[SPOILERS] Tatan, as the glorious Shaka of France!

[Tatan]

[Tatan]

Fourth city will be placed relatively soon, at the green dot [w/ corn and gold] that I elucidated on waaaay back when in the dot map. Polytheism discovered, so only Masonry and Monotheism left to go. Killer Shrews [the copper city] finished a library, so by the end of two more turns [T50?] its borders will expand to claim the copper and pigs. BC will be cranking settlers [and maybe a worker or two] for the near future, while SM proceeds to train garrison axes intermixed with the occasional worker and/or chariot. When I said I was going for a farmer's gambit, I meant it; for three cities, I have three warriors and six workers. I think the others are doing the same, if these slightly old demographics are any indication:



3 in power, lolz. I'm content with the numbers, for now; the high rival GNP is probably Plako with his massive culture from wonders [he also got a GP recently, which he hopefully just settled]. My crop yield is #4, but is really only 4 food behind the leader, so not too bad. Production is good, as one would expect given that I'm emphasizing hammers as much as possible with workers for the EXP bonus. Land area I need to work on, although again others have a lot of extra land from wonders and religion. IIRC, everyone I know [i.e. not Amelia] is up to three cities, excepting Luddite at four and Adlain at two [although he might have founded his third recently, I don't remember].

So, anyway, yeah. If the alignment of the starts permits me, I will do a thorough Turn 50 report [last turn I played was T48].

[Tatan]

Quick note, Masonry selected as new tech [research time: one turn ].

A bunch of people suddenly have four cities, although I'm not actually sure when the last time I checked was, so I guess it wasn't really sudden. Whatever.

Not much happening, but a lot of stuff is about to happen. Something just occurred to me: no one has built the Pyramids yet. On a map with stone and lots of forests. Weird. Hmm, could there be an opportunity here? Probably not, but I can still ramble about it.

[Tatan]

Quick note to say that yes, I am still planning on doing a Turn 50 report, it's just taking a little longer than expected.

And in-game on T51, I finally met Amelia, so I'll need to incorporate some info about her into my report.

[Tatan]

Okay, report time! As is my wont for Large Round Number turn reports, I've split this up into three parts for clarity [read: post count]; one post each for a general overview, an evaluation of the game so far, and my [STRIKE]nefarious[/STRIKE] super-cuddly plans.

Enjoy!

[Tatan]

Woohoo, Masonry! Now I can go directly for Judaism...



Wait a sec. Why isn't Judaism showing up there?



D'oh! Alas, I was only three turns away.

Actually, though, I'm mildly surprised that it took this long to fall, especially with quite a few players already having several religious techs. Since I know Plako has had Priesthood for a while [for the Oracle], I would tentatively attribute Judaism to him. Tentatively.

INSERT: Lies! On Turn 51, Adlain revolted to Organized Religion, so it's pretty safe to assume that he founded Judaism.


But what about France as a whole?



(Yes, I know this isn't a very good pic, but for some reason I didn't take a more zoomed-in one, so oh well)

Three cities, two mature and one still a n00b. The fourth city will be founded at the sign marked dot in a five turns.



Not as quickly as I would have liked, but I'll discuss that later.



Yes, I'm building two settlers at once. Despite going for REXpansion, my expansion has been sluggish compared to others [but again, I'll discuss that more later], so I'm trying to compensate. I'll probably whip the one in Boggy Creek, prolly not the one in Eegah!.


A more detailed look at my cities:

Boggy Creek

Has just enough improved tiles, but I really want some more mines and cottages for some flexibility between production/commerce. Long-term, it's prolly going to be for the most part a cottage-carnival, but for now BC still needs to help out with settlers and workers. There's actually not much else to say.


[STRIKE]Shadow Mountain[/STRIKE]Eegah!

I sat down to think about it, and realized that it was completely wierd to name the city after a place in the movie rather than the movie itself. Plus, come'on, how can I pass up a name like "Eegah!"? The exclamation point alone makes it worth it.

