2400 bc

[-SafaN-]

okay did this:

moved settler towards found spot (but still save) its under the worker
moved scout towards settler
production to forge
research to iron working
civic to slavery

remarks: the voice had a HUGE jump in score ...

[-SafaN-]

and the endturn

[binTravkin]

Could they have completed some wonder?

Pjay, could we get your analysis on this?

[PJayTycy]

Nothing to worry about. 20 turns ago their territory increased (due to culture expansion) from 21 to 37 tiles. They get +30 points for that. 37 tiles means they have not even a single water tile 3 squares away from their capital (it's the max you can get after 3 cultural expansions).

I expect the other expansive civs to get a similar score boost in the next few turns.

Nothing happened for the other teams.


[edit]They probably don't know themselves why they have the topscore at the moment.[/edit]

[PJayTycy]

After a little counting, and reloading all old endgame saves, I have two conclusions regarding the foreign intelligence :

1) I was wrong at one point about the mercs score. They grew to population 2 a lot sooner, they are not landlocked (lower land-score) and instead have 1 tech extra. For details, see the foreign intelligence thread. It doesn't really make a big difference though. It just makes the mercs' history "normal" instead of "pretty weird".

2) Vox' border expansion : Vox has gone from 12 culture points to > 100 culture points in 18 turns. As a creative civ, they normally get 4 culture points / turn, but 18*4=72, which is still 16 points short of the 88 they needed to get to 100. So, they must have built a culture-enhancing building. Based on their research (hunting, mining, mysticism, polytheism, , ), I think it must have been a monolith completed +/- 16 turns ago (+/-3000 BC). A monastery completed 4 turns ago is the only other option. But, even if their (completed 8 turns ago) was meditation, it's very unlikely they've built a monastery (60 hammers) in 4 turns (current best rival hammer production = 11).

Now, add to this the information they had their last population growth (from 3 to 4) in 2960 BC, I think it's safe to assume a monolith being completed at/around that time too, after which they probably started a settler/worker.




About our forge:
If we want, we can finish this forge in 3 or 4 turns. We will grow to 5 population in 3 turns, at that point we can whip 2 citizens into slaves and our forge will be immediately finished. If we follow this strategy, we have to work as much food as possible, ie: 4th citizen on the grassland forest. We should prevent having more than 29 hammers when we do this (or we only get 90 hammers from our 2 slaves instead of 120) !

If we want a more "peacefull" aproach, we can wait till we have 60+ hammers completed, so we only need to whip 1 citizen. If we move our 4th citizen from the grassland forest (2food, 1hammer) to the plains hill(4hammers), we will grow to 5 citizens in 4 turns, while it will take us 8 turns (with the 4th and 5th citizen each working a mine) to get 60 hammers. We also have to make sure we don't end up at 61/120 hammers completed, because that's cheating (you get 90 hammers from 1 population).


So, it's either:
=> in 4 turns we have a forge, 3 population and 1 angry citizen for 10 turns, we can grow back to 4 population in 4 turns.
=> in 4 turns we have 5 population, in 8 turns we have a forge, back to 4 population and 1 angry citizen for 10 turns.

So, the end result is the same, except with 2 slaves, we get the forge 4 turns earlier and the slavery-unhappiness will end 4 turns earlier. The only downside of 2-slave whipping is we might have a few research points less, but I don't think it'll make more than 1 research-turn difference.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by PJayTycy
We also have to make sure we don't end up at 61/120 hammers completed, because that's cheating (you get 90 hammers from 1 population).

I agree with you it's kinda cheating, and I don't consciously use this exploit in my games. However the question is: do other teams use it? If they do, we have little other choice to do the same.

[Chaos Theory]

Why would a creative civ build an obelisk in the capital, so early? Even if they were going for a cultural victory, it's more important to establish three solid cities than get a few more culture points in the capital. Besides, they founded Hinduism. Doesn't that explain their culture score?

Here's the timeline:
4000 BC - found capital, claim 9 tiles, receive 4 culture/turn
3880 - 12 culture, claim 12 tiles, 4 culture/turn
3360 - 64 culture, found Hinduism, 9 culture/turn from now on
3200 - 100 culture, claim 16 tiles, 9 culture/turn, score 9 tiles claimed in 4000
3120 - 118 culture, 9 culture/turn, score 12 tiles claimed in 3880 (I guess the game counts them as acquired at the end of 3920?)
2400 - 280 culture, 9 culture/turn, score 16 tiles claimed in 3200 (hmm, an inconsistency)

So I'm guessing Vox actually popped borders in 3160, as a result of a turn of anarchy between 3360 and 3200.

