Apolyton Demogame: The Pink Dot

Upon logging into the game for the first time, we found this starting position:

On a river was nice, but two peak tiles, lots of plains, and no visible food resources were not. The scout began southeast of the settler, and after discussion we moved it NW-SW to the tile in the picture seen above. Not seeing anything of particular value, we decided to move the settler one tile to the north, to get some more grassland tiles into play and remove those icky plains tiles. (It was possible to see some more grassland forests and hills via tile bleeding through the fog.) That revealed a noticeably better spot where we planted our first city:

The different graphics are caused by different players on our team logging into the game and taking screenshots - expect to see a lot of that! The resources at the start were a grassland cattle and a not-so-useful plains wine. Although this isn't a terrible start, it's not the strongest either. The real problem was a lack of food; +4 food/turn from the cattle was all we had, and that made for slow growth. Nor would the wines be of any use until some 100 turns into the game. Now that wouldn't be grounds for compaint if everyone else were in the same boat - but other teams had multiple food bonuses at their capital, and much stronger happiness resources. At least we had the river for bonus commerce, and tons of forests to chop. Love having those grassland forests!

We renamed our capital "Airstrip One", going with a silly 1984 theme at the outset for fun. Our scout headed west initially, then began a large clockwise circle around the starting position. Research went into Animal Husbandry, the logical first tech for a civ that started with Hunting and had cows at the start. (It would also give us early visibility on horse resources, an important deal in a Multiplayer game.)

The big discussion in these first turns was whether to start with a worker out of the gate, or play it safer and go with a warrior. We decided pretty quickly to go with the worker though, as the better long-term investment, even if it meant running a bit of risk at the outset. As Swiss put it:

For me, Worker first seems better. The empty city cannot be seen from any of the tiles on the diagonal, so even if we face a scouting warrior it'd be a very risky call to DoW [declaration of war] us. The price of someone calling our bluff is, of course, death!

Early turns in these kind of games mostly consist of moving the scouting unit, then waiting 24 to 48 hours for everyone else to play. Then do the same thing again. So we did that for quite some time, sooooo serving as our initial Turnplayer and doing an excellent job of taking screenshots each turn as the land was revealed. Our first goody hut unfortunately popped a map, but at least it gave us a good idea of our immediate starting area:

An immediate starting area that wasn't particularly good! Yes, we had a lot of forests to chop, but aside from that... Not too much good news here. Lots of plains tiles to the east and the south. Wines and silks for happiness resources, two of the weakest ones in the game. Tundra and ice to the north and northwest. While we did have stone, it was stuck in undesirable tundra. Similarly, the double clams were locked in the ice. These places would be worth grabbing eventually, but in the immediately future - ugh. There was room for one good city to the immediate west of Airstrip One, at the clams/cows/floodplains location. Only problem: where did we go after that?

We were hoping pretty feverently that better stuff would turn up to the south!

While waiting during these boring turns, mostly_harmless began tracking some of the Demographics numbers. Started in a dull period to pass the time, mh's "Cloak and Dagger" (C&D) department would become one of the hallmarks of Realms Beyond's success in the Demogame. Here's an example of some of the information that could be pulled out of the raw Demographics numbers:

Thus on this single turn, mostly_harmless was able to determine that PAL had floodplains at the start (which was indeed correct!) and the fact that Templars had completed a second quechua to go along with their initial one. No one would ever want to do this level of analysis in a normal game of Civ4, since it takes forever, but if the game is already moving at a glacial pace, and it can offer an advantage, why not? Over time, the C&D department would grow into a dizzying array of charts, tables, and graphs that tracked the progress of our rivals, turn by turn, for centuries on end to come. I have seen this done by other teams in Demogames before, but never to the extent that we took it here. mh's C&D numbers were critical to our team's performance!

Airstrip One finished its worker on T16 and began training some warriors while growing to a larger size. Animal Husbandry failed to reveal any horses, which was a major disappointment considering that we had already scouting out most of the territory around our capital. We went onto Bronze Working next, as the logical choice to begin chopping forests and reveal the all-important copper resources. (It was pretty cool that Zara started with both Hunting and Mining techs, allowing us to go immediately onto AH and BW research!)

Turn 17 saw the first major doings of the game. First our scout popped a goody hut, which turned out to contain another scout inside! And using the second scout, we found another civilization, the Templars. Here is a picture from the following turn, as our new scout encountered the Templar borders for the first time:

This was the start of a very long, up-and-down relationship with the Templars. Their Incan civ was quite close to us, which is perhaps not what one would want when dealing with quechuas! Nevertheless, based on their non-aggressive team members and Huayna's starting traits of Financial/Industrious, we had the Templars pegged as a team more interested in roleplaying and grabbing religions than in playing a "kill and attack" type game. This belief, backed up by C&D statistics, would influence much of what we did in the early game. (For example, we knew that Templars had researched a religion out of the gate and founded Buddhism in their capital on T11.) Our first contact with the Templars went off friendly enough:

