[SPOILERS] DaveV is not clowning around. Well, maybe a little bit...

[Jabah]

you obviously need less fog to decide, but if the sea is blocked by ice, (therefore protected from boating as I understand the potential fear), what is the downside of a city on the coast (plains hill sheep is hardly a food compared to netted crab + lighthouse & commerce options

[DaveV]

A bunch of factors:

1. I usually use ICS spacing in EitB. Cities rarely grow big enough to work lots of tiles and trade route income usually offsets city costs by the mid game. Five tile spacing means I can't squeeze a filler city in between the capital and the new city, also a 1-move unit on a road can't cover both cities. Counterpoint: this game, with nearly 300 tiles per player, is more likely to go to the late game so those arguments are somewhat weaker than usual.
2. Crab is not a particularly strong tile: +1 food, +1 commerce, -2 hammers compared to plains hill sheep. It also requires researching Fishing, investment into a fishing boat when I need ground units, and later investment into a lighthouse to become a 5F tile.
3. Building on the water means vulnerability to Tsunami, ice or no ice.
4. Every move outside my borders increases the chance that a strong barbarian and/or animal will show up. Right now I have 4 warriors and 1 scout, and 2 warriors is a minimal garrison. If I lose one en route, the new city is at risk from a lucky barb unit. Or, worst case, all the escorts could be killed and the settler lost. Sitting on a forested hill with two of the three attack vectors being across water is most likely to preserve my scant troops.
5. Building on one of the riverside grassland tiles means I can't farm that tile: 4F1C is almost as good as crab, and doesn't need a fishing boat, although I do have to invest 4 worker turns (and keep the worker safe while he's farming).
6. Building on flat land gives up the 25% hill bonus, which can mean the difference between keeping or losing the city. I'm trying to put most of my early cities on hills.

In favor of coastal build: coastal cities get extra trade routes from lighthouse and smuggler's port, and higher trade route yield from harbor. At that point the crab will be a 5F3C tile, quite good. Lots of investment to get there, though.

Overall, the hill defense bonus and prioritization of other techs over fishing are my strongest arguments for the hill plant.

[DaveV]

Here come a series of catch-up post from my reporting-free vacation. The first is actually from before vacation. This is not a well-designed event, with a choice between 10 turns of temporary happiness and nothing. Although my enthusiasm for temporary happiness could hardly be lower, I took that option. At least it will make me look a little better in demographics.

[DaveV]

Another event, noted here so my fellow players know whom to blame for the AC increase.

[DaveV]

Oh joy, a lizardman.



I can't say I wasn't warned, and I'm reasonably prepared. At strength 4, the lizardman can beat any of my units on any terrain short of a forested hill. Two moves make him particularly dangerous. At least he can't pillage. I sent a warrior from my southern stack northeast to cover the forest south of the capital.

[DaveV]

Turn 23. The lizardman moved onto my mana tile, which I wasn't working, so no harm. Even though he's on flat ground, I can't attack him profitably.



All my guys are on defensive terrain, and the guys south of the capital are slowly building up fortify bonus. Fingers crossed.

[DaveV]

After a turn of indecision, the lizardman attacked, at what had to be pretty much coin flip odds. I can't see the actual odds, because Brian apparently doesn't have combat logging turned on. Maybe a kind lurker could prod him about that?

Oh, and the results?



Disappointing.

[DaveV]

As I said in the beginning, I'm going to be relying heavily on the kindness of the RNG this game. Losing a warrior hurts, and 1XP from killing the lizardman isn't much compensation, but I had very good luck with my first freak:



This is kind of a complicated picture: I'm hovering over the warrior to show the results of administering the coup de grace to the lizardman, while the newly built freak is selected. In the south, my stack of settler, warrior, scout moves to the city site.

One promotion on the freak, but probably the best one available: Strong turns him from a strength 3 unit to strength 4.

[DaveV]

And we're caught up to the present. All the other screenshots were from the beginning of my turn (avoiding gaining any information from reloading old saves to make these screenshots), but this one is from end of turn, after borders popped in the new city:



I'm moving the scout to stand on the ancient tower so I get the extra visibility. Revealed tiles show that I won't have to play any fort games to put fishing boats on the clam. Wine is a good tile in the east, but I don't see any food to support a city there yet.

On the second city name: Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons is probably nearly as well known as Ronald McDonald.

[DaveV]

I also want to say a word about the amount of love that went into this mod. All my combat units have custom graphics, with the scout in motley, the warriors wearing a funky spiked mask, and the freak boasting some gnarly scars, a bag on his head, and a third arm.