[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Rusten]

I wouldn't feel comfortable without a scout to fogbust and track down later city spots, but YMMV. You make a good point too, but don't we want to mine hills over farming anyway? Especially with IMP. Tough decision.

[Rusten]

I'll be back home later today. Do you have an updated sandbox you could send me?

[Miguelito]

You're correct about the mine. I'll point out that we have a warrior AND a warrior or scout, so I guess we should be able to cover the settler without the original scout in any case? Doesn't take away that we'd much prefer to keep him.
Tonight I'll take a look at how the micro is influenced If we do or don't have Agri before BW, then decide. Point about pottery stands though.

[Rusten]

I really like your suggestion of taking CoL with the Oracle and quickly churning out a GM for currency bulb. It sticks out to me and seems super strong based on traits, civ, game plan. Fits our timings and targets.

We can then get the prophet as GP #2 or #3, and I'd be tempted to have a pre-guilds golden age too, even with spiritual. That golden age great person (#2) can be a shared pool one and maybe we'll be lucky and get our prophet. If not we can guarantee a prophet later using temple(s) + Oracle GPP.

The Oracle is made for IMP and/or IND leaders and we've got one of them. Besides, we're spiritual and benefit greatly from CoL religion and civics too. We can definitely find the hammers for this wonder. IMO it's more in accordance with our gameplan than the Pyramids.

[Rusten]

I'll also add that I think you're overemphasizing cottages. Personally I put way more stock in hammers and expanding over commerce early on. Pottery is more for the granaries than the cottage improvement. I'm happy to go (almost) broke temporarily.

edit: And this is also where the currency bulb comes in to jump-start the economy again. I'd rather get the extra hammers and build the Oracle than getting the cottages.

[Miguelito]

I really like your suggestion of taking CoL with the Oracle and quickly churning out a GM for currency bulb. It sticks out to me and seems super strong based on traits, civ, game plan. Fits our timings and targets.

We can then get the prophet as GP #2 or #3, and I'd be tempted to have a pre-guilds golden age too, even with spiritual. That golden age great person (#2) can be a shared pool one and maybe we'll be lucky and get our prophet. If not we can guarantee a prophet later using temple(s) + Oracle GPP.

The Oracle is made for IMP and/or IND leaders and we've got one of them. Besides, we're spiritual and benefit greatly from CoL religion and civics too. We can definitely find the hammers for this wonder. IMO it's more in accordance with our gameplan than the Pyramids.

uh. You're tempting me. Because yes, it sounds fun, kinda innovative (of course surely someone has done it before), and actually profitable. Let's see counterarguments:

• we have 6 Myst starters, one of them IMP/IND
  
• We need Writing for CoL, meaning we need more tech than for the regular MC Oracle, which IMP/IND of Spain of course likes
  

I think if naufragar made his pick with Oracle in mind and he doesn't go for Stonehenge or GLH first, we can't beat him. Otoh, failure would not be catastrophic: We can use both Priesthood and Writing, and both failgold or a city in the woods that can chop out settlers are ok results. Tentatively we can go for it, but first in any case we'll scout more.
Now if we do fail, does it make sense to research CoL from Priesthood? Really unsure tbh.
What I'd like to know, in which sense do you consider Oracle "made for IMP"? Just because IMP saves hammers on settlers that can be invested into the wonder, or is there something else to it that I'm missing?

I'll also add that I think you're overemphasizing cottages. Personally I put way more stock in hammers and expanding over commerce early on. Pottery is more for the granaries than the cottage improvement. I'm happy to go (almost) broke temporarily.

edit: And this is also where the currency bulb comes in to jump-start the economy again. I'd rather get the extra hammers and build the Oracle than getting the cottages.

Well, I'm getting paranoid about two things, which are connected:

1. to not pursue the Guilds beeline decidedly enough, giving the neighbours time to prepare for Cataphracts
   
2. that we have made ourselves a target for early aggression by everyone, because nobody wants us to get to the middle ages.
   

So, in part I feel that we have to research fast - avoid point 1 - in order to shorten the window for point 2. But otoh, if we do have to advert early aggression, we need a strong foodhammer base, which is in tune with oyur strategy.
But don't those floodplains just cry for some cottages? I'd be hesitant to farm more than one of those... now as I had to experience in PB49, any improvement on FP is hella tedious, so I agree that mines come first where they are needed.

