Author Archives: jhh

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T14-T16

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It’s time for my 17th turn of LT30.

These last two turns have been interesting. I can now see for the first time if my plan to go for Pottery was good or bad. As you can see much has happened — three of my cities grew to size 2 almost at the same time with Granaries built at the same turn. It did cost me 16 gold (Liverpool) but I think it was worth it.

Research

I had to change tax from 40% to 60% on turn T16 because my gold income dropped to -2/turn. That’s going to be just temporary fix. I intent to continue with max science ASAP.

I have 40 out of 56 bulbs ready and I could finish any 56 bulb tech easily in few turns.

Westminster

Westminster did grow to size 2 on turn T15. Granary was built on the same turn and because of that it now has 17 food in granary. In 2 turns I’ll have my first settler and I’m soon building my fifth city. Westminster has 12 shield production because of mined coal and that buffalo tile — and because it is my capital.

London

London is also size 2 now since T16 and can grow very fast because it has two irrigated wheat tiles. It would take only four turns to grow to size 3. However I’m building migrants for Birmingham now.

Birmingham

Birmingham is still building warriors and workers for me. I moved the citizen to work on that Forest (Silk) after I took the screenshot because that gives me one bulb more — in expense of one less produced shields. In three or four turns I’ll have first migrants here.

Liverpool

Liverpool also grew to size 2 on T16 and is now building Settlers — it’s going to take 8 turns to finish.

Demographics

This looks much better now.

Top Cities

As we can see first three size cities are here now — on turn T16.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T11-T13

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It’s time for my 14th turn of LT30.

Sadly — once more — I skipped writing journal for some turns.

Exploration

My Explorers are now scouting nearby borderlands. I stopped explorations until I’ll get ships.

Research

It’s 7 turns now until I’ll get Alphabet. Unless I’ll change it… For the moment I’m planning for Writing.

Westminster

Westminster will grow to size 2 next turn. Granary will be build on the same turn. However it should get benefit still — unless it’s different in LT30.

London

London will grow to size 2 in 4 turns and Granary is built in 2 turns.

Birmingham

Birmingham is still building Warriors. Soon I’ll start building Workers, too.

Liverpool

Liverpool has a small problem. It is growing to size 2 in three turns now but Granary is still missing. I changed citizens out of the peasant tile to slow down growing but it didn’t help much. In 2 turns it will still costs me 20 gold and that’s too much. I’ll have to change it to taxmen then until I’ll have enough gold.

Demographics

My stats don’t look good now. That’s probably because I’m one of the last players without 2 sized city. However I’m pretty sure I’m still going to get my cities to grow faster because of Granary…

Map

Here is my full map:

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T9-T10

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It’s time for my 11th turn of LT30 — I skipped my journal for 10th turn.

Exploration

Saw explorer from Hackers ruled by Maho.

I have finished exploring all my nearby lands — that I feel necessary — and I’m moving my explorers back home, where they are going to act as scouts.

I saw some rogue warriors out of their nation borders. Keep beware of them!

Research

I’m researching Alphabet and with the current progress speed it’s ready in 10 turns. However I might rush science again soon.

Westminster

This turn I finished building mine on that hill with coal near Westminster. It takes another 4 turns until Westminster grows to size 2 and can then use that mine. Granary will be built on the same turn — with shields not gold.

London

Now London has 7 turns until growing to size 2 and Granary is finished also on the same turn. Next turn my worker has finished building irrigation on the buffalo, too.

Birmingham

Here’s my factory city. For the moment I am maximizing the shield production with iron mountains. I’m not planning to get this city to grow traditionally — I’m going to use migrants for that.

Liverpool

Liverpool will grow to size 2 in 4 turns and Granary should be bought on the same turn — it’s going to cost me about 28 gold unless I change something.

Defence

Everything OK for the moment. I’m building warriors from Birmingham non-stop until I have 3 in each city.

Demographics

It looks like a lot of players have already grown to size 2. That was as I expected. I planned for faster grow span than to be the first to grow. Not sure if that’s going to be better but we will soon see that.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T7-T8

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It’s time for my 9th turn of LT30.

Yesterday I couldn’t get time to write a journal about my 8th turn. However I managed to do my turn hastily. Not much happened yesterday anyway.

Exploration

Today I made contact to Basques ruled by Topyli. He’s also one of the guys from our local finnish game community. I also made contact to Normans ruled by Djoules.

Research

Currently I’m researching Alphabet and done 8 of 56 bulbs. If I’m going to keep this pace I have researched it in 12 turns.

There is no penalty for changing tech targets in LT30. Two days ago I thought that there was because initial settings for the server were wrongly written and some settings were not activated. For my initial test games I had noticed that and fixed the settings for myself. Nobody fixed it for LT30…

Westminster

Westminster is now building Granary and it will be finished at the same turn as the city grows to size 2 in 6 turns. By then I’ll have a mine built on that Coal tile, too.

Birmingham

Birmingham is my designed production city. I’m not optimizing it to any work but producing shields and units for the nation. Currently it’s building Warriors. Once I get my first migrants they will most likely come here.

