rival best? Still, with 16/21 as best, we can safely assume everyone got a coastal start, and some perhaps gained more mountains or ice.

Rival worst soldiers is 3000, which must be GingerEagle, since they were the only civ (aside from us) to start with 2000, and they've grown to 2 population. Ergo they did *not* tech Mining, Hunting, Wheel, Animal Husbandry, Sailing or Archery, since all of those would have increased soldier points. Mysticism is just about possible, but isn't an obvious first tech unless one was planning to slow-build the 'Henge, which makes no sense without Industrious. So, I'm very confident that GingerEagle teched Agriculture, which probably implies they have a strong food resource available - at the very least, wet Rice.

Rival best soldiers of 8000 implies either Commodore or Dazed grabbed a 2000-point tech. Given the mixed starts, we can't be absolutely sure one didn't build a Warrior while not growing, although I think that's unlikely because it would be far more logical to build an opening Warrior while growing to size 2. Both cannot have reached 8000, since that would take the average above 5250. Ergo one of Commodore and Dazed teched Hunting or Mining, and the other Agriculture or Mysticism. With no further information, I'd guess Dazed grabbed Agriculture (since they lacked all food techs), and Commodore went for Mining cunningly. But Commodore may have grabbed Agriculture and complete a Warrior. The point distribution means that Kyan remains at 4000 soldier points, and so went for a non-soldier tech - likely Agriculture, although Mysticism is possible. Added: Given that Commodore comes after us in turn order, I doubt they would have completed Agriculture yet, which firms them up as having completed Mining with no Warrior.

C&D Summary:

• GingerEagle - Very likely teched Agriculture (potentially Mysticism). Built Work Boat and netted Fish while growing to 2. Plains Hill capital. Also has at least a 3-food unimproved land tile.
  
• Kyan - Very likely teched Agriculture (potentially Mysticism). No builds or growth yet.
  
• Dazed - Likely teched Agriculture. No growth yet. Chance of having completed a Warrior, but unlikely. Best candidate for a plains hill capital.
  
• Commodore - Likely Mining, although could have built a Warrior instead, while teching Agriculture.

Unfortunately it is very hard to split Commodore from Dazed, and consequently our information on Commodore is the least reliable of all. Most annoying is that I can't discount the possibility of Commodore already having a second Warrior. In contrast, our information on GingerEagle is very good.

Worth adding that if you have demos and scores for the previous turn, we can probably firm up some of the tech unknowns - certainly exclude Mysticism.

On the micro - You might want to sim to check it, but from memory 1t earlier Worker doesn't make things quicker, it just creates more Worker flexibility - all things being equal, the Worker will be waiting one turn for research before starting the chop. Decision depends whether you want Worker or Warrior options.

[Ceiliazul]

Since we are 3rd with 18, there are 2 players with 19 GNP, including another one that is non-Financial with a single population - is that even possible?

This is possible because someone is researching a 2nd level tech. Techs with pre-reqs (like AH or BW) get a 20% bonus, which would allow someone else to get at least 18 gnp at size 1.

Land area is quirky - why are we rank #2 in spite of matching the rival best? Still, with 16/21 as best, we can safely assume everyone got a coastal start, and some perhaps gained more mountains or ice.

The demos tell us that land areas are 16,16,16,15,14. I think the demo screen breaks ties by using turn order, so someone ahead of us has 16 tiles, and the player behind us (Commodore) has 16 as well.

Rival worst soldiers is 3000, which must be GingerEagle, since they were the only civ (aside from us) to start with 2000, and they've grown to 2 population. Ergo they did *not* tech Mining, Hunting, Wheel, Animal Husbandry, Sailing or Archery, since all of those would have increased soldier points. Mysticism is just about possible, but isn't an obvious first tech unless one was planning to slow-build the 'Henge, which makes no sense without Industrious. So, I'm very confident that GingerEagle teched Agriculture, which probably implies they have a strong food resource available - at the very least, wet Rice.

Logical, but I've learned not to put too much stock in logic in this analysis.

Rival best soldiers of 8000 implies either Commodore or Dazed grabbed a 2000-point tech. Given the mixed starts, we can't be absolutely sure one didn't build a Warrior while not growing, although I think that's unlikely because it would be far more logical to build an opening Warrior while growing to size 2. Both cannot have reached 8000, since that would take the average above 5250. Ergo one of Commodore and Dazed teched Hunting or Mining, and the other Agriculture or Mysticism. With no further information, I'd guess Dazed grabbed Agriculture (since they lacked all food techs), and Commodore went for Mining cunningly. But Commodore may have grabbed Agriculture and complete a Warrior. The point distribution means that Kyan remains at 4000 soldier points, and so went for a non-soldier tech - likely Agriculture, although Mysticism is possible.

