View Full Version : PP vs RIK - Civ4. *** PP's spoiler ***
And once again the PBEM virus rears its ugly head. Starting a CIV4 pbem against Rik. The CDZ meeting got me excited about Civ again but as I've rarely played Civ4 I'm expecting a severe beating :)
turn 1 - the start
See the turn 2 pic for the start tiles.
Well there we go. Now what race are we? Apparentle we're the ProPains and the Riks....[hmm] they're not in the civilopedia. After checking traits and mousing all leaders in the pedia it appears Rik is Chinese. Thinking to be smart I look at my start techs so I only have to look for civs in the pedia. It seems I;m the Japanese but.....heck....leader traits dont match??? So I look up my leader traits and it seems I'm Chinese as well [confused]. So we're both Chinese but my starter techs dont match: I have fishing and the wheel. Weird, weird, wondering what that means for the techs that Rik got. Well lets just settle a city then.
First tiles look ok, I move the warrior up the hill to see how the south looks. Nothing to gain so I settle on the spot. Ah, it's gonna be called Beijing. At least that means we're Chinese and we get the weird Crossbowman as our unique unit.
Now what to build?
The clam tiles look the best in this setup and I have fishing so workboats seem the way to go. But do I go all out on hammers or go all out on food on the flood plains 1st? After some quick calculations it seems better to go all hammers, sacrifice food and 1 commerce and get that workboat out asap.
What to research?
Hard, on the one hand mining seems important to get those hills mined. Also that's a preq for bronze working which is needed for forest chopping. Otoh there's the mysticism line that leads to buddism and polytheism religions (setting has free religions). We're only two players so even if Rik has myst as a starting tech I should be able to pick up one religion hopefully. Also I;m starting to think we might have started with the same techs because they're modified from the civ started techs which would mean Rik needs myst 1st as well.
I decide to go the myst route and try and snag a religion for extra happiness. On top of that mining will take about 6 turns to research and considering I want the workboat and a population pop before building a worker I wont need it before turn 13 anyway. Maybe even later if I decide to go workboat or warrior after that.
turn 2 - what's the competition doing?
Turn is in and I move my warrior to another hill. How nice! A hut is in sight.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200883195928_080802_rikturn2savages.jpg
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Between turns it occured to me that we both have the same 21 start tiles and that with only 2 players the demographics will tell me exactly which ones Rik is using. Seems he started out on the flood plain. I wonder what he;s building then. I suppose warrior/worker/workboat but I'll know in a few turns cause the changes in the F9 should give me tell tale signs. Also I;m thinking that should he not be building a workboat he probably didnt start with fishing and maybe starting techs are randomised. We'll see. For some strange reason Rik's people are more healthy, he must have a biofood operation going on :)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200883195749_080802_rikf9.jpg
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turn 3
Move warrior, check f9. Nothing special.
turn 4- hut ahoy!
We pop a hut, get maps and see another hut. I just hope that other one contains a warrior. Just noticed we have nasty barb settings so it seems I need to build some proection for Beijing ni the near future :)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200883195824_080802_rikturn4newhut.jpg
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turn 6
Riks decides to shuffle his tiles and picks a 1food+2hammer tile over his previous flood plain. I wonder why he does this.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200883205736_080802_rikturn6f9.jpg
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turn 7
Things get even more strange. Now he's using what must be 2 food/0 hammers/0 commerce tile. I dont get this for 2 reasons:
1) why use that tile if you also have a flood plain which gives +3food/+1 commerce?
2) I dont have a regular green tile in my 21 tiles, So apparently our tiles arent equal and my river runs different.
Only explanation I have is that Rik has barb trouble or misclicked. I wonder if barb trouble is even possible this early in the game....
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/2008832115_080803_rikturn7f9.jpg
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you can't get barb trouble this early without some form of mod :)
turn 8
His commerce is now 20 instead of 18. I suspect the border popping (which gave my science a 2 point boost....) interfered with the f9. This means RIk changed over to a coastal tile which gives 2 food/2 coins, which makes much more sense.
So this tells me he's prioritising science. Wonder what path he's following, somehow I fear he's making a beeline for bronze working so he can send a SOD of axemen my way....
Well know pretty quickly: if he snags up a religion in a few turn I'llknow more.
