Scout did not see anything interesting in the east so I played according to my original plan and settled on the plains hill. Grassland-Hill-Pig was revealed in the southwest. City 2,3 or 4 will go there.
Sareln & Viqsi
Both of them did not settle yet. What is going on here? Did they move on to the plains hill N-NE? That place loses both rice and sheep, so were they hoping to get lucky? Or do they know something more than I do? Did they want coastal capitol?
I hope they did not get lucky. Civ is a game of mistakes, and I need many of them from my opponents in order to succeed
Azza
Settled next to the fish, works it and researches something with pre-req bonus. That means BW.
I also assume that he settled NE of starting position and not E. Since E would have the same amount of forests in capitol BFC, and Azza's life expectancy rate is lower than mine.
Land tiles/Civ: ~180
- I guess that means that there is pretty much room for expansion, but this is not a pure builder party
Land/Total tiles: ~35 %
- This is based on assumption that Small map has 2560 tiles (found with google from Apolyton forum) since I do not know the real size. I did not wan't to do fog wandering thing. Conclusion, surprisingly there is lot of water.
I guess I should build up a C&D and Micro excel. For now this is easy, but soon I will inevitably confuse myself.
Scouting revealed couple of food resources and if I go with my initial micro plan I will have corn in the second ring of my 2nd city. That is at least good news.
Sareln
Turn 1: Settled with 1 water tile. My best guess is PH next to the fish, but he could have moved to the coast as well.
Viqsi
Turn 1: Same story as Sareln
Hydra
Turn 0: Settled next to the fish. Moved settler E or NE.
I have now C&D excel up and running. I created a scenario that guesses what everyones demos are, but obviously that includes a bunch of assumptions. I can elaborate my guesses if someone is interested. I will keep following the demos and I expect to get more clear idea of different openings as I see changes.
More scouting, no demo changes. Quiet turn. Next time I should get at least some new info about the opening of Viqsi.
And yay! A lurker comment
Naming theme is still open, I have considered something Finland or Tennis related (obviously for personal reasons), but I am still waiting for that great idea..
More scouting revealed sheep resource in the nearby island. There are definitely chances to get intercontinental trade routes running early on.
Viqsi (since he is creative) received an increase in land points. He has only 1 water tile in his BFC, so he did not move to coast. Most likely he settled on the PH next to the fish. Next time I get to know a bit more about Azza's start.
Btw, my micro is pretty clear until around T25. Everything after that depends on whether I can squeeze the one single beaker that I need with known tech bonus My best chance will be to get it with Bronze working, since I expect that 3 out of 4 opponents will have it before me (probably it's the first tech for all Mining/Fishing civs).
Scouting revealed one Fur resource on the nearby island. Until now CHA feels like a good secondary trait to FIN since I haven't seen any Happy resources on the starting continent so far. But of course there is still lots of time for scouting..
Azza also has only 1 water tile in BFC, I am pretty confident that he moved NE and settled during the first turn.
I support a tennis theme. Maybe different grips and types of shots and spins, although I can only think of 14 without making a repetitive list like "topspin forehand, topspin backhand, topspin serve, etc," which might not be enough. Different strategies would be cool too, or you could of course do famous people.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Fishing came in and the research of AH started. Thanks to the pre-req and possibility to work the lake tile I am now in tied lead with Azza in GNP.
Scouting in the north did not reveal anything particularly interesting. However, the border pop at the end of the last turn, gives a bit better idea of expansion possibilities in west & south. I will scout a bit more before making more serious plans with the dot map.
Everyone has now popped the borders of capital once and unsurprisingly all the teams have 20 land tiles and the lake in capitol BFC.
Re Naming: I guess I could go with tennis then. Workers can be named alphabetically with tennis player names, Agassi, Becker... City names could be derived from stadions, tournaments, shots, strategies or something else. I have to think about what would make the most fun list..
Scout revealed gold on an island in the north. This map surely seems interesting. Currently it seems that island hopping is required for getting happy resources.
No changes in demos. Everyone except Hydra (religion?) is still researching BW for a while.
Hmm. How do the game mechanics work if I plant a city exactly there were my scout currently is? How do I get gold online? Would I need another city on the island as well?
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T00000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/3ofled5954nb5l5/PBEM%2045%20T00000.JPG)
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T10000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/6imopjgfgjgfr9v/PBEM%2045%20T10000.JPG)
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T20000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/qo4v81cb2vuruli/PBEM%2045%20T20000.JPG)
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20Turn%2030000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/dlcxpq7az8wdbds/PBEM%2045%20Turn%2030000.JPG)
My best chance will be to get it with Bronze working, since I expect that 3 out of 4 opponents will have it before me (probably it's the first tech for all Mining/Fishing civs).
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T40000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/9on7ioy4j05vz3h/PBEM%2045%20T40000.JPG)
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T50000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/1pk7j34fap5urad/PBEM%2045%20T50000.JPG)
![[Image: PBEM%2045%20T60000.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/tkkmt0zm41ns9h5/PBEM%2045%20T60000.JPG)