[SPOILERS]Acrid Pinot and other Pindicator anagrams

[NobleHelium]

Soon, now that you've posted.

But not while Ichabod isn't playing.

[pindicator]

When will you settle Civ One?

I like that one a lot.

I'm taking advantage of ichabod's holiday to step away from this game myself. I'll probably post something next week with some kind of "big picture" post, and then after New Years it will be back to nitty gritty sandboxes and micro plans. I don't know if we'll change anything from what noble has put a lot of work into lately (I've got a couple emails of save stacks that I've still yet to go through) but it will be nice to slow back into things by getting re-focused on what the strategy is going to be.

Until then, enjoy the rest of 2012!

[NobleHelium]

So how 'bout that big picture?

[pindicator]

With Ichabod due back by the end of the week, I’m going to start getting back into the swing of this game. To start, a recap post of the game people have played up to this point. We’re currently on turn 72, which is equivalent to being on turn 48 on a quick speed game. When you look at this game through a lens of being less than 50 turns in, well… we’ve only just started, haven’t we? To parallel, this is like the first week of the BCS rankings in US college football: incomplete data dissected and over-analyzed by people who should know better but are too wrapped up in the sensationalism to stop. There’s a lot left to be played. And ranking people is going to be very much a gut check at this point: we haven’t played enough to see if Ichabod’s wonder-whoring, Rego’s REX with Skirmishers, or Scooter’s moving the settler first turn are going to pay dividends.

So with that caveat in mind, here are my rankings nonetheless:


#5 Ichabod

Cities: 3 (Calvin, founded t0 - size 3; Hobbes, t28 - 5; Susie Derkins, t43 - 2; Mom, t60 - razed)
Total Citizens: 10. Rank 5th out of 5
Technologies: 14 Ancient, 1 Classical.
Mysticism (0), Mining (0), Agriculture (8), Bronze Working (21), Fishing (25), Sailing (36), Masonry (41), The Wheel (46), Pottery (52), Meditation (55), Priesthood (59), Metal Casting (61 - from Oracle), Writing (65), Polytheism (68), Animal Husbandry (72).
Total Beakers: 2042. Rank 1st out of 5
Military: 8k Soldier Points in units. Rank 5th out of 5


Summary so Far:

Realms Beyond’s biggest Bill Watterson groupie started the game by openly daring other teams to try to build a wonder: India and Industrious are the perfect storm for wonder building and with the 5 point system he was able to pick both along with any one of Charismatic, Aggressive, Protective, and Imperialistic. In hindsight, I think Ichabod would have been better served with Augustus (IND / IMP) than De Gaulle (IND / CHA), but that’s only said now with the benefit of hindsight; I remember at the time of his pick thinking De Gaulle was the right choice.

He leveraged India’s fast workers into being the second person to settle a 2nd city (just one turn behind scooter), and then the cavalcade of wonder building began: Stonehenge was a natural fit for De Gaulle; The Great Lighthouse makes a lot of sense with the multiple-island layout of the map; and then Oracle for Metal Casting is the classic Industrious play. The last wonder is also the only reason why Ichabod has the tech lead – take away Metal Casting’s 594 beakers and he would be in last overall. Normally this is where a IND / CHA leader starts to gather steam: the slow start of IND begins to pick up and as they grow more cities and add cheap forges they begin to gain ground on opponents. Unfortunately all of these hammers invested towards wonders came at a cost, and Ichabod has run a woefully small military the entire game. He has also been at war with Regoarrarr off and on, although I think those wars have been scout related rather than not. This came back to bite him when his 4th city, Mom, was razed by yours truly as I luckily stumbled upon the empty city with my galley. This loss is the reason I also have him ranked 5th out of 5: his strategy was to build as many early game wonders as possible and use those benefits to catch up in the midgame to civs with faster traits. Losing an early city will make it more difficult to catch the pack.