Wow, that's a pretty extensive spoiler here, ProPain! [goodjob]
If you're worried for a SoD of axemen: watch the number of soldier and build a bunch of chariots. ;)
thanks Matrix! I'll try to keep it up this way. With only 1 game going and the relatively quiet holiday time that should be possible :)
We played some more turns yesterday but they went by very quickly so I couldn't write up the spoiler that quick. I can say thay I'm not worried about a stack of axemen in the short run as Rik has chosen a different tech path and is emphasising commmerce & food tiles and has been producing about 1 hammer a turn only if I read the F9 right :)
I;ve planned to upate the spoiler today.
turn 9
Rik gets a pop increase and his military also goes up. He cant have build anything on 9 hammers so this could mean a warrior/scout from a hut. He's working 2 coastal tiles now
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/20088420215_080803_rikturn9f9.jpg
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I pop my hut and !!!!
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200884202124_080803_rikturn9hut.jpg
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turn 10
Rik switches to 2 flood plains. He does love to micromanage :D
turn 11
My work boat is done and starts to work on the clams. Now the important decision what to build next. From a builder p.o.v. it would be best to start on the 2nd work boat but that would leave me an easy target for barbs and Rik's troops. Especially if he popped a unit from a hut there's a good chance he'll find me soon on this little map. Also barbs are set on relentless or something: that doesnt sound very friendly as well. So I decide to build a warrior first. It will take me 7 turns to finish so that's the delay I'll get on the 2nd work boat for going down the safe route.
turn 13
Rik's score jumps. Maybe he's got a tech?
turn 14
Islam is founded. Shouldnt that have happened a turn ago... Maybe I just didnt notice before. Wonder if he went poly or medi. He focused on science quite a bit so maybe poly was possible in this time frame as well. Another jump in military for Rik to 8K. My Excel sheet tells me he has 15 hammers now so that's a warrior built for Rik
turn 15
Meditation done, no religion for me. So Rik went down the meditation route as well and I gambled and lost. After some thinking I decide to have a shot at poly anyway. Prolly Rik will start on a tech that will help build farms/pastures/mines instead of getting a 2nd religion. Otoh he could just do it to deny me one. As I dont need mining anytime soon because I wont be building a worker quickly Poly seems worth another gamble
turn 18
Finish warrior, start work boat. Another hut in sight.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/200884202155_080803_rikturn18hut.jpg
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turn 20
I pop my hut and get money [assw]
turn 21
In one the mails Rik claims his scout was killed by a barb and that his build hasnt finished so he's now just pressing the enter button. Seems weird to me cause his military is on par with mine which means he should have 2 warriors. I'm still a bit confused how his socre went from 5K-6K and is now 8K which is equal to my 2warriors but my score wnet 5k-8K when the warrior was built iirc. Maybe he popped a scout at the 5k-6k which got killed and then the warrior got him to 8K? Have to ask him when the game is over. Still I dont think he isnt scouting cause 2 warriors in your cap seems a bit too much atm.
We both get score jumps for the next culture level. [cheerl]
turn 22
Good news, I;m the 1st to poly!! I found confucianism. Next tech will be animal husbandry, my next best tile after the clams is the sheep one but it needs a pasture. After that I'll go mining. How the commerce translates to the F9 GNP remains a mystery to me, I jumped in commerce but why? After some investigating I see my palace gets me commerce as well. First time I notice this so now I need to figure out how this works.....
turn 25
Rik's land area is expanded and he didnt have a city pop increase which is overdue. First I thought he build a settler but that seemed impossible counting the surplus food/hammers after the last pop increase in my little excel sheet. Then it dawned on me that he got the first religion which means extra culture so his borders must have popped! Still it appears Rik is either building a worker or a settler as he's still at 3 pop.
Lt. Killer M
05-08-2008, 10:30
Great spoiler :)
one hint (which will also go in Rik's spoiler): you can see whether a tech giving a religion has been researched by clicking the tech bar at the top of the screen. This turns it into a selection bar, offering all techs you can research. If the tech has been researched by someone else, the icon looks normal, if it is still unknown and its religion unfounded it has a little icon added. usually, this displays the religion, so it is the religion's icon, but if 'select religion' is on (as it is here) you will see the generic religion icon, two clasped hands or something. You can also mouse over the tech in the tech tree, and the text that appears will either say 'First to discover founds a religion' or not.