We'll know more about starting warriors next turn. I expect more fishboats to finish, which will help us count warriors. I agree with this analysis.

C&D Summary:

• GingerEagle - Very likely teched Agriculture (potentially Mysticism). Built Work Boat and netted Fish while growing to 2. Plains Hill capital. Also has at least a 3-food unimproved land tile.
  
• Kyan - Very likely teched Agriculture (potentially Mysticism). No builds or growth yet.
  
• Dazed - Likely teched Agriculture. No growth yet. Chance of having completed a Warrior, but unlikely. Best candidate for a plains hill capital.
  
• Commodore - Likely Mining, although could have built a Warrior instead, while teching Agriculture.

Unfortunately it is very hard to split Commodore from Dazed, and consequently our information on Commodore is the least reliable of all. Most annoying is that I can't discount the possibility of Commodore already having a second Warrior. In contrast, our information on GingerEagle is very good.

An excellent effort, thanks for sharing... lets keep working together on this... this analysis will peak in efficiency right around t20-t30 when we start making the first very important settling decisions.

[Ceiliazul]

Commodore grew to size 2, no other score changes... no real scouting to report.

I departed the ultimate macro plan to start a worker early. We have enough notice of warrior needs to allow the 1t faster worker.

[Ceiliazul]

Metropolis of the Bear

Commodore grew to size 3, the first to do so. This seems like a dubious move to me, the 3rd pop will support itself and put only 1 additional foodhammer into a worker/settler. Meanwhile our worker will finish next turn. From a growth perspective, we're ahead a bit there. From the security perspective, we're a bit behind.

It seems reasonably likely that Commodore opened fishboat/warrior/warrior while growing. Ogg is conveniently headed back toward the Commodore Choke, and scouting along the way



Commodore is leading the crop demo, but otherwise we're looking really good here. He appears to be working a 2/0/2 lake tile, which could easily shave a turn off Bronze Working for him... still, he'll be behind in worker turns for a while. Our worker won't be tech limited in the early going, so I'll take that trade.

Kyan and Dazed still have not grown, presumably opening worker/worker or worker/settler. Since those 2 didn't start with fishing, that's not surprising.

[timski]

Fast turns! Glad of the decision to scout our homelands - there is quite a lot more land than we first thought.

Based on the Fresh Water, there are 2 choke points leading to land in the north east - probably a small inland lake separating 2 seas. Strategically that suggests sea warfare won't be quite so important, although we may still want to plan for canals, so that a single fleet can cover both flanks. Clearly the mountain-end choke points will be paramount.

On an earlier screenshot, did I see a second maritime resource, in the far north, in addition to the Clams? What, if anything was up there? Would be helpful to have the resource indicators turned on.

At a guess, Commodore intends to use the whip heavily, so growing while they tech Bronze Working would be logical, especially if their start isn't quite as good as our own. We need to be very careful here - with a whip and a chop Commodore could probably complete Stonehenge within a turn of researching Mysticism. Of course they may have completely different plans for those whips.

Rival best soldiers of 11,000 must be Commodore, because population is the only practical way to attain odd-thousand results this early (except for weird stuff, like barracks first). GingerEagle is the only other with population growth, and there's no way they could have reached 11,000 so fast. For Commodore, Wheel (4000) and Warrior (2000) to start, teched mining (2000), grew to size 3 (1000), so they definitely completed a second warrior (2000).

Rival worst Soldiers must be GingerEagle - 2 population gives them away - 2000 soldier point increase with a score increase. That could be a completed Warrior and Mysticism, or Mining and no Warrior. Gut feeling is the later.

Between Dazed and Kyan are 4000 extra soldier points. Kyan has still only scored one tech, which was probably Agriculture, so they probably built a Warrior, likely straight after their Worker. Perhaps de-prioritised growth until their Worker had improved something, hence the lack of growth - all we know from the demos is that they, like everyone else, is now farming. One possible explanation is that started on a Worker, met Commodore, switched to a Warrior, and hence nothing looks terribly well planned.

Based on score with no growth, Dazed reached a second tech, likely another first tier - likely Mining or Hunting, both of which would yield 2000 soldier points. Dazed and Kyan are somewhat interchangeable and hence hard to read.

C&D EOT 10 Summary: This is getting very rough now (I can't judge the techs accurately, without knowing which turn the score increases occurred on), but:

• GingerEagle - Probably Mining after Agriculture. Worker after Work Boat, with perhaps a partial Warrior in the interim, just like us.
  
