[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[Maga_R]

Slaze says to go NE->NE, I am tempted to scout a bit around gold. He have to decide soon. Any opinions?

[Maga_R]

Jovan has yet other views on scouting:

Scout around gold, then scout towards NW cow, because 2nd city will probably be on plainshill 2S of NW cow.

[slaze]

Yeah that's a pretty good site. I didn't even notice until now. However, I already went NE for two turns worth. I should circle back. I'm starting to put less of a concern on finding people asap.

[retep]

pictures, pictures, pictures

[Maga_R]

This is what Slaze uncovered:

   

[Maga_R]

I'm starting to put less of a concern on finding people asap.

I'm actually moving in opposite direction - initially, I wanted to go towards the NW cow Jovan pointed out and then was tempted to look more around gold. Now I am thinking more to go with the scout as far as we can, never returning, trying to meet as many opponents as possible.

My reasons:

1) we play CRE leader, so our quick border popping will do a lot of scouting on its own. Below is example of what we will see from pure border pop at turn 25. Incidentally, turn 25 is exactly the turn on which we should decide where to put 2nd city and start to pre-road towards it (worker finishes improving the NE cow turn 25). Please disregard techs in the screenshot and there is a lot of flatlands and water, so probably we see a bit less, but still a lot.

NOT A REAL SCREENSHOT - BORDER POP DEMO ONLY

   
   

2) It seems that in games like this meeting other civs quickly is crucial, it seems that players are more likely to astablish friendly relationships with civs they meet first and early

3) we get 3% discount on techs per civ knowing them. If we meet 3-4 civs soon it can be substantial

4) scouting close is not very useful in terms of contact, we will likely meet at least one neighboring civ because the would send their scout our way. We need to be more proactive to meet more distant neighbors, though

5) From scouting far away early we will get crucial info on capitol distances and general "threat level" and would hopefully identify contested areas.

6) From what Slaze just uncovered, it seems to me that the best spot for 2nd city would be 1SE or 1E of the Northern corn.

We have to decide where to go relatively soon. My vote would be for some combination of going NE and N, depending on what Slaze sees on the first move.

[Maga_R]

What do you think is the best 2nd city placement now? I was thinking something like 1SE or 1E of the Northern cow, depending on what is in the vicinity. Looks like nice place for cottage spam - and we should have pottery researched by the time we would settle the 2nd city.

I guess you're talking about northern coRN, not coW. I still prefer something around NW cow, we should scout area around it. Northern corn can wait for 3rd city.

Yes, I meant the Northern corn - was late at night and after party .

[Maga_R]

More from Jovan:

Cow is the best tile visible, for now. Plainshill gives a nice bonus, so we should put city there, unless we discover some other nice tiles around NW cow.

[Maga_R]

Now we understand why Yuufo did not settle on the first turn. Demo screen shows he has the record 9 land tiles in his capitol, most likely he settled on a plain forest hill, like the one 1E of our capitol.

[Maga_R]

Newest scouting results (+ increased visibility from our CRE border pop ):

   

I was thinking of going 1E->1SE now, mostly because there is no forest adjacent to the ending tile, but also because it allows us to later follow the river, which seems to go eastwards. If we will continue North, we will get stuck in forest and anyway it looks like there is a horizontal seawater lake up North. Thoughts?