De Gaulle vs. Augustus:

I don’t think I would have made this comparison at the beginning of the game, but between my good experience with the IMP trait on this map combined with a comment Noble made to me about him finding IMP to be stronger on water maps (less land tiles to work, in hindsight I think Augustus would have been a superior choice for how Ichabod has played so far. In chasing so many early game wonders, hammers are at a premium, and Ichabod gambled by taking those hammers out of military. With IMP whipping settlers saves 30 food-hammers; and even earlier a size 2 capital with Rice and a mined sheep would save 2 turns and 24 food-hammers. The savings from the three settlers he has built this game could certainly have been enough to cover an additional warrior or two, and probably would have been the difference between him being at 3 or 4 cities right now. Also, I'm great at picking quarterbacks on Monday morning.

De Gaulle may still come out ahead as the better leader in a vaccuum, but with how Ichabod's played this game so far I think he would have been better served with Augustus.


What Needs to Happen Next:

Grow, Grow, Grow

Ichabod’s laid down his investment in early wonders and right now he needs to pause on the wonder building and try to get into the settling race before he gets boxed out entirely. The combined toll of losing a city & building 3 early wonders he is already way behind the growth curve of other players. Continuing to chase Colossus or Pyramids would put him even further behind, and leave him with wonders that he doesn’t have the population to take advantage of. I think he should still try to build as many as possible, but he needs to realize that he isn’t in a race for either of those (I’d be shocked if someone else is trying to build Pyramids ahead of him and he’s the only person with Metal Casting), and not continue to sacrifice his growth to build them.

He should push to the islands to take advantage of The Great Lighthouse. Island cities will instantly generate 7 commerce on internal trade routes and the city tile, which will easily pay for themselves. He should get push to settle as many islands as he can and use triremes to secure those spots for himself (and keep other civs away).

With technology, Ichabod needs to be teching Monotheism now. I was a bit surprised that he didn’t grab it with his last tech, until I realized he had likely teched Animal Husbandry (delaying that until turn 72!). He should have a great prophet coming soon and grabbing Monotheism for a religion and a holy city would be a good long-term boost for his empire. If he doesn’t tech Monotheism next then I will have it by turn 77 and he may not get a religion unless he bulbs Theology (scooter seems a lock for Confucianism and being first to Code of Laws, with Ruff Hi as a dark horse candidate). After that, I think he should continue on the wonder path and grab Math then go on the top half of the tree for Great Library and National Epic for his wonder city. The challenge will be to continue to balance hammers spent on wonders while expanding enough to claim a decent share of land and building enough defenses to protect everything. In a hammer poor map and from his current position this is going to be a challenge, but access to cheap forges and a majority of the wonders should help him turn things around down the road. The danger is that he isn’t able to catch up from his early hole and begins losing out on classical and medieval wonders as the other players tech ahead of him.


#4 Ruff_hi

Cities: 4 (The Big Banana, t0 - 6; Banana Peel, t33 - 5; Banana Skin, t50 - 3; Bunch of Fruit, t61 - 3).
Total Citizens: 17. Rank: 3rd out of 5
Technologies: 10 Ancient, 1 Classical
Fishing (0), Mining (0), Bronze Working (13), The Wheel (21), Agriculture (27), Pottery (34), Sailing (46), Mysticism (48), Writing (53), Hunting (65), Mathematics (68)
Total Beakers: 1277. Rank: 5th out of 5
Military: 22k Soldier Points in units. Rank 1st out of 5


Summary so Far:

Ruff has played a quiet game so far – aside from a push for circumnavigation there haven’t been many memorable moments. He got out to a slower start than I expected from CRE / EXP Sury, but I think a lot of that came from the lure of being England and moving off the plains hill to open with a work boat. (Perhaps his start was like mine and he was unable to get 4h out of the gate for the starting worker’s bonus.) But he was the last player to plant his 2nd city and the last player to plant his 4th city. He did pursue circumnavigation smartly with an early work boat and by sending his scout in a complimentary manner; the extra move will be a big asset tactically for any wars he becomes part of. But he has lagged in the demos, showing lower crop yields than both myself and scooter – when there isn’t any good reason why an expansive civ should lag behind non-expansive ones in population early on.

