[Spoilers] SleepingMoogle's thread

[Krill]

[SleepingMoogle]

Alright, back in action.

First of all, a big thanks to Krill for playing the turns while I was away. I'm glad that the game was able to continue in this way.

Since coming home, I already sent on two turns, but didn't really have the time to report on the one played last night, or to post some thoughts on the latest developments. In any case, scouting up north continues, with Whiskeyjack currently standing on the hill NE-NE of his position in the last screenshot, and the second Warrior (renamed to Fiddler) moved SE-SE without any sign of the lion that roamed the area earlier so far. He'll move on a hill next turn which I suspect will reveal my southern neighbour.

Unta was one hammer short to finish the Workboat, unfortunately switching the Corn tile to a grassland forest would delay growth to size 3. In the end I kept working the Corn to grow to size 3, and will have to live with delaying the Fish for one turn. Being Creative, Unta's borders have expanded again, revealing a Wheat resource on the eastern island, just south of the Silver. I pegged the tile SW of the Silver as a potential city site, grabbing Wheat, Clams, Silver and the possibility of borrowing the Fish from Unta. There's quite a bit of overlap this way so this may not be the best of plans, but most of the tiles would be water ones anyhow. I'll have to scout some more before I can make a decision.

Scooter turned out to be researching Meditation instead of Mining, and he adopted Buddhism as his state religion. I'm guessing he intends to advance to Priesthood and use his Industrious trait to get out a quick Oracle (probably for Metal Casting). I'm not quite certain whether going for the religion this early was a good idea though. His Worker won't have much to do other than farming Grassland until he researches other Worker techs, and he lost an early turn to get bonus happiness he doesn't really need yet. It's actually a pretty good deal for me, since it's possible the religion will spread to my cities naturally, and that would remove the immediate need for me to research a religion for OR of my own.

Scooter has since sent me a message on the possible distribution of land in between our Civs. He's actually offered to let me take the city in return for some concessions later. I'm going to send him a response asking what kind of concessions he has in mind, but all in all it's a good city site that I'll seriously consider accepting. The big question mark is where the Copper ends up being. I'm fortunate to have a resourceless UU so it may not be a top priority to have the second city settle near it, but I'll still want to have some Axes on hand to deal with Barbs and the like.

Krill's screenshots also show that Dazedroyalty and I have now met in-game as well. We exchanged greetings and are working towards a 'keep away from each other's cities' agreement, and to exchange knowledge of other Civs should we meet them. Apparently scooter and dazedroyalty are in a similar negotiations about the terrain in between their Civs, so it will be interesting to see how that works out.

[pocketbeetle]

and the second Warrior (renamed to Fiddler)

Strangely, I suddenly no longer want that warrior to die as much. ^^

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, as in my other game scooter and Twinkletoes are my neighbours. No contact as of yet (I can only see his border bleeding through the fog right now), but I'll poke him next turn and see how he feels about the area in between us. It has more or less the same number of resources as the tiles north of my city, but they're closer to TT than me. So if we're all going to take one site and receive some stuff in trade for the other, the northern location is better for me.

Scooter asked me if a Worker and Workboat would be a suitable concession. That doesn't sound too bad really.. I wonder if we all end up gifting stuff to each other.

[SleepingMoogle]

No response from Twinkletoes as of yet, however I ran into a scouting Warrior of Serdoa near TT's border and have now met everyone ingame. I sent him a quick greeting.

From a message from Dazedroyalty, it looks like he has yielded the location south of his city to scooter, and has reached a similar agreement with Serdoa to his north to settle there instead. If everyone is to settle to the north, I might as well suggest that the concessions cancel each other out. It doesn't make a lot of sense for everyone to send a Worker + Workboat north, and receive something similar from the south. If I can get Twinkletoes to agree to this as well, I'll put out the suggestion to the rest of the players.