As for the map: I wanted to give you guys something to think with the civs, and keep the game within a reasonable balance. Therefore, I tweaked both civs a bit ;)
Thanks for that hint Killer.
turn 26
Pop a hut, barbs. Damn.
turn 27
Warrior gone, battle log tells me at least he beat one warrior.
turn 28
If Rik is building a worker it should be done around now so we should see a tile improvement showing up in de f9 in a few turns and possibly a pop increase if he didnt immediately went worker/settler again.
turn 31
Micromanaged my tiles a bit to get to pop 4 and finish a warrior asap after that. Warrior done now and start 1st worker so I can make pastures. For reasons obscure to me later I select hunting as my next tech to research.
turn 33
Small score jump for Rik, tech done? His military strength is up as well, maybe he finished his worker only now? cant be a settler, cause his f9 stats dont support that. The last remaining barb shows up near my borders, I move my fresh exploring warrior from hills/forest to a forest next to him. The defense factors is worse but still way enough to beat the crap out of that barb, it isnt even at full health!
turn 34
MY WARRIOR IS DEATH!?!?!?! It lost while having 97% win chance. Amazing barb didnt even take a hit!!! After this game I can post a screenie next to Matrix' one in the against the odds thread!
turn 36
Rik's pop increases to 4. That means he must have finished a worker cause his production wasnt high enough to build a settler on such short turns.
turn 37
A change in Rik's demographics that can only be explained by a pasture on sheep. That's the final proof for the worker.
turn 41
My pop raises to 5, I shelve my warrior that has one turn to go and start a settler. My resident settler can escort and the next turn I'll finish this one to leave in the cap.
turn 43
Incredible score jump for Rik 169 to 219. He's converted to Islam but the increase seems a bit steep for just that. My guess is finished a tech as well.
turn 45
I finish bronze working. I have copper in my radius, nice. Rik's pop jumps to 5, so he must have a settler/worker out. My guess is that it is a settler, but I cant really tell cause I dont trust my excel sheet completely :)
I'll have a settler in 3 turns or something so it's time to think about a location.
Your analysing this a lot PP, anyways we can get a picture of how much of the map you got explored? :)
Playing a normal single player game makes it hard for me to analyse. Just too tempted to just press the enter button and advance to the next turn :) So the big advantage of PBEM is that it forces you to take a good look every turn and especially in this 1v1 no ai case the demographics can tell you a lot. And I need that cause I havent played a serious Civ4 game for ages (if ever)
I'll post a picture of the map tomorrow. I need to do a dotmap because I have a settler out so that combines pretty well too.
This (http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4286) will help your analysis:D
Ah! Good stuff. Thanks a lot for that link. Just what I needed, and extremely good insight on the military strength indicator which was the one that puzzled me the most.
I made a large picture of the explored land nut Im hitting the upload cap. Will install an FTP thingie later and upload it anyways.
turn 50
The way things look
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/080806_rikturn50land.jpg
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That's tough. Now you have to defend the land and the sea. Wonder who's gonna gamble expanding first. Thinking about chopping out a settler?
just finished a settler, thinking about settling him northwest of the gold, maybe west of the gold.
I suspect the starting bits are mirrored cause the island west of my capital looks symetrical and Killer said the starting 21 tiles are identical. I thought about building 2 axemen and stick em on a galley but although Rik hasnt been focussing on hammers a lot I feel it's too risky. Otoh I should be prepared for an attack by sea myself. NOw I need to find out if the amphibious attack is available from the start or not in Civ4
Amphib assault is available from scratch IIRC, and why hit gold when there's more food and hammers lurking up the river?
amphib is avaliable from scratch but you have to get a triple promoted unit to get it, strength 1 + 2 then amphib. iirc anyways.
quote:Originally posted by Beorn
Amphib assault is available from scratch IIRC, and why hit gold when there's more food and hammers lurking up the river?
Good question, here;s my reasoning: Because it's 1 vs 1, no AI game, we have to do all our research ourselves. That means gold is important and that gold/silk spot will benefit my income. This will keep my research up and maybe even limit the impact of the increased upkeep from a 3rd city.
The few CIV4 games I played solo I was really focussed on food and hammers in true Civ3 style which resulted in the AI cruising away after the early game because my science slider went down and down. I'm convinced that if that happens against Rik I'm doomed.
So that's why I was thinking about gold first, cows later. My capital is doing quite alright hammer/food-wise so churning out a second settler shouldnt be a big problem anyway.
Would love to hear what you guys think bout this reasoning. :)
Food is power in civ4, the more food you have the higher you can grow your pop, the more pop you have the more gnp/mfg you can generate. If you start slacking cos your cities are too big then you can hire specialists, often early game these are better than cottages anyways as it will take cottages longer to develop.
In any civ4 game vs AI or humans you want to expand and grow as quickly as you can. Once you research BW there isnt a unit that can effectivly destroy your army till xbows which are often lightyears away. Therefore you don't have to worry about falling slightly behind as in the long run your cities will be growing for longer/be bigger.
Lt. Killer M
11-08-2008, 09:56
remember that you can attack from a boat without amphib promotion, just at horrible odds (IIRC).
