Arendel Phaedra, the last blossom of Yggdrasil [SPOILERS]

[Ichabod]

No time for proper updates, because I've been busy.

The map is very lush near the capital to the west. Lots of AH and calendar resources, almost no grains. I've changed my research from AC (spent like 5 turns on AC before I noticed that Agri -> Ah was better, after some exploration) to agriculture -> AH. After that, it's calendar. Getting god king would be an enormous waste of time, because it'll only give 4 hammers (I get half of that just from the Ah health bonus).

Luckily, I'll have AH by the time my settler is ready. I'm building a worker now, that will road to the second city site. The settler will take 13 turns, AH 12 turns. More luckily, it seems that a lot of the players are going for Mysticism and GK... Bad move... My opening with some turns of AC was bad (lost me 10 food from the health bonuses delay), but I changed my mind after seeing the landscape.

I have one scout exploring and a scout and a warrior fogbusting. There's 2 more warriors on the capital. There's a lot of good city sites, so the idea is to keep going worker/settler/warriors for a long time.

[Ichabod]

Turn 16:


Time to give a short update and some pictures. I'm currently building a settler while having a worker (roading to where the settler is going), 3 warriors and 2 scouts. Both scouts and a warrior are fogbusting. The game seems to have some very good expansion prospects near each player capital, so I can afford waiting a bit before scouting a lot. Even better if I can wait until hunting, hunters and hawks.

Here's where I plan to settle my second city:

I'm still undecided between on the sugar or 1E of the sugar as the city spot. As you can see, the map is pretty lush. That's why expanding fast is key and that's why Mysticism would have been the worst beggining ever for me. It was pretty harmful to lose 5 turns in the wrong tech path (10 loss production towards a settler due to unhealthiness -> 1 turn delay on the second city placing and the second city improvement by my worker -> lots of snowball damage). But what's done is done. My micro is mostly going by gut feeling, rather then testing, due to lack of time (the worker before settler was a decision I made by gut, for example).

Notice how I have a pretty good fogbusting setup near my desired second city. The creative trait + fogbust will enable a very quick expansion, BTS style which will hopefully lead me to a solid start. No point in thinking about cottages or aristofarms right now, since I have so much resources to expand into.

More pictures of the surroundings:

And my capital:

Demographics reveal that there are some differences between the starts, albeit minor. Tholal and DaveV grew to size 5 which makes me wonder about what they are doing. Tholal is playing the Kurios, so I bet he has a better starting position. But why DaveV grew to size 5? He has the same health as I have and growing actually takes production from your city...

I wonder if people are going for AC -> Myst. Tholal and DaveV time regarding techs seems to indicate that, Lewwyn and Tasunke too. I'm worried about Ilios, since I think he's a very good player.

Anyway, the idea is: Agri -> AH -> Calendar. After that, I don't know. GK will be skipped entirely, since it won't be worth with the current capital. Maybe a beeline to Aristocracy? I'm spiritual after all. But expanding sound more important. Crafting would give wines and the Brewery (still too soon to build it, rather build warriors/settlers/workers), but Mining seems a bit useless (almost no hills). Not a lot of forests too, so production will be a problem... But that's a problem for later, when I need to build things that cannot be build with food.


The eastern part of the map seems dangerous:

See the strap of ice? There was a barb ice elemental there a few turns ago. The desert is acting like a defensive line against the elementals. I have to say that I'm inclined to go hunting very soon, because I believe this map will have some "easter egg" stuff that will be worthy to look for.

Hopefully I'll be the first to a second city. Even if I'm not, from what I'm reading from the play of my opponents, I'll have a head start on empire development, coupling the tech choices with fast expansion and fog busting networks.

Any questions, lurkers, ask away! I'm not having too much time to update my threads (WW is taking all my forum time), but I'll try to keep some tracks regarding my movements.

[Jkaen]

Any questions, lurkers, ask away! I'm not having too much time to update my threads (WW is taking all my forum time), but I'll try to keep some tracks regarding my movements.

Guess you can spend more time on civ now!

To be honest the report is pretty well detailed for this stage of the game, just keep it going all game!

[Ichabod]

Guess you can spend more time on civ now!

To be honest the report is pretty well detailed for this stage of the game, just keep it going all game!

Thanks, Jkaen.

Yeah, there's not much to say on the early game with huts and lairs off. And since I'm prioritizing fogbusting over exploration, I don't even move units on some of my turns.