The other big news this turn was the finishing of Bronze Working, revealing Copper underneath Unta and probably on every other capital's tile. No chance for early rushes then, and without a pressing need to settle a city for Copper, the northern location will be my favourite choice.

I'll probably revolt into Slavery soon and 2-pop whip a Worker, with the overflow going into a Workboat. Once Unta has regrown, I'll start on a Settler aided by a chop. Research is set to Hunting next to camp the Ivory, probably followed by the Wheel to start laying roads.

[SleepingMoogle]

I revolted into Slavery this turn, although in hindsight it probably wasn't really needed. All tiles together have pushed down the time it takes to train a Worker time to just 2 turns. So instead of whipping the Worker, I'll finish it normally, build a Workboat for one turn while growing to size 5, and then 2-pop whip a Settler instead. I should have waited with revolting until the Worker completed, but the turn was already played by the time I realized it and hindsight is always 20-20.

Military consists of 4 Warriors now. Whiskeyjack and Fiddler are scouting to the north and south respectively, and I'm feeling pretty good about circumnavigation; India might have been able to beat me to it, but Serdoa's northern Warrior was redlined by a barb unit so he'll need time to heal. That is assuming he also sent a unit south already, of course. In addition, the third Warrior (Hedge) is making a quick dash west to defog some tiles there before looping back towards the second city, while the fourth (Trotts) is guarding Unta.

It looks like doing away with the concessions won't be possible as some Civs have different terms, so it looks like I will have to send a Worker/Workboat combination over to scooter. Twinkletoes agreed to the same price for settling to my south, so all it loses me is some time. I sent both a message asking what sort of time frame they're looking for, and will run some simulations over the weekend to see turns I can come up with myself. TT wants to attach a NAP to the deal as well, which should be fine although his original suggestion of T80 is way too long. I touched the subject of future settling towards each other as well, let's see how that turns out.

Unta is currently set to Worker -> Workboat for 1 turn -> Settler (2 pop whip), overflowing into the Workboat. The WB will head north and net one of the fish resources for the second city. I'll probably build some more Workers and Workboats, as well as an Axe or two for barb defense.

Tech is still set to Hunting -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> Sailing -> Animal Husbandry -> Writing. AH is the big question mark.. I'm wondering if it's that useful now that I have copper. Even if I have Horses nearby, it's Writing discount seems more valuable.

I'll try to do some minor C&D to see what tech paths everyone else has followed. I know Serdoa researched BW as well as he revolted into Slavery last turn, so he'll know he has copper as well. In addition I'm fairly sure that scooter picking up mediation means he's aiming for the Oracle. I'm not joining for the race, as he is one tech closer than me and Industrious to boot. Hopefully Buddhism will spread to one of my cities naturally, otherwise I might try to make a deal for a missionary if I can't grab my own religion to spread around for OR.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 25 seemed a good turn to write an update. This thread was getting a bit stale as well (not to mention dusty!), but life's been pretty busy as of late.

Without further delay:



Li Heng was founded this turn. It's probably a tad on the late side, but I'm hoping to compensate for that by quickly expanding into cities 3 and 4. In the end, I settled Li Heng on the coast instead of 1 tile NW of its current position to pick up that Corn resource. There's not a lot of room on this starting island, so the more use I make of the available space, the more cities can be settled. Additionally, making Li Heng coastal will most likely end up being beneficial on what looks to be a water-heavy map.

The Workboat next to Li Heng is sitting on top of a Fish resource and will create the nets next turn to help with growth. The city is currently putting some hammers into a Workboat, but I'll run some sims later to see if it's faster to first finish a Granary once Pottery research comes in on T28. Unta has some hammers invested in a Workboat as well, and will likely complete it before Li Heng does. One of them will net the second fish resource at Li Heng, while the other will start scouting the landmass to the east. The city will also have enough of a food surplus to be able to train Workers or even Settlers once its population has grown a bit.