I understand and appreciate the danger of unconcious bias. I will stay global and just read the different threads. On the other hand, I followed El Grillo's PB51 thread and he just seemed to fire these detailed reports into the void intersparsed rarely with anodyne encouragement as feedback. That may get depressing at some point. Of course, you two won't have that problem.

I will adhere to the rules here of course. But I wonder what kind of comment can be made safely?

Yes, the danger of shouting into the void as the reporter is real under our rules. It happened to myself at times in PB49 when my dedlurkers were less active. Btw in 51 El Grillo even had a dedlurker! I think in 51 also things were a bit more relaxed, because it was explicitly set up as a greens game, and the guys from civforum had been invited, who reported at their place in their style, so it wouldn't make sense to enforce strict rules her eI think.

What is generally ok is answering to mechanics questions, and also posing your own, non leading questions. So "can you show us an F5 screen / empire overview / city screens?" and so on are ok, "What defense does neighbour X have in his border city?" while I'm planning to attack neighbour Y, not so much. Now if you ask me how many forges I've built, because by yourself you really think I should build more of them, I think we're entering grey areas? Generally I understand the rule as you should aim not to influence players' decisions, but you can ask for all the info you wish for to enhance the lurking experience. When in doubt, you can always ask in the lurker thread if the general public thinks your question is kosher.


Pointing out calculation errors, or mechanics misunderstandings, is also fine in my understanding. And if you see a nice move by someone and congratulate on that (also ask "how did you do that exactly?"), that's allowed of course, and very encouraging for players.

Disclaimer: I'm not a referee here, nor even a more senior member of the forum. So take it with a grain of salt. I think somewhere in Civ General -> archives (?) you can find Old Harry's Pitboss etiquette which might also touch on that, but not sure.

[Commodore]

Looking forward to see where you position the Oracle this time.

[Miguelito]

Looking forward to see where you position the Oracle this time.

It was in your powers not to allow a player get boxed in by something like that this time . But yes, I assume that I didn't consider the effect of the wonder culture that time, and maybe I've learned my lesson, we'll see. Otoh, no Boudicca in this game


....

and just as I was posting before, a new turn rolled around, and I could paint the first two dots:


tundra deer really isn't awesome, but it's food. Together with plains sheep it's still not a lot of food, but otoh we get some hammers?
If it is the second city, I'm very strongly leaning blue dot. It is the only spot with the deer first ring and access to the sheep. Yellow I included mainly because there should always be an alternative. Put it there mainly to pick up the furs.. Now if we plant 2nd elsewhere, and for our third or fourth we feel like we need some input from above regarding the future, that's a lot of forests there...

Plan is to move NW next.

[Rusten]

If anything I think you're pursuing the guilds beeline *too* decidedly. It's more important to get there with a big and healthy war machine than to get there a few turns earlier. IMO anyway. There's no preparing for cataphracts if we have a nice empire. Someone will be food.

I'm not saying skip the cottages, but I'd rather make an extra 10 cottages some turns later from having more cities than to lay them down early at the cost of expansion. You were talking in terms of hunting (tech) slowing down our cottage turns, and I don't really see that as a thing. It might slow down our granary timing, but the cottages come after that. We also need happiness to run cottages, and the best way to get that is expansion and religion. Confucianism will provide 2 happy for 2 more cottages per city.

I think we'd absolutely want CoL anyway. Caste is a godsend for spiritual leaders, we need it for GPP and it can also helps pop borders at times. Naufragar is a threat, but he's also notoriously indecisive and cautious, so I wouldn't be surprised if he plays a more "normal" opening and then eventually builds The Great Lighthouse. He first-picked Spain so he's likely coastal.

Yes on IMP. It's the only trait that's already had its hammers reduction kick in before the Oracle date, so you effectively stand pretty equal with industrious leaders (if not ahead). Expansive granaries have yet to take effect by the time the wonder is built for instance.
It's also made for IMP in the sense that you can sometimes expand more than your economy can handle, and the Oracle is a fantastic way to turn production into science, making up for your one deficiency. I usually describe harmonious civ development as a bottleneck. Identify the bottleneck and emphasize that to take it up to par with the other areas. In our case it's likely a lack of science after expanding hard with IMP.

[Rusten]

On the new turn: That's a lot of forests for our Oracle.