[SPOILERS-PBEM14] scooter's thread - Mansa Musa

[dazedroyalty]

Malcolm Muggeridge is my vote!

[scooter]

So I didn't update on the turn yesterday, since it only involved moving my warrior and revealing 2ish tiles. I figure instead of that, I'd morph the two turns together... So here's a look at what Ron Burgundy's discovered thus far:



Some pretty decent stuff down there... Also, I hit enter and Animal Husbandry came in.. . and do we have horses??




Apparently we do!

[dazedroyalty]

Apparently we do!

Still unknowns out there but the appearance of horses adds consideration to your initial choke city location. Still only one food until Calendar but having the horses would be good for defense if needed. Also, it's good to know you have them for your cataprachts later -- unlike our first AW duel when I never build a singe cataphract because I had ZERO horses!

[scooter]

Still unknowns out there but the appearance of horses adds consideration to your initial choke city location. Still only one food until Calendar but having the horses would be good for defense if needed. Also, it's good to know you have them for your cataprachts later -- unlike our first AW duel when I never build a singe cataphract because I had ZERO horses!

Yep - very glad to have horses on hand. I'll have to revisit the dotmapping soon... I'm actually considering going straight onto a settler after the warrior completes, but I haven't made up my mind yet. The other possibility is a second worker, but there's just not much for a second worker to do right now since I can't chop or anything yet, so... I might as well get a head start on settling. Something to think about. Anyways, here's what I found exploring this turn:



I'm more or less trying to make contact now with this warrior, and I seem to be failing thus far... Lots of open land here, which makes sense given the obscene amount of land tiles that we know exists. We seem to have relatively isolated starts maybe? Hard to say since I don't know much of what's west of me, but considering how much water I see bleeding through the tiles over there, I'm inclined to think I'm on a peninsula. Here's a look back at the capital by the way, where I just grew to size 2:



I very much like how the growth, warrior, and Mining will all finish on the same turn. My OCD is pretty happy right now . So I have 3 turns to figure out if I"m going to go straight into a settler or not. I'm leaning towards it at the moment.

[pling]

Very tidy getting it all lined up

My (less than) 2 cents is that wouldn't 2 workers get awfully bored before you get another city, might as well expand into all that lovely empty looking land before someone comes along to argue about it

[scooter]

My (less than) 2 cents is that wouldn't 2 workers get awfully bored before you get another city, might as well expand into all that lovely empty looking land before someone comes along to argue about it

Yep - this is exactly my thinking. I'll be at size 3 already, so a second warrior feels wasteful, especially with no barbarians. A worker feels extra wasteful because all I have left for my first worker to do is pasture the cows, which will be done before worker 2. BW is still a little ways away, though i have started on mining already.

I could potentially start a warrior, grow to size 4, swap to a settler, then double-whip the settler when the option is available... I might try to sim it out and see if that might be quicker.

[scooter]

Pling and SevenSpirits - you are both welcome to lurk my PBEM16 thread as well if you'd like to swing by and visit. I will probably be focusing most of my thread updating attention here (update this consistently, update the other when I have time), but you are both still welcome to come by there as well.

Dazed on the other hand is most unwelcome there for some fairly obvious reasons. Maybe after I kill him he can lurk mine too.

[dazedroyalty]

Pling and SevenSpirits - you are both welcome to lurk my PBEM16 thread as well if you'd like to swing by and visit. I will probably be focusing most of my thread updating attention here (update this consistently, update the other when I have time), but you are both still welcome to come by there as well.

Dazed on the other hand is most unwelcome there for some fairly obvious reasons. Maybe after I kill him he can lurk mine too.

I, on the other hand, have already made multiple posts for PBEM16 with pictures, so come lurk me! :neenernee

Also, scooter, I'm in favor of straight to Settler unless the whip turns out to be more effective.

[pling]

I have looked at the PBEM16 lurker thread, so I've glanced at the map thus I'm afraid I'd have to be a fairly quiet lurker & you can't have the benefits* of all my opinions. But I'm flattered to be asked, so I'll take you up on it, just be very cautious on anything to do with map knowledge. I'm finding it even more fun than I'd expected to "play along at home" on this one as compared to the games I'm globally lurking

*[SIZE="1"]benefits may not actually be beneficial, always read the small print[/SIZE]

[scooter]

I opened up my email account this morning to play the save, and the save was there, but there was also another email!

Hi scooter,

my scout found your borders this turn. We are some ways away from each other, around 20 tiles, but you seem to be my direct neighbour to the west. Might of course be that someone is in the south (I believe that we are in the north from the tiles I can see).

We have nice land between us, which should be not to hard to find an agreement about for quite some time as well.

And let me say, I am glad I met you first, because I have good memories of PBEM7 and if possible would like to work together with you again. It is of course quite early to discuss anything, but yeah, nice to meet you

Kind regards,
Serdoa

So we officially have contact. Great stuff. I think it's really interesting that he's so far away... Considering I've looked really far South-Southeast and I haven't found anything yet either... Makes me think we are all pretty isolated, which makes perfect sense given the amount of land tiles in the game. So I quickly opened the save to see what's up:



Here's a look at Ron Burgundy and his continued failed attempts at finding anyone:



I DO think I'm close though... Look at the horses. My horses were pretty close by, so I think there's a strong chance that those could be someone else's horses... Which means I might be close. Now something to consider:



What do we know? We know that I went worker-warrior, and that Gaspar grew to size 2, before apparently slaving down to size 1. Everyone else has remained at size 1 this whole time... Which means Sandover, Serdoa, and Lewwyn have gone worker-worker. Something to keep in mind if I'm right about the horses and I find some borders within a turn or so.