And sure, there could in theory be land tiles adjoining one or both of the northwest peaks, but if the corn up there lacks freshwater, then the water to its north is connected to an inland sea. My guess is that the water to the west and north is all part of the same sea, but that really is just guesswork. I'll also opine that the map is large enough for starts to all be at least 15 tiles apart, but given the shape of the land so far, it could still be that the starts are more "clustered," with a couple of closer neighbors while the rest are further away than they would be on a grid (or 1/3 offset "grid").
And finally: GermanJoey (Churchill of Greece) got a tech during the interturn. If my assumptions are correct up to this point, that tech was The Wheel - completed to the exact beaker by working the clams continuously from T0.
If you have the time and energy to make a microplan - feel free to do so! I`m happy to follow it as long as we are not under any immediate threat. I have already pointed out a possible second site (the spot that would share the wet corn, plains pigs and clams), but it feels a bit wrong to put it one tile away from the coast. There are other good city sites in that area too, of course. I think we should get that wet corn in the first ring though.
River corn is definitely the best tile we can see. The one issue is that we can be confident of that area being in our back lines. Claiming territory is quite important against humans (and against AIs of course; it's just that your plants have to be defensible - for a couple of different definitions - against human competition). Honestly, I don't see anything I really like as a second city. (Maybe 1N of the gems if there's first-ring seafood and the land continues southeast from there? But it could well be that neither is the case....)
That said, I can certainly write up alternate microplan extensions that apply to the corn/pigs/clams site. Not tonight, but hopefully sometime tomorrow (after I post my Orion SG report).
(May 5th, 2017, 03:49)RefSteel Wrote: River corn is definitely the best tile we can see. The one issue is that we can be confident of that area being in our back lines. Claiming territory is quite important against humans (and against AIs of course; it's just that your plants have to be defensible - for a couple of different definitions - against human competition). Honestly, I don't see anything I really like as a second city. (Maybe 1N of the gems if there's first-ring seafood and the land continues southeast from there? But it could well be that neither is the case....)
That said, I can certainly write up alternate microplan extensions that apply to the corn/pigs/clams site. Not tonight, but hopefully sometime tomorrow (after I post my Orion SG report).
I certainly see the point about settling towards your neighbour. Controlling the centre of the disputed area is key to winning the game. As a chess player (my FIDE rating is about 2150) I know that very well. My point is that the job of the second city is to build as many workers and/or settlers as early as possible. Maybe I could be talked into that spot 1N of the gems if we find something extra nearby. All other things being equal, I would of course much rather settle directly against an opponent.
Yep, it's a challenging dot map. I wonder if it was deliberate? Simply drawing up inland sea boundaries at the particular distances they are from the start makes it a bit painful, as the number of tiles that aren't too close the cap and aren't one off the coast is restricted.
If Krill decided to scout for an extra turn out of sheer bloody-mindedness and got a good view of this it might explain his movement.
Annoyingly, I think you need to draw up a full dot-map rather than just focus on the first city-site. For example, 1SW of the river corn gets coast, first-ring corn and shares a nice grassland tile with the cap for a cottage, but forces a particular city location further NW to avoid orphaning the fish (it also has no second food resource until border pop, but that's not the point I'm stumbling towards).
Deep breath and keep scouting? Could the tile 1NW of the whales be key?
Oh, and remind me not to challenge JR4 to a chess game any time soon...
I was never rated, but when I was taking it seriously I was probably around 1900-2000 based on the ratings of other players. One day I was horrified to find myself playing a competitive league game against an International Master (leading his team rapidly up the university divisions): I panicked, swapped two opening moves by mistake - losing a bishop, resigned after seven moves and went down the pub. He probably thought we'd juggled the team order to put our weakest player first. I never really took it up again.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
(May 5th, 2017, 12:49)shallow_thought Wrote: Yep, it's a challenging dot map. I wonder if it was deliberate? Simply drawing up inland sea boundaries at the particular distances they are from the start makes it a bit painful, as the number of tiles that aren't too close the cap and aren't one off the coast is restricted.
If Krill decided to scout for an extra turn out of sheer bloody-mindedness and got a good view of this it might explain his movement.
Annoyingly, I think you need to draw up a full dot-map rather than just focus on the first city-site. For example, 1SW of the river corn gets coast, first-ring corn and shares a nice grassland tile with the cap for a cottage, but forces a particular city location further NW to avoid orphaning the fish (it also has no second food resource until border pop, but that's not the point I'm stumbling towards).
Deep breath and keep scouting? Could the tile 1NW of the whales be key?
Oh, and remind me not to challenge JR4 to a chess game any time soon...
I was never rated, but when I was taking it seriously I was probably around 1900-2000 based on the ratings of other players. One day I was horrified to find myself playing a competitive league game against an International Master (leading his team rapidly up the university divisions): I panicked, swapped two opening moves by mistake - losing a bishop, resigned after seven moves and went down the pub. He probably thought we'd juggled the team order to put our weakest player first. I never really took it up again.
Ah, you certainly know how to move your pieces with that kind of rating performance! So, with two chess players and RefSteel`s awesome microplans - how could this possibly go wrong?
As for losing hopelessly and then quit chess. It is, sadly, a well-known phenomenon in chess circles. I`ve lost in the opening myself a few times and wondered why I spend so much time on it. It is very important to put those games behind. And, of course, to learn from the mistakes that was done.
You`re probably right that we need to make a complete dotmap soon. I will try to do so when we get information on the NE of Borte. Let`s just hope our scout stays alive for some time. I think the strongest city sites are the ones that are backfill for us, and therefore a deliberate action of the mapmaker. Not a bad idea I think. Lots of interesting choices already.
Microplans will have to wait at least until tomorrow, as the OSG report took longer than I thought. Sorry about that! (On the other hand, it may be that long before the turn rolls at this rate!) I mentalsimmed™ one to get the corn farmed ASAP, with the corn/pig/clams site, but even that one has some interesting variations. I'll provide more details when I have a chance!
(Also: I haven't played Chess in a decade and a half, I think! I never played online, never studied openings, and - as you might guess - was never any good. But at least I know the oasis is a knight's move from Borte, right?)
We could indeed move to the oasis with a chess knight. Imagine how different the game would be if civ knights moved like that!
Anyway, we are not in a hurry to make a decision on the dotmap yet. Things are moving along a bit slowly atm. I hope Ventessel will play his turn soon.
And to be perfectly clear- I`m not 100% sold on that spot as the second city just yet. One tile off the coast and one tile off that river plus losing a forest feels just wrong. I really hope we find some more food in the next couple of turns.