So far, so good in terms of initial contact. Back home, our worker finishes the pasture on the cattle and prepared to start mining one of our hill tiles. Our two scouts (nicknamed Sharon and Tracy, in an "Essex Girls" reference that I think only our British team members understood) pushed back the fog around the Templar capital and in the deep south. By T20, we had revealed a lot of the terrain down there, leading to this screenshot:

That was when I first posted an ambitious plan which would determine so much of the future of this Demogame:

Looking at the map, I like the possibility of sending a settler (maybe even the first one!) to the plains hill one tile south of the rice. That would make a dynamite city location: cattle, rice, dyes (remember, we're Creative with cheap theatres!), at least four hill tiles, tons of forests for chopping, and in a fertile river valley. In fact, that spot is so good it could be the deleted Babylonian starting spot. (Maybe; hard to say what the map creator did.) With our Creative early cultural strength, that location would also largely block off Templar expansion to the west. We know there is an as-yet undiscovered ocean to the south. If we could get them to push east, and clean up much of the western side of our continent... The big question would be could we defend the spot? With PAL or Imperio next door, I would say no. With the Templars next door, I say yes. So what do you think about a possible Santa Rosa manuever?

For the moment, this was little more than a pipe dream. But it had taken hold of my imagination, and we would soon return to this idea again.

Meanwhile, the Templars were sending us some interesting information:

Another civ to the east was very good to know. We determined that the third team on our continent was therefore this mystery "yellow civ", which could be either PAL or Rabbits. (I know I was hoping that it was the Rabbits!) As far as strategy goes, it was hard to imagine why the Templars would back off and deliberately not contact this team. Contact with other teams offers a huge edge: discounted costs on techs they already know, trade routes, tech trading, possibility for diplomacy, alliances, and tech sharing, etc. Templars' decision to skip out on this for a while was pure stupidity. I have no idea what they were thinking here... and they were not lying to us either, as we found out shortly thereafter. This was an early example of Templar weedy moves. It would be far from the last.

Our scout Tracy was able to get into position to view the Templar capital of Jerusalem just before it expanded its borders from the early religion:

This was important for C&D purposes, allowing us to see what city improvements Jerusalem built (remember you can view them all on the map screen itself if you zoom in close enough) and get a general sense of their civ's development. From tile bleeding, we could see that they had a grassland cows, a sugar resource, three peak tiles (ouch!), a lot of jungle, and then some coastal tiles. Unless there was a seafood resource in the ocean (and there wasn't), this was a pretty weak capital city.

To make matters worse, the Templars had not invested in a growth-oriented starting strategy, as we had. While Realms Beyond began with a worker, to make the most of our single food resource, the Templars began by building THREE quechuas, which finished on T8, T17, and T24. During this span, they researched Polytheism, Masonry, and then Monotheism to found two religions in their capital. Thus at the end of the first 30 turns, they had no workers, no settlers, no Bronze Working, and no Animal Husbandry. I have absolutely no idea what in the world they were thinking. You can fool around with religions in Single Player, but going for more than one in a Multiplayer game at the start is pure suicide. The bizarre opening moves from the Templars put them behind from the very outset, forcing them to react to our moves and not vice versa. Our one fear was that they were planning to rush us with their quechuas. But as sooooo put it:

mostly harmless agreed with this assessment, using his awesome C&D powers:

Indeed, if the Templars were planning a rush, it was a spectacularly ineffective one. How could a team open with a beeline for two religions if they were planning to attack?! Anyway, perhaps when the team forums are opened up we'll be able to figure out what they were planning. (It appears as though there may have been some internal team fighting going on.) Whatever was the case, the Templars were off to a very slow start, and that meant advantage: Realms Beyond!

When Bronze Working research finished, we eagerly scanned to map to find our source of copper. Only... there was none to be found anywhere in sight. Seriously, no horses and no copper?!? And bear in mind, we had three scouts out on the map (having popped a third, Doreen, from another hut) and we already had visibility on pretty much the whole western half of our starting continent. The Templars, on the other hand, had both copper and horses slightly to the northeast of their capital, just lovely... While this was depressing news, we knew that we would be guaranteed iron somewhere near the start, because no mapmaker would possibly deprive a team of horses, copper, and iron in a team Multiplayer game. Right? Right?

Meanwhile, our scout Tracy found not one, but two different civs in the east. And surprise, surprise, the "yellow civ" was located across a narrow expanse of water on the eastern continent!

The blue civ was Imperio, and the yellow civ was PAL. Thus we found that we were sharing our starting continent with Templars and Imperio, leaving PAL, Rabbits, and Banana as the three on the eastern continent. We initiated diplomacy with both teams, finding Imperio to be mostly nonresponsive (although they were actually a team of Spanish speakers, which made things difficult). We hit things off a lot better with PAL, and began tentatively making plans for some tech exchanges in the future. However, with Alphabet still many turns away, for the moment our attention was on the dealings in the south, with our Templar neighbors.