Anyway, as also been fully improved, and currently has pretty good production [although keep in mind that this pic includes a forest chop]. Notice the happy cap; that's because Eegah! has no garrison right now. The former guard warrior is off escorting the settler ATM. I was going to build a warrior in preperation, but I needed to finish a worker. :sadfasdf_eye swirve: And building a warrior now would mean wasted hammers due to the overflow cap. So settler it is! I will, of course, build a warrior here next turn, and probably another after that as well.

Beyond splitting the training of settlers and workers with BC, E! will also need to build an actual military, since right now I have only warriors. Even though I doubt any actual combat will occur any time soon, the power rating boost and HR happiness from training a couple extra guys will help, in addition to making me feel less paranoid.


Killer Shrews

Working a grassland cottage at size one is meh, but borders are expanding at the end of the turn [and the city is growing to size two woot], so the pigs will be online soon. After the granary, which I may or may not whip, I'm not completely sure of what to build. KS will be able to get some pretty good production with the copper and stone improved, albeit with growth hampered; however, the scarcity of other hills means that KS will ultimately be cottaged-focus. I still might use that production for something, though...


Although I am lacking cities...



...I have quite a few workers [and no military lol].

So what are they all doing?



This guy is finishing off a pre-chopped forest, which should allow me to whip BC next turn.



This worker will be joining the previous one to get another mine up at BC [mo4r pr0dukshun!].



Meanwhile, that worker's buddy will be joining a new hire and heading up north with the settler. If I counted right I'll have just enough time to have a forest chopped on the city's first turn [for either a granary or a monument/library].



The last three workers are working on improving KS. Since borders expand at the end of the turn, they can pasture the pigs in one turn [IIRC the improvement build times on quick], and then go for the copper.


My starting scout, who proved the world is round-ish, is way out in the wilderness right now trying to locate the other players.



GES gave me directions to Amelia way back, but apparently I'm incompetant at directions. Google Maps didn't work, either.




INSERT: Actually, I've since played Turn 51, and Amelia is right by where the scout is right now. We've exchanged generic greetings so far.

I guess this is as good a time as any to segue into map discussion. So far, SevenSpirits' map has proved true.



My previous guesses seemed to have turned out to be utterly wrong, so time for another stab. I'll arbitrarily assign myself as F [consider that foreshadowing].

F=Me
B=Gold Ergo Sum
C=Luddite
D=Amelia
E=Mardoc/SevenSpirits
G=Adlain
A=Plako


The first three [INSERT: four!] [F,B-D] have been confirmed by my scout [I found the first one very quickly ], the next two [E+G] are wild guesses based on vague recollections of equally vague descriptions from old emails, and the last one [A] is process of elimination. The player at D will be confirmed within a few turns [INSERT: I was right!], after which I plan to have the scout proceed G-A-E. Exact position of everyone else probably won't matter in the near future, though [fortunately for me].


Now, a bit of general discussion on the map. To dryly state the plainly apparent: it's pretty weird. Frankly, I think I would have preferred a more natural map, but no matter.

Because of the mirrored layout, I know that whatever resources I have will be what everyone else has as well. This pretty much eliminates resource trading with other players, unless strategic resources got messed with. This has also partially manifested in PBEM10 [though the islands have caused some resource inequity], and I don't find it particularly enjoyible.

Looking at the resources available, while health will be fairly abundant it seems the happiness resources are in short supply. To be specific, there are 10 health resources and 5 happiness resources [although many won't be available for a while]. However, all three luxary-metals are readily available, so forges will give a whopping +3 happiness.

Also notable is that both marble and stone [not to mention abundant forests] are available to everyone which means, combined with large distances between players, wonders will fall quite quickly. Getting the tech first will start to become more important than actually building the wonder quickly; in other words, Commerce > Production with regards to wonders.

Finally, there are also two notable things that are caused by the random land bridges all over the place. One, trade over water is very difficult [much easier just to use railroads], and all trade routes will be non-intercontinental regardless, making trade routes less important until later in the game. I say "until later in the game" because after everyone fills out their square, cities are going to start popping up all over the rail network. This will make the late game very tedious, as everyone tries to fill in crap cities all over the place.

