[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world

[Plunder]

Hunting? Wouldn't that be a particular tech to start with? Mining would fit better I think.
(They start with wheel/argi.)

[WilliamLP]

The trouble with that is mining takes 8 turns to research, at least for us, and it's only turn 7. I'm not sure if they have a flood plain or other commerce boosting tile though (oasis? resource?), or if the +1C would be enough to give reduce research by 1T. Maybe they have deer in their capital? [Edit: actually checking, mining is 79 beakers, so they couldn't get it in 7 turns with either a 9, 10, or 11 beaker capital, so even a fishing civ on a lake couldn't do it.]

I've been playing with starts a bit, and it's possible to get down to a T39 settler at size 3 with 2 workers and 4 chops. The trade-off is delaying the warrior to turn 26 instead of turn 16, but everything else is faster including research. I think we'd be safe from a warrior rushing over - we'll have power graphs on Kuro in probably 7 turns or so and we'll be able to see their warrior builds as they happen (power increase without score increase). But... it might be a little sketchy.



Basically this is emphasizing growth earlier instead of powering out the warrior, and doing more micro to get the pops happening on exact food multiples, and roading forests to get the chops in earlier. (The roads could be in better places than those in this pic.)

[WilliamLP]

Turn 8 scout move:



Well, this is nearly as much scouting as we're going to be able to do. Surely their capital must connect to something else! We know there's at least 13 land tiles there. I'm suggesting moving the scout NE to get the vision over the coast, then I guess heading back.

Note their scout is over by our capital. Maybe they can weaken a bear to the E for us or something.

Several scores increased this turn, including us. Retep grew to size 2, presumably while building a work boat. Damn, wouldn't that be nice?

Demos:



Global rival power increased from 24k -> 29k. That's consistent with 2 civs getting mining (the two score increases) and retep's pop growth.

I'm curious what Kuro is researching. I'm guessing it either has to be AH or BW.

[WilliamLP]

It's a pretty intriguing question how we should play the non-diplo diplo side of this. Clearly it's in both our better interests not to war early. I think both sides must be bright enough to know this. On the other hand, building a warrior earlier than them and having it by their capital would force them to slow down a bit, perhaps! (And vice-versa.)

Also I realize I was wrong in the last post. 9 beakers in the capital really means 10 beakers per turn because there is a bonus beaker you always get no matter what. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get mining in 8. So working a lake would allow someone to research mining in 7.

[WilliamLP]

Next scout move:



And that's probably about as much about their capital as we can know... They have only one clam, more land tiles, a much nicer river, and also a lot of forest. The scout is now going to try and head back over the peak bottleneck and scout our eastern lands.



Two techs discovered, global power rose by 2k. We're now worst in GNP. Likely everyone or almost everyone is researching something with a prereq, as our GNP will go up as soon as we switch to BW.

To be honest, this start is pretty poor, so I wouldn't be surprised to be far down on the demo rankings for a while.

[Qgqqqqq]

Is your rice dry or wet?

[Merovech]

Is your rice dry or wet?

Dry It can be easily irrigated, however.

[Plunder]

But still, 4.5 food resources is not too bad, but it's just very slow =(

I don't think to have a sealed of neighbour to the north is very good for diplomacy, especially if we are the seal.

I updated the sandbox a bit, but I should modify the techs and so. I'll fix and upload it later.

I had to move our whole starting position :P

Other option is to declare ware and move our scout through their territory. They'll understand?

[WilliamLP]

With lighthouses and CS (and AH for that matter) the food in the capital will be amazing. It's just really slow to get anything more than a 4F tile, when many other civs are probably going to be able to start with 5F and 6F tiles right out of the gate.

> Other option is to declare ware and move our scout through their territory. They'll understand?

Yeah, I thought about that too. Reasons not to:

- Diplo hit - it doesn't really signal "good neighbour".
- We don't really care much about the land to the N of their capital, we really just want Yes / No for if someone else is there.
- We'll be able to tell that (eventually) with their EP spending, I think.
- We really want to know what's in the wider circle around our own capital, and beyond, whether we have more contacts ourselves.

[WilliamLP]

Scout move:



Probable next moves are the red arrows. There's a risk of barb animals, but I don't know that changing the moves does anything about it since there's no defensive terrain on the path. I wish I could confirm or deny that barbs never spawn within 2 tiles of a culturally controlled tile.



Global power is the same. Someone had 7 production last turn, which must be overflow. Otherwise that would be absurdly high. Somehow global average health dropped. I'm not sure what that could be, maybe a jungle spread?

I think we'll get graphs on Kuro (and vice versa) in 4 or 5 turns.