[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Miro]

interesting map, never seen someone doing this. Did you set each pixel by hand? Seems to be quite some work compared to annotated screenshot. Looks nice though.

Thanks! I did each cell manually in Excel. Took a few minutes, but not bad.
I wanted to see the map as 52×32, which I believe this map uses from the pre-game description.
It might be a little offset north/south and I won't know where east/west wraps for a while, but it's good for now.
Anyways, it's mainly to visualize Rome's targets.

Ahh shit, I made a bad first impression. Romans are probably telling jokes about how our roads look pillaged even after we rebuilt them.


I totally forgot to ask about Espionage points. Normally I just leave it on one rival for future spy missions, but we don't have spy missions this game.


I'm switching to 100% Rome for now, but:
1) How do you normally split up your spy points?

We met Rome around T49 - T50, so at 30 spy points over ~15 turns, they've likely only met one other nation so far and split points on both of us.

NA might think we're alone on a continent together if they haven't split points on anyone else. This makes me think there is an ocean between NA and Rome.

[Mjmd]

Ooops forgot to check that / talk about. Ya usually you want to only go to 44 on each (its technically 43/43 for the perfects, but I forget most time and do 44). Coldrain also may have just forgotten.

You can check on diplo screen whom everyone has met.

[Tarkeel]

I totally forgot to ask about Espionage points. Normally I just leave it on one rival for future spy missions, but we don't have spy missions this game.


I'm switching to 100% Rome for now, but:
1) How do you normally split up your spy points?

Ooops forgot to check that / talk about. Ya usually you want to only go to 44 on each (its technically 43/43 for the perfects, but I forget most time and do 44). Coldrain also may have just forgotten.

This CivFanatics thread has the details, but the important part of espionage is:

Passive Mission Costs are governed by the formula:

Base Factor * (100+How much they have against you) * Modifiers

Base Factors for Passive Missions
Demographics=0.3
See Research=0.75
City Visibility=1.2
Investigate=2

Modifier is the ratio of how much EP you have generated, and until courthouses come online will be 1. Assuming that, we can reverse the thresholds where you get reciprocal vision. For graphs it's 42 (actually 42.6 which gets truncated down and not rounded up) and for research vision it's 297. It's not possible to get reciprocal vision on cities; the formula for city vision also takes into account other factors such as distance and religion.

Having vision of someone's power graph is often an important part of gauging their intentions, so most players will aim at having graph vision on everyone else. This is easiest if they reciprocate and stop spending at 42. Going above this may be taken as a sign you're trying to hide your graphs in order to launch a surprise attack later on.

Once graphs on everyone is locked in, many will either go full spending on their natural enemy, but there's also a case to be made to get research vision on key rivals.

For actual fighting, having city vision on your opponent is sort of like playing with cheat codes on, it's extremely powerful.

[Miro]

T70 Update:

We have 2 new cities!

"Blood on Clock": Blood on the Clocktower is a great social deduction game where the game feels different every time because of the different roles involved. In some social deduction games like Secret Hitler, you're only "Good", "Evil", or "The Demon" (or similar) and once you're killed, you just sit on the sideline. That can get stale. In BotC, every "Good" role is different, every "Evil" role is different, and if you die, you're still in the discussion, still get to cast one final vote to kill the Demon, and some roles are stronger after death.
You'd like to have 8 - 12 players for a game, and unfortunately, friends aren't included in the box. Maybe they come with an expansion or something.

"Smash Up": Smash Up is a shufflebuilding game where you pick two factions with pre-made decks and shuffle them together. Then you compete over territories using your Zombie+Pirates, Robot+Dinosaurs, or Ninja+Heroes deck! My friend and I played in a small local tournament and we still talk about how this one lady backstabbed my friend SO HARD. LSS: She told him I'd win the current round if he didn't do "X" and that she would do "Y" to help. He did "X", then she did "Z" to end the round and knock him out. Then she ignored him as he death-glared her for the next half hour. It felt amazing knocking her out on the following round! 

Back to Civ4, Rome is about to take the Gold hill city near Blood on Clock and we discovered another small-medium island in the south. Rome's northern coast doesn't look all that special, but I may take the hill double Cow city. Blood on Clock is our super food city and Smash Up is our Gems city.





Questions:

(Q1): Should I get Alpha ⟶ Currency instead of Math ⟶ Currency?