Pre-amphib combats are fought at -50%, IIRC, so that's what I meant by "from scratch" - the actual promotion is good if you really mean to go that way, otherwise questionable.
it also gives a bonus when attacking across rivers but yeah unless your going to use it to the max other promo's area lot better.
Spoilers 'r us! :) How many tiles between you and our beloved?
9 tiles, so that's 4 turns of movement and amphib assault on 4th or land on 4th and attack on 5th.
By land it looks significantly longer, maybe 12-14? And on foot it'd take the full length in turns. Best case scenario from the screenshot is 11 but I doubt that would happen.
digger760
09-09-2008, 09:46
I miss the regular updates to this thread [cry]
turn 68
We're at turn 68 now. Nothing much happened mostly because of the influx of droves of barbs. I managed to sneak a scout through and make contact with Rik but Rik sent out an axeman and I moved our my scout and ended up next to a barb warrior that was hding in the fog: End of scout. I did get a quick glance at Rik's land, included a screenie.
I cranked out a settler and went for the gold spot mostly because I think techs will be important in this game and we have to research everything by ourselves. I researched upto IW to see where all the interesting resources are and they're most;y closeby. Now I plan to do some research towards techs that will benefit the research rate. Beijing will build/whip a lib, and I'll build a lib in the 2nd city as well. After the lib I'll settle the NE region and we'll see from there.
Stangely Rik hasnt built a 2nd city yet but he isnt expanding his military either. [confused] I've been pulling away in score the last turns as well as in the demographs. I wonder what he's up to. I;m contemplating building a workboat/galley just to pilllage his sea food tiles and generally annoy him.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/080909_rikturn68land.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/080909_rikturn68rikland.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/080909_rikturn68demo.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/ProPain/080909_rikturn68science.jpg
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digger760
09-09-2008, 16:30
good to see its still going.
Perhaps go, priesthood, monarchy oracle Feud then CS?
wouldnt that be priest, CoL (oracle), maths, CS ??
BUt that's something I've been playing around with. TEsted it on the CDZ earth map and that worked really well.
Well turns have past and basically nothing much happened for a while. We fought barbs, researched towards CoL & Maths and started on the oracle
Turn 91- 600 BC
We finish the oracle ( see pics) and go into anarchy to switch to bureaucracy. The F9 is preanarchy. Will post one after later. Basically the research wont go up that much as my capital's cottages are way underdeveloped. It should do wonders for production though
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=124&d=1227569770
Lt. Killer M
25-11-2008, 10:18
hm, and which tech did you pick from the Oracle?
socralynnek
25-11-2008, 10:42
Wow, your GNP is much higher than his. Maybe he overexpanded and has too much cities?
@Killer, I took Civil Service tech from the Oracle. I solely build the oracle to get CS and switch to bureaucracy. Playing on a small map I thought bureaucracy would be more powerfull than on a normal map because you can build less cities.
@Socra, I wonder about that as well. I'll post a few screenies that show a weird spike in my GNP around these turns. Basically I hit the 80+ when finishing the Oracle & picking CS. I went into anarchy after switching to bureauycracy and the next turn I had 106 GNP, one turn later it dropped to 88GNP. What's so strange is that nothing changed in my city setup. I compared city screens before and after the drop and my income stayed the same, I didnt switch tiles and F2 also didn't change.
The last turn I had a GNP of 88 and Rik had 54 (iirc). So still a huge advantage techwise. I'm thinking to try and build the Great Library in Beijing as well to up beaker production even more.
Rik has expanded in roughly the same pace as I did. He found his 2nd city a few turns after mine but he got his 3rd one online last turn. I still have only 2 cities but plan to build the 3rd one and 4th quickly.
Weird GNP drop
Ok here's my F9 screenies from 575 BC;550 BC;525 BC. Note the drop in GNP between 575 BC and 550BC. (600 BC preanarchy is a few posts up)
I changed nothing in my city/citizens setting s whatsoever. Very much puzzled. Would the 106 spike have something to do with the free CS tech perhaps? Or is the drop a delayed maintenance issue for bureaucracy. Last assumption isnt supported by the F2 screenie however.
Added a landoverview as well.
_____________________________575BC______ 550BC_____ 525BC
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=127&d=1227612112
EDIT: I just figured out it has to do with the fact I was researching Masonry. If I move my research to another tech the GNP makes the 106-88 drop. First I thought this must be related to the known prequel techs but selecting horse riding also causes the drop but I know all prequel techs for that as well.