It will also make warfare even harder than it is now, much harder. Overwhelming force will be required. Why? Well, although the railroads will help maneuver around to attack from different angles, the fact of the matter is that with naval attacks almost ruled out the only way to get to an enemy's core will be through at least two or three buffer cities. The one-tile strips will make counter-attacks with collateral damage almost impossible to avoid. Warfare will only be possible of the player manages to catch another player completely off-guard [i.e. by doing a total backstab, or possibly by getting enough canal cities for a surprise naval attack], or if that player has a thoroughly overwhelming tech or numerical advantage. So, to summerize warfare on this map:

-Early warfare requires units to travel massive distances, bankrupting their owners with support costs, and then attack players far away with little hope of reinforcements. And on the off-chance that cities are taken, the aggresser with get bankrupted even further with the massive distance maintenance.
-Late warfare [after the map is mostly filled up] will require units to march straight up along one-tile bridges with no cover and no way to avoid collateral.

Ouch. So it looks like warfare will only be feasible after the starting square is filled or mostly filled, but before people start pushing out sentry cities. And the maintenance costs of taking territory will still be massive. So this is shaping up to be an very builder-oriented map, making AGG all but useless.

I'm glad Ruff_Hi was willing to step up and make the map, and I could very well be wrong about how the map turns out; but right now, it sure seems like it could have used some more thought about the implications how it would affect gameplay.

[Tatan]

Graphs:

Random Crap:

Bah, these were looking so much better mere turns ago!

My GNP stat is average, but I'm doing a little bit better if you take into account all the wonders and religions in play. GNP isn't super-important right now anyway, though, so it's probably null.

Production is also touchy, prone to fluctuation with the whip and such, but I did think I would be doing slightly better.

Food is a flat-out disapointment. Others have been rising much more than I have, recently, probably due to growing back after whipping. There is also the fact that I'm lagging some in expansion. This will hopefully improve on its own if I can catch up to others in expansion.

Power is kind of lolz, I'm not really taking it seriously for the moment.

Population and Land Area are way lower than they should be. I need to be expanding more. And I also need to be growing my cities. Curses.

Notably, judging by Exports-Imports no one has established trade routes yet.


Time to rank my opponents in ascending order:
Amelia
This isn't really accurate, since we've only just gotten contact [and not even on Turn 50!], but Amelia doesn't seem to be doing particularly well. She's still at three cities, and she's been hugging the bottome in score for a while. Possible founder of Buddhism, since she would want to go for Mysticism early-ish anyway; but if she did, why didn't she grab any of the early wonders? The 'Henge wasn't built for quite a long time. This probably premature, but Amelia seems to be falling behind.

Adlain
Actually, he seems to be about where I am, but sluggish on expansion; he was the last [potentially excluding Amelia] to get a second city, and is right now stuck at three. He took Judaism, but otherwise has nothing special. Diplomacy with him stalled after a couple messages. I'll have is graphs by Turn 53, hopefully. Not really much else to say.

Gold Ergo Sum
Just built his fourth city recently, and has been consistently on par [and a little better] than me. He's only middle-of-the-pack right now, but a mild opening doesn't hurt him as much considering how great his leader is. FIN/IND is a great builder combo, and on this map GES has the ability to build away with impunity. I'd be surpised if he doesn't stay among the leaders for most of the game. Diplomatically, I've fairly cordial relations with GES; we've shared info pretty freely, and we have an agreement to limit EPs to 43. Potential ally later on.

Plako
I'm not sure how accurate this is, Plako's a bit of a wild-card right now. He did manage to snage the Oracle and 'Henge, and has kept up in expansion [four cities]. But this might have stunted his actual growth; he still doesn't even have slavery! Time will tell, but hopefully Plako will stumble in the coming turns. If he doesn't, we may have a problem. Diplomacy with Plako has been confined to a few early greetings messages.

