[SPOILERS] Sandover(cre/spi) of Egypt

[Sandover]

I already feel more at home with the smaller format of PBEM than I do playing Pitboss 3, so I'm sure I will. I've been following both PBEM1 and PBEM2 so I have some ideas how to turn this follow-up into something eventful, but more on that later.

[Sandover]

This is the Map

So I've been thinking a bit about the map and this is what I came up with. It's all 100% correct without any chance of error.

Map Size
I checked in-game and it's a Standard size map. Based on that I can tell that the map team didn't go out of their way to improve poor terrain, seeing as there will be plenty of decent land for everyone anyway, which means that I can probably stay clear of the tundra landscape for quite some time and that rushing is sub-optimal.

World Wrap
The confined spaces and limited access to different areas is a very prominent feature of the Highlands script. Seeing as this script was requested by the players it makes sense that the map team would decide not to mess with this feature, so I therefore know that there is no world wrap.

Civ Placement
With so much room on the map the map team had every opportunity to be creative, but I still expect the civs to form a rough rectangular shape - seeing as that is simply the easiest way to go about it with every civ being given its fair share of the land. Here's an example of what the placement might look like:

Twinkle - Moogle - Sandover
Scooter - Timmy - Bob

Fairness
With a rectangular placement the two civs in the middle (i.e. Moogle & Timmy in my example above) gets a quite different starting position compared to the four civs near the corners of the map. While I don't think it's necessarily a situation that needs to be addressed, I still expect the map team to have done something about it (they got the chance to be creative, remember). So what could they have done then? A large sea comes to mind, possibly even with an island in the middle, but isn't that a little bit to easy? Yes, of course it is! That's why, instead, they created a large valley surrounded by peaks and with limited access points. Most certainly the land in the valley will be very fertile lowland that spark conflicts as we all rush to claim it. Yes, that's it! I definitly must make sure that I get there first!

[Sandover]

Note to Self

Realised I made a mistake when looking at the GNP. 21 is a very unlikely number this early on without Financial + Creative, so it must have been jinxed up by at least one pre-req tech discount. That means it's not a religious grab since mysticism has no pre-reqs, but it's still likely to be Scooter's number. Need to work on my Cloak & Dagger skills...

[darrelljs]

Where's the "bites tongue hard enough to draw blood" smiley when you need it?

Darrell

[Sandover]

Note to Self

Moogle's score increased by 5 on turn 5, suggesting he grew his capital to size 2 using a 3Food tile (growth requires 14F total). According to demographics someone (i.e. Moogle) has a crop yield of 8, which means he's now working two 3F tiles at size 2. Might be a floodplain start, but can also be 2x grassland corn or similar.

[Sandover]

Gold, Beautiful Gold!

Here's my start.



I moved the warrior and found the Gold tile. I'm always tempted to move my starting settler when I spot Gold, since it's such an overpowered resource early on. Spending three turns moving just to trade away the Sheep for Gold wasn't very attractive tough, so I decided to trust the map makers and founded in place.

Neither the grassland Deer (5/1/0 improved) nor the plains sheep (4/1/1 improved) is an optimal food tile, but together they give Sandoria a surplus 7F which I'm satisfied with. The city doesn't have great commerce potential but the Fur and Wine tiles makes it okayish. I will probably mainly use Sandoria as a Settler/Worker spam city for the early game while I look to found more specialised commerce and production cities.

Having two happiness resources at the capital is great, but I will need to get Monarchy before I can hook up the wine. And since I need to research both Hunting and Animal Husbandry to get my food resources online (damn it, where is that grain start I wanted???) heading up the religous part of tree is less attractive at this point. But oh well, if I found at the Gold I can have non-capital cities with a happycap at 6 which aint bad. Or is the happycap higher by default on Noble? Need to look into that, but it's pretty good either way. A religion would be nice but I can always grab one of the later ones, so I set research to Hunting and start a Worker so that I can improve the Deer and Fur tiles.

I plan to send the warrior NW rather than stick around to explore near the capital. Only me and Bob have a Warrior start so I could potentially walk into an empty capital, though it's extremely unlikely due to the size of the map and quick speed. Either way I want to send him as far as I can looking for more contacts. With so many Scouts out there I will probably fall behind on exploration from day one, and I need to make up for that. With Noble barbs he should be able to find at least two civs for me if I have some luck, and knowing the neighbour of your neighbour early on could turn out to be decisive (especially if I've predicted the map right).

[Sandover]

Some Cloak & Dagger

I'm going to try to keep an eye on what my opponents are up to in this game. Sensitive readers should probably look away though seeing as I expect that these sections will be far from flaudless.

Moogle
Hunting
Mysticism
Current research: Meditation or Polytheism

Going for a religion is the obvious choice since he's alone having Myst from the start. I know he grew his capital, which means he's not doing a Worker start, which in turn means he doesn't have a Deer start like me since a Worker makes more sense than a Warrior or Scout in that scenario.

