[SPOILERS] PBEM 8 - Shoot the Moon's Thread

[Shoot the Moon]

Ok, first time for some filler:





Those have no particular relevance, they were just the first pictures in my photobucket account (the game is World in Conflict, if anyone was wondering)

That should do it I hope.

[Shoot the Moon]

EDIT: Some info for easy finding for the game:

ShoottheMoon shootthemoonrb at gmail dot com GMT -8
WarriorKnight warriorknightrb(at)gmail(dot)com GMT +8
Serdoa serdoaciv [at] googlemail [dot] com GMT +1
ad hoc adhocpbem at gmail.com GMT
meatbalz givemeanormalemail (at) gmail.com GMT -8

Shoot the Moon - India / Sury (Cre/Exp)
Meatbalz - Maya / Willem (Cre/Fin)
WarriorKnight - Inca / Pacal (Exp/Fin)
Serdoa - Byzantine / Hatshepsut (Cre/Spi)
ad hoc - Native Americans / Hannibal (Cha/Fin)

[Shoot the Moon]

Reminder to self: check demogs to see if everyone has a lake.

[Shoot the Moon]

Moving warrior revealed this:


I decided that a river side grass, 3 plains, and the spice were worth less than moving 1E and picking up 3 river-side grass, a river plains, and a grass-hill. So I settled 1E:



I'm going to do micro sometime later today, but it's going to be very interesting figuring out the micro with only 1 forest to chop. I'll probably be trying to micro to get as many 2 pop whips as possible while working the food and the grass hill mines and only later grow into cottages as happy cap goes up.

Still not feeling all the jungle. Especially on quick, that's going to make India ridiculously powerful.

Here's demos:

So at least 1 person doesn't have a lake based on land score.

The mfg average suggests that every single person is working a zero hammer tile (if anyone were working a 1 hammer tile, the average would be exactly 1 [1+1+2+0] instead of being .75 and thus getting rounded down to zero).

I would guess that all but 1 are working a 3f tile (I'll explain below). Considering rounding (where anything from a 12 total rival food to 15 total rival food gets rounded to average 3), the two not rival max could actually be working any mix of 3 food, 2 food, or even one of them on a 1f tile.

However, the GNP stat is what suggests to me that someone is working a lake. The only other creative civ in the game (Silent Confusion) plays after me and thus has the 1 gnp. So that suggests that one of the non-cre civs is working a 3 commerce tile to get a 1 higher GNP than me. If my lake guess is correct, next turn I should see the average food be 4, not 5.

I expect some lurkers are having a fun time laughing at my attempt at doing c&d (and no, I have no intention of pursuing it much further, but it is fun during the first couple turns).

EDIT: No one can be working a lake, as no one starts with fishing. Hmm, something with pre-req bonuses? I have no idea, oh well.

[scooter]

Those have no particular relevance, they were just the first pictures in my photobucket account (the game is World in Conflict, if anyone was wondering)

(off-topic question)

What's World in Conflict like? Any good? Is it RTS or turn-based? I don't know much about it but I've heard good things...

[Shoot the Moon]

(off-topic question)

What's World in Conflict like? Any good? Is it RTS or turn-based? I don't know much about it but I've heard good things...

It's very, very good (it was good enough to break my civ addiction, if that says anything. WiC was pretty much the only game I played for a year or two after it came out, it was that good) It's technically a RTT (real-time tactical), although on the scale of RTS to turn-based that does make it closer to RTS. In comparison to an RTS though, there's no base building (and when you "spawn" in units the almost immediately see combat, there is next to no waiting period whatsoever), you replace units as they die, and you have a much smaller number of units (3 of the 4 roles will only see up to 5 units on the field normally; the fourth role when played at a high level can see 10-15). The lesser number of units means it's not so much about how many button clicks you can do per second but much more about knowing how to utilize them, knowing strategy, knowing the map and where to place units, etc. The lesser number of units thus means the game is easier to pick up, but it also means there is a lot of depth in gameplay if you are interested in it. The multiplayer is extremely team based, which can be either awesome or a drag depending on the team you have. Oh, and finally, even though the game is approaching 3 years old, the graphics still look as if they could have been from a game released yesterday (if you don't believe me, youtube "world in conflict dx11 nuke"; this video being but one example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGU9hBglx...re=related).