Now I'm wondering if this could be related to 'no. of civs that know this tech'. If so that could give a lot of insight in what Rik has been/is researching (basically making researching alphabet even more useless than it is alrdy in a 2 player game) also spikes/drops in Rik's GNP could indicate research switches and tell me if he's researching different techs than I am.
Time for a big update!
So is the game still alive. Yes it is! Slowly but surely we're plodding on. Let's get you all up to speed.
Getting into the AD's
IN 25 AD the world looks like this:
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=256&d=1243977304
Rik has 4 cities diplo tells me so I need to speed up expansion a bit. I just started research on alphabet. Although this appears to be useless in a 2 player game the espionage makes it an interesting choice still. If only for defensive purposes: wouldn't wanna have Rik with City Visibility because I neglected espionage.
The barbs continue to be a big hassle throughout the game as the screenie shows. Thanks again Killer! Rik has built the Great Wall in 450 BC so his life has prolly gotten a lot easier.
Rik is still blocking my trade. It's more a nuisance than a real problem but I'm running into the health cap because I can't access fish and clams. There's another clam at the other end of the continent however (yellow arrow) so I plan to settle there as well.
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=257&d=1243977537
On the F9 screens it shows that Rik has built up a huge population. Strangely he's (and has been) behind on commerce and the production seems rather balanced when compared over more turns. I'm convinced that a tech lead will be crucial in a 1v1, better units we'll be decisive in a war. So I started the Great Lib to maintain the GNP/tech advantage.
A screenie from after Alphabet was done showed me having a comfortable tech lead:
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=258&stc=1&d=1243978291
The Naval War
Around 150AD the Naval wars started. I built a few triremes to lift the blockade of Beijing and thanks to a very lucky first battle a managed to get a short lived period of Rik free waters. Because it was a unique moment in time I made a screenie of it :)
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=259&stc=1&d=1243978728
Rik wasn't amused though, he came back with a trireme SoD and ever since then Beijing has been blocked by 5 triremes. In my overzealous attack I missed an opportunity to raze Hangzou. Rik only had one Axeman in it but when I noticed Rik already had his trireme SoD in view and I had to run.
Around 500AD
Some interesting stuff happened around this time. I noticed Rik hadn't build the Collosus although it would benefit him hugely with Hangzou being a sort of fishing metropolis. I decided to build it defensively in Beijing and finished it 540AD. This sparked some mail discussion that accompanied the save which learned me Rik didnt know the Collosus would affect all water tiles, not just the city it's built in. He wrote he'd rather not build a useless Collosus in his capital if he couldnt build it in Hangzou where it would be usefull. I guess I got lucky there.
In 580 AD the world looks like this:
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=262&stc=1&d=1243980262
The F9, same general picture as before :
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=261&stc=1&d=1243980262
The tech situation:
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=260&stc=1&d=1243980262
Tech lead still looks good, I also have literature which doesn't show in the diplo screen because Rik also lacks aesthetics.
The 750 AD's GA and arms race
In 760 AD Rik started a golden age. F9 looks like :
http://www.civduelzone.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=263&stc=1&d=1243981482
Good to see that GNP still isnt above mine :) However Rik has built the pyramids and has switched to Representation. This is giving him 3 beakers extra on every specialist and with his surplus of pop, that will add up. I have no clue if this will show in the F9 GNP however.
Luckily Rik has neglected Alphabet and so I've managed to get an espionage lead that show me his research. Comparing turns on techs he's researching to my own amount of turns I needed for those techs shows me he isn't catching up after his GA ended.
The whole GA sparked an arms race as well. I was worried about the rise in Soldiers on Rik's side so I built more units myself. Still not sure if Rik planned an attack or just built more units because he felt he should respond to my rise in soldiers. The fact that Rik has a higher soldier rating doesn't really worry me. He's got a much bigger navy then me and boats can't attack cities/land units. I also have the impression that the GW gives a bonus to soldier rating. If I'm correct about that his land based units should be about the same size as mine and won't pose a real threath. I don't expect Rik to load em all up boats and send them over leaving his cities exposed and having to attack units benefitting from city defense bonusses.
I' m researching towards Guilds so I can build knights. The extra movement makes them much more efficient in defening my territory should Rik decide to attack after all. Build the Heroic Epic in Beijing as well somewhere between 750AD - 1000AD.
How now, brown cow?
Well that about wraps it up untill the 750AD's. Atm we're at 1000AD approximately and I plan to do a final spoiler update this week. Hope to see some comments from you all !
Lt. Killer M
03-06-2009, 10:12
hey, great to see that the game develops - although I must admit that you both use the map totally differently from what I envisaged!
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