Caution: Brainstorming in progress (Spoilers!)

[Mardoc]

Our scout confirms that the spot I indicated earlier is, indeed, a pretty awesome city site:

Holy cow, that is nice!

Better than the capital, even. Those Wines make me think we're going to want Calendar -> Exploration -> Crafting.
Maybe Mining afterward, to take advantage of that gold to our west.

Um. Maybe? Wines are good for happy, not so much for cash. Depends on what we need by that point, cash or happy.

I'm pretty sure we won't want to *work* the gold, since it's a desert hill, but just hooking it up will be valuable.

Also, can you persuade Perpentach to pick up Expansive? I suspect that 'awesome city site the first way you scouted' is more likely to mean 'awesome city sites all over' than 'HK can read Bob's mind'.

So, we haven't done an "opponent analysis" post yet, but my initial assumption was that Serdoa was favored to win this one, since he's the strongest player and he chose the strongest civ (among those in play). But if he doesn't settle any cities, I think we can beat him.

Oooh. Always good to see a civ based around a rocket start, stalling...

Note also: we've got two Mana nodes already. And we're the Balseraphs .

[HidingKneel]

New turn played (btw, password is Perpentach, in case you haven't already figured out my "system").

Um. Maybe? Wines are good for happy, not so much for cash. Depends on what we need by that point, cash or happy.

That wine tile will be worth 2 food, 1 hammer, and 4 commerce. Will definitely be worth working once that city is on its feet. You're right that the city probably won't want to work that tile until it hits size 4 or so, so we won't need Crafting too early.

I'm pretty sure we won't want to *work* the gold, since it's a desert hill, but just hooking it up will be valuable.

2 hammers, 8 commerce? I think that's a tile worth working, if we can position a reasonable city to grab it. The desert tile north of the gold might work; it can share corn with the capital, and I think the tile west of it is grasslands... if we can put a farm there, we'll be in good shape. Going to sent our warrior to check that out before returning to the capital for guard duty.

Also, can you persuade Perpentach to pick up Expansive? I suspect that 'awesome city site the first way you scouted' is more likely to mean 'awesome city sites all over' than 'HK can read Bob's mind'.

I'll see what I can do. There may be something to your theory:



Gotta pick up those Fur tiles somehow. Might need to rethink the location for city #2. The scout will go SW next; maybe an obvious solution will present itself.

[Mardoc]

New turn played (btw, password is Perpentach, in case you haven't already figured out my "system").

I think I've seen enough games to pick up the pattern. Just enough security that someone won't open the save by accident

That wine tile will be worth 2 food, 1 hammer, and 4 commerce. Will definitely be worth working once that city is on its feet. You're right that the city probably won't want to work that tile until it hits size 4 or so, so we won't need Crafting too early.

Well, ok. And it's true, there are other good things at Crafting, and it's not terribly expensive. I just don't want to delay Aristocracy by much.

2 hammers, 8 commerce? I think that's a tile worth working, if we can position a reasonable city to grab it. The desert tile north of the gold might work; it can share corn with the capital, and I think the tile west of it is grasslands... if we can put a farm there, we'll be in good shape. Going to sent our warrior to check that out before returning to the capital for guard duty.

Depends on how much food the city possibility has, true. 0 food tiles are hard to consider on a food-lite map, but then again, so far this isn't looking food-lite

Gotta pick up those Fur tiles somehow. Might need to rethink the location for city #2. The scout will go SW next; maybe an obvious solution will present itself.

Ok, I'm *sure* that Hunting is not going to come super early, so that by the time it comes those tiles will be about equivalent to any farm in the empire. How about 'ignore them for now, and either pick up Furs with 3rd ring borders from the 2nd city or plant a city on top of them for the seafood'

Not that more scouting info will hurt, of course.

-------

I see that Serdoa gave up wandering . Now we'll have to beat him directly...

[HidingKneel]

Ok, I'm *sure* that Hunting is not going to come super early, so that by the time it comes those tiles will be about equivalent to any farm in the empire. How about 'ignore them for now, and either pick up Furs with 3rd ring borders from the 2nd city or plant a city on top of them for the seafood'

My head knows you're right, but my heart goes out to those poor, lonely fur tiles. And to the oasis.

I see that Serdoa gave up wandering . Now we'll have to beat him directly...

C'est la vie. Two turns isn't a huge lead, but it's better than nothing.

[HidingKneel]

Alright, new turn in. And... nothing, really.

Our scout got a little bit more information:



Doesn't look like anything down there is going to compete with the spot that's already designated.
Of course, we'll need to see more.

Last turn of working the incense. Going to switch to Corn to get our worker out on time.

[HidingKneel]

Another turn.

Scouting further south reveals something interesting:



Whale we should grab at some point. And another oasis. Worthless late, very nice early...

Also, Sian has grown to size 2 (Mud Golem instead of worker). Which means we've fallen slightly behind in the demos:

[HidingKneel]

Oh, Whale is not visible in that screenshot.

It's SE of our scout.

[Brian Shanahan]

Oh, Whale is not visible in that screenshot.

It's SE of our scout.

That's why you turn on resource icons for early screenshots .

Though the extra food does give something away on that tile.

[HidingKneel]

That's why you turn on resource icons for early screenshots .

Bah!

Two more turns played. Both of our units have found interesting things:



Warrior got a view of the area near the desert gold tile. It's near a river with floodplains. I think we're definitely going to be able to put a viable city there.

I think that's as far as I want the warrior to go. Back to Jubilee now, to make sure someone doesn't come along and eliminate me with their own explorers.

Meanwhile, our Scout found something that's just barely visible (and resource bubbles wouldn't help!):



In case you can't tell from the screenshot, it looks like the Remnants of Patria.

This means one of several things:

1) There are several copies of the Remnants in play, just like in XXI.
2) Those Remnants are close to one or more other civs, in which case we'll be eliminated by enemy scouts any turn now .
3) Bob loves us best, just as I always suspected.

Also of note: two sources of Silks (one of which doesn't need Mining to be improved) in the immediate vicinity, along with Rice. Spot just south of the lake is looking nice, but need to think about how well it'll mesh with the city (or two) that we plant east of there. Going to have to see a little more of the land, and then throw together some kind of dotmap...

[Mardoc]

That does look nice. Remnants, in my opinion, is even more useful for the happiness than the tile yield, so I would make that an early settle. Not sure it outweighs the current 2nd city thought, but that depends on what the scout finds. Almost able to start dotmapping

As you may have seen from tech threads, I won't be able to comment much until later this week, but I'll try to catch up once I have internet again.