[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[The Black Sword]

Did you remember to get Pottery in the sandbox simulation?

Er, I did the second time.
That pic has pottery though.

I imagine with so many players wonder competition will be slightly tougher here, but those numbers sounds good to me.

Btw, the main funny point of my play was going for masonry -> BW -> Pottery -> Priesthood. Revolting to slavery delays a turn in itself and I didn't really feel slavery was necessary without Granaries yet. After the oracle, we could probably finish the settler then revolt and whip the granaries. The quarry is another 3 commerce tile, which I think shaves another turn off the ETA and we still got BW in time to do all the chopping.

[The Black Sword]

Found our first hut, which gave us a map.
At least the map revealed another hut for us ...


Might be a bit difficult to access though.

Seems like the land opens up to the west.

[The Black Sword]

Not too sure where to head next, looks like thick forest again.

More importantly, Fishing finished and tech switched to Polytheism. Our Rivals:

Plako: hut tech + 7t tech, must be Fishing - again, I think we're still good for either religion tech over him.
WillLP: didn't settle on first turn, 5t tech after that. Seems too early for normal teching, so probably a hut.
Suttree: moved around for 2t, hut tech.

So, we still don't know if Will or Suttree are going for really early religion tech. My reasoning behind Poly is that if someone did that, they'd go for the cheaper meditation and polytheism would still be safe. The extra beakers also don't have much effect on the rest of our opening until maybe the oracle.

Probably I'm way overthinking this and no-one would be crazy enough to go for religion first though.

[Jowy]

Oh man, that map was even more trolly than they normally are That hut is just gonna sit there, teasing us..
We see tundra on that island, so now we know we are close to the northern edge of the map.

Sutt was logged in when he got the score increase, WilliamLP was not when he got his. So only Sutt got a hut tech.

I moved our scout 2-1. Was hoping to avoid the thick forest that the NW has, but same thing SW. Only thing of interest was an ocean tile just in the fog.

[The Black Sword]

Hmm, not sure how he'd manage Fishing in 5t. He'd need about 13bpt and he's not Financial, might be an event I suppose. We're committed now anyway, so I guess we just have to wait and see.

I moved sideways again with the scout, seems like he's out of the woods now. Found a FP too.

[The Black Sword]

Found another hut, this time with a better result.

It's not a tech but 43g is a fair haul.

The rice is nice too, we could have a city sharing the capital's fish and the rice, though it'd need a border pop so it's down the priorities a bit.

I also started putting the 8h into the workboat.

[The Black Sword]

Rather cool looking mountain choke point:


I'd rather stay away from the bear too .

[The Black Sword]

We met dtay in game:



Probably one of the better neighbours we could have gotten. Workboat is almost done:



I put together a preliminary dotmap to discuss.



Inland is very dry and needs some thinking about but this should keep us occupied for some time. I'm rethinking fish+rice idea, since it would need a border pop, and still isn't that great if capital or green takes the fish.

Orange: In the event we find more seafood in the fog, then this spot becomes worthwhile. Even if we do though, it would need a border pop so we can push it back for a while.

Red: Looks like there is a strategic resource 1 north of the city spot too. 2nd city should either be this or blue dot IMO. If that strat res is copper then definitely here. Red star is in case we find more food in the fog. It can still be settled in addition to red dot in that case. Given that we will have IC trade routes from green dot, we wouldn't need this till currency at least.

Blue: 2 first ring resources is nice, and happy ivory when borders pop. Star also works if the fog hides more fishing resources. Takes a bit longer to travel to than red and less overlap from the capital, but a stronger city.

Green: IC trade routes, probably moai spot and shares capitals fish. I'm not sure when the optimal time to slot this in is.

Purple: I'm not sure how close dtay is to this, but we should make sure we get it. I figured gold and FP wins out over the crab. Crab city then will need a border pop to be useful, but by then, that shouldn't be too bad. If possible, maybe prioritize this over brown.

Brown: It's tricky here to fit a city in that works that plains cow and also has a good food level. Brown is the best spot for this but requires a border pop. The stars are an alternative to this but I'm still not sure how good the cow city is. Pre civil-service, it can have 1 grass farm 1st ring, another 2nd ring, for +4/+5 food.

Any thoughts Jowy?

[Jowy]

Yeah dot map is okay. We are heavy on sea food, which I normally dislike, but considering our traits it should be great. I want to scout south so we can choose which way to expand, especially since we happened to take this route with the scout. Dtay was also coming from northwest, so no huts that way. Dtay is a much better neighbor to have than some of the known pros, but we can't underestimate him. He could be a ghostie profile created to play this game anonymously, and that's not a good sign. I find it very unlikely that a complete newbie to RB would sign up for a RB mod Pitboss game. Our lands are dry and not heavy on food, but I reckon we should be farming the rivers and cottaging the non-river tiles to take advantage of our trait anyway. It's weaker at first, but once that cottage grows the first time it's on par with a river cottage, and we get an extra commerce from having a farm on a river tile.

[The Black Sword]

Good call on the south:



The bear might make things awkward though, that's why I went for the mountains originally.

I think you're right about cottaging off river in general, though we should still be working the river tiles first, so we will need some cottages on them. If we can find a good patch of grassland to cottage I think we should consider moving our capital for a good bureau. Our current capital might be better suited as a production monster.