[Spoilers] Louis XIV of Babylon

[SleepingMoogle]

Hmm, I'm not doing a very good job of keeping this thread updated so far. It is fortunate in a way that there isn't a lot to report on anyhow, but it seems hard to find the time to set aside for putting thoughts to paper. Maybe things will look better in the near future.

Anyway, the last screenshots I took were of turn 15 (which means they are already fairly old, but let's roll with it). The second Warrior has been completed now. Named Plato, he's currently headed east and will start defogging units on my next turn (and it would be interesting if Plato were the one finding Plako's borders). A third Warrior will complete when Insomnia grows to size two (at which point I'll switch to a second Worker using the improved Deer tiles), and this one will stay close to the capital. I'm considering exploring the coast to the west in search of seafood with him if I haven't contacted anyone by that time. Insomnia can put out a Warrior every two turns soon enough, so there's not too much danger of being eliminated by scouting Warrior.

In the meantime, Aristotle has continued scouting towards the south:



It is hard to see in the screenshot, but there's jungle tiles to the immediate south. Having found no one else yet, I wonder if the map have a horizontal band of jungle along the equator, and with all Civs being on what amounts to be vertical peninsulas to the north and south of it. This wouldn't be the case on a Lakes map of course (which I still think is at least the default script that was used), but it would position everyone at a more or less equal distance from each other.

There's quite a few holes to the theory (the land directly east of my capital doesn't appear to be coastal for one, and the land looks too rugged for another), but thinking about it did make me realize that the starting locations could apply to this map. That would mean I have a Civ to the west across the sea, one somewhere to the east, and a third to the south past the jungle. That feels like as safe an assumption as any when it comes to deciding where to scout. As Plato will be scouting towards the east, and the third Warrior may be exploring the western coast, Aristotle will continue to go south for now and see what he can find.

The above was a more or less direct translation of my thought process into written words. No calling the men in white coats please.

Anyway, the screenshot also shows a nice amount of resources south of Insomnia. The signs aren't city locations, simply a reminder that I'll want cities here to claim the general area. The assumption for now is that I'll expand south first, although I think I'll wait with actual city locations until after AH has finished. Having Horses to the east may change everything as an example.

In the C&D department, some Civs have grown their cities to size 2 now, but the most interesting development is that Plako has finished a second tech. I had China for Bronze Working earlier, but that obviously wasn't the case. None of the other techs really make sense to me though, so I'm not quite sure what he's up to.

[Sciz]

I feel bad that i'm not posting more when i'm your dedicated lurker, but I don't have anything to add! I'm just so out of touch with BtS, haven't played a game for like 3-4 months, FFH2's fault for taking all my time

But I keep reading your updates! Go Babylon!

[SleepingMoogle]

I feel bad that i'm not posting more when i'm your dedicated lurker, but I don't have anything to add! I'm just so out of touch with BtS, haven't played a game for like 3-4 months, FFH2's fault for taking all my time

But I keep reading your updates! Go Babylon!

No worries Sciz. If there's anything you'd like to comment on (I suspect pointing out my mistakes will feature heavily here ), I'm happy to hear your advice.

Anyway, we are now at turn 18. Insomnia trained its 3rd Warrior and has grown to size 2. Production has been switched to a Worker which is set to complete in 5 turns.



This turn's overflow from the recently finished Warrior will be replaced next turn by the completion of the second Camp. The Worker will finish at the end of turn 23, and by that time I hope to at least have an idea where the next city will go. And perhaps I'll also have a better idea what to do with him. Mining should finish at around that time, so I could set him to mine a hill, or put some more turns in the farm, or perhaps start placing down a road towards the next city location. The lack of Bronze Working means I can't chop the forests yet, but there's not that many of them available either. I should save them for important builds or units if possible.

The third warrior (which I failed to give a name again) wull be scouting the western coastline, but not stray too far from the capital. Depending in which direction the second city ends up going, he can then either move towards that location to scout and defend it, or head back to the capital to protect the Workers. This is what I'm planning for now:



The basic idea is to see whether there's any seafood to be found in the water that would make a coastal city there a good investment. Knowing this will help a lot with keeping up a good dotmap. The scouting will leave the capital undefended, but between 3 scouts exploring in all directions an enemy Warrior might appear from, and 2-turn Warriors possible from next turn onwards, I'm not too concerned. By all accounts this is a big map, and chances are good we're positioned quite far from other Civs.

According to the score, I was one of the later Civs to grow to size 2. Right now the only Civs who are still at size 1 are Plako (Catherine of Chine), Sunrise (Shaka of Zulu) and Locke & Cervantes (Isabella of England). It is possible that the latter two are training a second Worker, but Plako remains the big question mark. I'm really not sure what he's up to.

