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Is that character a variant? (I just love getting asked that in channel.) - Charis |
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[PB84] A Novel Approach
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Turn 47 (2120 BC)
Atleast something is on track:  We're currently one beaker short of finishing Pottery T50 so that might work too, but not with the double-whip going into the capital granary.
Turn 48 (2080 BC)
Good news everybody!  The bad news is that Amica doesn't get to time missionaries for every new settlement. We'll still likely to spread some religion around, but with the power of these standing stones it's not as critical. As Naufragar said it, what an elegant way to get the pigs. Too bad that the elegant method of claiming them also delayed improving them, but they'll still be improved earlier than if we hadn't built Stonehenge. This is also the end of my carefully laid plans, but since we're only missing a single beaker for T50 pottery I'll still set up the capital to double-whip the settler into a granary. Big Nowhere will grow to 3 next turn and work the freshly improved Ivory for the extra C, and the capital can if needed work a lake on the final turn (after whipping). We also took the opportunity to swing by the barb city for a look: 
Turn 50 (2000 BC) - State of the World
It's turn 50 which means it's time to take a look at our paltry empire:  Right now we're looking pretty modest, with the cities at size 2-3-2. We do however have a settler out for a fourth city, which should be settled T52, and have picked up Stonehenge. Things will look better in a few turns when all three cities have granaries.  I'm going to break one of Naufragars rules here and show the demo screen even if we're not leading. Our #1 rank in GNP is very illusionary as it includes 11 culture from Stonehenge, and our crops will improve, but it seems we're working a lot more hammers than everyone else. Most of this is the improved copper and ivory, we're actually not working the mined sheep this turn.  Graphs aren't terribly interesting yet, so you get the 3-in-1 shot. I have not been bored enough to decode everyone's start. 
Turn 52 (1920 BC)
Despite building Stonehenge we're first to four cities:  This will be a very nice commerce settlement, it even has a gold to work before we can lay down cottages. Big Nowhere had a change of plans and is pushing out a worker to improve the pigs, and Evelyn Hardcastle stole it's ivory to finish the workboat for the fish by the time borders expand. The Family Trade is the first book of Charlie Stross' Merchant Princes series, which is a very well-crafter portal-fantasy sci-fi series. It covers a family with the special ability to travel between our world and a parallel universe where the British were forced out of Britain and into the Americas, and thus neither the American or Industrial revolutions took place as they have here.
Turn 57 (1720 BC)
Animal Husbandry comes in next turn, but the fresh worker in Big Nowhere is diverted to copper-hookup instead of the pigs, as Mjmd has a warrior scouting a few tiles from our borders. Better safe than sorry.  This is my current draft dotmap of the area. The cow-city our warriors are on will likely need to come before the BorderFort, and we also want some metal units before staking it out. I did consider going for the plainshill SSE, between the cow and stone, but I think it will be more important to deny that site to Mjmd. I think this is a border he can live with. The far east city is much more tentative and will have to wait and see how the border develops. Keeping track of new settlements, we settled T52 followed by Civac on T56 and both Mjmd and Bing on T57.
Turn 59 (1640 BC)
A small update on the border with Mjmd after our warrior advanced:  It's a very good sign that he went for the grasshill and not the plainshill north of it, I take this as a sign that he's interested in having a nice and stable border. That city must be extremely exposed (screenshot from map file):  He only has four cities, and assuming for now that this is his latest city he'll have settled in a straight line for our border. He has even less power than us, and we still only have warriors, but as you can see we have some metal units out soon. We also have a settler (NE of Big Nowhere) headed for this region, but the borderfort location still feels very vulnerable. This might explain why his fourth city was settled as late as T57; the same turn that Civac settled his fifth. Bing actually followed up with his fifth on T58 as well, the same turn that Superdeath settled his fourth.
Turn 61 (1560 BC)
 The settler is most likely going for the border fort location to stake our claim to the area. I'm 95% sure that Mjmd has no real units; he did have a 3K power-spike some turns ago. Big Nowhere has the first impi out in two turns, so we should be ok here. His warrior has hightailed it home from the moment we met him, which makes me think that the city might actually be empty. A more aggressive player would probably take the opportunity to whip some impis and choke him to death, but I'd rather have one safe border while dealing with Xist to the north and I think Mjmd feels likewise about Bing. In other news, Superdeath was actually the third member of the five-city-club, the turn after his fourth was settled. Xist is still on three.
Turn 63 (1480 BC)
The borders of Mjmd's border city popped last turn, reminding me that he's in fact creative and might consider that second ring resources are his by right. This prompted a small discussion with my lurkers, but we decided that ceding the cows by settling a tile north would be too passive. This would have been a pretty suicidal city if we hadn't already built Stonehenge, and it will still be some 20-30 turns before we might get the cows, and the city *will* need additional support, both cultural and units.  Leviathan Wakes is the first book in The Expanse series, which is really a trio of trilogies (also adapted for television). The first trilogy is excellent Hard SciFi dealing with a mysterious alien contact. The second trilogy is more focused on exploring the options opened in the first trilogy, while the third deals with the aftermath.  We were two beakers short on finishing Meditation last turn, so I decided to work a bare coast over a forested plainshill for a turn to get it out a turn early. It landed in Evelyn Hardcastle, which might have been the worst possible outcome, but not an unlikely one.  We're in a pretty reasonable shape, even if the last city distorted our borders somewhat. Four cities have granaries, we have most of the strategic roads in place and the economy is decent at +21/-15. Evelyn will whip out a fifth worker next turn, and I'm still deciding worker or settler for the capital after that. Our one major downside is that it's hard to fit in cities to develop cottages for the capital.
Turn 66 (1360 BC)
Xist finally settled his fourth city, and it's quite a stretch. Our scout actually spotted a settler being built in his second city on T64, but this can't be that city so he should have another coming soon.  We have two more settlers coming out pretty soon, and one of them should definitely grab the spot where our warrior is. The other has a few options where to go, one of them being the double-seafood fishing village on the south coast. We actually have two workboats finishing as well, so that doesn't need any worker attention to be a profitable 4->2 whipping post. We've also roaded up to Leviathan, which connects Mjmd to our trade network so I offered him open borders. |