Defence

My defence plans are well on the way. I have warriors now on all parts of my nation inside cities.

Demographics Repors

Once again I’m not sure if my ranking in production is good or am I just one of the last sharing the same ranking.

Top five cities

First three cities to reach size 2 on turn T7 were Pirate City of Port Royal, Texan City of San Antionio and Venezuelan City of Caracas. Now on turn T8 there’s at least five cities of size 2. I could have reached size 2 the same speed but I counted that it’s better to get Pottery first. We’ll see if I was right…

 

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T6

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It’s time for my 7th turn of LT30.

Exploration

I know other nations in all my directions now. Soon I have explored all my borderlands and I can start preparing and planning my next cities. I don’t see much reason to explorer too far away since LT30 has no huts and I’ll most likely just loose my explorers somewhere far far away. They are much better scouts anyway.

Research

I learned Pottery today. My scientists are now focusing on Alphabet and goal was to get Writing for diplomats.

In LT30 you need diplomats to establish embassy with other players. This enables sharing tech, gold, map and other diplomatic operations with other players.

It’s actually hard to decide if I should research Horseback Riding or Bronze Working instead of Alphabet. Most players are probably researching for horsemen. I’ll need to do that choice this turn, since in LT30 changing tech has a penalty and you could loose bulbs (or is there penalty?).

[Update: There is no penalty for changing tech targets in LT30. Two days ago I thought that there was because initial settings for the server were wrongly written and some settings were not activated. For my initial test games I had noticed that and fixed the settings for myself. Nobody fixed it for LT30…)]

I’m not yet sure in details how research costs are counted in LT30. I know it depends on how many others have the tech. Because of that it might not make sense to research tech that a lot of people are researching because you could get it much cheaper after they have it — or you could trade it with them after Writing.

[Update: Freeciv games can use different ruleset settings. One of the settings that controls tech in LT30 is tech_leakage and it is set to 1 which means “Technology cost is reduced depending on the number of players which already know the tech and you have an embassy with.”]

Just 4 hours until turn change. I’ll need to think fast.

Cities

This turn I didn’t have much time to put in it and times like these it’s good to have easily available plans, so turns take less time to do.

I use Google Docs in helping me to plan and prepare my turns. It’s a great tool. I can use it as well from my media TV as from my desktop. It’s almost always in hand.

Defence

I am moving my Warriors to strategic points on my borders while building more Warriors. For this I have two cities with high production. Actually I planned to have only one in active use but for the moment I’m using two.

As you might have noticed, details of my defence are somewhat blurry and come with a delay. I cannot tell everything here for obvious reasons.

Because Warriors are cheap and take only 10 shields to build, they are quite useful in the beginning to establish basic defence in your cities.

In Despotism you can build three warriors or workers in all of your cities without shield upkeeps.

Demographic Report

It sure looks like there starts to be variations between players now.

I hope I’m in full speed tomorrow and I can continue my plan to write once a day a journal and an another specific article to something else.

I am also planning to start writing the actual book weekly based on previewed blog posts from the site — I’ll be at GitHub pages as a draft then.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T5

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It’s time for the 5th 6th turn of LT30.

Because of work-related problems I can’t put much effort to do my turn today.

Exploration

Today I found some Vietnamese borderlands and the other side of the ocean.

Research

Only one turn until Pottery — which makes Granary and Workers available.

As I did notice yesterday, I really wouldn’t had to rush that much to research it — I have no need for it just yet.

Though it gave me some additional time to rush to build some Warriors to secure my borderlands and maybe one or two workers more, too.

Westminster

This turn I finished irrigation on nearby Buffalo tile and now Westminster gives total of 5 shields/turn — including 75% bonus from capital.

I moved my Worker to build Mine on a nearby Hills (Goal) tile. When it’s ready in 5 turns I’ll get total of 4 shields out of it. After Westminster grows to size 2 in at most nine turns I’ll get total of 12 shields out of Westminster.

Defence

I bought some Warriors this turn. It only cost me 11 gold.

Demographics Report

It looks like my stats might not be too bad yet. However as I’ve told before these numbers don’t tell the clear truth and are some times much harder to read.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T4

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It’s time for the 5th turn of LT30.

As I’ve updated yesterday’s journal later that day, I made my first contacts to neighbours. I’ve saw Aleut, Grenadian and Finland. I’m sure I’ll see many more upcoming turns. (Two of them are players I’ve played with at freeciv.fi.)

I already talked with some of them about collaborations and possible tech trading in the future. It’s good to start building trust with your co-players as soon as possible. In the end it’s all about trust in these multiuser games with human players.

I’ll soon have to start planning how to design my borders. That’s going to be harder because of the extended movement amounts in Longturn.org. I’ll have to design again how to secure my borders well enough.

It’s only one turn two turns until I’ll have Pottery and I can start building Granaries and Workers. Because I only need 8 bulbs more to get full 56 bulbs for Pottery I can reduce scientists in two or four of my cities — and still get it in 2 turns.

It’s time to check my cities again. It’s easy to forget something without regular checking.

While playing test games for LT30 I decided to build my cities as fast as I can on at least 2 food squares that give equal balance of shields and trade.

