As expected, a very quiet turn. The warrior is on his way eastwards and is currently on the rice tile. Next turn the farm completes and Borte will grow to size 3. No animals in sight and still no other players met than dtay. Maybe our southern neighbour had his scout killed as well? Since we are planning to go for that aggressive land grab we have to prioritize copper over more warriors I think. At least we want the option of building an axe if we spot a dtay buildup of forces. On the other hand I see the value of having a few cheap fogbusters/military police units. Let`s decide when we are closer to completing BW.
My first attempt at making a dot map - ever! Alt+S are the keys for placing signs on the map. Thanks, Google! I think it`s really difficult to place the cities on this map tbh. I`ve not taken a lot of defensive measures like building key cities on hills. Maybe we should. Also I moved the clams-sharing spot 1N in order to get coastal access and not waste a forest. It`ll be a stronger city after we get it going. Note that we have 10 tiles that can be cottaged for the capital in this version. That northern city could be moved a tile south if needed.
I'll look at this in more depth in the next couple of days (not much time right now, as I'm working all day and have to get the pictures uploaded for my OSG-29 report once I get home) but that dot map looks sensible given what we know so far. Copper might force us to shift a city or two, and/or might graduate one of them from "low-priority share filler" to "City #3 ASAP" of course.
A glance at the demos suggests that (only) CML got a Warrior and Dark Savant is no longer working his forest hill, so presumably he finished a Worker with the help of a chop, and is starting on a Settler (at a guess). Somebody is working their clams and rice at size 2; I'll have to look back at the history a bit more to be sure of who: I don't remember if Gavagai or Ventessel could have produced a workboat by now; they're the most likely if so, but it could be almost anyone who prefers growth to hammers right now.
Borte is now size 3, working all of its strong tiles. Our warrior revealed a whole new coastal tile. We should know more about our east next turn. That island just off the coast could turn out to be quite big actually. And that lion NE of Borte reappeared. I hope it goes away in the next couple of turns.
Wow, a new turn already!? I really hope we have sorted out the turn pace issues. Our eastern warrior found something VERY interesting. A city on that island is looking like a good investment. The trade routes plus that marble will make a city profitable quickly. Add inn that extra clams and we are looking at a strong couple of cities in this area. I`m also happy that a city built on that eastern C on the mainland can share the rice early on. If Muqa can build a work boat for it, maybe it can start on a galley straight away in order to speed up that island settlement. We`ll probably have sailing by the point we are ready to build it.
Intriguing discoveries out there! That marble will be interesting for the future, but it's an expensive tile to improve unless we plant a city on it (which has various disadvantages of its own) - a project for the future anyway!
What's the plan with the eastern warrior now? Will it be scouting any further or heading back northwestward right away?
I do hope that lion wanders off to the northeast and does some spawnbusting for us, but in case it appears to wander off and then comes back, I'd suggest a tactical adaptation: If the lion is not on a visible tile T25, we might want to move the warrior 1N to the plains tile instead of to the grassland hill (from the forest north of the river in our borders) and just hope/assume there's not a panther on the sheep. This would mean that the lion appearing back on C-sign hill T26 wouldn't be nearly as disruptive, and we could move our warrior straight to the forest hill as long as the lion isn't occupying that. Of course, if there's another animal in the fog right around there, that would be a problem - but that would be true no matter how we move.
[EDIT: I'll get to the international updates and so forth later today after I post the last part of my OSG report.]
I agree with the change of plan for the second warrior if no animals are seen on turn 25. We really want to occupy that grass forest hill asap. A panther attacking from the fog and killing our warrior would be a blow, but the chances of that happening are very low. We can`t play without any risk anyway. I was thinking of sending the first warrior one more tile SE and then return home. It can`t be killed by animals there fortunately.
Hmmm, yeah. Moving the eastern warrior another tile SE means it would arrive at either the capital or the Muqa theater of operations (wherever it seems most needed) two turns later than otherwise, but would reveal some tiles we otherwise would be unlikely to explore for a long time to come. I think if it were me, I'd move the warrior back northwest right away, but I suspect my typical play is too conservative to have a winning chance in MP: Winning the game (if everyone's skill were equal at least) probably requiress taking bigger risks than I like to take, making sure to time them so that their rewards if the risks pay off will be bigger than what my conservative play could ever achieve.
Krill's move into the fog with his starting settler, for instance, was a very high risk play that might yet pay off in substantial rewards. On the other hand, of course, the nature of high-risk play is that it doesn't always pay off. So far at least, what that move has done is to put Krill's start about six turns behind the curve. We'll see if he can make that back with a super-capital or an ealy-ish rush or something.
One more thing: Alternatives to the assumption that our Southwest neighbor lost their Scout:
1) They could have scouted deep Southwest (immediately or after circling their capital) instead of toward us.
2) They could have done limited scouting in our direction, saw the southern reaches of the mirrored area, and decided spawnbusting and/or more scouting and sentry duties around their own land was more important than making contact with a neighbor or scouting ours.
3) It could be Krill, and he could have moved away from us.
4) It could be Krill, and he could have moved toward us, spotted the edge of our borders (without making contact) from the tile NW of the southern corn, and then avoided making contact to avoid giving us warning that he settled up on us.
5) It could be someone whose scout didn't die, but was seriously hurt by an animal (or two) and spent some time healing (once or twice). Especially if it was Ventessel, who also straight-up missed two of his turns....
Demo information and the like hopefully later on today. (i.e. sometime in the early morning in Norway!)
International stuff: There's still some more digging and confirming to do, but let's see...
On turn 22, three people grew to size 3: CML, Gavagai, and us. Coeurva completed Bronze Working, Dark Savant got Fishing, and someone (I want to say CML, but it'll take me time to sort it out for sure, assuming I'm able to do so) built a warrior.
On turn 23, Coeurva grew to size 3 while Krill and Gavagai got their land points from finally founding a city and popping creative borders, respectively, back on turn 3. Also we picked up mining, but you already knew that. Three people completed warriors as well, likely including GermanJoey and dtay.
On turn 24, dtay and GermanJoey grew to size 3, the last pair to do so apart from Dark Savant (who opened with BW in spite of having neither Fishing nor Agri) ... and Krill, who also grew this turn: The last to reach size 2. GJ also completed Mining, so we're a turn of research ahead of him right now, but have identical technologies.
Note that there is still no sign of Dark Savant working a Copper tile.
After weighing for and against going SE, I decided to do it anyway. Right now we are quite vulnerable to an incoming enemy warrior from the SW, but I think the chances of that happening is low. Famous last words? Our warrior found another food source, an ocean fish. Maybe our island city should be moved to the marble. The warrior will move NW asap in order to act as a backup to the second warrior. The lion now stands on top of that grass hill that we hope to reach in the next couple of turns. If it disappears into the fog next turn the second warrior can move N to that plains.