• Kyan - Probably currently heading for a second tier tech, like Bronze Working. Worker followed by Warrior, which is already complete.
  
• Dazed - Mining or Hunting after Agriculture. Worker first, with nothing built subsequently - as Imp, that may imply a Settler.
  
• Commodore - Likely Bronze Working after Mining. Work Boat and Warrior opening.

I'm sure there's a lurker laughing at how wrong I am already! Fortunately Dazed and Kyan are largely irrelevant to us at this stage of the game, and I'm pretty sure about Commodore and GingerEagle. Commodore has by far the most unusual opening, which is cause to be nervous. In contrast, GingerEagle looks to be playing an economy game.

[Ceiliazul]

Based on the Fresh Water, there are 2 choke points leading to land in the north east - probably a small inland lake separating 2 seas. Strategically that suggests sea warfare won't be quite so important, although we may still want to plan for canals, so that a single fleet can cover both flanks. Clearly the mountain-end choke points will be paramount.

There was no land visible in the fog to the NE, and those clams to my North are in salt water. I'm almost certain the fresh water is a small lake I have all to myself.

On an earlier screenshot, did I see a second maritime resource, in the far north, in addition to the Clams? What, if anything was up there? Would be helpful to have the resource indicators turned on.

Sharp eyes, it was an additional clam. No other resources have been skipped by the close-up shots. ;-)

At a guess, Commodore intends to use the whip heavily, so growing while they tech Bronze Working would be logical, especially if their start isn't quite as good as our own. We need to be very careful here - with a whip and a chop Commodore could probably complete Stonehenge within a turn of researching Mysticism. Of course they may have completely different plans for those whips.

Whipping wonders is penalized, but it's certainly possible. Commodore got burned on multiple early wonder builds in 26, so maybe he'll get an itchy whip hand. (how ironic that the lurkers blessed him with solo-IND in this game!) However, as you've pointed out, a super early Henge can be costly. I expect Commodore to whip settlers, not wonders. My 'henge competition is Ginger Eagle.

Rival best soldiers of 11,000 must be Commodore, because population is the only practical way to attain odd-thousand results this early (except for weird stuff, like barracks first). GingerEagle is the only other with population growth, and there's no way they could have reached 11,000 so fast. For Commodore, Wheel (4000) and Warrior (2000) to start, teched mining (2000), grew to size 3 (1000), so they definitely completed a second warrior (2000).

Agreed, nicely done.

C&D EOT 10 Summary: This is getting very rough now (I can't judge the techs accurately, without knowing which turn the score increases occurred on), but:
...
I'm sure there's a lurker laughing at how wrong I am already! Fortunately Dazed and Kyan are largely irrelevant to us at this stage of the game, and I'm pretty sure about Commodore and GingerEagle. Commodore has by far the most unusual opening, which is cause to be nervous. In contrast, GingerEagle looks to be playing an economy game.

Ded-Lurkers ask, Ded-Lurkers receive! Also, your analysis is excellent so far, no one should be laughing. Check out the numbers below to see if they jive:



Edit: GE grew on t6 (+1 power)
I grew on t7
Comm grew on t7 and t10 (+1 power on t7)
All other score increases are techs.

[Ceiliazul]

No sooner did I post my demos for t10, and the next turn came in! No score changes or power changes this turn, so easy analysis.

Worker completed this turn, deer will be ready 1t ahead of schedule. I'll try to micro to get BW completed early as well, but the extra worker turn may just be wasted. :-(

Spurred by your feedback about the freshwater, Ogg took a detour to check out the lake. For the second time Ogg ran into the water like a school girl... this time no clam was there to molest him.

[Ceiliazul]

We've researched GPS!

OK, not really. But using the go-to command reveals Madrid's position on the map:

column 28 of 50
row 23 of 50

The center (25x25) is located on the ice floes in the center of the lake. This info will be used to build a new sim, in the correct position so it doesn't get wrecked by future exploration.

The amount of information that isn't intended to be available, and yet can be discerned thru analysis, is game-breaking. If only these techniques worked for a career search. Or in marriage!

[timski]

If only these techniques worked for a career search. Or in marriage!

I'm quite sure both break Turing logic . These methods can feel slightly exploitative, but they are common practice in games here, so I have no qualms about using them. Good work on the map, and thanks for the detailed demographics.

GingerEagle reached population 2 a turn before us. That implies they have a 3-hammer tile in their first ring, netting the Fish a turn before us.

Everyone gained their first tech at turn 5. With fresh water, there plenty of options for grabbing Agriculture (56 Beakers) in the same time frame as Mining or Mysticism (47 Beakers) - so I still can't split those for certain. We can at least be certain nobody opened with a second tier tech.

