[SPOILERS] Whosit Plays Alone for Fun (and Profit?)

[Commodore]

Toroidal.

[Whosit]

Animal Husbandry is teched, so where are Horses?



Not a terrible spot, but it's either 2nd city with border pop, or 3rd city. I don't think we're chariot rushing anyone.

Meanwhile, the scout meets some "friends."


Might survive that Lion, but let's hope Mr. Bear doesn't want to play.

We have a lot of pasture/camp food. Hunting first was definitely a good play for this map. I'm going to have to start figuring out where to put cities, and it's not as easy a choice as I'd like. Warrior will be finished soon, so then I should get a better idea of the near-east.


Hope my citizens like meat.

Demographics.


Not a lot to draw from this. Everyone surely has a 6 food tile to improve, though a few people are behind. I'm guessing they're just the ones who haven't logged in yet.

I mentioned chariots above, but you know, I think that if the whole map is this hilly, 2-movers aren't going to be as strong as they would be on a typical map. Oh, sure, as forests get cleared and cities get more spread out, they'll definitely be formidable on the offense. I think they may be scarier as defenders with road support. In any case, a strong stack of 1-movers shouldn't suffer as badly from their slower speed. I think.

If the scout survives, I'd like to keep going south, but might have to detour due to bears.

Ah, and as Agg/Chm, I think I need just 13 XP to get commandos, assuming the game goes that late and I'm not horrendously behind. SoZ is still a wonder I'd love to snag, but not critical. It's basically worth a settled Great General. Though it'll allow 3 promo mounted units with a Stable and Barracks, so still not bad early on. Gosh, I love RtR Charismatic.

Not much else to say. Haven't really been simming stuff, taking it easy. Might blast through a sim when I get a little more map info and it's closer to settling time.

[Whosit]

Lion didn't attack scout and bear moved out of sight. I moved scout 1NE on the grounds of "what're the chances the bear moved 1N last turn?"

Well.

Scout on forest hill defending against Bear doesn't even get odds, right? I just couldn't stand wasting a couple scouting turns....

[Whosit]

Scout lived, but barely. Will need to spend many turns healing. May send out before fully healed? Sucks to lose so much scouting turns, but better than being dead.

A couple people are still not working improved foods. Not sure what's up. Even if they had to build a farm and were non-expansive, should've been done, I think? This turn, started deer camp. Warrior should pop in a couple turns. Sheep will be improved next, and probably still going to do the silver mine as 4th improvement since BW won't be done, and of course lack Wheel for roads.

[Whosit]

Wounded Scout is fleeing a lion, Warrior is about to tangle with Wolves, so have some Demos (deer camp just finished):

[Whosit]

Doot doot doo.




Where Warrior is standing wouldn't be a bad spot. Too bad Fish isn't in range, but a city 3N of the capital could grab fish and steal either adjoining city's pig temporarily.

So, you may be wondering, "how does Whosit plan to win." Ehhhhh... *shrug*

To be honest, I thought I'd secretly be working hard to play well, but as it turns out, life has been really stressful lately! So I am unintentionally playing this game as it's meant to be played: By gut, one turn at a time. I mean, I figured out the build order I want at first: Grow to size 4, build 3 warriors, then Settler. Dunno after that. Might do a sim. We'll see. If anyone else is even trying a little, I'm doomed to die. But that was probably the case anyway.

I know neither my leader or civ pick is conducive to long-term econ, and it looks like we have a pretty spacious map, and that hurts. I should've guessed. We don't really have packed maps unless requested, I think. Most I can do, I think, is to try and turn CHM into an econ trait by growing my cities tall as soon as possible. I saw it argued, though, that luxuries weaken CHM, which is probably true. Don't know if 2-3 is enough to reduce my advantage significantly, though. Eh.

[Whosit]

Hm, still at least one person whose city is still size 1. Could it be a double worker play? Seems peculiar. I'm still pretty much tied for first in main 3 demos, more or less. Maybe I'll try to do some dot-mapping today.

[Whosit]

Quick dotmap (using old screenshot).



NE city is probably going to be #2. Pigs + Hill Deer means +8 food bonus with 2 citizens. Can improve Furs immediately, and connect as soon as I tech Wheel.

Yellow may be #3, and Red to the south west is something I'll be sure to want to grab quickly. Yellow will be rather weak until it gets a border pop and a work boat, but it gets Horses which is probably worth it. Can't see so well in this screen, but Red gets Grassland pigs, clams, and grass hill sheep. So with 3 citizens, that's +10 food. With a lighthouse (and a citizen to work lake), that's +12 food. Might try to make that into a specialist city? It's got mostly hills.

Everything has mostly hills.

Cottaging might be tough here, unless I build them on hills. Capital can probably get a decent number of cottages, which I do plan to do, but I think once I get Alphabet, Currency, and Metal Casting, I'm going to focus on hammers, forges, and wealth/research builds as a major supplement to commerce. No idea if that'll work, because it seems players tend to only make that switch later in the game, probably because early in the game you need that production to go to units, settlers, and workers. Ho hum.

[Commodore]

Challenge: Try to always be in last place on the approval demo.

[Whosit]

The Utopian Empire: Where no one is happy!