[PB66 - Spoiler] 3rd times the charm?

[JackRB]

and its finally underway, exciting, time to now watch the number of posts in the lurker thread like a hawk and panic everytime a new one is made

As a sanity check, the settings:

Looks good to me.

And off we go!



I still haven't come up with a naming convention yet, get that up soon™

[JackRB]

Turn 6 (3760 BC)

Getting a decent-ish lay of the land already, and we've got our first WB finished and hooked up. No super-strong 2nd city sighted yet, the tundra at the north is making me a little sad, that and all of the newfound seafood only being accessible via 2nd ring (well the southern-most fish is orphaned on this landmass through the capital, which sucks). That coast inlet intriuges me greatly, looking like the land immediately easy of my capital might be another little peninsula. Already hard at work littering the map with signs too.



Lots of bottlenecks on this map. At least all the lakes are making the rice tiles somewhat decent?



Also, out of curiosity, here's demos. First to connect a food resource, you'll never sing that.

[JackRB]

For anyone reading this, willing to cover for next weekend? Going on a weekend trip, so will be out Friday->Monday. Should be fine for whoever to play, we're still in the early stages, so not much to do.

Turn 10 (3600 BC):



Not spotted a whole lot of resources recently, going to see how awkward it is to circle my scout back.
Also not really used to deeply reading into score/other cloak-and-dagger stuff, but pretty obvious to see that me, Plemo/Piccadilly, civac/Tarkeel and Magic Science all have similar starts. All growing to size 2 this turn, and based on the demos, also working a 1food/3 hammer along with a workboated seafood.

That does leave an a majority of people (8/12) not opting for this start, implying either less people are starting on the coast than I expected (given the amount of water I've seen floating around, thats surprising), or they have something better land-based that we do not. Likely a mixture of both?, but does open wider the potential for coastal wonders.

[JackRB]

Bugger.

[JackRB]

Turn 14 (3440 BC)

The scout lives! (Is there some free win I'm forgetting about? Probably, I always forget those exist) and on his very next turn meets Mjmd/JC (IMP/ORG) of Zulu. Closer than I expected? The centre region (eyeballing it here), is that rice/sugar area, although I'm not seeing an immediate reason for Mjmd to contest this right away? The cluster of hills where my scout is may as well be a dead-zone food-wise. What I'm not looking forward to though is Impi, no thank you to that, annoy someone else please and thank you.

[Cornflakes]

Netted the crab that the workboat was on. The scout was attacked by a lion and was at 0.7/1. Since is was on a forest I decided to just stay in place and heal.

[JackRB]

Netted the crab that the workboat was on. The scout was attacked by a lion and was at 0.7/1. Since is was on a forest I decided to just stay in place and heal.

Sounds perfectly sensible for me, thanks for covering, really appreciate it.

[JackRB]

Turn 28 (2880BC)

Haven't reeported too much, mainly because there isn't a _whole_ lot happening. I spent the last 10-ish turns repositioning the scout towards the west, only for him to die this turn, argh.
Meanwhile, I've picked out my next city spot, and it's nothing fancy, just grabbing the pigs and copper (a fish is hidden under the combat log, but that won't be online for a while). Currently researching AH post-Wheel, which research-wise hasn't lined up great, so the choice is to mine the copper first over food, or road the pigs tile before being able to pasture. Neither are amazing, but /shrug. Not really sure which is best yet, might opt for the copper first?




Have definitely been a little unusual in building a settler at size 3, but it didn't work out to be better at size 4, although given my research bottleneck maybe I should have waited. hmm. Techwise I see myself going pottery next just as a nobrainer get granaries going, although there's, as always in the civ early game, a million things I need or would like to have.

I've also still not really worked out a good settling plan - alll the best immediate sites are very poor in the grand strategic sense, but settling, for example, the rice with nothing but flat grassland and tundra hills isn't exactly appealing either. - My 3rd city half-pencilled in is the coastal sheep spot, just cuz there's a fair few riverside tiles it can borrow.

Another thing I am consious on, this _is_ a water heavy map, or at least here (and based on my test generation games). Go for TGL? A Protective boosted extra traderoute everywhere sounds juicy, and I get to knock out the requisitive lighthouse out cheap.

[JackRB]

Turn 33 (2680 BC)

New city Ziggurat has been founded, a little slower than intended but have needed to dance around some barb lions.



Speaking of annoying barb lions - I annoyingly misclicked and threw a warrior to the lion, quite literally, and he died. RIP in peace, my man. [I tried to move onto the hill tile with the 'lion t28' sign, and instead attacked it, sigh] Not worth bothering with reloading imo, just annoying to uh, suicide half of my miltary like that.



In the meantime, likely short-term plan is to slow-build (well, slow in that it's only 4 turns) then chop+whip a new settler to send somewhere, probably sheep spot. Will likely pick up pottery next as well to get the economy into gear. Gotta make the most of the little river tiles we have, after all. (although lake tiles aren't bad, they're not the most appealing tiles in the world)

[JackRB]

Turn 50 (2000 BC)

Overview of the small-ish Carthagian empire here, only 3 cities. I'm pretty all-in on the TGL (also realised I named GHL in the sign, no idea why) gambit, despite not having really crunched any numbers, but 3 forests chops + working 3 mines will get it knocked out in pretty short order, (200-60)/13 rounds up to 11 -> so 3 forest chops plus working 3 mines at Ziggurat should get this on turn 63? Always difficult to know how far to bend to get a wonder, but early stuff like this needs to be prioritised at all costs. Didn't document my 3rd city founding at the time, Horizon, but its only a few turns old still, mainly to short-term work riverside cottages for the capital to pick up later. Masonry is gonna come in later than the lighthouse build, so not a super mad dash to chop down all the forests just yet.




So right now I'm running a total farmer's gambit [partly explaining why Horizon was founded where it is, and did get punished with a stray barb warrior spawning to my immediate east and ruining my wheat farm, argh. Have a worker ready-built to replace but still annoying, also really want to pump an axe-and-settler pair out of the capital to lock down the border with Mjmd. Why?



Well, he put a flag down here first. Not an amazing city, but there really isn't an amazing city spot here, and he gets horses. I'm hoping my x spot will peacefully demarcate this border in this area for now. I also have no idea what that worker is doing.
I could try and make a play for it, I don't think he has a road to this city yet, and no copper hooked up/no copper units built yet judging by our similar pathetically weak power ratings, but it's not even that good of a city, and too many other priorities.



We've also seen Ginger/Mig's scout running around here, and have been in contact for the last couple turns. It looks like the mountains cut off Mjmd from expanding easily over land this way, which is nice.

Demo dump:


Above avg on GNP/Prod, below avg on Food, which is not surprising given the gambit of going for an early wonder, but not great in the conventional sense.