Turn 42

[DeepO]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Am I correct that Donderberg would mean something along the lines of "Thunder City" in German? If so, that could make an interesting name, alluding both to thunder from storms and thunder from horses' hooves.

If you want something like that, I strongly campaign for Bolderberg It essentially means the same thing in Dutch, and is by coincidence quite known to me (I lived there for some 24 years).

In German, I think it should be something like Donnerberg, but I'm sure Sir Ralph will correct me if I'm wrong Donder is Dutch for Thunder, not German.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by DeepO

If you want something like that, I strongly campaign for Bolderberg It essentially means the same thing in Dutch, and is by coincidence quite known to me (I lived there for some 24 years).

Sounds good. Any objections to Bolderberg for our horse city?

Edit: by the way, did you see a lot of nice horses when you lived in Bolderberg?

[DeepO]

well.. there's a lot of nature, including a manège (how does this translate? managery?). Other then that, the village is more known for a (former F1) race track, Terlaemen. Thundering indeed...

I have to say one thing to its disadvantage: berg means mountain, in both German as Dutch. And horsecity will be built on a hill... maybe too many clues.

DeepO

[Theseus]

Generals?

This calls for lieutenants.

I monitor the discussion at work, but don't post unless it's urgent.

Nothing urgent here.

[DeepO]

BTW, maybe one more reason to call a city Bolderberg: one of the legends explaining its name talks about the hill in the village attracting stormy wheather. It is one of the few places in Western Europe where iron ore can be found.. if the hill wouldn't be part of a nature reservate, it would be mined.

Good omen, that one

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I just realized that we're closer to building our new settler than I'd realized we were - next turn! - and updated the economic stuff accordingly. (That's what I get for getting so caught up in warrior movements and longer-range planning.)

Looking back at the map, I'm pretty sure all Slash has to do is move 2-2 to make sure no barbarians can get past him from the north to hit Bolderberg. From the south, barbs would have to get past Hurricane, so there is no danger from that direction once Zonk gets back there. When the settler gets on top of the hill, every possible threat to the area will have been looked at recently.

Bolderberg can build a warrior in five turns, so the big question is, how long after an area is looked at can barbarians appear? Once we're sure there isn't time for barbs to appear and hit Bolderberg before it finishes its warrior, Slash can start back up north. So his guard duty won't cost him as much time from getting back up north as I'd thought it would. (Well-placed hills have some major advantages.)

[Shiber]

Originally posted by nbarclay
but my moves with warriors elsewhere on the map varied enough that it's a little hard to believe that the RNG would have been in the same place in its cycle every time.

Warrior moves don't affect the Random Number Generator. Only doing things that involve random numbers, such as attacking, or ending a turn while some of your laborers are working floodplains or jungle, affects the RNG.

[Shiber]

Re: Turn 41

- How long do we keep waiting for Vox if we don't hear from them either in-game or in a PM, and what do we do if we get tired of waiting before we hear from them?

May I suggest that we begin researching Alphabet.

[zeit]

I still disagree with Nathan regarding slash. Grog will need some help if we want to keep Vox doubtful and insecure. There is no imminent barb threat to the south, and on the north OTOH we have a camp on a mountain and Vox roading. We could squeeze another warrior pretty soon, maybe from cyclone, but i see the biggest threat is Vox, not lowly barbs, and thus i think we better reinforce our position up north.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Shiber


Warrior moves don't affect the Random Number Generator. Only doing things that involve random numbers, such as attacking, or ending a turn while some of your laborers are working floodplains or jungle, affects the RNG.

Warrior moves do affect the RNG when they change where barbs can and can't show up, because the RNG is involved in determining whether camps will show up at possible locations. I've used that phenomenon successfully to alter when disease strikes in EotS in the test scenario, although doing so requires backing up a bit. The real question is whether differences in warrior moves in the tests I ran came early enough and had enough effect on possible camp locations to affect where in its sequence the RNG was when it decided whether or not a camp should appear in the far south.

[Shiber]

I think you're right. I overlooked the fact that moving warriors could change the number and location of tiles where barbs may appear.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by zeit
I still disagree with Nathan regarding slash. Grog will need some help if we want to keep Vox doubtful and insecure. There is no imminent barb threat to the south, and on the north OTOH we have a camp on a mountain and Vox roading. We could squeeze another warrior pretty soon, maybe from cyclone, but i see the biggest threat is Vox, not lowly barbs, and thus i think we better reinforce our position up north.

I don't want to make Vox "doubtful and insecure." If they're doubtful and insecure, they're more likely to launch a preemptive attack against us, more likely to be heavily defended when and if we attack them, and less likely to trade with us. None of those is a good thing, especially until our defenses are a good bit stronger than they are now.

If Vox delivers a meaningful attack, all another warrior will do up there is get himself killed. If they don't, there is no particularly urgent need to get Slash up north, and I see nothing to justify your faith that barbarians won't attack from the south.

And I certainly see no benefit in getting Slash back up north a few turns earlier that could justify delaying Cyclone's worker (and hence all the city's tile improvements) by five turns to build a warrior. Cyclone can grow in seven turns, and a worker needs six to move, mine, and road, so even starting as early as possible, it will be a long time before Cyclone has tile improvements waiting to greet new laborers. That's especially problematical for a city that's timetable for becoming a settler pump depends heavily on how quickly it can finish a granary, because that city's prosperity plays a major role in determing our ability to build future cities - especially if EotS gets hit by more disease. (Once it's ready, Cyclone will outperform EotS as a settler pump - and will be immune to disease in the bargain.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Re: Re: Turn 41

Originally posted by Shiber


May I suggest that we begin researching Alphabet.

Writing; we just got Alphabet. I'm still not very comfortable starting research on Writing while we're hearing nothing from Vox either in-game or otherwise. The longer I go without hearing anything, the more nervous I get that a backstab might be possible, in which case enough gold for a third of a warrior-to-swordsman upgrade could make a real difference. And that's how much we'd lose if we research a turn on Writing and then find out we need to switch to Iron Working due to a doublecross.

On the other hand, there is some chance that a delay in our research could cost us a tech deal. Our proper course of action really all depends on whether we consider Vox likely to back out on the deal or not. (If they don't offer Iron Working in game, I may rush a diplomatic messge stamped "urgent" to them asking their intentions.)

Nathan

[DeepO]

Originally posted by nbarclay
so the big question is, how long after an area is looked at can barbarians appear?

I've seen it happen the turn I move a warrior out of sight. There certainly is no delay, but even if all barb rules are not discovered yet, it has something to do with the destruction of a previous camp, there seem to be an equal number of camps on the map, so once you destroy one, another is formed. But where the barb galleys come into play, I don't know.

Other question: do you need barb galleys under sedentary barbs to form camps? And, do barb galleys only appear when 2 civs have mapmaking, like barb horses only appear once somebody has HBR?

DeepO

[DeepO]

Research: (BTW, I don't know if this is the right thread, aren't we discussing what needs to be done in turn 40 here?): I would go ahead on writing. Vox won't be able to trade it to us, or they need to have started on it several turns before. Indeed, diplomacy is key, but IIRC they know we want to research writing, and trade it to them. They won't start on writing themselves if they know we can give it to them.

But yes, if we haven't heard from them, I would rush out an urgent PM, asking about their intentions. If they respond saying they're already researching writing, so don't like the deal, we should choose something else. Otherwise, writing will always be best (I do not like the idea of having to research IW ourselves now, it can still come after IW without getting attacked in the mean time)

DeepO