Ruff has kept one of the larger militaries (which means he’s one of two people that have built a resource-based unit), so I do need to watch for aggression from him.


Whipping & Expansive:

It’s harder to gauge how well Ruff has used Expansive, but one way to do that is by looking at home often he has grown. The big draw of Expansive is cheap granaries, and cheap granaries lend handily to a hammer-poor map like this where you want to be whipping your production. So if Ruff is getting good use out of expansive in theory that means he would also be near the top if you count every time someone grew a population point. Or another way to explain it, we are counting the current population and adding to it the number of population that has been whipped. But even by this metric, Ruff still places 3rd overall with 24, behind Rego (31) and myself (29), with Ichabod (22) and scooter (20) trailing in the back.

I would say Ruff isn't whipping nearly as much as he could / should be. It's harder to be accurate in reading times whipped in a pbem, but I think this is close to accurate:

# of Times Whipped:
Rego - 11
Ichabod - 11
Me - 10
Ruff - 7
Scooter - 5

Noble helped me count up citizen-turns, at least in a rough estimate. I'm working on something a little more accurate (and time consuming...), to count how many citizens were active and producing at the end of each person's turn, but that won't be ready until the weekend I think.

Citizen Turns Worked:
Rego - 459
Me - 434
Scooter - 411
Ruff - 395
Ichabod - 342

So Rego has grown a lot, held the highest population, and whipped the most -- a strong combination and what you'd expect from an Expansive leader. Scooter may not have whipped much, but he's kept his cities large to try to make up the difference with worked population. Ichabod has probably whipped too much. And Ruff really should be doing better than 4th in both categories as an expansive leader.


What Needs to Happen Next:

Rule the Seas

Ruff spent early resources (30h for a work boat) to get circumnavigation, and he is in a unique opportunity to rule the oceans. 3-move galleys mean he can support cities farther from his starting landmass and reinforce locations faster than anybody else. They also can strike opponents without warning from the fog, even surprising cities that have their 2nd ring borders popped. C&D tells me that only Rego and Ruff have built a military unit more advanced that warriors & galleys. Considering 2 of his opponents have already lost cities, there may be a bit of turtle tendency to happen, to just develop and mind his own business, which he should do to an extent. But if someone leaves a city open to attack, he shouldn’t waste an opportunity to set another opponent further back. I think like Ichabod he also needs to press his naval advantage to grab as many of the islands as possible.

The only necessity I would give him for technology is to grab Currency. Code of Laws is a natural follow-up if scooter hasn’t grabbed it by the time he gets Currency, but religion may be tough to get for Ruff this game. After that I think he has his choice in tech paths, just as long as he continues to grow and be competitive. He doesn’t want to start any major wars, because his goal is to tech along as quickly as possible to get to Rifling & Redcoats. I hate to suggest it, but he should look at harassing my north coast as a way to try to gain in the demos.



#3 Scooter

Cities: 4 (Woodward, t1 - 5; 8 Mile, t27 - 4; Gratiot, t49 - 3; Jefferson, t62 - 2; Cass, t66 - 1)
Total Citizens: 15. Rank 4th out of 5
Technologies: 10 Ancient, 2 Classical
Fishing (0), Mining (0), Bronze Working (12), Agriculture (18), The Wheel (24), Animal Husbandry (30), Pottery (39), Writing (45), Mysticism (47), Sailing (52), Mathematics (60), Currency (72)
Total Beakers: 1885. Rank 2nd out of 5
Military: 10k Soldier Points in units. Rank 4th out of 5


Summary so Far:

I became scooter’s number one fan when he razed Rego’s 4th city, and I’m cheering for him to keep up the pressure. Honestly, he probably did to Rego exactly what I did to ichabod: stumbled upon a un/under-defended city and took advantage. I don’t see anything happening to keep things going, but then again they haven’t called for peace and Rego has responded by building a chariot of his own.