Unta itself switched to a Worker this turn, and had a chop finish to speed it up. The overflow will go into a Workboat, which will then overflow into a Warrior. At this point I prefer training an Axeman instead, but I don't really have the hammers for it if I want to expand quickly. The Warrior will head towards the third city site, while Unta whips out a Settler. After that it will most likely build a Granary or an Axeman depending on the situation.

Here is a first attmpt at a dotmap:



Green dot will be my third city. It will pick up a fair amount of Plains tiles, but also two irrigated Corn resources and it can borrow a third from Unta to carry a huge number of specialists in the future. In addition, it keeps the expansion of Twinkletoes in check a bit, although he will probably end up claiming most of the land in between us.

Purple dot is a possible fourth city. It's not on a river which is unfortunate, but moving it east or south would cause a lot of overlap with other cities, and lose the western Corn resource. In the position of the map, it would at least allow for a city on the western coast of the starting landmass. In any case, I will probably have to negotiate the location with scooter so it's not really a certainty, but I have good hope about it.

Black dot is a possible location for a western coastal city, but it depends a lot on whether or not there's any additional food resources in the land and water tiles that are still fogged. The northern location would allow the city to borrow the Corn resource from purple dot in any case. Once city 3 (and maybe 4) have been planted, defogging those tiles will be a priority. Depending on what hides underneath, two cities may be an option too.

White dot will be the first city on the eastern landmass. The NW one will pick up the Clams, and will be able to borrow Unta's Fishing resource, but the location also has quite a bit of overlap with the capital. SE is also possible, depending on what is hiding in the fog. It loses the Clam resource that way, but also doesn't overlap nearly as badly with Unta anymore.

Tech is currently set to Pottery. After that, the order will probably be Sailing -> Animal Husbandry -> Writing. At that point, working towards Organized Religion and Monarchy, while picking up Mathematics at the top of the tree, feels like the best course.

Here's the demographics of turn 25:



I'm somewhere in the middle right now for Food and Production because of my relatively late city (everyone has expanded by now), but this should look better next turn when the Fish resource at Li Heng is netted. It's interesting that I topped GNP this turn. Scooter's holy city has kept him at the first place for a fairly long time. Could be he's focussing on Workers/Settlers now? We do have an agreement to contact each other if we intend to settle a city in the land between us, but I haven't heard from him about the topic so far. There is a Quecha currently exploring the tiles west of Li Heng right now, so that discussion may happen soon enough.

The other point of interest is the Soldier points. One of us is quite far ahead of the others and I'm guessing that Civ is India, who declared war on Dazedroyalty, and looks to threaten his second city with an Axeman already. I do hope that Dazed can minimize the damage though.. the battlefield might be on the other side of the world, but I'm not exactly keen on seeing India get a free city and force harsh peace concessions on Dazed to catapult it ahead in the early game.

Anyway, at the end of the turn, I gained visibility on the demographics of Twinkletoes. I already had Scooter's, so let's have a look at them.



Unsurprisingly, scooter dominates the GNP graph with that holy city of his but both Twinkletoes and me are keeping up quite nicely. At the moment there's not too much else to say about it, but it's not a terribly important graph this early in the game anyhow.



The production graph is interesting. Twinkletoes is showing a big spike on production all of a sudden. Perhaps he worked a number of mines for a turn? Both TT and scooter are producing quite a number of hammers already. My own production plummeted after whipping my first Settler and emphasizing food to regrow the lost population quickly, but it should catch up again in the next turn or two.



Food is looking to be pretty even. At the moment I'm slightly behind, but with another Fish resource hooked up next turn, I should equal them again.



Lastly the power graph, showing that neither Twinkletoes or Scooter is the one with the high soldier count. It's interesting that I'm on top with just 4 Warriors. Perhaps neither has finished Hunting research yet?


