RB PBEM #1 - Charlemagne [SPOILERS]

[mostly_harmless]

Overdue update.

Lost the HG as you know. Also did not get any refund.

Still not a single religion spread from my early Buddhism.
That means I am going monastery/missionaries now at Aachen.

Settled another city to the west of Aachen. Settler in place to settle west of the copper next turn.

Plenty of barb actions. That means I have my 10XP warrior (WoodyIII) for the HE, which will go into Vienna.
Dreylin put two cities into the area I wanted to settle (SE of Vienna). Nothing I could do about it.
Not believing that I really have so crappy lands I scouted some more north.
Here is what I found so far:



Those two sheep resources are good for what? A size 5 city each?
Then look to the east. Not a single sea food resource in sight.
The lack of food overall, makes Slavery absolutely in-effective. So the revolt into it was probably wasted. Nothing will ever grow back in time.

mh

[RefSteel]

Wow, that's a lot of bad news.

Lost the HG as you know. Also did not get any refund.

Wait, no refund at all? Can you tell me if I have my chronology right here?
- T59: Aqueduct is complete with overflow; Gardens placed into the queue ahead of partly-built library and sped with two chops.
- T60: Chops that should have gone into the Gardens instead went into the library, due to the previously discussed bug; Gardens placed back at the front of the queue (hammer configuration means it should still be finished decently quickly, though delayed by loss of chops and overflow).
- T61: One turn's worth of hammers have finally gone into the Gardens. Learn from Ruff that it doesn't matter because sooooo will finish them on his next turn regardless.
- T62: Gardens completed by someone else, presumaby sooooo. Hammers from T60 are lost completely with no refund appearing either now or last turn or next turn or ever. (?!!)

I saw on CivFanatics that 3.19 has a bug eliminating refunds for overflow hammers (i.e. for overflow greater than the total hammer cost of whatever was completed; it's supposed to cancel out multipliers, to prevent abuse of e.g. protective walls with stone, but instead of reducing it to non-multiplied levels, zeroes such cash out completely) but I didn't think it possible that this would also eliminate Wonder refunds. (Surely someone would have noticed that, and quickly!) Hard to understand ... although I guess this means it's a "good thing" the overflow and chops went into the library....

On a maybe-lighter note: It seems from your map like a lot of your backyard is still foggy. Any chance of a hut up there that's been waiting all this time? (Or have others scouted it thanks to open borders?) It would be pretty cool if there is one and you luck into a high-end tech, especially if there turns out to be some nice food up there after all! (Or I guess it could all be mountains; I'm no good at "fog-gazing" via tile bleeding in screenshots. But I'm trying to be optimistic here!)

[Dicorion]

I feel your pain about the bug and the unfortunate loss :thumbsdow

Still I am with Refsteel on the north hoping approach. Land is power as I red somewhere () and there is hope you find something useful in the fog. I assume your priority is Engineering. Have you any plans for speed the research up that way? I tried once (special variant in our small czecho-slovak "league") get to machinery using a GE very early. If you are on the way to MC you can use engineer specialist(s) from forge for GE and lightbulb some expensive tech. Machinery will be a very valuable tech on that map. Lots of hills for protective crossbows to boot. Or am I wrong? I have never played on quick speed and so I have absolutely no idea of a power of lightbulbing on quick....

[Jabah]

Agree with Refsteel that you definitly need to scout more in your North before complaining too hard (especially along the "sea" since it is quite likely that you will find some seafood).
The western sheep is also next to a rivergrassland and plenty of hill, that -in my book- could easily turn into a quite good production center (military mainly as there won't be any commerce there so no need for fancy building as library) which you seem to kind of lake right now with all your cottage floodplains commerce city).

[mostly_harmless]

@ Ref: Not quite right about the list of events:
The Aqueduct was finished with 3 chops + natural production. All 3 chops came in at once. The HG was lined up next, expecting the overflow. However, the lib was selected by the bug. After that I did not bother to start the HG from zero. So I got no refund, because I got no hammers invested.

Anyway, I know that the northern border is another tile or two from my current unfogged territory. So don't expect abundant lush green lands up there.
And of course, I will eventually settle the sheep spots. But come on, a sheep and a grassland river side is not a good city spot. The grassland needs to be farmed to get 1 excess food (2 after Biology), the sheep give 2 excess food, the center tile also 2 excess food. That's 5 excess food. I f I place windmills on plain hills I can work 5 of them. So we are talking size 7. And the jump from 6 to 7 will be made with +1food only. The whole thing will be awfully slow growing.

The same story for the western sheep, although here I can't even spot a grassland nearby yet.

So I have all those little mediocre city sites which will be slow growing and need windmills and irrigated grassland tiles.

Anyway, I am not complaining, I am just assessing my current situation. And I surely cannot attach happy smilies to it.
Machinery and Civil Service are the most important techs right now.

Thanks for the feedback, btw.

mh

[Jabah]

I wouldn't windmill too much, just enough to grow not too slow to size4-5 then work mines to have max production and no growth. sure it won't be a city to be proud of, but imho you need a few very basic production center...

[RefSteel]

After that I did not bother to start the HG from zero. So I got no refund, because I got no hammers invested.

I'm glad to hear that; two new bugs on one build would just be too much! Giving up on the Gardens after the game mis-applied the overflow certainly also makes sense.

(I wonder if the problem was that Aqueduct is a prerequisite for the Gardens - that is, if hammers generated before the prereq is completed aren't allowed to contribute to the wonder. This would still be a bug though, as there's just no excuse for the game switching your build queue without even telling you it will happen!)

I admit I'm not expecting to see vast tracts of fertile land up in the north, but I feel like it's worth exploring, at least. If there is a vast, warm volcanic valley somewhere up there in the frozen north, it would be silly to miss it just because of the assumption that it doesn't exist. (Note however that I haven't actually seen a full, spoilered map, so I'm guessing on this as much as you are.)

As for windmills vs. mines, etc. ... I'd imagine what you do with any land you've got would have to depend on your overall game plan. What are your goals going forward in the game?

[mostly_harmless]

Ok, about time for an update.

You will remember how I bent everything on getting an early religion and then hoping to have some natural spread to get some culture going. Right?
Well as you know that did not work as planned. I did not get a single natural spread, so had to rely on self built monuments to ensure my cities get to their 2nd ring.
I then went all the way to actually build a monastery and hand built missionaries to spread my faith around.
Well, what do you know. The missionary is half finished and I get 2! natural spreads. And a spread to athlete soon after.

Next topic. A tech block of athlete, soooooo and me has formed to stop Dreylin running away with the game. Worked fine so far. Athlete and me are probably forming a tighter alliance and will eventually bring the fight to Dreylin.
To that effect my HE is being built to finally supply me with proper military. I am struggling to keep the barbs at bay.
Next turn when Monotheism is in, I will revolt to HR, ORgREl & Beauracry. Hope that will boost my poor little civ a bit.

I am slightly disappointed on how bad my land is compared to the other civs, now that I traded maps with Ruff and scouted some more.
So, still anyone want to convince me my northern area is a land of unlimited opportunities???!

mh

[Kylearan]

Hi,

could you please resize your pictures? It's very hard to read the text in the post if you have to scroll right/left for every line.

Thanks!

-Kylearan

[mostly_harmless]

Ok. I am used to my big screen. No scrolling involved.

mh