Demographics this turn, showing I love Warriors a lot:

[SleepingMoogle]

We are now at turn 20, and Animal Husbandry research has finished. The big question when loading the save was 'do we have Horses?'



Yes we do!

Even better, they're towards the south, the direction in which I want to expand anyhow. At first glance I'm thinking about planting the city on the hill south of the Horses. This will put the corn in the second ring, but that's not too much of a problem for a Creative leader. This weekend should be dot-map time again, just to see if the location works well with the cities that would be planted further south. Still, we now have a definite general direction for city 2.

Plato has been busy scouting towards the east and turned north slightly, finding what looks to be the northern boundaries of the map:



This definitely looks like a good place to plant a city or two, but as it is a fairly isolated spot, it probably won't be too hard to claim. Once the gold resource to the south is under my control, this is a nice candidate for expansion. I think I'll explore around that lake onto the Furs to see if anything is hiding in the ice (and hopefully the actual edge), before turning back and heading further east. Aristotle has reached the southern edge of the jungle, revealing some Ivory but that is too far away to be settled anytime soon. The prediction of having a Civ somewhere around there will probably be either proven or turn out to be false fairly soon.

In other news, Buddhism was found last turn. That probably was Adlain, who is the only one starting with Mysticism, and because I don't believe any of the other Civs actually picked Mysticism as their first tech.

Plako has also grown his city to size 2. I considered the possibility of him training a Settler immediately after the Worker to leverage his Imp trait, but that turns out not to be the case either. And again I am left in confusion.

One city has also increased to size 3 on turn 20. If memory serves me correctly, that was Luddite but I don't have an up to date score tab to verify it. What I think I'll do is make a list this weekend of what I think the other Civs have teched and built so far. And laugh heartily in the future as I will no doubt have misinterpreted more things than I got right.

Now that we know where the Horses are, I'll also be able to make a more definite turn-plan for the near future. I'm now wondering whether it was such a good idea to build a second Worker so quickly, but there's really not too much else to build. Something else to do over the weekend.

Demographics for this turn:

[SleepingMoogle]

I was the last one to play on turn 21, so here is another double-turn report.

I think I made an error by choosing to train a second Worker at size two. The Cow resource will be pastured long before Insomnia reaches size 3, so for a few turns one of the improved tiles not be utilized. It probably isn't a bad play, it's just not as efficient as I could have been. And for the moment, there really isn't much else to build. More Warriors, and a Barracks, are pretty much the only option for now. The Worker has too many hammers invested in him to consider switching builds at this point, so I'll finish him and get to size 3 asap. On the way, I'll probably train another 1-2 Warriors and put some hammers into Barracks before switching to a Settler at size 3. Whether or not this has put me behind slightly, I don't know. In all likelyhood, the difference matter too much in hindsight but there is a lesson to be learned here.

Anyway, there is seafood to be found to the west. Socrates (the third Warrior) has reached the coast and is currently following it southward:



Eventually I'll probably want to settle the location 2E of the Crabs, and make it a pseudo-commerce city. This is probably far in the future though.. for now Fishing is not included in the tech plan.

Plato has also confirmed that the map ends beyond that fur resource. The tile bleeding made me think the trees indicated there were more tiles to the north, but this turned out not to be the case. Considering the remoteness of the location, it definitely won't be an issue claiming it. The tile west of the Deer resource would be a solid city, picking up 3 food resources, the Furs for happiness, and a fair amount of hills to make for a halfway decent production city.

Aristotle is still continuing his journey south. Next turn he'll have crossed the jungle and be in regular forests again. If there is indeed someone to the south, he shouldn't be too much farther away.

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking for a dotmap right now:



Red dot will be city two. I can't really see a better location for it considering it is to be a production city. Moving the city NW would give up a ton of hills and forests. Also, I now have a goal for the city, other than just grabbing strategic resources and hammer-potential.

Blue dot will probably the third city, but the location may be moved further north depending on what is hiding underneath the fog. It will work out as a pretty decent commerce site, but I'm not too happy that the Pig resource is just outside of the workable tiles. Still, moving the city SE would pick up a ton of peak and hill tiles. So for now I'll want to defog those northern tiles first. If there is food hiding underneath, the area can probably be split into two separate cities.

Green dot will be a fairly decent site once I'm getting close to Monarchy, but not exceptional. For now I'm trying to decide whether or not to expand east towards that Fur resource after planting the gold city, or to settle this location. I'll need to pick up Fishing to make it work though, which does suggest it's not a candidate for the near future.

Purple and brown are potential locations. Purple picks up that recently spotted Crab resource, and brown dot would allow that grassland river tile across the sea to be worked and not go to waste. It's too early to tell if that will turn out to be a good idea though.

