[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

OK, so I probably should have healed Liam. Now he might die, but even if he lives he'll be banged up and needs to heal before he can continue to explore.

Here is a picture of the capital, about to finish 2 warriors in the next 3 turns due to overflow and working the mine for a single turn, and still manage to grow to size 7. The it will 2 turn a settler for the pigs and off it goes...

The demographics aren't bad atm, but as people start to grow their second cities and plant their thirds I'll start to fall behind again I think.

Something that you will likely find a bit more interesting. I've labelled the city sites I think are viable down the peninsula. The first city site that needs to be decided is the fish city, because there are only three sites that work. It won't be the fourth city, but it needs to fit in to the rest of the cities. The warrior that is out exploring is going to continue exploring the FoW, the warrior that is about to finish will go NW to scout out the snow and tundra and hopefully find a bunch of huts I can pop with a scout...and the last warrior will go defend the pigs city.

As you can see, it isn't a finalised dot map by any means, and there are some other city sites that are...viable, for the gold, but are a bit far away. Once I'v uncovered all of the land around that rice I'll likely have to make a final decision. Especially because once the settler for the pigs city is completed I'm going to build workers to road down there...

For reference:

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[Nicolae Carpathia]

City name: Esus border pop

Preferably an aggressive front city.

[Krill]

OK, comments on the city sites.

A/B/C has to be decided first, as I said above. It will have a fish for food, so easy to get to +6, but there are 2 desert hills and a plains hill to work for A/B sites. A can get 1 irrigated grassland, C can have 2 and B can have 3, to then feed the plains tiles. I think A is the weakest city here, it won't have enough food to work all of the tiles unless it irrigates all of the plains, which isn't going to happen until after Civil Service is researched. The city needs a lot of infrastructure to work, a monument/religion, work boat that it has to build itself and a light house later on. Because it will need investment to work, I don't want to make that investment into a city that is effectively going to be junk. So, I can't really bring myself to use the A site. The C site doesn't have that plains hill, and generally will not use that central crap plains area at higher population, problems that the B site doesn't have. As I don't want to plant a city late game for the crappy plains area, I prefer the B site over the other two.

Now, with that decided, I need to know what tiles I'll have available for the fourth city site down by the gold. I want minimal overlap between these two cities as good tiles are at a premium and will always be worked as soon as the cities are grown. I want to use the gold, flood plains and rice because those are the only tiles that will let the city both grow and work the gold. The D site will eliminate the need for a quick monument and saves a forest to chop. When the borders do expand it can work the three grass hills, gold, fp and rice for a good little production city down in the south. But it isn't coastal and I'm seriously lacking in coastal cities on the eastern seaboard.

The E city site is coastal, but is on a forest and needs an immediate border pop to make the gold and fp available. I don't really like this city site, but I keep on thinking if I don't take it, I'm going to have to place three other coastal cities in the FoW to even stand a chance late game in a naval war.

I think that this decision then affects if I plant a junk city on the desert for the flood plain and plains hill. That city would gradually pick up more hammer tiles and just be a military camp city. Not a HE grade military city, but something to help bulk out the military. I kinda like this city site, but it can't be planted until the pigs city has grown up to size 6 as it needs the fp to grow faster. It can steal tiles (hills) from Crapital as well, as Crapital moves off the hills and onto cottages to grow. I mean, it can hit 12 hpt at size 12 with just a an irrigated flood plain for food, that isn't shabby for pushing out axes, spears and chariots or even 5 turn workers.

But that desert military city site then affects where the pigs city is placed. If I want the military city up sooner to start growing, I can place the pigs city 1S and give up the fp, but that slows down pigs and delays that city building workers/settlers and military. It also makes it just about impossible to plant a city between the D/E sites and the pigs city, even if there is food available. OTOH...if I don't have to plant a city in that area, it's one more settler I can send down to the jungle area to claim that...