All in all, I'm reasonably happy with the first 25 turns. I have solid agreements with both my neighbours allowing my to focus on fast expansion over military, and I am still pretty even with everyone despite a small slip-up or two. If I can push the quick expansion as planned, I'll be a good position for my next report.

[SleepingMoogle]

Congrats on proving the world "round"! We're clearly on a tilted axis map.

Dazed

Dazed knows more than me at this point. I defogged the last tiles separating my scouts last turn, but hadn't received the message yet. Tilted axis seems pretty likely though, as the map ends two squares west of the coast. There's some food resources in there as well, so a coastal city or two would be good.

Anyway, that's one in the bag.

[SleepingMoogle]

Got to love the days where you can play two turns. My third city went up this turn, so a little update is in order.



The last couple of turns have worked out very well. Aside from catching circumnavigation (and realizing in hindsight others weren't too far off from beating me to it), it only took 8 turns to get the third city out of the ground. And after broaching the subject with scooter, he's fine with me taking that purple dot location without any concessions! Good tidings indeed.

At the moment, I'm blazing through Animal Husbandry research. Having visibility on horses and getting a discount on Writing are nice, but I'm more doing it to delay Writing and Open Borders a little longer (just 3 turns, but everything counts). The longer it takes, the more work the Worker I owe scooter can do in my lands before I gift him away.

Li Heng's growth pretty much exploded after whipping the Granary (I love being able to do that at size 2 with Expansive leaders) and hooking up those fishing resources. It grew to size 4 after I finished the turn, and if I move that auto-assigned hill to a grassland tile, it will reach size 5 just in time for the whipping penalty to wear off. At that point, Li Heng will whip a Worker and the overflow will finish the current Workboat build. Both of them are going to scooter eventually, but I might as well let the Worker do some chopping on his way north. With all the focus on food, it doesn't look like the Workboat will finish in time to scout the eastern island, but I have another plan for that.

After realizing that I could not build further Warriors due to Hunting research (whoops), I left the capital unguarded and sent the guarding Warrior west to defog the third city site. This probably was a silly thing to do, but at the time Unta was about to whip a Settler which removed the immediate need for a military police presence, and I was pretty confident it was altogether possible it would have gone totally unnoticed. And even if someone did some pretty badass C&D, I still have NAP's with both scooter and TT, and no open Borders to allow anyone visibility on the city.

Anyway, the Axeman will finish just in time to quell citizen concerns, and Unta will then whip a Worker, overflowing into a Galley. Twinkletoes still owes me a Worker and Workboat for allowing him to settle that city in between our capitals, but I'm not sure if he's able to have them ready when Writing research comes in. So until then, I might as well get out another Worker of my own. Anyway, the Galley will explore possible city sites on the east island. Lately I've been considering the possibility of settling on the Silver instead of the white dots in the turn 25 report, but would rather avoid that if altogether possible. The scouting should at last allow for a dotmap of the island.

Quon Tali is going to try and get to size 2 as quickly as possible to whip that Granary. I may let it borrow Unta's Corn resource for a turn to make that happen, since right now Unta will need 2 turns to reach size 5 whether or not it has access to the Corn. At the same time, the Worker near Unta will also make his way towards the southern Corn resource, as the Worker west of the city would lose a turn getting to it. Once the Granary finishes, Quon Tali will probably train an Axeman who will defog the western water tiles before making his way towards purple dot.

Finally, the two scouting units are heading back towards Malazan lands to assume MP duty. One is staying to the coast, while the other is defogging tiles further inland. Whiskeyjack has 3 experience points now, so I may keep him as a scouting unit and promote him as needed. Keeping him around to soak up experience points from barbs will eventually unlock the Heroic Epic. Unfortunately it's not looking likely there's going to be enough barb action on the starting landmass with everyone quickly defogging the entire area. To get a unit to 10XP, they'll need to travel to he eastern islands which may prove to be a barb spawning pool if left alone long enough.

[novice]

Good job so far. What are your long term plans?