[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Turn 26
Free passage for our scout.

He's free to pass into our western frontier, saving us a lot of time backtracking. Good news! Also found pigs, makes the PH a decent plant and suggests that we'll want to settle W of copper rather than E of rice.

[haphazard1]

Interesting land shapes there. Your salt water mini-ocean by the capital is about as small as you usually see with sea food present.

A city on the plains hill under the scout will also provide passage through to the larger body of water for naval units built in the capital. Might or might not make much difference, depending on where you end up building units, but something to keep in mind. Hopefully the scout will be able to reveal a few more tiles up there, and see if there is anything else useful in the fog. But being able to circle back to the west of the capital will definitely be very useful.

Hmmm, actually copper city either west of copper or east of rice will also provide a passage for naval units.

Also note that you will want a farm S of the oasis, for eventual chain irrigation of the rice.

[NobleHelium]

Your capital cannot build military naval units, its adjacent sea would need to be at least twenty tiles large for that.

[Catwalk]

Turn 27
Still nothing much to report.

Jowy is moving his scout north, he'll probably spot my copper. I'm growing to size 2 on a warrior, then chopping out a settler. After that I'll likely get a granary before expanding further.

[Catwalk]

Turn 28

Sugar spot might be cute to settle on. Jowy still marching towards my copper with his scout. If he finds it, he might try to choke me with a warrior. Could get pretty annoying, but I think I can manage by building more warriors if need be.

[haphazard1]

Some nice stuff up there to the northwest. The mountains are a bit annoying, but not really a significant problem.

[Catwalk]

Turn 29

Jowy is gone, don't know where to. I'm a tiny bit annoyed that he double moved here, as I would have liked to know if he went by my copper or didn't notice it. Then again, it's possible that he went NE and then NW, in which case I wouldn't know that he's seen my copper anyway. And I'm sure he meant no harm, he just wanted to get his turn done. Nothing new in the west, but I get to move TWO tiles next turn Early turns are so much fun to wait for.

Warrior done next turn with a chop, also growing. It feels wasteful to put a chop into the warrior, but otherwise I'd have to delay the growth for a turn which would also have been wasteful with wet wheat ready to be worked. And I rather do want that warrior now, needs to protect the copper in case Jowy decides to get cute. Will be settling my first city up there in about 7-8 turns. Do you like purple or red dot better? Red dot can be reinforced faster.

And damn, just noticed that there's a hill 2N1E of my capital. It was a flat tile in my sandbox, means I can't shave off one settler turn by chopping it. I might build a road E of the capital, speeds up the settler one turn and lets me reinforce it faster if needed. Also gives me another turn of scouting the remaining two black tiles before it goes up to guard the copper city.

Also, red or purple dot should definitely be a hammer city. It has 4 grass hills to work + 1 grass copper hill. That's 19 hammers at size 6, working all the mines + pigs. Rice can be added for a small food surplus. I'll also have 7 or 8 forests available up here, good place to chop out a wonder. There's also the option of settling S of pigs and later on the rice. I feel this is better long-term, but it's crappy short-term. So probably a no-go on that.

[Catwalk]

Also, I cry little whenever I see that big beautiful lake with crappy 1-food tiles. Why oh why must you be so evil Xenu? That rice could have been the best Moai site ever with 6-8 inland lakes How large can an inland lake be before it loses the food bonus?

[spacetyrantxenu]

I think 10 or 11 tiles is the limit on fresh water lake versus salt water coast. It's easy enough to tell in the world builder if you have tile yields visible.

I'm pleased that everyone posting is whining about the map in some way or another.

[Catwalk]

I actually like the map Interesting early choices, seem reasonably balanced from what I can see. That inland lake is just such an eyesore, I'm a sucker for lake cities.