State of the Empire: Turn 75

[Sullla]

My fellow RBers, we've completed another 10 turns in-game (and another month in real time), so let us take stock of our current situation and what's transpired.

Headline News

- We successfully poached an important city right out from under Imperio's nose. Cape Town was settled on T70 and grabbed horses + copper. Imperio had to settle for Chichen Itza (T72) with wheat and gold.

- PAL settled two more cities, Elephantine (T70) and Alexandria (T71), taking them up to six overall. We are the closest civ with four cities. PAL's strategy is either a brilliant master plan or crazy over-expansion. Keeping an eye on them is important whichever turns out to be true.

- Banana made a big splash late by settling their third city (T74) and building the Pyramids (T75). Perhaps they don't completely suck after all!

- RB has nearly completed a Sailing + Iron Working + Archery trade for Writing + Alphabet with PAL. What tech path to chart will be an important issue in the upcoming turns.

Current Overview

North:


South:


Red is the intended next city location. Twin Peaks will almost certainly be city #6.

Status report from the overview thread:

General

Current Turn:
Turn 75 - 1000 BC
Turn Timer expires at approx (UTC)

Active Turn Player:
Sullla

Status:
Played

Tech:
Iron Working (2t)
100% research (29 [37] beakers/turn) @ -7gpt

Gold
27g in treasury

Cities

Airstrip One [guarded by Xena]:
Barracks (3t)
Emphasizing cottages, now maxed on size (5)

Pink Dot [guarded by Robyn Hood and Gogo]:
Archer (1 turns)
Growing to size 4, emphasizing military

China Beach [guarded by Ms Piggy]:
Granary (13t)
Recovering from whip anger (4t)

Cape Town [guarded by Diana]:
Galley (9)

Non-Combat Units

Scout [Sharon]:
Moving to desert hill tile in south to watch Templar/Imperio movements
Will later board galley to head overseas (hopefully)

Worker [O'Brien]:
Roading pasture on grassland horses (done!)
Moving next to copper

Worker [Winston]:
Roading grassland hill tile (2t) and waiting to see if iron appears

Worker [Parsons]:
Cottaging the floodplains south of China Beach (5t)

Worker [Syme]:
Moving to mine the unforested grassland hill at Pink

Work Boat [RBS Terror of the Seas]:
Moving to clear northern fog (done!)
Hoping to pass through Imperio territory and head east

Military Units

Archer [Ms Piggy]:
Guard China Beach

Archer [Diana]:
Guard Cape Town

Archer [Billy Jean Tell]:
Guard Cape Town

Archer [Robyn Hood]:
Moving to intercept barb warrior

Warrior [Xena]:
Guard Airstrip One

Warrior [Gogo]:
Guard Pink Dot

Warrior [Jennifer]:
Guard Cape Town

* * * * *

Now, the return of the much-loved International Economics, brought to you by mostly_harmless and Sullla.



The GNP chart. Columns read Realms Beyond (green), Templars (yellow), Imperio (blue), PAL (dark yellow), Rabbits (orange), Banana (red), and finally the Average score.

Over the last ten turns, RB has made tremendous strides in this category. Our economy has increased fully 33%! (From 33 to 44.) Best of all, the bulk of our GNP stat comes from actual commerce, not cultural shenanigans. We are listed as #3 in the rankings here, with Templars very slightly ahead of us (mostly due to culture) and Imperio way out in front of everyone. Leaving aside Imperio and their gold resource cheeziness, we're actually best in the world here. #2 researching team is pretty darn good, methinks.

PAL got a major increase last turn for reasons I don't understand. Any ideas, mh?



Food/Production table. (Food first, then Production.) This is one of the best measures of overall strength in the early game: add together total food + total shields. Our current number is 59, and growing rapidly as our cities increase in size. More cities = more power in this analysis.

PAL continues to dominate here (food + production = 73), and will likely only pull further away as their cities grow in size. Imperio is running just about neck and neck with us; they have one fewer city, but their two core cities of Mutal and Lakamha are both larger sizes (5 each). It will be interesting to see what they do next here.

There's no way around it: Templars massively suck by this comparison. They may even think they're doing "good" by looking at GNP. But they would be wrong. Total food/production of only 34 at this point is an embarassment. We reached that mark 25 turns ago! Look at the big increases for every other civ over the past ten turns, then look at the non-increase from Templars. This team is pure garbage. I DO NOT want our fate resting on them. Better to join the Dark Side and team up with PAL than have to rely on these creampuffs.

One final note here: everyone has increased production rapidly over the past five turns. Coincidence or military buildup? Let's be careful here.



The military report (Soldier count). Over the past ten turns, our lead here has completely vanished! That's not terrible, as our early lead was intended as a bluff to keep us safe until we hooked up resources (success!) But it's not good either. We'll get a big boost from Iron Working's 10k soldier points in two turns, keep in mind.