I’m not sure now if that was the best option. I had plenty of tiles I could have got 3 food out with the same amount of shields like Plains (Wheat). Those would have been much better as city centers.

Westminster

Westminster — my first city — I built on Plains/River (2-1-2) and there’s one Plains/River (Buffalo) (1-2-1) near where I am building irrigation now — when finished it’s 2-2-1.

In Despotism government I cannot get 3 food from any of these tiles here so there’s no instant need to irrigate any of those 2 food tiles. That’s why I am directing my worker’s resource to irrigate the Buffalo instead.

I’ve got 4 shields in stock out of 40 shields for Granary now. I’m getting 3 shields/turn more but once I change to Buffalo next turn, it’s 5 shields/turn with +75% bonus because it’s my capital. I’ll have Granary built on T11-T12 — in seven or eight turns — early before my city grows to 2.

It takes 10 turns to grow to size 2 and after that only about 5 turns between growing because with Granary I only need 10 food to grow from 1 to 2 again after building Settlers.

London, Birmingham and Liverpool

Rest of my cities are pretty much the same. Built near 2 food squares with some special resources and growing to size 2 some time next 10-12 turns. I’ll maybe writing detailed introductions to them sometime near future.

Research

I ended science rush this turn. I’ve got 48 bulbs of 56 required for Pottery and it’s going to take two turns to finish now. I should’ve stopped it sooner since I don’t actually need Pottery before T11-T12.

Defence Preparations

I’m building Warriors from some of my cities now because I have some borderlands I’m not satisfied yet. However don’t worry I’m really not going to be offensive — unless provoked — and I’ll be writing about that in more detail soon both here and in our private conversations.

Warriors or Workers are also useful because their vision makes citizens in cities able to use more tiles near the city borders.

I truly believe in a game style that makes co-existance possible and thrives the success for all nations — a win-win style for all the parties. I know that’s not how things have been usually at Longturn.org and it’s going to make this game really interesting. I don’t think warfare is always useless but I believe most times co-working is much more productive.

Wolfram Alpha is a really great tool for example if you need to count how much a unit costs the next turn — after you have only 5 shields left — to build Warrior of 10 shields.

You can check the formula from Freeciv Math page and use it almost as it’s there. Just write “T=5, X = ceil(2T + (T^2)/20)” in WolframAlpha — cost is about 12 gold.

However please notice that changing a building to a unit is going to reduce the shield stock by half.

Creating shortcuts for Freeciv servers

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Here’s how you can setup a shortcut directly to Freeciv server.

I’m currently playing three different Freeciv worlds and one of them with two different accounts (until one player comes back from a holiday trip). I thought this might be worth mentioning.

Windows 7

Select Start menu, find Freeciv, and select from the right button drop down menu Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut).

Now your desktop should have an icon named Freeciv. Rename it to “Freeciv LT30” if you’re playing LT30. Select again the right dropdown menu and open Properties. From there add to end of the Target option following text: “ -a -n username -p 5030 -s lt30.longturn.org“. Of course you should change username to match your username. Properties dialog should look like in the example image.

Now you should have a shortcut named Freeciv LT30 on your desktop which you can click to instantly connect to LT30 server. No need to remember server settings.

Linux

Linux systems use different types of shortcut systems. Basically you just need to copy your current shortcut and change it to use arguments “ -a -n username -p 5030 -s lt30.longturn.org” just like in Windows 7.

Mastering communications

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Freeciv has an integrated chatline with some useful features to help communicate with your co-players. I’ll try to reveal here some of the key points to help to communicate with players.

Contacting through Longturn website

When playing Longturn.org’s games, sometimes the best way to contact is using Longturn’s website. You can send messages to users from their profile page. For example when a player is idling they might still read their emails. However, some players don’t provide their email addresses.

Private messages

You can send private messages to players by their player name from the Chat dialog.

For example, write “Jhh: Hello” to send a private message to me.

However if you intent that message to be public to everyone try for example to write “jhh, Hello“.

Messages to allies

The easiest way to write messages to allies is to check in the box in the GTK client for it (right bottom corner). However you can also write messages with a leading dot. For example, “. Hello allies!“.

Referencing to City or Map location

The most useful feature of the integrated chat might be the ability to reference locations and cities from the map.

If you go to the map and move your mouse over a specific tile, and then hit ctrl, alt and right mouse button, there will be a special reference tag in your chat input ready to be used in your conversations. (Sometimes you might need to start writing a message before it goes there.)

After you write a message with that tag there will be a link on the chat message and other users can easily find about where you linked by clicking it. Also, the map shows a special square over that tile.

You can clear links in the GTK client by using Clear link -button (right-bottom corner of chat dialog). Clicking those links again will mark them on the map again.

Referencing to units

You can link to units almost the same way by shortcut Shift-Control-Alt-MouseRightClick on a unit on the map.

More

See more from Freeciv’s Help -> Chatline.

Update:

You can change options from client so that chat messages are written also to Messages tab from (GTK client) Game -> Options -> Message and enable check box for Mes column for Chat messages. Remember to hit Game -> Options -> Save options now after you change settings.