[PB61 - Spoiler] bell's uncreatively named spoiler thread

[bellarch]

Is there a screenshot missing?

Try reloading the page and tell me if it still seems wrong? I did have to fix a few things immediately after publishing the post, but it shows up complete for me now.

[civac2]

You wrote something about Writing and ktb but none of the screenshots seem to be related.

[Tarkeel]

Bell puts some of the images in links instead of screenshot tags, which is very easy to miss.

[bellarch]

Also the context was not necessarily apparent from the text, which is my fault. Amended.

p.s.: our high commerce and culture led to this amusing screenshot a few turns ago, where our GNP is almost 3 times the rival best. It's mostly an artifice created by ktbs from four other civs having researched Writing and other people on 0% research, but it still makes me laugh.

[Mjmd]

I am amused by the fact that our development mirrors the development of many real life early civilizations -- large, rich population centers built up on fertile terrain on the banks of rivers. 

Its actually funny (and amazing honestly) that Inca is one of the few (only?) major ancient era (which they were for western hemisphere) major civilizations that didn't fit this model. I honestly can't think of another large mountain based empire; especially one this far back in technological time.

Here are some links to Fall of Civilzation podcast. Does a pretty good job on these; little bit of added drama feel, but what can you expect. Something to watch or listen to during pandemic times.
Part1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRB9dJmZhVk
Part2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GkNOT2Q2hk

[Miguelito]

Its actually funny (and amazing honestly) that Inca is one of the few (only?) major ancient era (which they were for western hemisphere) major civilizations that didn't fit this model. I honestly can't think of another large mountain based empire; especially one this far back in technological time.

I'll just throw out some names; I'm not sure if they fit your expectation of "ancient" nor if I'm mistaken and they are rather what you described:

• Hethites (central Anatolia afaik is pretty hilly and dry)
  
• Aztecs (a lake, not a river ) - I don't really know how the terrain looks like around the older Mexicans  like Teotihuacan or Olmeks
  
• The several pre-Inca Andean civilizations
  
• Maya (jungle)
  
• Greece (Minoan/Mycenean if you want more ancient)
  
• Persian?
  

Btw what I find very interesting about old American civilizations is how they seem to disappear repeatedly. In the Andes, or Yucatan, or afaik Mexico as well you find ruins several thousands of years old and then there's just nothing for centuries, until a new civilization pops up and disappears again. In Eurasia/Africa I don't think you find many places where civilization really went away once it was first established, although of course there were many catastrophic events and subsequent reductions in activity.

I'm posting this mostly to be educated on where I'm wrong.

[Mjmd]

It really depends how size ist you want to be. Of the 6 cradles of civilizations even the Andes is based on small rivers, but still certainly probably the least dependent on moving forward in development. Mesoamerica we always think Lake Texcoco, but that is basically just the confluence of multiple rivers. Also things like length of empire duration and size are hard to determine, but relevant.

Moving past early development stages for comparison purposes of new world and old world I would say the we can compare the bronze age empires in old world vs the new world civilizations we know of, even though they didn't have bronze working any meaningful way. Also of note is that terrain and environment in the Americas just means we don't have as much archeological evidence (also I suspect without any googling a lot fewer digs / effort on to begin with). Also a lot of the empires in the Americas were just later to develop due to a whole host of issues, so not an exact comparison (think domesticated animals as a huge factor).

-I'm assuming you meant Hittites? I honestly don't know much about them. They were around for a while, but size and influence /shrug?

-Aztecs - as discussed lake with a bunch of rivers leading into it, but to be fair influence spread beyond that river system. They also did have to start not on a river. Also, I would argue the Olmecs which came before probably are more in contention. Both of these I would classify as city state based systems of conquest and allegiances. They both had major singular entities that exerted power over a long enough length of time to put in contention though. Size wise Inca beats Aztecs although Olmecs /shrug.