At turn 8 there is a 2,000 soldier increase by someone other than the power leader. There are no score or population increases, so that has to be a Warrior. It's either Dazed or Kyan, but it doesn't much matter which, because the following turn the other produces a Warrior too:

Turn 9 is fascinating, and the reason the detailed demos are so valuable: One number gives away everything - 10,000 soldier maximum. Commodore can't jump 9-10-11 across turns 8-9-10, because nothing except a population increase will give a 1,000 increment for them (no Shale Plant yet). So someone else is leading the soldier points briefly. That is Dazed, since nobody else is close, but implies a 4,000 point increase in one turn, which means both a soldier-point tech and a Warrior.

I think what we're seeing here is fear: Both Dazed or Kyan opened with a Worker and felt safe for about 4 turns, then saw how deceptive those mountain defenses really are, and decided to swap to a Warrior.

Dazed and GingerEagle both scored their second tech at turn 9. For Dazed that has to be Hunting, since they don't have a faster tech research rate that us. Assuming GingerEagle opened with Agriculture, I suspect they also teched Hunting. But given GingerEagle's Financial trait, they might have just squeezed in Mining (or, of course, the ever possible Mysticism with a Warrior).

So, revised probable C&D:

• GingerEagle - Tech Agriculture T5, Hunting T9, perhaps Mining T9. Completed Work Boat T5, now building a Worker, with a Warrior part-built.
  
• Kyan - Tech Agriculture T5. Built a Warrior on T8 or T9, with Worker completed or half-built.
  
• Dazed - Tech Agriculture T5, Hunting T9. Built a Warrior on T8 or T9, with Worker completed or half-built.
  
• Commodore - Tech Mining T5. Built Work Boat T6, Warrior T10.

Still just about possible I've inverted Commodore and Dazed - it would just make no sense to prioritise two Worker techs while growing to size 3. Likewise, separating Mysticism, Mining, Agriculture and Warrior isn't easy - but again, there are very particular circumstances is which one might open with Mysticism, and Commodore is the only one who might have considered it, but we know they opened with a Work Boat, so could not have also built a starting Warrior.


Afterthoughts:

If Dazed has a Plains Hill capital, which is likely, and a 3-hammer tile, they could 2-turn build a Warrior by T9, after completing a Worker on T7. No growth for those 2 turns wouldn't matter, because the Worker would be busy farming something. Dazed is least likely to panic, since they started with a Warrior. In contrast, Kyan's Warrior is probably on T8, and more driven by fear of Commodore.

It looks like Commodore will reach Bronze Working 3 or 4 turns before us - enough to shave a Beaker or so off the research cost? This is the kind of detail I never normally bother with. The earlier Worker will add 2 food to the basket, since the Deer will be improved a turn earlier, so it should be possible to work the fresh water for 2 turns long the way. Definitely needs to be checked in the sim though.

[timski]

Provisionally, we can speed Bronze Working by one turn, by working the fresh water for one turn prior to the Deer being improved (this turn or next), and again for 1 turn immediately upon growing to size 3 (working the Fish, Deer and fresh water). The whole thing is a knife-edge balance, with absolutely no scope for any error. Unfortunately, there is a trade-off: We can get the 'Henge completed one turn earlier, but only working almost every hammer available once we've grown back to size 3 (even abandoning the Fish for 1 turn - lack of a 1/2/x tile is annoying). That might not be so terrible - we can follow up with a 2 turn Warrior while growing to 4. that would mean the first Settler a turn later, but safer with our 3rd Warrior, plus an extra Worker turn on something.

Added 3 further options:

• Research early, but complete Stonehenge on the turn originally planned. This potentially leaves us with a lot of fail-gold in exchange for our trees, creates 1 extra Worker turn subsequently, and trades the earlier Deer improvement directly for slightly faster research.
  
• Don't research early, build Stonehenge as originally planned, but store up the extra 2 food form the earlier Deer improvement for something after Stonehenge, like a Settler.
  
• Or, don't work fresh water, and if Commodore makes Bronze Working 3 Beakers cheaper, then we can play it from there. Even with a "free" tech bonus, we'd still need to make sacrifices to push Stonehenge out a turn earlier, we just wouldn't need to stop working the Fish...

Since, based on C&D, GingerEagle isn't remotely challenging us to Stonehenge, I don't see that getting it one turn faster necessarily helps. While the very first option I outlined recovers somewhat, overall it is not efficient, since it entails abandoning the Fish and working a 1/1/1, so hurts us slightly long-term.