[spoilers] Something something horses - Tasunke of the Hippus

[Sciz]

Hopefully there's something good north of the cows, so I can settle on the river east of the cows and then make the third or fourth cities near the sheep

[Sciz]

Telorast the scout climbed the ancient tower and saw this:



Wow. Well this pretty much confirms that this whole map has been deliberately made barren and lifeless, as that desert river with no flood plains looks very unnatural. I don't know what to say really, but it seems that all the players have pretty much the same barren lands around them. Selrahc wandered for like four turns before settling, if he gets some Coves up he'll definitely be on top of everyone, since they are much better than anything we can build on land.

Hannah the Irin Lanun coast tiles are 3f/3c with a lighthouse, which is great.

Anyways I need to scout out the north of the cows before starting on some sort of dotmap. the two incense tiles to the NE is nice, and can be had with fresh water from oasis and plains sheep, but it's still an awful site because it picks up lots of desert, and desert incense is pretty bad and my 3f farms (and that's not until sanitation!) will not be that great in covering up the lost food. Especially if I want any sort of hammers there, as the plains hills will also have no food.

I'm gonna go aristocracy for its better food and hammers since more tiles can be used that aren't commerce, but it doesn't matter if I choose aristofarms or cottages, my food situation will still suck. 2f/2c farms before sanitation and 3f/2c after (since i've mostly got non-river land) can hardly do anything on their own, but if I go with cottages i'll need even more farms to cover their food deficit, since cottages will be 1f. ugh

[Sciz]

Beeline for Genesis imo

Or Nature 3 Archmages! I do have nature mana from my palace after all

[Sciz]

Only thing I don't like about the demos is that someone has 66 in life expectancy compared to my 85 and the average of 82. Which makes me assume someone has a bunch of flood plains in his BFC, because I don't know what else would drastically reduce the health cap so much at size 1.

[Mist]

Lack of any forests?

[Sciz]

But that doesn't make sense really because i''m shared #1 in crop yield with 4 per turn, which is 2 from cap and 2 from the wheat. If someone had flood plains they would definitely be working them, which would give them 5 in crop yield.

Speaking of demos, someone only has 12 GNP which might mean they're working a tile without commerce? IE not next to a river. Worst Mfg. goods is 3 compared to my 4, which probably is someone not on a plains hill. Worst crop yield is 2 compared to my 4, which is weird because that's like someone working a non-food tile. That must be a horrible tile that person is working, since i'm tied for first in mfg. goods, so whatever that tile is, it's not better than 0/2/1 (a plains hill on a river). Or maybe it's someone not on a plains hill working a forested plains hill which would explain the less GNP, since they don't give commerce even when on a river.

[Sciz]

Lack of any forests?

Yeah I thought about that but would it really make that much of a difference?

That's probably the only logical explanation though.

[Sciz]

Jkaen got a pop increase, which means he didn't go worker first, probably warrior or scout.

My warrior is far away from the cap so if someone comes close i am pretty dead but i should be fine

[Sciz]

Jkaen and Ichabod both got techs, almost certainly agriculture for both of them. Only three techs with the beaker amounts that fits is agriculture, exploration and ancient chants. Amurites start with ancient chants and I find it very hard to believe that they'd research exploration now, so probably agriculture for them. Khazad start with crafting, so it could be ancient chants but it's much more probable with agriculture.

Dantski also grew to size 2, no worker start for him either.

Also i noticed between turn 4 and 5 rival best soldier count increased from 5000 to 8000, no idea what that could be. No score increase so it's gotta be a unit, but i don't think warriors or scouts give that much. Maybe something popped from a dungeon?

[Sciz]

Also found plains reagants in the north and plains dyes in the west. A city could pick up both the sheep and the dyes but no fresh water and almost no production, so not a good site.

Then again most potential sites, if not all, in this game would be considered bad compared to most other games, so maybe I should stop comparing.