As our capital of Airstrip One approached size 3 and got ready to start a settler, I made the case for us planting our first city down in the south, in a bold landgrab:

I will continue to make the case for the southern spot, as seen in this [above] picture. Yes, using a Sirian-esque Pink Dot for good luck. It's the best location I see anywhere within reasonable distance. Two food resources, lots of hills for production, on a plains hill for defense, and mostly seals off the southern area for our later settlement. (I sketched in the level 3 borders in yellow to demonstrate.) The white dots are some doodles that could possibly become cities much later on, if the Templars decide not to contest our control of this region. It's a bold move, but where else are we going to go? Much of our surroundings are desert and plains tiles. If we just retreat back into our starting penninsula, we're giving up on the game before it even begins. I would move our two current warriors down into this southern region, and use the one in production, our third, to guard the capital. We can discuss what to build in the second city when/if we found it, but should we get the pink spot, I would consider opening with worker -> barracks -> military pump, focusing on commerce at the capital and shields at the second city. That usually seems to be a good combo in Civ4... * * * * * * * * * * * Here's the most important thing to keep in mind: we know that we have few (one!) military units. The Templars don't know this. We know pretty much everything about them. They know little to nothing about us. For all they know, we have archers and warriors all over the place. Unless they have their own Ministry of Truth, I highly doubt they have any idea what military force we have. This allows us to run a calculated bluff, and go swipe their best territory away from them while they fiddle around with silly wonders. You don't win games by playing not to lose. The point of taking a Creative civ was to use our early border-popping to maximum advantage. We MUST get down there and lay claim to that fine southern region. Fortune favors the bold.

That was my plan of action, and I was successful in taking the rest of the team along with me on this mad venture. Remember, no horses, no copper, moving to settle right into the teeth of a civ that would soon have BOTH early game resources, plus a unique unit that countered archers, the best unit we could build! Pure insanity. And yet what else could we do? As I said at the time, waiting and sitting around on our starting peninsula would only ensure a position of irrelevancy in this game. We absolutely had to get to that land down in the south, and with the Templars busy falling on their own swords with pointless religious stuff, we actually had the ability to do it. Remember, possession is 90% of the law in this game!

The build order in Airstrip One was therefore three warriors after the starting worker, while growing to size 3, then on to a settler while working the cows, a grassland hill mine, and a plains hill mine. We sent two warriors south to guard the settler on its daring journey to the south, keeping the third one back to protect the capital. First, we defogged the tiles on the approach route to prevent any barbs from spawning:

(No, there are no copper or horse resources anywhere in that screenshot!) Using our warriors for cover, we danced around the Templar quechua in the area, taking care always to have the settler in a position where it couldn't be attacked. But look at the crazy road work that we would need to carry out just to connect this city to our empire!

This is one of Ruff's pictures, with Templar quechuas circled in red and the future road to Pink Dot marked with green dots. EIGHT road tiles needed, my goodness! To help in this endeavor, we had gone immediately on to a second worker after the settler in Airstrip One, assisted by a forest chop. The Templars were surely not pleased by our actions, but we did successfully grab Pink Dot, founding the city on T44. What a beautiful location!

Of course, now we had to defend our land grab against an irritated Templar team, which had the potential to take the city with ease if they got aggressive with settling their copper and horses. It was time for the diplomacy side of the game to kick into high gear. The Templars came out firing away at us:

Oh yeah, that got their attention all right! Now we had to spin things enough to make sure that the Templars didn't come after us. In poker terms, we were running a huge bluff, and had to ensure that they didn't call us on it! We started spinning for all our worth, talking things out as a team, and eventually came up with this response:

This message was rather disingenous on our part (although that's all part of the game, right?) We didn't intend Pink Dot to serve as forward base for an early rush, but it was definitely an aggressive move nonetheless. Similarly the talk about grabbing a location that didn't have resources was pure BS; we wanted that location regardless, and it simply happened not to have metals or horses there. And the talk about "are we meant to be there vassal?" was a complete fabrication on our part, with no such feelings whatsoever. (I told Ruff to leave in the unintentional misspelling of "their/there", which I found hilarious!)

So how did we do with our attempt at a bluff?

Success! The key line was in the third paragraph: "Despite your explanation, we still think that your plan to build your new city far to the south challenges us in a way we had not expected from your team. We will, however, not respond to it militarily." Score! We pushed our chips to the center with a 9/3 offsuit and got the Templars to fold with their pair of jacks. Just the way we planned it. We knew exactly what they were doing thanks to great scouting and C&D stat-crunching, then used it to bluff to our advantage. As I said at the time, "Possession is 90% of the law. Whether they like it or not, the Templars are just going to have to deal with our presence in the south."

(Seriously, check out how ambitious Pink Dot truly was! "Bold" barely even begins to describe it.) Our initial plan had therefore gone off successfully, but the game was just getting started. We would soon find out that the Templars were the least of our worries in this Demogame...