Is that character a variant? (I just love getting asked that in channel.) - Charis

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Rusten and Hitru turn back the clock

Yes, it's probably time to start making updates a regular thing.

Demos and cities for context (updated the naming scheme slightly since the last update):



Assassin (#1)



CoC (#2)



Corrupted Soul (#3)



Mjolnir (#4)



Inpulsa (#5)



Bigger overview:



So what's happened since last update. Well, between being swarmed by player warriors, Bob threatening us with holkans and Serdoa sending his first axe towards us I had to emergency whip some units I didn't want to, which has set us back a little. We would've easily had a 6th city by now if not for that. We've been comfortably first in power for a long time, which is not ideal for the expansion phase, but at least it has enabled us to reach our goals. We were limping to fishing, but after hooking up gold this turn and silver very soon we should be completely fine. Sacrificing some tech for production means getting full KTB bonuses on fishing, pottery and AH too.

One of my main targets for this early game was to secure a city by the corn and silver and it took some effort sending units (safely) all the way over there, but Inpulsa is now up and running and supplying commerce and luxuries for the Aztecs (silver improved in 1-2 turns). There's a Russian city in very close proximity, but this was expected. We settled the area first and intentionally put our city out of range of the cows to let Serdoa settle a border city of his own to claim cow and his own source of silver. Hopefully he can respect this arrangement, at least from our side we are happy to be prosperous friends for a long time. Settling Inpulsa 1 tile south of its current location would've been a better city long term, but also very likely to make Serdoa an enemy. We are breathing down each others necks right now, but this is also as close as we'll ever get, we can both backfill from here.

Now going forwards the idea is to quickly get (chop) granaries in all our cities and then launch another expansion wave. Perhaps start working on some river cottages and grow our two starting cities, taking advantage of the happy cap we've established for ourselves. We've got religion, gold, silver and ivory, resulting in +4 or +5 (depending on whether you want to count the temple), so we can grow a very large CoC. 6th city goes between Inpulsa and the capital.

Also worthy of note; Bob is looking more and more appetizing, now also sporting a completely safe western border (sea).




If we successfully conquer him at some point we'll only have Lewwyn to the north of him (which is already the case for our current NW empire). Great position to be in strategically -- nothing personal Bob! This is also why we don't want to make an enemy of Serdoa, we have no eastern ambitions right now. Claiming the corn is a big enough victory.
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Good vibes from the Russians so far, offering open borders this turn. Hope it will last. hippy

We've reached the end of the landmass.




While there's still some map to be explored I'm getting the feeling that we got the short end of the stick for starting positions, but overall the map is pretty balanced and fun so far. I look forward to seeing how all the lakes will play out later, Pindicator has enabled channels for water units all over the place. What I mean by us getting the worse starting position is being in the middle with less safe backlines. Bob only borders us and Lewwyn, most civs border 3 other rivals, but we are the only ones having border tensions with 4 civs. NoGas also only has 2 rivals nearby I think. And this would be the case even if we didn't settle the silver city. This is partly why I've had to invest so many hammers into military compared to other civs, because there is no safe city right now, people can attack from anywhere.

If we had not picked such a fast starting combo we would be in big trouble.
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Sadness captured in image form


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Just rename the scout to Jesus and walk across it. smile
Mods: RtR    CtH

Pitboss: PB39, PB40PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer

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I was going to make an update but I'm too annoyed right now so I'm going to rant instead. CtH's circumnavigation bonus is stupid (and I put it in the form a few days ago).

It's so dumb that Lewwyn got circumnavigation just by moving from his land to the other side of the continent and has the option to gatekeep others from doing so*. He was already playing a good game, but now he's getting a ridiculous advantage from the extra trade routes. We are 1 tile away from circumnavigation from scouting Bob's land earlier, and that 1 tile means something like 14 commerce per turn, growing up towards 30 soon. Just ridiculous. If this is unchanged in the next version then mapmakers MUST balance around it when they make their map. It's going to take dozens of turns to get a wb all the way through, and by that time Serdoa might even have closed borders or something.

Circumnavigation should absolutely not be available without even building a water unit.

*If he used a work boat fair play to him, but I know that NoGas for instance can get the bonus just by popping their borders.
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(November 10th, 2020, 10:23)Rusten Wrote: Circumnavigation should absolutely not be available without even building a water unit.

And if it is possible without a boat, then it should be easily obtained by land for everyone. Having the body of water in between requiring a few specific tiles to be fogbusted like on this map is the absolute worst case scenario and I'm really annoyed about it.
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Just wanted to say that circumnavigation would only give you 2 extra trade routes, because you only have 2 coastal cities right now
Mods: RtR    CtH

Pitboss: PB39, PB40PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer

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You're right, but the next 5 cities we settle are all coastal, and they're coming in quick succession. frown
The loss in commerce for such a minor thing is going to sting real bad very soon.

edit: and we have 3 coastal cities already, not 2.
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If it helps I have plans to change circumnavigation with the next version. I will need to research a tech, most likely Optics, to be able to circumnavigate.
Mods: RtR    CtH

Pitboss: PB39, PB40PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer

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(November 10th, 2020, 13:08)Charriu Wrote: If it helps I have plans to change circumnavigation with the next version. I will need to research a tech, most likely Optics, to be able to circumnavigate.

That's a good change for future games, yes.

As for this map; Inpulsa is starting to realize its potential




Getting close to completing The Oracle.




Plan is to take CoL for our UB and some spiritual caste system. Capital can get a GM for currency which means it's time to settle all the filler cities. We settle our 7th city next turn, which is quite late, but we've not lost out on any city spots from delaying this and emphasis on commerce is what got us to priesthood+writing so quickly. Definitely could've made a case for 8 cities before stopping as our next two are quite good, and maybe I would've settled them if I had done more simming/calculations, but we're in good shape anyway. I expect to double our city count over the next 10 turns.

Beyond Oracle the plan is still (or maybe I didn't mention it in the thread yet?) to eat Bob with elepults. We should be able to outproduce him and whip anger is not a concern with the sacrificial altar. Waiting for guilds takes too long. But calendar comes before construction for all the incense, banana and MoM.

And it didn't go unnoticed that Serdoa seemingly razed SD's city near our borders. thumbsup
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