I know even less about Scooter than Ruff, having yet to even spot Scooter’s borders. He was the fastest to a 2nd city despite being the only civ without some kind of early game production boost, and he's kept up well so far. From his tech order he’s researched normally, avoided the religion line of the tech tree, and is probably our best researcher at the moment.

What Needs to Happen Next:

Catch a Ride!

(I got Borderlands 2 for Christmas…)

I am trying to figure out what scooter’s big plan is for this game. Earlier I thought we were going to see a fast academy and a large capital – he was the first to tech Writing, but so far there hasn’t been a Great Person born. I can also see scooter trying to make a run at Mausoleum of Maussollos, but unless he has a city that can put out 20hpt or has found marble then he is going to have the same production bottleneck that Noble & I are running into with our plans. And we can’t forget about Numidians either. Scooter has a lot of options, so his best play is probably to expand normally, keeping within shouting distance of the heavy REXers, lean on FIN for teching, and if an opportunity presents itself – whether that be to go for a wonder, or switch to military – be ready to take full advantage of it.


#2 Regoarrarr

Cities: 5 (Couch, t0 - 5; Plum, t30 - 5; Sipe, t42 - 4; Kozar, t53 - razed; Weeden, t56 - 3; Graham, t68 - 1)
Total Citizens: 18. Rank 2nd out of 5
Technologies: 14 Ancient, 1 Classical
Mining (0), The Wheel (0), Agriculture (9), Bronze Working (21), Fishing (25), Pottery (32), Mysticism (38), Meditation (43), Sailing (48), Animal Husbandry (53), Priesthood (55), Writing (59), Mathematics (67), Hunting (70), Archery (71)
Total Beakers: 1672, Rank: 3rd out of 5
Military: 18k Soldier Points in units. Rank 2nd out of 5


Summary so Far:

Up until a few turns ago I would have had Rego in the #1 spot. I think the only surprising thing so far out of Rego was when he teched Meditation instead of Polytheism. The rest of the game – hook up resources, then early Pottery, on to religion, then Writing & Math – is pretty standard Rego. But standard Rego is still very strong. It shows a lot that he can lose a city this early and only drop down to #2 overall. He’s used EXP in so many games that he has pretty much mastered how to best leverage it into a fast start, and up until he lost his city I was afraid he was about to shoot out into the population lead much like he did last time I played against him in pbem26.


Aggression of Mali:

Rego has played a lot more aggressive than I remember him being. He bopped my scout early, was at war with Ichabod for a good portion of the early game, and now has become entangled with scooter. He’s also teched Hunting & Archery in recent turns, and I’m pretty certain he’s added a chariot or spear to his army composition. Hopefully that’s a sign that things aren’t cooling with scooter first. The rapid expanding is the type of aggression I am used to from Rego, which could lead to some testy borders if Noble is right about us sharing a first ring island. It will be interesting to jockey with him for this island spots; his skirmishers are going to make any land claims he stakes very hard to supplant, so speed is going to be necessary if we’re going to grab our stake of the islands.


What Needs to Happen Next:

Don’t Panic

I think the worst thing Rego could do would be to try to over-compensate for the loss of that city. By all accounts scooter got lucky, and hit Rego in the right window when he was pushing expansion hard yet right before skirmishers were available for defense. I doubt that will happen again. But if Rego tries to rush expansion even harder to make up for it, he may find himself victim to the same trick twice; and if he tries to retaliate against scooter then he may fall behind by putting resources toward war instead of development.

Rego’s religious tech choice confused me at first, but I think it was part of a larger plan now. As Mali he has less incentive to tech Feudalism as skirmishers will cover the same job that longbows would do but at half the cost. But as a Spiritual leader he would want to grab Monotheism and Theology on the religious tree to take full advantage of his free civic swapping. Instead I think he’s going to aim for Aesthetics after Currency and build Schwedagon Paya, taking advantage of his gold resource and SPI. Aesthetics (at 330b) is actually cheaper than Masonry, Polytheism, and Monotheism combined (395b). So as long as he doesn’t mind delaying Hereditary Rule he can get the same Org Rel benefit and set himself up for a potential run on the Great Library and National Epic if he wants to continue on the top half of the tech tree.

