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No, no economic techs at all except for Crafting (Wines). I probably should have gunned for Edu or CoL but neither happened.
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Sorry Serdoa, but I'm not a dedicated lurker anymore as I've accidentally read one of the other threads. 
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Thats ok WK - I really have not treated you all that well being a dedicated lurker and getting no input is surely no fun. Sorry for that.
Of course, if you want to chime in sometimes and remind me that indeed I do have a thread and could post a screenshot do so please 
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Serdoa Wrote:Thats ok WK - I really have not treated you all that well being a dedicated lurker and getting no input is surely no fun. Sorry for that.
Of course, if you want to chime in sometimes and remind me that indeed I do have a thread and could post a screenshot do so please
Hey, guess what Serdoa?
You indeed do have a thread to update and some screenshots would be help that tremendously.
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Wohoo, now that you mention it, I guess you are right
Serious note: We are going to have a war soon which we probably are going too lose but at least there will be explosions... dozen of them. And yes, I'll post some pictures tomorrow or on Saturday.
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Yeah...we want both perspectives!
Darrell
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Message to SL. Not posted here for the diplo but because it sums up my feelings about the map and the game. If someone wants to know more about that ask. But I guess basically everything should be said in that email.
Quote:Hey SL,
I got your message ingame and thought about building troops. And I will do so soon, but to be honest, if anyone decides to attack me, I have nothing to use against them. I can't neither compete with what the Clan, the Sidar or you have - not even close. I am trying to get into competitive range but honestly, if I start to build military units it will mean that I will sit around longer waiting that somebody finally moves against me. Of course they might not or will at least lose some units if I build enough military. But what does that help me? It only prolongs a - after our war - rather boring game for me. So instead I try to develop an economy (kinda hard with just 4 riverside tiles in my whole territory and maybe 5 more in every territory nearby I could have claimed feasibly) and accept that I am dead if someone attacks. I probably should have played this completely different, but I am still not sure what I am supposed to do with that land. Commerce is hard to come by in FFH at the start anyway and if you lack riverside tiles it stays like that forever. I am sorry that this is again starting to be a rambling about the map but I am just frustrated that I got shafted pretty badly by the map in both FFH games I played. Given I have played badly as well - simply by not knowing enough about the mod and by getting frustrated by the map - but I really can't understand why I did get such a lousy start with neither a river nor many food resources nor anything else making it feasible. I pretty much was asked at the start to attack someone (which happened to be you) and even that was only (partly) working because of the Great Merchant I popped. Otherwise I would have not even had a chance to tech fast enough to PZs nor to upgrade the warriors I had.
Anyway, please let me know if I can help with mana loans or whatever.
Kind regards,
Serdoa
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The land you did end up settling was fairly poor, both in commerce resources and riverside locations. I don't think it was your only option though.
You did after all, have a second river apart from the short one by your capital. It was to the south... in the game the Balz grabbed it. But you started right next to it, and could have taken control of large chunks of it with some aggressive settling and early military action or threats.(Which to my mind, is something the Sheaim would be good for).
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You are right that there was a second river. But I would have had to settle extremely aggressive (6+ tiles from my cap by land) to take control of it. Everything else would just get me 3 more riverside grassland tiles. Not to mention the jungle nearby which was not to be removed for some time. I couldn't even scout that area for some time because of a Giant Spider sitting there, waiting to kill my troops. And I don't see how I can put my second city there without getting into troubles with the Balz. After all, Bob talked with me pretty early how to divide the land. And asking for more then I did (which are the 3-6 riverside tiles) is just going to piss him off and getting me into a race for those sites. One I cannot win because I can't produce military in big enough numbers and settlers and workers at the same time, I can't produce only military because of teching too slow without better cities and having to wait till probably T60+ before I even can start to build PZs (and warriors against warriors in cities is a losing proposition) and I can't just expand because of Keelyn being Creative and just crushing me culturally.
Lets also not forget that I needed Crafting and Calendar just to get a little bit of commerce going. And Exploration for Roads and AH for my land-food recources... uh, resource I meant because the whole north and west belonging to me did have 1 pig. Then there is one sheep, placed in a way that a city basically has to be nearly surrounded by water to get it. Gives great production for those needed PZs I have to say. But hey, I had food resources in the water. Well, 1 Fish and 1 Crab for a city which had apart from that pretty much only plains to work. And 1 Fish for that sheep city. Normally I would ignore Fishing but I couldn't because of lacking resources and rivers. As for Sheaim being suited for early military action: PZs are a fine unit but you are not going to produce many with only a few still to develop cities without food resources - heck, I can't even work hills because I don't have enough food. So I needed Construction as well so that I could get some food via farms going. And Sanitation would be great in that regard - wtf I still don't have it because I do lack commerce. Did we talk about the need for Mining and BW because... well, PZs anyone?
I surely did some stuff wrong, simply because I jumped around to much in the tech-tree, feeling I needed techs which in the end probably did not help me enough. I surely should have not teched Sailing and Archery (not enough production for Lighthouses and Archery is not providing anything at all) and instead got Sanitation. But I don't see how I could have feasibly grabbed the river between the Balz and myself and defend it (militarly and culturally) - no matter what I tech at the start. After all I could not assume to get a lucky GM dungeon pop...
In the end I am sure it is easy to state that I should have expanded southwards. With having the whole map visible it is easier to decide about the best way to play a map. After all, had I known beforehand what land lies in the north and west, I would have moved with my starting settler into the south to settle directly that river region.
But all that talk doesn't change the fact that my surrounding land was shit. Quite simple I had such an awful starting location that in my opinion I did not have any chance at all to ever win this map, not even in the slightest. Even if I could have taken the river-region, I would have gotten crushed for that by the Balz, first culturally and then with summons.
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