RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

OK, turn played. Still no contact, still no polly. First, here's the status screen:



Now, here's a look at the northeast, where we found another resource this turn:



And finally, here's an overview pic, with a first attempt at a dotmap:



Of course, that could change depending on where copper is and what we defog in the next little while, but I think this looks pretty good...

Pink is obviously a production city and our source of horses. Red looks like a commerce city with very limited hammer potential. Orange is another commerce city, but it has a few hammers. Green is, well, a junk city that provides wheat, and yellow looks like a hammers site with the food boni + hills. Any and all comments welcome.

Now I know RefSteel is going to complain about red not being on the sugar, and that IS regretable, however, if we put it there, then I think we really can't plant blue in anything resembling a decent location.

Btw, that black X is the one tile we would not be using... it's also a tile we'd have to defend because it would be a dreaded triple fork tile...

[RefSteel]

Thanks for playing the turn, Maniac! And, uh, thanks for noticing a couple turns back that I meant NE when I wrote NW. I also like the dotmap. You asked for comments, so:

Main comment: There's too much fog on that dotmap! Yalara and Prrsha (and Shandra to an extent, and sooner) will be on the problem shortly.

Second comment: Looks good overall. Also, from what I've seen so far, I definitely like this map.

Third comment: Lots of clouds there. Let me see if I can get a clearer (if smaller) picture.



Okay, that helps. Now, to get some discussion going, let's try a slightly different dotmap, moving a few of the proposed cities a tile or two south.

I was going to say founding on the sugar isn't a big deal either way unless we found it pretty early, but: a) we probably WILL found it relatively early, and b) I think it still fits with our dotmap well. Blue dot doesn't have to move, and won't lose the swath of tiles it shares with red until it's late enough in the game to make us glad red has those tiles instead of northwesterly ones anyway. This change would also eliminate the triple-fork possibility - which is a serious worry, given that the cities being forked are our capital and our chief production and commerce cities!

Moved two tiles south, Pink (can we just go ahead and call it Kilrah?) can no longer borrow the sheep, but grabs the cows, becomes riverside, has river-crossing defense from the only westerly diagonal that doesn't have a mountain blocking the path, and can only be attacked from flatland tiles (exposing the enemy to counter-attack) except from the direction of our capital, deep in our culture. It's no longer on a hill though, which means enemy willing to spend an extra turn moving through our culture (and onto flatland) could attack more easily. For what it's worth, the horses will also be deeper in our culture (nearest approach is impossible due to mountains). It also can share cottage tiles with a sugar-based red dot, no longer wastes a riverside grassland, and has no peaks in its BFC (the pink dot Maniac posted has three). There's still room for a new dot in the northwest to share the capital's sheep, and this setup keeps both our capital and our red dot commerce city within four tiles of our key production city.

Um. I should probably show you what I'm talking about here.



Ooooh. Pretty colors! (Okay, sorry.)

Anyway, I left Blue Dot in place, but lots of the tiles around there are still in the fog, so who knows? There may even be a civ south of us, though I don't really expect it, and that would obviously change things considerably.

I can't find a configuration I'm really happy with in the east. Moving yellow one tile south loses some peaks, saves a forest, and lets it share a grass river (cottage) with the capital, but takes it away from the river. Moving green two south puts it on a plains hill, gains a floodplains for it, and gives it a riverside grassland at the expense of a regular grassland (depending on how you count). It can also share a couple river grass (cottage) tiles with orange this way.

This setup wastes the X tile, a riverside plains forest, but at least it doesn't triple-fork anything! Note that my dotmap assumes at least one more row of cities will be planted both north and (including blue as part of the "at least one more row") south.

In any case, all of this is meant to provoke discussion mainly. I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about!

[Maniac Marshall]

Blue dot's going to be useless in that alignment. Red will be using all the tiles Blue's really going to need for food to balance out those no food desert hills hills.

Red dot is too overlapped. It's very crowded by 3 different cities.

