Make love, not war: HidingKneel chills out with the Elohim (Spoilers!)

[HidingKneel]

Turn 7 has come and gone. Which means our first tech (Agriculture) is in, and our worker is complete.
Next tech is probably going to be Calendar. But I figure it might be worth making a sandbox. So, in this totally lame update, I will show you the world I've seen so far (really, so that I have something to look at when reconstructing in worldbuilder).

You've already seen the capital. Here's the area to the SE, largely unexplored:



This part, where I want to put my altar city, you've already seen (though I've defogged a little more now):



Counterclockwise a little further, we've got a source of sugar:



Either Q or the mapscript really likes bananas:



Further west we've got this:



And that village we saw earlier:



Finally, down south, we found a pre-made (forested!) mine:



Commerce looks like it might be serious concern. Maybe unlocked cottages should be a priority?

[HidingKneel]

The barbarians have drawn first blood:



Fortunately, it was only a paper cut. But I don't want to tangle with that bear. I think that warrior is heading home.
My starting warriors could be handy... I want to start a settler at size 4, which means we'll only be able to build two warriors between then and now.

Here's another location that might work for building the Altar:



By my calculations, a size 20 city there could be outputting 54 hammers per turn. Which is only two hammers lower than at the other site. Disadvantage: no fresh water. However, that's offset by needing a lower population. The advantage is that I might well want to dotmap that other area differently. In particular, I might want to put a city at the former site which gets incense in the first ring, to help alleviate my commerce troubles. We'll see.

[HidingKneel]

Wait a sec... there's no way to get irrigation to those grass forests to the east. OTOH, there's a fish in range of the city that I didn't notice. That's enough food to get me to size 18 losing 1 food/turn (which I easily stockpile while running StW)
letting me work 5 specialists for a total output of 52 hpt. That'll get the Altar built in 14 turns assuming I start with overflow: 1 turn worse than the other site.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 13. A very unfortunate thing happened:



My beautiful riverside grasslands tile now has a forest on it . So the painfully slow, low-commerce start is going to be a little bit slower...

In other news, I've located one of my opponents:

[HidingKneel]

A few more turns played.

Made stealthy contact with the Calabim; hopefully they don't know which direction I came from.

Calabim should make good neighbors. If it were the Illians or Hippus, I'd worry about a rush. As it is... Molach has to worry about being rushed by the Illians and the Hippus. Which should make him less likely to want to start a war with us, at least until he acquires vampires. Well, that's a theory, anyway.

Scout found some good land in that direction:



Really want to settle in that direction. It's the best land I've seen so far. And it has a mana node. I'll need three for the Tower, and so far I've only seen two.

Tricky part is that land is as close to the Calabim as it is to us...

In other news, I've switched to a pillage economy:



Camp on a forest tile adds nothing, so I might as well take it apart. Not worth too much, but doesn't cost me anything but a turn. Got another warrior en route to that village I found earlier, which should net me a lot more.

[HidingKneel]

I'm way behind!

Turn 21, and we've made a groovy discovery:



Swapping into agrarianism, which adds three food to the capital at the expense of 2 hammers. Which isn't great, but better than nothing. Working on a settler at the moment, which will go to settle my altar city. Meanwhile, I'm teching Exploration. Need to prioritize cheap commerce boosts.



I've started pillaging villages I found on the map, which has been good for a chunk of cash. Also of note: we've got contact with Mardoc now. None of his units are visible, so I'm not sure which direction he came from. Also found a Calabim scout, so they know where we are too.

Graphs are mostly boring except for this one:



Everybody's built two warriors so far. We haven't lost anything yet (I think this is the first game my starting units have lasted this long... probably because the map's got no lairs), but it looks like the Illians were not so fortunate.

[HidingKneel]

Four more turns played.

Most recently, my starting scout dodged a bullet:



Was sure he was a goner, but somehow he managed to fight off a giant spider. Losing that battle would have been bad: not so much because I would have lost the scout, but because it means a promoted spider would be out there ready to eat my settling party in a few turns. Anyway, I'm very pleased with that result. Was thinking of teching AH next, and having a scout with 6xp makes that option more appealing.

I've had great luck with starting units: I sent all three out exploring, and it looks like they might all make it home. That puts me at #1 in power right now. Unfortunately, the other demographics are not as favorable:

[HidingKneel]

Turn 30.

Demos are bad:



Not really sure what can be done about it. I'm working all the commerce in the BFC of the capital and yet far behind in GNP. There's not much commerce near the capital, either. I guess I should probably crawl toward Education?

[HidingKneel]

So, interesting event log:



Mardoc's at war with Molach already. I'm guessing it's not a real war, maybe more like a unit was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, I'd love to be wrong about that. Of note: Molach got his second city this turn.

Also of note: my warrior survived a griffon attack. Good that it survived (especially since it was protecting a worker), but unfortunate that the griffon is dead... I'm just a few turns away from being able to capture animals.

Which was probably a bad move on my part. Commerce is so thin, I should have gone straight for Education.

Got my second city too:



Don't have a road connection yet. Upkeep of 3 means the city is costing more than it's bringing in... fortunately I've got some pillage gold which should last me for a little while. But the financial situation really looks hopeless:



Decided that I'm not far enough behind in the demos, so I'm starting with a Reliquary in the new city .

[HidingKneel]

Thessalonica, Elohim.

An economy barely alive.



Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology.



We have the capability to found the first Aristocracy... oh, whoops:



Hopefully Mardoc will come kill me soon. I'm inexplicably second on the scoreboard, despite the fact that I've been #5 in production and #5 in GNP since pretty early on.