Mardoc/SevenSpirits
Their play has been... solid. They were pretty early to a fourth city, and founded Hinduism. Graphs [from what I can see] are pretty good as well. I expect them to remain among the top. I've had fairly cordial relations with them; we've exchanged a lot of info about wonders, religions, and such, and have a loose agreement to limit EPs to 43 for the near future. Another potential ally later on, although I'm a bit weary of SS's diplomacy.

Luddite
He has been first to found his second, third, and fourth city by a significant margin, despite getting BW relatively late, and EXP means Luddite still likely has enough workers to cover all four cities. Someone to watch closely. Like Adlain and Plako, diplomacy with him panned out after a few messages.


So how am I doing in comparison? I'm probably between Adlain and GES, unfortunately. Why?

Well, for one, my expansion has been sluggish; having six workers is great, but a few could have been put off for settlers. I've also not been great with the whip, which would have also helped more with the aforementioned settler problem if I had been more agressive. My tech path has also been less than optimal; I'm too lazy to think about what I should've changed right now, I just feel like I haven't been focussed enough. Leader pick has also been a bit of a dud; EXP is great and all, but AGG [already kinda weak] is even less useful on a map like this. I really hope I still get to leverage Musketeers eventually.

On the bright side, my position is still very salvageable, due to my worker surplus. But I will need to be focussed and aggressive.


Something else to note is that my diplomacy hasn't been stellar so far. Truth is, I haven't really had much to say about the game to others, but in retrospect chatting others up and trying to engage in small-talk would've been useful. I haven't been *horrible* about it, but it's definitely something I should try and change.

[Tatan]

The research into Polytheism was not a total waste. Priesthood is up next, after which I will most likely grab Monarchy, and maybe Code of Laws if Confucianism is still open [only this time, I plan to ask around more, since CoL can wait for a while otherwise]. If I do found ConFu, I'll probably grab Monotheism as well for OrgRel. If ConFu looks unlikely, though, I'm thinking about going for Metal Casting. As I said when I was talking about the map, all three luxary metals are present and easily obtainable, which means forges will be massive. And Colossus might be nice if no one else bothers. Speaking of which, I've actually been considering chopping the Pyramids out after I connect my stone, if no one else bothers. Of course, expansion comes first, and I'm not even sure how useful Representation would be right now, but it's still kinda tempting [this would mean not researching Monarchy, obviously]. That's by no means definite, of course.


As for expansion, recall my dot-map:

You'll find explanations and descriptions of the dots in the orginial post.

Obviously Red Dot has already been founded, and I have settler currently heading for Green Dot. And then?

As alert [read: non-dead] readers will note, I have two settlers in the works right now. The one in BC, to be completed at the end of Turn 51 [I double-whipped it], will be headed to Pink Dot, while the one in E!, to be completed approximately Turn 55, will be headed to Blue Dot. Unless I make the BC settler go to Blue Dot and the E! settler go to Orange Dot. I'm still mulling it over. Regardless, whichever I don't found will be up next. After that, Brown and Black are the obvious choices, and then Yellow and White. Cyan and probably Lime will have to wait until Iron Working. It's all vague after grabbing Blue, Pink, and Orange. Whateverz.

[Tatan]

And... that's all? I think.

To summerize:
-This map is irritatingly advantageous for builders.
-I'm falling behind, but not out of it completely.
-Original plan of Drafted Musketeer + Knight rush is hopefully still intact.

Sorry if I kind of petered out there at the end, but I reeaally need some sleep.


Any questions from lurkers will probably be answered in a somewhat timely fashion.

SleepingMoogle, if you're still around, I'd love to hear your opinion.

[Tatan]

This is completely irrelevant/off-topic, but:

I've been trying to teach myself the guitar part of an XTC song for quite some time now. I had just played Turn 52, and then I sat down to practice, and then it hit me: the song I was playing was _totally perfect_ for this game. Seriously.

The name of it?

"Roads Girdle the Globe".

Seriously. Maybe it's just my heightened level of sleep-deprivation, but that seemed PRETTY COOL to me.