J/F/G are alternate city sites that I'd consider if I didn't want to send my fourth city all the way down there, and tried to plant cities for individual merits. J is on a hill, and can work the fp, rice and gold with popped borders, but steals a lot of tiles from the B site, so isn't actually that good late game. F could potentially be a really strong late game city with a bunch of hills and farms, but doesn't do anything for me early on, and G probably makes all of the coastal cities in that area into junk cities, so I don't really consider G a viable site.

H and I are the starting point for dot mapping the jungle, but as I've decided to use the B city site, that makes H a lot weaker and potentially a liability to a naval invasion. I is my preferred city site IF I need to settle a city to overlap the gold, but I'm not likely to plant it as it doesn't have a food resource, and I don't want to be farming that many tiles in a potential front line city.

[Krill]

Large world map:

[Krill]

However, just as I was finishing taking these pictures, Cyneheard and yuris logged in and the turn rolled, so it is already out dated...

First of all, my warrior survived, but at 0.6 health, up to 7/8XP...but that wasn't all good news:

Stupid wolves. Even with W2 on a jungle, I'm not risking Liam there, I'll risk moving 2 tiles away and try to heal...

oh, is'nt that tempting...a hut. But what can I pop? I have 1/4 chance of barbs and a dead warrior, as even weak barbs will kill Liam unless they all spawn perfectly, letting Liam run away...towards a wolf. My unit can be healed or get enough XP for W3 which is basically a quicker healing time and first strikes which I quite like, a 3/20 chance of that happening. There there is the warrior or scout that can be popped, 3/20 again, so 3/10 chance of something that lets me keep on exploring. Then there is the 7/20 chance of getting gold or a map. the gold I'm a bit meh about, the map is at best worth a bit less than the fully healed Liam or a new scouting unit. The only techs I can pop are Fishing, Writing, Archery or Masonry. Or Pottery which is a troll pop. Now against this I risk someone else popping the hut and whatever they get, I lose out as barbs kill Liam or an opponent gets good stuff.

I think I'm going to risk it, and pop that hut. I'm not even certain of Liam being able to heal without barbs interfering with him, so I think the risk is acceptable.

Yay I have a new food resource. Now to grow to size 2 and slave out a worker and overflow a granary! Also, I'm roading the corn because I'll need the health in Crapital when it grows to size 7. Boring boring city...

[Krill]

As an aside, Hinduism was founded this turn, and I think it went to Dazed and scooter. They were the only players that had a score increase of more than 3 points.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Your land sucks. This is all Darrel's fault somehow.

[Krill]

Looking on the bright side, I have 2 easily settled happy res without needing to tech Monarchy or Calendar. I have an easily defended core until Astro, and even then it's easier to defend than some starts I've had (PBEM20 in particular). I have city sites that are perfectly acceptable without border pops (disregarding the lower quality of the land). I have horse, and I do have copper available if needed.

I currently have the largest city in the game, and I do have more pop working land atm that pretty much everyone except rego and Pind. I think only one other team has a gold/gems tile at the start, so tech isn't horrendously backward atm, and I have popped AH from a hut.

It could be worse.

[antisocialmunky]

It could be worse.

City Name?

[Krill]

I mean...the first religion has just fallen. Oracle is still up for grabs. I have Marble and Gold, a 7/8 XP warrior and I'm SPI/CHM: I could quite easily make a strategy of heading up through Aesthetics to Lit for Swedagon Paya, SoZ, the GL, NE and HE. I have both of the doublers.

Imagine if I dropped the SoZ/HE into the pigs city, and watermill all of that river and had the hills. With a barracks and Theocracy I can pump out an abusive amount of units, just about hitting base 40 hpt at size 14, enough to make 1 turn knights, never mind earlier units. And it's really easy to make them 3 promo units. CG3 LB, CR3 swords etc. I'd need MC, Machinery and Monarchy to get the city that big, and I'd basically be sticking to Serfdom to get the extra hammers from watermills and windmills, but that city combined with the desert city would just keep me rolling through the game quite easily. It wouldn't be an early game strategy by any means, but...Crapital can be a pretty good cottage capital. Tech shouldn't be that hard for me to do.