Greek history is usually divided in two. The fact they were relevant twice is pretty good for the terrain on land, but the fact said land was in a prime spot for Mediterranean trade is a huge leg up.
-Mycenaean were sea based rather than river. Again we are kind of past first civilizations here, but as you pointed out so was Inca. I would argue sea is a lot more lucrative (not necessarily easier, but ease of trade is huge) than mountains though! Also, I honestly don't know how much cohesiveness they had / I don't know a lot about in general.
-Maya and later (I always forget term, but really this is early Iron age, but still) Greece actually have a lot in common in my mind. Both city state based. Both struggled with food. Part of why we remember Greece other than writing and influence through Rome is their vast colonization efforts, which from my understanding often stemmed from surplus population that they couldn't feed. Maya wasn't able to set up colonies to trade with to feed themselves and suffered ecological devastation from over-farming / farming practices (along with possible long term drought; all my limited understanding). Another similarity is that neither was ever united all the city states at least for any length of time to truly put them in contention. Inca we don't know how much they waxed and waned over their time period to be fair, but at least post family civil wars that probably didn't make the historical cut, they had 12 kings from a single line. This is pure speculation, but its possible the smaller sizes of settlements in the mountains meant that it was harder to organize and implement a large scale revolt against the central government.

-Persia and the many other empires that rose and fell in that region probably is the best contender even though they did have Mesopotamia as part of, there was still a lot of other territory to cover and control. Their food situation was better for this though. The kingway or whatever the main road was called was certainly probably easier to build than what the Incas went through. Also, I think this is probably the clearest example of the difference things like horses can make in communication.

My point is Inca are pretty awesome and call out to terraces for making it all possible. Thematically probably shouldn't have a hammer discount (probably the reverse), but you know game play.

[Charriu]

My point is Inca are pretty awesome and call out to terraces for making it all possible. Thematically probably shouldn't have a hammer discount (probably the reverse), but you know game play.

But the irrigation bonus is thematically fitting again

[bellarch]

Extremely fast text-only post, because I got behind on posting things this week, and now it's Saturday and turns are moving fast:

When I made the last post, we were moving towards Math. We've now set ourselves up to claim Currency on T99 -- from what Mjmd tells me this is typically a relatively early date, but we're actually only the third to grab the tech! We also managed to build the Great Lighthouse. Originally we had just started it in Thalassina for the purpose of getting some fail gold towards Currency, but then we realized that we actually had a chance to finish before anyone else, so we ended up building it on T98. We also began making some preparations to claim the Hanging Gardens (or another wonder if that one fell early) in Foramen, which we should be able to have online sometime in the next five turns or so. I was going to post a more detailed overview of our plans earlier, but things got away from me yesterday, and then by the time I had time today we were already in the middle of taking turns.

In less promising news, we're losing a settling race with Joshy in the southeast. We built our ninth city in the spot we had discussed for it with no issue (along with our tenth in the northwest), but then by the time the settler for the eleventh city moved into the area Joshy already had a settler established. I haven't been able to check with Mjmd about making plans for that city -- the turn rolled over three hours ago, I was only able to play two hours ago, the turn just rolled over again right before I was able to post this, and I haven't heard from Mjmd in that timespan -- but my suspicion is that we'll have to end up sending the settler someplace else. I believe we move second in turn order, and that additional disadvantage will probably lock us out of a city in the area completely.

[Mjmd]

I was napping or I would have told Bellarch to not end turn T98! This is one of those bull*#&@ situations where Realms current settling race policies is real bad. Joshy double moved into the settle race 1st in turn by being last to play, even though Bellarch has been consistently playing first for forever. I believe it should be a coin flip at the very least.

edit: I want to state that I don't think Joshy cheated, he just would get paid off under current Realms policy for being last to play on a turn before moving settler into a far flung area.

Edit x2: I want to clarify I would like coin flip for turn order not exact spot. Obviously Bell's spot is going to change since in a settling race. Going to go 1S on the plains tile.