Demographics for turn 22:





Now for the big plan. It's actually not all that different from what I did in PBEM7, but I basically have the same starting traits and setup. So here's my plan for landing the Hanging Gardens:

City 2 is the one that will be developped to build the Gardens. The capital has only 5 forests (actually 7, but two of those are on a Deer resource and are preferably not chopped). City 2 can chop all of its 7 forests and has good early hammer potential. In the meantime, the capital will train a stream of Settlers to try and get the most out of the Wonder. I'd like to have at least 6 cities planted when completing the Gardens, but 7-8 should be possible too.

The Tech path will be Mining -> BW (for whipping) -> Pottery -> Writing -> Mathematics -> Masonry (needed for Aqueducts). Once an Aqueduct can be built, city 2 will whip one and have the overflow go into the Gardens, along with timed Forest chops that will be further aided by my Industrious trait.

Teching will be an issue with this plan. That's why I want that Gold city planted fairly quickly, and chop out a cheap Library to further boost early research. Once the Horses are hooked up, I should be able to protect it with Chariots against possible aggression. Other than that I'm looking to settle as many of the other potential city locations I already marked as possible and run minimal defense on any settlement that isn't a border city. Without Barbs, a single MP Warrior should be fine.

Whether or not this will succeed depends a lot on what the other Civs are doing, but I think I'll have a pretty decent shot at it. Of the other Civs, I'm expecting Egypt to go after Stonehenge, and the Netherlands to make a bid for the Lighthouse. Sunrise and rego don't have an Industrious leader, but since they settled on the coast, they may be aiming for it as well. Luddite is the only one who could be real competition, but Henge should be pretty good for his Civ as well and he may aim for that instead. The Oracle will be fairly powerful to bulb Metalcasting with (and get the Colossus afterwards), so whoever is going for the lower part of the tree may end up making a bid for it as well. This could be Lord Parkin, maybe Luddite, or Adlain (who picked up Meditation already and is just one tech away), or anyone else going for early religious techs. With so much potential competition for the early wonders, the Gardens feel like a pretty safe bet. And depending on how the game develops, I could have a shot at the Library later on as well (although I'll probably want to pick up Monarchy first after finishing Mathematics to raise my happy cap).

[Nicolae Carpathia]

A cunning plan! Still, what are you going to do with that extra population point? Whip fodder for the Granary? Getting two power tiles up and running? And will you have the worker turns spare to make your new population points have more than 3 yield?

Also, is there a reason you're putting red dot 1-tile off the coast? Defensive hill protection, or fear of getting boated?

[Bruindane]

Also, is there a reason you're putting red dot 1-tile off the coast? Defensive hill protection, or fear of getting boated?

The short term production advantage of 7 chopped forests inside the BFC, compared to settling one west and chopping the same forests, nets roughly 60 more hammers.

[SleepingMoogle]

The short term production advantage of 7 chopped forests inside the BFC, compared to settling one west and chopping the same forests, nets roughly 60 more hammers.

Pretty much this. While the city has a fairly decent hammer potential, in the long run it will suffer from having only a single Food resource. This is mitigated somehwat by having mostly grass tiles, but in the end it is intended to grab the Horses and unlock the more resource-rich south. Placing it in the currently suggested location would enable it to have an additional function in being able to rush the Gardens for me.

In addition, making the city coastal makes it more vulnerable to attack than its current hill position, and would require me to tech Fishing before the water tiles become useable. So that is both a short and long-term reason for not choosing a coastal location.

As for builds.. it will be a while before I can actually start on the Gardens (they require an Aqueduct to be built in the city first, which requires both Mathematics and Masonry), so it's quite likely a Granary will already have been built before then. Given its relative food scarcity, this would almost certainly be the first choice once Pottery research has finished.

[SleepingMoogle]

A quick update as I'm rather short on time right now. When logging into the game to play turn 23, I found a Dutch scout right next to my border who looks to have approached from the southeast. They haven't sent a greeting so far, so I sent them a standard greeting and asked if they are interested in an exchange of information. The east hasn't been defogged yet, so anything they share will be welcome information.

[SleepingMoogle]

The recently expanded borders (gogo Creative!) provided another reason to want to know what's hiding underneath the fog.



That Corn resource north of the gold could make it more beneficial to move the planned city move up a little. As the Dutch scout is standing in the middle of that area, Ioan and Mackoti have a map that I want.

Diplomacy with them is still in the early stages, but all in all I could definitely have gotten worse neighbors. I didn't really consider them a likely contender in my original assessment, and given they are likely to be the only real threat for the early game (There's no one north of me, the west is protected by the coast, and I still haven't found anyone to the south), I think I should try and claim as much terrain as possible in between us, and consider warring to grab some more in the future. But for now we can be friends.

Once the diplomacy starts making some headway, I'll post the messages. In the meantime, Insomnia will reach size 3 next turn and switch to a Settler.