(January 20th, 2013, 18:26)Gaspar Wrote: Alright guys, here's the starting position. I'll leave the map open to discussion for another hour or two then send the turn off to AT. But in case anyone wants plan out their start, casually.
I guess we all have totally identical starts if this got posted in the Tech thread. Hm, let's see....
We can't make immediate use of Agriculture, but we can tech straight for Animal Husbandry (which would also make any Horses visible). I'm sure Mining will also be of immediate interest. I wonder if that Deer is there for the civ with Hunting, or just random coincidence? Either way, we'll probably need to tech Hunting ourselves to make full use of the area. The Deer is probably the single best food resource there....
Guess it depends what we start with, but hopefully Worker-first is viable.
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I can't think of a reason not to, but I vaguely recall that in MP sometimes that's considered risky. That's all I meant. I can't imagine the risk outweighs the benefit, though.
So, we debated what to do. I was never sold on wasting a turn to move east or south-east to get the crab. I wanted to work the deer and didn't want to lose a turn to moving. Then we considered 1 NE which looked like it might have given more river tiles (yummy!) but closer inspection revealed it probably wouldn't have been more than 1 confirmed river tile and we'd lose a couple of forests most likely. So, after 15 minutes discussion, we just settled in place:
And look! A preplaced river cottage! The Financial leader's dream!
Hunting first is a no brainer to me since the deer is our highest food tile and since it'll discount AH which will clearly need to be our next priority.
I didn't sim it out, but worker first is also a given.
Tentative plan to send our warrior out to find some other guy's pre-placed improvements and earn his pay. (Note to Whosit: we need to build a few extra units for this purpose and to defend our own pre-placed improvements.
So unfortunately we didn't have a chance to decide name themes before the capital got plunked down, but that'll be changing next turn to "Walk the Line" and our Warrior will be Daric. That does leave an unfortunate stain in the history logs as a "Thebes" being founded but not really a biggie. (Except it is because I am the type to obsess over that stuff! Ha.)
Tech plan seems to be Hunting > Animal Husbandry > Mining > Bronze Working
Worker first followed by a Warrior, I am going to assume. Since we're going to send Daric out to raid, perhaps Warrior 2 could do some close scouting around the capital. Next decisions will be what tiles to improve and in what order. For example, we're obviously going to camp the Deer first, but do we put a road on it before moving on? Pros is that we'd have to move back later to do a road, con is we could use those 2 turns on something else. And Sheep or Cow next? Sheep = more cash, cow = more hammers. Overall, I think we have a good start (but then again, so does everyone else--we just have that cottage).
Oh, I changed it before sending on the save. Just took the screenshot first. I'm hoping to run some sims before deciding build order but without any further info, I think worker-warrior is the right choice.
We got the save. There was nothing really to do and we already discussed the scouting direction so I went ahead and played:
Not much to say about that. I did look at the Demo's because of AT's comment in the Tech thread. Looks like everyone played the exact same way! Or at least they didn't make any changes that would show up in demos.
I guess there's not too much to say to that. At least in a few more turns borders will expand so we'll get to see a little bit more in our immediate area.
When all food tiles get improved, we'll have 5 f Deer, 4 f Sheep, and 3 f Cows. 12 food - 6 for working them so a 6 food surplus if all those get worked. Also of note would be 5 hammers total, I think? Plus one for capital. Eh. Do you have any idea for initial Worker stuff? Besides the obvious of building the camp first. I was wondering before, do we build any roads on forest/hill tiles at once, or leave those for later? I'm usually inclined to build the roads immediately, though I can see the importance of just getting the improvements made.
Well, I'm not sure if it fits "casual" but it does fit "committed." I made a sandbox to play around with. If you want, load it up and see how well we can get the start to go. Maybe play till T35 and see what we can make happen. I'm not gonna track ever minute detail (that's definitely not casual), but I am interested in where we'd be at techwise, population wise, food stored and whatnot by T35. i'll email it to ya after I fix it. Just realized I made it with 7 players instead of five which will be bad
![[Image: 48start.jpg]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16500814/Other/48start.jpg)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0026.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10326940/RB%20Pics/PBEM48/Civ4ScreenShot0026.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0027.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10326940/RB%20Pics/PBEM48/Civ4ScreenShot0027.JPG)
![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0028.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10326940/RB%20Pics/PBEM48/Civ4ScreenShot0028.JPG)