Scooter
Hunting
Mining
Current research: Animal Husbandry or Bronze Working

I just can't see anyone but him or me reaching a GNP of 21 from the get-go, so it must've been him researching a tech with a pre-req. Since Archery is just dumb that leaves AH or BW. The top GNP is no longer 21, but 20, though I figure that's because Scooter dropped a tile that granted commerce for a tile that doesn't when the borders of his capital popped. If he's going AH it must mean that he doesn't have a grain resource, and if it's BW he's probably looking to chop himself a second Worker.

Other Stuff
Top production is 5, which means at least one of the Expansive civs is building a Worker using a forested plains hill (or similar tile).

[Sandover]

Turn 2



The borders of Sandoria expand, wich cuts one turn off the Worker by virtue of working the forested grassland deer. I'm starting to think the lack of grain may not be such a bad thing afterall.

Three peaks are now added to Egypt, but the extra visibilty don't reveal anything too exciting so I didn't take a screen shot. I have something else to show you though.



I've already found a good spot for my second city. And yes, when I say "good" that's by Highland standard.

The irrigated Corn will give the city a food surplus of 6 while the Fur and Gold will make it a really sexy commerce city early on. It also has a bunch of grassland that can be cottaged.

I'd much rather found on the peak tile to get rid of the northern row of crap tiles, but obviously I cannot do that. Guess I should've worked harder on trying to bribe the map team.

One interesting tidbit is that I now know that I'm located on the northern side of the map, so ideally I should look to find city spots southwards rather than northwards (remember that I want to rush into that fertile lowland mountain valley near the centre of the map that I was talking about). I'm going to circle around that large lake(?) next and then send my warrior SW rather than NW. He won't find anyone up in the tundra for sure.

[Sandover]

Some General Rambling

It's actually turn 5 now but I expect to catch up with my updates tomorrow or maybe the day after. I did most of the pre-game stuff already, but I realised I haven't mentioned my goals for this game. So what are my goals then? Hm...

I don't really see myself winning the game. I'm handicapped in the sense that I haven't played BtS much (spy system, vassal states, corporations etc. all go in the dumpster as far as I'm concerned), so I'm probably looking to find some mini-goals that I can achieve along the way. Maybe I'm the sand-god of Egypt and want to conquer all desert tiles? Though that's a bit problematic since I'm up north... Maybe the sand-god want to defeat his dreadful enemy the snow-god by conquering all snow tiles? Nah, too much roleplay. Making one of the other players my archenemy and fighting him to the death would probably be more fun, but then he needs to be evil to begin with... Guess I'll just go for winning the game anyway then, at least for starters.

This sand-god thing could make an interesting theme though. I've already named my capital Sandoria, so maybe my theme is sand? I can make my units into Sand Warriors, Sand Fighters, Sand Protectors... hell, even Sand Gnomes might make an appearance! Good stuff!

As for general strategy you already know that I intend to make use of Spiritual as much as I can. I figure a rush to Nationhood and Rifling is worth aiming for, and that I should try to build peaceful relations until then. I won't run short of expansion room anytime soon, so that sounds like a good plan. I need to decide whether I want to ally with someone or try to remain neutral. That can probably wait until I know more about the geopolitical situation though.

As for research, I'll probably skip the religous part of the tree for quite some time. Moogle is going there, to get his religion and Organized Religion. The two early wonders that are worthwhile on this map are Stonehenge and Oracle, so Bob and Twinkle are likely to mess around with that part of the tree as well. I figure I could grab Bronze Working and then focus on a beeline at the upper part of the tree, to steal Great Library. Maybe even build Phartenon (I probably didn't spell that right) and get some Great People-action going. Foreign trade routes will take ages to establish on this map, so Currency isn't that good. Should be easy to avoid early wars so Construction aint needed. And Courthouses are crap so Code of Laws is gimped. I might even race for the Great Artist from Music and snatch Taoism from Philosophy. Possibly with a lightbulb. I hope I find some Marble...

I'm going to focus a lot on expansion early on. Noble difficulty means I can throw cities all over the place without too much concern for the economy, and with cheap libraries I can let Great Scientists carry some of the research burden if I can't found enough decent commerce cities. War Chariots will easily be able to deal with the barbarians, unless they start spawning Spears but that's really rare and can be dealt with when it happen if it does. I reckon I'll use a Warrior milita for military police duty while using a mobile squadron of War Chariots as sentries/explorers/barb fighters as an outer ring of defense outside of my borders. Since I'm researching Hunting I won't be able to build warriors once I get copper online though, which I need to keep in mind. Might even research Archery.

As for neighbours I really hope Moogle isn't one of them. Preferably not Bob either. Twinkle cannot throw Panzers at me anytime soon and Ivory is out so Timmy got no UU at all, so those two would be ideal. Though I wouldn't mind having Scooter as neighbour either. Actually Scooter would probably be the best neighbour since he's the one with that crappy Organized trait. Both Twinkle and Timmy can expand faster than me if they want to, so yes, lets hope for Scooter. Will be easier to dogpile him that way anyhow.

Ok, that's probably enough rambling for now.

[Rowain]

Thanks and Ramble on