An attempt to break down the numbers:

Realms Beyond (52k)
5k from population
3k from barracks
26k from technology
6k from three warriors @ 2k each
12k from four archers @ 3k each

Templars (54k)
3k from population
3k from barracks
24k from technology
3k from three quechuas @ 1k each
8k from four quechuas @ 2k each
4k from one chariot
6k from one axeman
3k from one archer

Imperio (56k)
5k from population
28k from technology
1k from one warrior @ 1k
2k from one warrior @ 2k
4k from holkan @ 4k
16k from four holkans OR chariots @ 4k (four of these unknown units)
Nailed this one perfectly! Ha!

PAL (41k)
6k from population (mh, help me out here!)
18 from technology
1k from one warrior @ 1k
12k from six warriors @ 2k
4k from one spear @ 4k (?)
Also perfect - just not sure about that spear on T74. I would guess chariot, but PAL lacks horses!

So there you go. Templars actually have a pretty fierce military, all things considered. Strange, given their pacifist nature. Hopefully we'll have a couple more "real" military units by the time another ten turns pass.

Regardless, this wraps up my analysis for the moment. You can feel free to post comments/questions as desired. Please also point out mistakes in my tables so I can correct them. As always, you can download an updated version of the Excel files below.


ADG Stats

- Sullla

[regoarrarr]

It would be nice if you could post a screenshot of each city with what they are working / available to work, to aid in analysis over the next 10 turns for those of us who can't / don't look at the save

Great work!!

[mostly-harmless]

Ok, it took me quite a while to figure certain things out here, so you want see a huge update but just a few comments:
- PAL can have horses in a city not connected to the capital, I guess, producing a chariot but just not being able to trade the horses. (possible?)

- The slave revolt really messed up my stats and it took a while unitl I understood, that cities in revolt drop out of some of the demographics numbers, for example population (but not land).
So Thebes lost 2 pops and satyed in revolt for another two turns.
Now the interesting part. I can only match up the population figures with the following scenario:
The slave revolt if not suppressed has a chance to spread. Those cities will not loose pop I guess, but will go into revolt. Now that seems to have happened to Memphis on turn 74. They suffered one turn of revolt! And to complicate matters even more I have Bananas second city also down to suffer from two turns of revolt (no pop loss though) In T72&73. There might be another scenario, but I can't think only of the one outlined above. Took me two hours to come up with. (Two hours well spent? Krill??? ;-))

- PALs jump in GNP recently comes from Thebes and Memphis coming out of revolt and also growing to size 3 both and another city growing to size 2. PAL capital was also whipped the turn before, so they could have created a library (bringing in GNP through increased beakers and culture).

- I also have two more cities in the world producing culture (popping borders) that I can't point the finger on for now. Have to wait for 20 turns to see who get the land points. I bet PAL and/ or Rabbits. PAL can't have gotten both though. The good news is that more of the GNP we see is from culture than we thought.

- It seems that Templars finally managed to spread Christianity to Constantinople on T74. So we will see a border pop there shortly.
(Unless it spread to some foreign lands. PAL? We will see in 9 turns.)

- There are a few little things that need correction in Sullla's spreadsheet, but I don't have the time now.

mh

[Krill]

I'll tell you at the end of the game

[sunrise089]

Very nice work Sullla.

[Zeviz]

Sulla and mh, thank you for this detailed overview.

[Sullla]

Originally posted by regoarrarr
It would be nice if you could post a screenshot of each city with what they are working / available to work, to aid in analysis over the next 10 turns for those of us who can't / don't look at the save

Ask and ye shall receive! That's actually a really good suggestion for inclusion.

Airstrip One


The financial center of our civilization. 20 of our 29 beakers come from the capital! (Can't wait for library, and hopefully an early Academy.)

Pink Dot


Military producer extraordinare. Current plan is a chariot next, then either chariot, axe, or settler (depends on how safe we feel).

China Beach


Another commercial center, and our first seaport. Long-term, I would like to whip a library here and run two scientist specialists (with CB's high food surplus) to generate a Great Scientist for Academy in Airstrip One.

Cape Town


Resource central! Expect this city to build a barracks soon and crank military units for a long time to come.

I hope this helps our lurkers who have limited or no Beyond the Sword access. Everyone's input helps us.

[Swiss Pauli]

Many thanks for the updates Sulla and m_h!

[Zeviz]

A few thoughts based on the screenshots above:

1. Let's move TwinPeaks site 1 south. The region is very food-poor and moving the city 1 south will give us two more grassland tiles to use, allowing city to work an extra tile. It will also allow us to lay future claim to grassland tiles south-east of that site. EDIT: After checking in game, we would gain 3 grassland tiles by moving 1 south, so that city would be much stronger in medium-long run.

2. After Airstrip One completes Barracks, let's reconfigure it for production and pump out a few military units. This is a good time to put Airstrip One into production mode, because we'll just be saving gold waiting for trade with PAL to go through to start building Libraries.

3. Once Pink Dot grows, let's train a Settler. Since we are still building Mines there, its current hammer production is lower than peak, but its food production is maxed out already, so this is good time to train units that can be created with food, instead of hammers. (And if suggestion #2 is approved, we'll have the capital on military duty while the Settler is being trained.)

4. If we are training Galley for scouting, should we keep the workboat on fogbusting duty, and then direct it south to net Fish at the future southern city?