And that leaves us...


#1 Pindicator

Cities: 5 (On Acid Trip, t0 - 6, No Humble Lie, t30 - 5; R U OK, t47 - 2; Sly Back Tire, t57 - 4; Hem Cover, t60 - 2)
Total Citizens: 19. Rank 1st out of 5
Technologies: 13 Ancient, 1 Classical
Agriculture (0), The Wheel (0), Fishing (5), Animal Husbandry (14), Mining (20), Bronze Working (29), Pottery (36), Mysticism (40), Polytheism (44), Priesthood (47), Sailing (51), Writing (55), Mathematics (65), Hunting (66)
Total Beakers: 1620, Rank: 4th out of 5*
Military: 14k Soldier Points in units. Rank 3rd out of 5

*Once we finish Currency in 2 turns we'll be back on top of the beaker count

More about the good guys later

[pindicator]

Was going over Noble's plans last night and got side tracked. It's very easy to go into the gutter when trying to anagram SevenSpirits

[pindicator]

I just realized that Rego is only now discovering that he is missing a city

[pindicator]

New turn is in, and I think we need to chat about this before playing the turn:



Edit: Okay, I couldn't resist doing one thing

What do you think about settling on the fur as an alternative?

[NobleHelium]

Yeah I looked at the save. I'm around to chat whenever. I don't like settling on the fur at all - we're FIN you know. I know what you want is to grab both food at once without a border pop, but I think we'll want the border pop even if we plant on the fur so I see no reason to do that. And dry corn is still the strongest food of the three.

[pindicator]

Turn 73

Good to be back on track!

Noble and I debated a bit, and in the end we decided that the odds are at worst Rego has a spear or a chariot on that galley -- it's very unlikely he has an axe or 2 resource units considering the biggest power gain I've recorded for him was a 4k jump and that only happened once (it is possible that he lost a warrior(s) the same turn he finished an axe, masking the power growth, but that is the most unlikely possibility). So the biggest threat is him moving the galley 2NW or NW-SW and unloading a chariot where it can hit RUO. With that in mind, we swapped RUO to a spear this turn -- the 4 overflow from the settler combine with it's natural 1hpt and we're set to whip a spear next turn if needed.



Everything else we decided to stay on plan with. So our northern galley moved 1E and waited as the worker and settler loaded up, then continued towards our city on the northern island. As tempting as it is to grab the super-good crab/corn/sheep spot, we just don't have a unit to defend if Rego has something to attack us with. If Rego does move 2NW next turn we will have to decide what to do then -- right now our galley is loaded with worker & settler, and we don't have a unit for defense along for the ride. So it may be that we delay our next city, but it depends what Rego does.

In the south our scouting warrior spotted the borders from Ichabod's GLH wonder city. (I turned off resource bubbles because they kept covering the sign.)



We finished our library in OAT last turn, and this turn swapped it to working a rice tile and 5 cottages. It accounted for almost half of our research this turn:



When we ended turn we grew in OAT, and also in RUO and NHL, hitting 22 citizens. RUO is especially growing like a weed: with granary and 9fpt from it's corn/fish, the next plan for it is to grow it to size 6 and then 3-whip a library. We'll start on a pair of scientists and get our first great person sometime in the early t100 range.

The demos are starting to look really good. This is the biggest reason I ranked us #1; just look at that food difference



Also, GNP is pretty sweet. After Currency comes in end of next turn that will just get better:




In C&D news, Ichabod grew a pop to hit 11 citizens -- we are double that -- and Scooter grew a pop to 16. Rego grew one city and whipped another, for a net of 0. He also gained 3k power, which likely means he built a barracks somewhere. Curious to spend hammers on a barracks so early, but it must be a hammer-rich city and he wanted to get a rax down before pumping out units. Just the thought of someone else having a hammer-rich city is making me a little envious alraedy...

[NobleHelium]

Man, the turn pace in this game is SO bad.