[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[SevenSpirits]

[scooter]

Okay, this is a mixed bag. Random gut reactions organized by the good and bad parts... Highly subject to change because I've given this about 60 seconds of thought.

Good
1. Plains hill start for a 2 hammer plant.
2. Lots of forests to chop. Based on my view of fog-gazing, if we settle in place (pretty likely), that's 8 forests to chop. There's a useful wonder in those trees somewhere.
3. Colossus or TGL are both in play because of the coastal sites we have.
4. 2 floodplains and a bunch of grassland will make for a nice commerce capital.

Bad
1. Clams will be hard to get to early on, so basically just 1 food. Though that said, there's a decent change there could be a resource 2E of here considering that looks to be a clearing that touches 3 lands tiles, all of which are forests. Mildly uncommon for it to not have a forest. I can hope right?
2. We have the absolute wrong starting techs for this start. The winning techs here is Fishing + Mining for seafood and chopping, and we have Myst and Hunting. Youch. I'll have to think about how to play this kind of start.
3. We might be stranded on an island chain. This is a really thin patch of land. Blah. At least we have Viking boats to speed up movement. If we are, Colossus is a MUST.

Anyways, 4 of our BFC tiles are hidden. The one 2W is either a grass forest or plains forest (so who cares). The one 2N is a floodplains. The one 2E is I THINK a grass forest (fingers crossed for a resource), and the one E-SE is a grass forest or plains forest. So the tile 2E is the one that matters most to see, but honestly, I don't think we'll be moving our settler here so it probably doesn't matter too much.

[dazedroyalty]

Well I hate to say it but I am pretty inclined to think that we are on an island. The only question is if we are on a tiny island (which does happen on these maps) or a moderately sized one. I like GLH still and think that is a big priority. If we didn't go that way, I'd definitely do Oracle->MC. If there was a way to snap all three, I'd do it but that's not likely considering we need to get Fishing, Mining, BW ASAP. Then we'll have to pick Sailing or Priesthood and also decide how quickly we'll go for cottages. The bigger the island, the more I'd emphasize Pottery. Smaller island, I care far less to prioritize it.

Yeah, I'm seriously thinking there won't be any substantial land to our W or N.

[scooter]

Well I hate to say it but I am pretty inclined to think that we are on an island. The only question is if we are on a tiny island (which does happen on these maps) or a moderately sized one. I like GLH still and think that is a big priority. If we didn't go that way, I'd definitely do Oracle->MC. If there was a way to snap all three, I'd do it but that's not likely considering we need to get Fishing, Mining, BW ASAP. Then we'll have to pick Sailing or Priesthood and also decide how quickly we'll go for cottages. The bigger the island, the more I'd emphasize Pottery. Smaller island, I care far less to prioritize it.

Yeah, I'm seriously thinking there won't be any substantial land to our W or N.

Yeah if it's a tiny island we're toast. BTW if it is, Colossus is just much better than Great Lighthouse. The amount of raw commerce from Colossus would dwarf TGL. Check out Krill's PBEM2 or even Gaspar PBEM14 for examples. It'd be like a free Financial, and it would keep us relevant despite lack of land. So if we want Colossus, Oracle would be a huge priority. Now, it could be that we say all this and there's plenty of land and we just happen to be on a peninsula, but the north and west both look like ends to me sadly. Southeast doesn't exactly look like tons of land either but that's our best hope. Cross those fingers.

[dazedroyalty]

What will suck is the tiny islands are not known for Bronze and horses so we could be in real trouble for that. We'll see what happens though. I agree with the Colossus being better if we're going to be working significant number of water tiles (looks likely). Problem is we don't have a great start for Preisthood. I am not gonna be able to check now (date night) but we should see what the other two IND civs have as starting techs. If one has Mysticism we might want to do full C&D on them to see what they're up to.

[scooter]

What will suck is the tiny islands are not known for Bronze and horses so we could be in real trouble for that. We'll see what happens though. I agree with the Colossus being better if we're going to be working significant number of water tiles (looks likely). Problem is we don't have a great start for Preisthood. I am not gonna be able to check now (date night) but we should see what the other two IND civs have as starting techs. If one has Mysticism we might want to do full C&D on them to see what they're up to.

We do know that we are guaranteed to have at least one strat resources in the vicinity (iron/copper/horse) but nothing else is promised.

And yeah, one has Myst I think. Honestly I'll probably suck it up and just do a full sim on how to get Oracle quickest and see if that seems worth it. Anyways, more later, but I'm headed out now.