[Ichabod]

Second city will be founded next turn, if my settler doesn't get eaten this turn (no escort, but I have the area fogbusted by scouts, with no tile fogged in a 2 tile radius from the settler - a mistform could own me, but, then again, it wouldn't matter if I had an escort then).

Worker is in position to improve the pigs as soon as city is founded!

[Ichabod]

Turn 28:

Moved my settler into position and settled Valus on top of the sugar. The worker is already pasturing the cows. The idea is to grow the city with its 3 pigs to work the specials, while building warriors. The capital is building a second worker and will start on a settler next. The warriors from Valus growth will escort the settler to the third city spot.

Valus after its settling:

And ther city screen (notice that I already have trade routes!):

With the second city settled, I decided to move my scouts that were fogbusting. One will die next turn to a scorpion, the other discovered some foodplain/grassland area:

I did two turn of 100% gold to avoid losing beakers/gold due to rounding mistakes. After that, I'll do 100% science until calendar. After calendar... who knows? There's too much resources to make cottages worth and God King is useless on the current capital. We'll see... Mining is not that useful too, due to severe lack of hills...

[Ravus Sol]

I should perk up and mention that I AM actually ded-lurking this, i'm just currently very very quiet. Can't remember if I actually told you

[Ichabod]

So, quick update (the game is actually more advanced then this):

The map has some things to discover:

The unit should have an Aurealis graphic, but my computer is old (and frozen animations bugs FfH)...

Look at this beauty:

The city will grow until size 5 or 6 (working 3 pigs and 2 calendar resources) and then start pumping workers and settlers.

My capital is building a second settler:

Demographics:

Big GNP is probably DaveV (a philosophical player got a GSci some turns ago). My GNP is good enough and it'll get better after the calendar resources are online.

My lack of production is due to not being in God King. But, on the other hand, if I wen't for Mysticism first, I wouldn't have the very good second city and the pretty nice food graph 9and I have better places to spend the hammers of an Elder Council). I need to keep up in food with expansive Lewwyn (and he's also a very good player), which is no easy task (the start greatly favored an expansive leader - pre-palced hammer improvements and lack of health in the starting city + very good sites to expand to).

I finished Calendar, so now i'm going for Mysticism or education. Not sure yet. Either way, I need AC, which is almost done (due to my turns of researching it earlier).

I also met Ilios (a svartalfar annoying scout with 3 attack strenght, blargh), which forced me to cover my workers. But he seems to be going to the wrong side of my Civ now, so I will be safe for a while.

Any questions? Especially you, Ravus, since you are the dedlurker (thank you for that!) and I haven't been properly updating the thread.

[Ravus Sol]

No worries. initial turns are allways meh.

I need to bully my way into a Classical start game.

Anywho, you are off to a good start, the new city has enough food to replace the capital as the worker/settler pump. I assume when you say it will grow to size 5 you are anticipating the Calendar happy resources coming online? How many workers do you have? Might be worthwhile to get out a worker before it hits unhappiness and you are making plantations.

I'm quite surprised by your low score in demographs with population. You are holding equal in land score so your rivals are growing vertically more then you... seems strange. Makes me suspect the starts are quite different.

[Ichabod]

No worries. initial turns are allways meh.

I need to bully my way into a Classical start game.

Anywho, you are off to a good start, the new city has enough food to replace the capital as the worker/settler pump. I assume when you say it will grow to size 5 you are anticipating the Calendar happy resources coming online? How many workers do you have? Might be worthwhile to get out a worker before it hits unhappiness and you are making plantations.

I'm quite surprised by your low score in demographs with population. You are holding equal in land score so your rivals are growing vertically more then you... seems strange. Makes me suspect the starts are quite different.

The scores are actually very similar (2 turns later I'm in second place :neenernee), I was a little behind due to the wasted turns on AC, which made everyone a bit ahead in tech completion dates.

I'm also the only one with a size 4 capital. But I don't see the point in growing to work a 1/1/0 tile, which will add one unhealthy, without GK (the 1 hammer wouldn't add another one with GK too, since it'd make an even number of base production).

I have 2 workers and they'll start working on the 2 resources next turn. I'll keep Vallus (already at size 4) stagnated while building a 3rd worker to wait for the resources to be online, then I'll resume growth while getting another warrior.

After that, it's settler time (I'll probably be at 3 cities already, due to the settler in capital being ready)!