Hear me out - I feel like this is always a ridiculed tech path (at least in vanilla BtS, single-player), but I'm at 6 cities trying to spam cottages right now and Currency feels like it's a long ways off. I think I'll have a lot of wasted production in the T80s and would like to produce "Research" in some cities while teching Currency. If more city spam and cottage spam seems fine, I'm fine with teching Math, I just want to weigh both options.
Currently have 119g, +17gpt, and can do +41 science per turn with -24gpt. With our current economy +0 Libraries, Math/Alpha would finish ~T81, and Currency would finish ~T110.

(Q2): Should I prioritize an island city with my next Settler? That +100% trade route bonus for all domestic cities would be nice if we don't have foreign cities to trade with.

(Q3): Speaking of foreign trade, should I sign open borders with opponents or keep yelling at them to get off my lawn?

[Mjmd]

Q4) why didn't you kill the settler last turn? You can't this turn due to turn rules, but my eyes did not deceive me and that is a settler guarded by a scout. And why is your 1 real military unit in no where land? Oh you sweet summer children. You can't declare this turn, but finish playing your turn. Move the warrior in the city forward and move the barb bust warrior 1S. If nothing else it might scare him off.

Q1) Math - easy. Early production is precious. Now in PB66 I did do alphabet, but I had conquered another player and was very broke. 95% of the time do math.

Q2) Yes now is about a good time to grab an island although grabbing the gold site might be priority. Working a gold would also fix a lot of money troubles, as will working the gems eventually.

Q3) As protective its not as important. Especially if they have routes to you and you don't to them you are just giving them money.

Q5) I forgot to check when I logged in (I really couldn't believe that was a settler guarded by a scout), but you are doing binary science right? Also, get a warrior to fix the unhappiness in Small World. Do like sending a work boat from there; good idea.

BTW Greenline I'm really liking the odd tiles on this map.

[Mjmd]

Looks like he played and settled? Unless he had 2 settlers (which seems likely as that spot doesn't make a ton of sense). If you want to declare war on him log off after you finish turn and then play next turn after him .

[greenline]

I would say alphabet over math first is worth it when you have very production heavy terrain - ie if at least half of your current + new cities can't work more than 3 grass cottages at size five. You think that would be uncommon, but in all but one of my Civ 4 games here I had that happen to me...

[Mjmd]

You can just build libraries and hire scientists if you have oodles of production. Its long term better and you save the cost of alphabet. But mind you I'm very much saying even 1 library is a lot of production atm and with contesting Rome for sites, plus keeping defenses up in other directions production is precious.

[Miro]

Q4) why didn't you kill the settler last turn? You can't this turn due to turn rules, but my eyes did not deceive me and that is a settler guarded by a scout.

I asked about early aggression a few times.

civac2 recommended building up for a timing attack and mentioned skilled players don't snipe workers as that type of play isn't worth angering someone over; newer (worse) players tend to be more aggressive.
Gavagai stated that raiding in the early stages of the game is not recommended in games with more than 2 players and that "skilled players don't bother with such nonsense."
Mjmd agreed with Gav and said that if you're attacking, go hard.
Tarkeel agreed with Gav.
Mjmd stated that sending a warrior to antagonize a neighbor sets you up for antagonism the whole game.

Attacking that Settler goes against the advice in this thread. I don't have an army and I'm afraid of Rome's Praetorian prospects. I knew I could have attacked the Settler, but angering Rome isn't in the playbook so I'm surprised by this reaction.

And why is your 1 real military unit in no where land?

You recommended a tile to move the warrior to.

Later, you stated that scouting south of the middle mountains was important (interpreted "middle" as middle of Rome and China based on how much we were talking about Rome at the time).

So I put the Warrior on that tile, then moved the only other available unit in the area to go scout around the mountains you wanted scouted. I could've moved the Warrior in that direction and came back to the tile you marked, but then you'd criticize me if a barb showed up.

Q5) you are doing binary science right? Also, get a warrior to fix the unhappiness in Small World. Do like sending a work boat from there; good idea.

Yes, I mainly do binary science. A Warrior is otw to Small World. I queued the overflow into a Warrior so this wouldn't have happened, but forgot by my next turn and put the overflow into a Granary.

[Mjmd]

I mean I don't know if its aggression when its a practically unescorted settler up to a contested area . I mean I agree with all those sentiments, but dangling a settler in front of someones face is a bit much to resist especially in a contested zone. But ya I get not wanting to antagonize aggressive Rome. I think mainly I couldn't believe it was unescorted.

Did he settle in place or did he move the settler forward?