[dazedroyalty]

We do know that we are guaranteed to have at least one strat resources in the vicinity (iron/copper/horse) but nothing else is promised.

And yeah, one has Myst I think. Honestly I'll probably suck it up and just do a full sim on how to get Oracle quickest and see if that seems worth it. Anyways, more later, but I'm headed out now.

Trying to remember what changes were described. It was one grass tile changed in a capital but I think that all the strat resources were fine. So either we're in luck and our island is bigger than it seems or we have one on an island within 12 tiles which isn't exactly an awesome guarantee.

Have a good night.

[retep]

You have 9 forest and that tile 2E of the capital looks like doesn't have a forest plus is grassland so i think there is a good chance that a resource is in there.
It looks like there are tundra to your north (and a snow forest).
So your north is tundra, your west ocean, east ocean and your south doesn't look good eitther (a 1 path tile is pretty unlikely). So yeah, you are probably in a tiny island.

[scooter]

Trying to remember what changes were described. It was one grass tile changed in a capital but I think that all the strat resources were fine. So either we're in luck and our island is bigger than it seems or we have one on an island within 12 tiles which isn't exactly an awesome guarantee.

Have a good night.

The rule was everyone had at least one 4-food tile in their capital and at least 1 horse/copper/iron within 12 tiles. Seven said:

I did:
* Everyone has an early strategic resource (horse/copper/iron) but not necessarily more than one. This didn't require any editing.
* Everyone has a land tile that's 4f or better when improved with ancient era techs only. This required turning a single tile to grassland.

So on the strat resources, yeah this isn't a great guarantee. That could mean we have copper in one of these hills and we could still be on a 15 tile island or whatever. Or worse, it's on an island 12 tiles away. The second part is interesting - that implies that the best someone had for food was a plains cow or plains sheep or something and turning it to grassland gave it a 4th food. Also likely means that's an inland person because a coastal person would likely get a seafood from the map normalizer. So that means someone had a pretty bad start somewhere.

You have 9 forest and that tile 2E of the capital looks like doesn't have a forest plus is grassland so i think there is a good chance that a resource is in there.
It looks like there are tundra to your north (and a snow forest).
So your north is tundra, your west ocean, east ocean and your south doesn't look good eitther (a 1 path tile is pretty unlikely). So yeah, you are probably in a tiny island.

I zoomed way, way in on the picture and was unable to see a northern tundra or ice forest. That would actually be really odd next to floodplains. Are you sure you're seeing that right? From tile bleeding the west pretty clearly looks to be a dead end, and the north seems really likely too (but slightly less obvious). It's not impossible there's land to the north, but I THINK I see an outline of a coast up there.

Now to the SOUTH I do see a snow forest and what might be tundra (guessing you just mixed up north/south) - we're obviously in the southern hemisphere. Haha crap we ARE screwed. Man this is bad. If south is tundra then there can't be much good land down there unless it goes way east. I mean, the way the coast branches to the east suggests that it gets noticeably wider down there, but if we're up against tundra I can't imagine there's piles of amazing land that way.

I also noted the odd clearing 2E of here. I'm hoping that's pig or something - that'd be AMAZING. If there's no food there (which we'll see on T0), I'd bet that's our early strat resource. Marble would be way cool, but I don't think that spawns on flat grassland tiles right?

Anyways, all this said... Does anyone see any reason NOT to settle in place? I can't think of any good reason at all. You could argue 1E gets both clams in play way quicker, but I still think it's strong to not take the plains hill plant. Now obviously there are two other plains hill plants, but the nothern one is pointless and the southern one looks like weaker capital and 2 wasted moving turns. That said, I'll MAJORLY eat my words if there turns out to be fish over there to the west that we are unable to use because of city placement. Hmmm. But if there's no fish, it's a much weaker capital with no floodplains, less food, and less forests. We don't want to do the sunrise/regoarrar PB4 thing where we just run out towards the fog hoping to find something better than the obviously acceptable settle-in-place.

Sorry for the rambling and disconnected nature of this post (moreso than is normal for me). It's nearly midnight and I'm just jotting down thoughts as they come.

[retep]

Quick post since I'm cooking right now, yes I mess up the cardinals I mean south no north, in my defence it was really late when I posted and I was tired.
Marble don't appear in grassland (at least I never saw one in grassland) but they tend to apeear a lot in tundra, so you may have one no far away.