Your green dot really is a better location, the only reason I did not put mine there is all the wasted tiles between it and my yellow location.

[RefSteel]

Blue dot's going to be useless in that alignment.

Also, I just noticed that there's a desert hill W of the gems that would triple-fork red/orange/blue on my map. The truth is, we don't know enough about the southern region to plan blue dot or anything on that lattitude realistically though, I think. For instance: Would it make sense to move blue 1SE? I dunno. 9 of its 20 would-be tiles that way are in fog right now. This would significantly reduce red's overlap too - I don't know if it would be reduced enough though.

Your green dot really is a better location, the only reason I did not put mine there is all the wasted tiles between it and my yellow location.

What do you think of my yellow, then? I'm not super happy with it, but is it an improvement on (or at least equal to) the one you originally posted?

Also, in the nearer term, what do you guys think of the scouting plan I outlined on the previous page? Looking at these dotmaps, I still come back to my first and main comment: They both have too much fog on 'em!

[Maniac Marshall]

My gut feeling is that there will be too much desert to plant blue there, but really, we don't know that. Your alignment in the east seems sound. We'd have to see whats on the other side of the mountians to decide for sure, but for now I agree with green/yellow. Although, giving up a levee in a production city like yellow would be painful....

Prrsha really needs to bust that fog in the NW before we can definitively say what to do with pink and red. Your pink does have the advantage of being on the river, but my impression of it there is that it'd be much more of a commerce/mixed city in that location rather than a prodction city, and we're going to need at least one production city early. Lets bust that fog in the NW and then we can decide... I'll play the turn in the morning assming SsS plays sometime in the next 6 hours.

[Maniac Marshall]

Or, the turn rolled before I went back to bed soooooo.......

Here's the status screen:



And, on the other side of the mountain pass there's a compelling reason to move yellow dot back to where i originally suggested (right where Shandra is standing)

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn played. Nothing exciting happened. We're next to last so I'll just make one big update when reggo plays and I play the next turn.

Here was the status screenie after our worker finished anyhow:

[Maniac Marshall]

Well, there is finally news in the events log.



That would be a far away land known as India.

Ok, so here's the status report...



And here is our scouting progress in the east, where Shandra is about to be eaten by a bear...



Something was telling me to move to that forested hill, but I didn't. The micro plan said move here, and moving here revealed more tiles so...

[Maniac Marshall]

Well, there won't be any more intel from the east for a while. because Shandra really did get eaten by the bear. We were winning the fight for a long time before she decided to let it hit her 4 times in a row for the kill .

It's my fault for 1) Not moving to the forest hill instead of the forest and 2) not protesting moving right back to the area where I was pretty sure a bear was still lurking. Since it seems like I'm doing the turnplaying for now, I'm just going to go with my gut feeling for where to scout for now. I'll be sending one of the two warriors that way eventually.

What's worse, there are more animals around. There is a lion 4 north of the city, or 1 north of the hill we want to explore. I'm hoping it moves away next turn so we can have a look, but if not, I'll just ignore that area for now... pictures with the turn this evening.

[Cull]

Well, there won't be any more intel from the east for a while. because Shandra really did get eaten by the bear. We were winning the fight for a long time before she decided to let it hit her 4 times in a row for the kill .

It's my fault for 1) Not moving to the forest hill instead of the forest and 2) not protesting moving right back to the area where I was pretty sure a bear was still lurking. Since it seems like I'm doing the turnplaying for now, I'm just going to go with my gut feeling for where to scout for now. I'll be sending one of the two warriors that way eventually.

What's worse, there are more animals around. There is a lion 4 north of the city, or 1 north of the hill we want to explore. I'm hoping it moves away next turn so we can have a look, but if not, I'll just ignore that area for now... pictures with the turn this evening.

Its fine, but in better news the internet in my area is okay now, so I can turnplay pretty much regularly now. Should we ask for a reload?