RBP7 [SPOILERS] - The Chronicles of Nyania

[Mist]

Your start

[nabaxo]

Sweet! Double food! On a hill for hard dislodging and fresh-water. A little bit of coastal action as well. Hmm..We might be able to work with this, nyaa~~

Though, send scout to, eh, scout before settling would be a sensible thing to do, nya~~

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, not looking too bad. Two five food resources, and even a break in the trees which heavily suggests Horse, Copper or Iron on a random map. Hopefully one of the former two! We've got a Scout and Warrior (like everyone else), so can fully explore the potential fat cross before settling. Exciting!

Downsides - looks like there's not many hills for production... only one other non-resourced hill, in fact. So once we chop all our forests we'll be a bit thin in that department. Might be a very small incentive to moving - though I doubt we'll do much better, so maybe not. Also, our two food resources have different techs (gah), so we have to debate Agriculture vs Animal Husbandry vs Bronze Working, rather than just one of those vs Bronze Working. Still, better than only getting one food resource, so I guess we shouldn't complain. No Stone or Marble in the immediate area, though I wasn't expecting that.

I don't know what any of the other starts are like (obviously), but based on what I've seen from generating multiple other maps, I'd say we've got a roughly average or very slightly above average spot. Some folks are likely to have a power resource - or several - like Gold, Gems, or Silver, so they'll probably be the winners. It's also possible some folks may have 4-5 food resources, so they'd also be winners. Still, we could have done a lot worse, so we shouldn't complain.

[Lord Parkin]

We'll have a 3-food lake once we've got a Lighthouse as well. The Great Lighthouse could actually be a decent choice for us later on, if we're not getting harassed too much by other teams. If we're very very lucky we might see a seafood resource in one of the two fogged tiles, though I doubt it... and it probably wouldn't change our initial tech priorities anyway.

I think the main decision has to be between Agriculture -> AH -> BW, or AH -> BW. My gut tells me to go with Agri -> AH -> BW because it lets us hook up both our resources and gives us a tech discount. However, we lose out on several turns of potential chopping this way, so it might not be the best option. BW first would just be silly because we'd have no food for ages. Unless, maybe, we have seafood (chop a Work Boat after Fishing)... but even then I'm not sure.

[nabaxo]

I think putting AH there in the middle might be a boon if that empty spot reveals ponies, nyaa~~

And the g.lighthouse should be dirt-cheap for our leader, might be worth the investment.

[Lord Parkin]

Well, not dirt cheap, but pretty cheap. Something like 165 hammers as opposed to 260, anyway. Worth considering but not sacrificing too much defence/expansion for.

Also, Worker first or Warrior first? I think I'm inclined towards Worker first because we should be safe enough with our one Warrior (if we keep it at home). Probably need a Warrior immediately after that, then possibly another Worker as we're coming up to Bronze Working for extra chopping speed.

Another thought... given that barbs are on, we'll have to be extra careful of any enemy Warriors that promote to Woodsman II. Being in the middle of a forest, that could easily translate into a quick Worker steal with a double move. Of course, we could turn this around and use it in our favour too.

[nabaxo]

If we start with a warrior and our capital is on a hill, then worker first should be fine.

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, that's what I was leaning towards. I think it's a reasonably safe bet given that everyone else starts with the same units too. If someone sends their Warrior towards us early on, they're leaving their own capital in danger. And given that this isn't a hand crafted map, extra Warriors will take most civs at least 4-5 turns to produce (assuming max 3-4 hammers at size 1)... so unlike the Pitboss 4 map (5 hammers at size 1), you can't just churn one out if you're in danger.

The other thing to bear in mind is the average distance between civs. On the test maps I generated, the minimum distance between neighboring capitals (assuming founding in place) was 7 tiles, and the maximum distance was 14 tiles. The most common distances were 8, 9, and 10 tiles, with 9 being the approximate average.

That doesn't mean that every neighbour will be that distance away, just our closest neighbour. So that means only 4-5 Chariot turns (less with roads) will be needed on average for someone to travel to attack us... or for us to reach a potential rush target. Or 9 Axe turns (less with roads). Basically, we'll need to keep a watch out - both for potential threats and potential opportunities.

[nabaxo]

If we go worker first, we need to be careful of having it sniped by the other players whom might decide to go warrior first.

[Lord Parkin]

Note to self: Ivory seems to usually crop up in about 6-9 separate batches on a map like this. Out of 18 players, approximately 5-11 will have Ivory potentially obtainable within their sphere of influence (easily available for at least 5). Of course, some players will likely be wiped off the map early on, leaving more room for others to claim Ivory. If one of those isn't the Khmer, it seems there's something like a 30-60% chance of seeing Khmer Ballista Elephants. Yikes. Hopefully if they turn up, they're as far from us as possible.