[SPOILERS] Novice starts improvising

[novice]

Archery is a good idea. I want Pottery first though so I can build the Oracle (and granaries). I did land Stonehenge.

[novice]

The city that was razed:

[novice]

Oh wow, the city that was razed was the Buddhist holy city. Sucks for Commodore, rocks for me. I have a monopoly on world religions.

[novice]

Oracled Metal Casting. I'll settle a city SW of silver on t59. It will have two or three warriors on that turn, a spear the turn after, and one archer each on t61 and t62. It will have a barracks completing eot60 for extra culture, and good chance of a hindu spread.







These starts look pretty cramped, at least Krill and Commodore's. Krill settled on T1, I wonder how he moved his settler.

[novice]

Actually, Thoth's start is the most cramped of all. Here's an overview shot from the sandbox (I didn't want to mess around with flying camera and such in game).




I just placed scooter and Serdoa randomly in the fog. Out of curiosity I then checked the land distribution according to my MapTuner tool:

Stalin of Germany (me): 249 land tiles.
Lincoln of Arabia (Commodore): 204 land tiles.
Saladin of Babylon (pindicator): 159 land tiles.
Genghis Khan of Russia (Krill): 155 land tiles.
Tokugawa of America (scooter): 146 land tiles.
Boudica of Celt (serdoa): 125 land tiles.
Frederick of Persia (Thoth): 111 land tiles.

Of course these numbers are highly dependent on where I place Serdoa and Scooter, and Krill has already claimed a few tiles from my sphere of influence, but it does seem like I've got more than my fair share of land available. OTOH my land isn't as fertile as the crazy river valleys Krill and Commodore are fighting over.

[novice]

This turn's minor annoyance:


Apparently an oasis blocks vision to a hill. Learn something new every day. I should have realized that I would have had vision from the tile NW of the oasis as well if the oasis counted as flat land.

I'm ready to settle SW of the silver next turn, or the turn after if I feel like I need more units in place before settling. The F9 screen shows me that Krills's annoying city has 1 culture, so presumably he built a barracks. We can trade maps, so he has writing, which means he might build a library too. I should be able to just barely beat him to 10 culture, and from there hopefully win the culture war by adding religion and a library down the line.

[novice]

Well, here goes:






I can one-turn two archers in a row in Lambert, but I think I prefer a spear, Krill has horses hooked up at his capital but he may be without copper. At any rate I should be able to react to an axe attack, chariots are more scary.

[novice]

Pindicator got Judaism, Commodore has rebounded to four cities.

Picture for me to update my sandbox:



Demographics:



I've stunted my growth a bit with wonders and military builds. I've done quite a few granaryless 1-whips. I have four cities but they are small. Time to consolidate, hopefully.

[novice]

Turn 61.

I met Lewwyn's warrior and located Serdoa's borders:




My border city against Krill. My power is 53k to Krill's 55k so I hope it's safe for now.

[NobleHelium]

Interesting, I hadn't heard of the Miller projection before.