If your at all considering trying it, I'd recommend trying to find the demo (there was one, although I can't guarantee that the demo servers are still running). That or see if you can't find a trial cd-key somewhere; I know most copies of the game came with a 10-day trial in addition to the regular game (I'd offer you mine, but it's already been used). Just to be forewarned: because of the team based nature, a lot of the time newbs aren't treated the most friendly if they are seen to be bringing the team down. I'd be happy to give a primer on how to (or how not to) play MP WiC though if you find that is an issue.

[Shoot the Moon]

Pretty quiet turn. Here's what happened when I ended turn (borders popped):



Although you can't see it, there is a second banana 3s of the visible one.

And the demogs (from after borders popped, bumped my gnp up one as city auto switched to work the 3f 1c tile (for now I'll leave it on auto assign, as that worked well, but I need to remember to turn that off!)



Wow, so one person only has 6 land tiles of their starting 9. Hmm, that's interesting. The two people not rival max and rival min have 15 total tiles, so either 9 and 6 or 8 and 7. Either way looks like 3 people with more water than me and 1 less.

Looking at MFG and crop yield, it looks as if someone is working a 2f 1h tile (that's an assumption, someone is working a 2f tile -- rival min food -- and someone a 1h tile -- rival max mfg). My guess is it is someone building a worker who doesn't have a 3f 1c tile yet, so working 2f1h and 3f is the exact same. The good news for me is that it looks like none of the exp civs have been able to get to 4h to get a bonus for worker. That increase on the first worker is a great part of exp, so not having that is certainly nice for me.

[Shoot the Moon]

Didn't take a screenshot of either, but two things:

The map has 803 land tiles total (my 20 tiles was 2.49%). I suspect given the small mapsize then that it is mostly land. Another interesting thing: we each get 160 tiles or so, which comes out to 7-8 cities. That probably means after 1 ring of cities there's going to be contested sites.

Other thing of note: top rival land score was 20000, which means silent confusion also had 20 land tiles (I don't believe a non-cultural would have popped yet, right?)

[Shoot the Moon]

Here's the current situation (before hitting enter; I can't actually remember where I moved the warrior as it's been forever since I played that turn, but oh well):



Research path: agri (already completed) --> mining --> BW (that will be done t20, which should be more than far enough for now)

Here's the micro plan:

t10: Worker is complete. Worker moves 1N and farms the corn. Capital set to build a warrior. Mining is in, research set to BW.

t13: The worker completes the farm, the capital is switched from the wheat to the now farmed corn.

t14: Capital grows to size two, works the farmed corn and the wheat tile. The worker moves 2S.

t15: The worker moves SW and farms the wheat.

t17: The capital grows to size 3, works the grassland forest.

t18: The worker completes the wheat farm.

t19: Capital grows to size 4, works riverside plains. The warrior build completes, city set to build worker. The worker moves 2N to mine the hill.

t20: BW comes in. Revolt to slavery. Research set to pottery (might change that if a religion still hasn't been founded, although the game shouldn't get to this point while I'm gone anyway).

t21: Two pop whip worker.

It feels really weird growing into unimproved plains, but my sims suggest that converting the ridiculous food surplus I have into hammers by double whipping is the most efficient thing to do.

Exploration wise: I'd generally like the warrior to come back SE and explore the area to the east of the capital. Remember however that the capital's borders will pop in 5t, gaining that hill tile and thus revealing more tiles, so there's no need to reveal those with the warrior. I'll leave the exact exploring path up to your discretion based off if any hills appear to move to (or any lake tiles to move next to to see over). Based on the fact that there are 804 land tiles and I'm in the SW corner, I don't believe there will be a need to bring the warrior back to the capital because we meet a new civ (if we do happen to meet another civ you have permission to move the warrior back to the capital, although I very much doubt that will happen). Barbs are also off, so there's no worries about animals, or healing, or whatnot.

I think that should cover it. Cyneheard, if you have any questions, of course feel free to ask. I'll keep you up to date on exactly when my civ (and internet) access will end so that you know when to take over. At this point, I hope to be able to play Friday and Saturday (if I can't, and the save actually gets sent [what are the chances of that ] I'll let you know).

[Cyneheard]

Ok, let me see, here's my algorithm for moving the warrior:

Fogbust everything to the southeast, leaving no tiles unfogged. Keep to forest/jungle as able, definitely take advantage of hills where able.

I note that 5E of the capital will not be seen by border expansion due to jungle 4E. That's a lot of jungle.