[Lacero]

Hoping Snoopy will notice this and tell us whether we can use 61/120 or not. If he doesn't turn up I think we shouldn't.

[binTravkin]

Hoping Snoopy will notice this and tell us whether we can use 61/120 or not. If he doesn't turn up I think we shouldn't.

Yes, we should definitely ask him about this, if he doesn't notice this in 24h, I'll ask (I forget, feel free to remind ).

So, the end result is the same, except with 2 slaves, we get the forge 4 turns earlier and the slavery-unhappiness will end 4 turns earlier. The only downside of 2-slave whipping is we might have a few research points less, but I don't think it'll make more than 1 research-turn difference.

Im in favour of early whipping because of the following reasons:
- we will be able to compensate the lost research points by making an engineer specialist earlier (I guess ).
- this early we need production more than the research

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Lacero
Hoping Snoopy will notice this and tell us whether we can use 61/120 or not. If he doesn't turn up I think we shouldn't.

I think the whipping issue is well known and not a major exploit, therefore there's nothing wrong with using it. Every team has the opportunity to do so, and it doesn't make a huge difference in the game regardless.

[-SafaN-]

everything thats not explicit forbidden, is allowed

[PJayTycy]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Besides, they founded Hinduism. Doesn't that explain their culture score?

Here's the timeline:
3360 - 64 culture, found Hinduism, 9 culture/turn from now on

Ah, I forgot about the religiuous culture benefits :
+4 culture in holy city
+1 culture in every city with state religion


We also forgot the +2 culture every city gets when you found it. That's why they got to 10 culture in 2 turns with +4/turn. There are no inconsistencies and no turns of anarchy that way:

4000 - found capital, 2 culture, claim 9 tiles, receive 4 culture/turn
3920 - 10 culture, claim 12 tiles, 4 culture/turn
3360 - 66 culture, found Hinduism, 9 culture/turn from now on
3200 - 102 culture, claim 16 tiles, 9 culture/turn, score 9 tiles claimed in 4000
3120 - 120 culture, 9 culture/turn, score 12 tiles claimed in 3920
2400 - 282 culture, 9 culture/turn, score 16 tiles claimed in 3200

So, I'll predict the score increases for the other teams due to land increment for the coming turns:

2240 BC
Bananas : 21 => 37 tiles (+30 points)
Mercs : 17 => x tiles (+ ? points)
Sarantium : 18 => 54 - x tiles (+ ? points) (due to buddhism-holy city, they are not creative)
2160 BC
Horde : 20 => 36 tiles (+30 points)

Gathering Storm and Team AC will stay with 2 expansions for a while. We are not creative and didn't found a religion, so we're stuck with +2 culture/turn. This will make a big difference in score, although I don't think this means we are weaker.

[binTravkin]

This will make a big difference in score, although I don't think this means we are weaker.

This is actually very, good.
If any of the other teams dont have such a smart person like Pjay or don't bother doing such statistics, they'll be quite misinformed.

So we have official approval of the 61h exploit and our turnplayer should see if it can be done without losing growth or something else very beneficial.

About builds - what do we do after forge?
Currently we're researching Iron working (can anyone update on how much is left), and we won't be able yet to build library when forge is done (if we finish it so soon), so it could be useful to consider another settler instead of instantly committing to colossus (Pjay, do you have any info of someone having/not having Metal Casting yet?).

[Lacero]

I think we will finish the colossus before anyone else has metal casting. We're the most likely to go for it so we get machinery for cho ko nu, anyyone else rushing a large tech will be going for osmehting else. code of laws or theology or something.

And the odds of it popping in TWO huts in the same game are way too small to pay attention to :

[binTravkin]

I think we will finish the colossus before anyone else has metal casting.

My thought was:
- we don't really have use of colossus yet, having one more city we might have
- we have the time to delay it a bit without losing anything

AND - completing Colossus before we can use it actually hurts us because:
- others know for sure we have metal casting
- a few turns of production are lost because we could've completed something else, more useful during that time