[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Commodore]

Played, mostly just scouting. For the last two turns. Aquilonia did the most scouting for us with a border pop:

Well, good thing we didn't do a coastal push, no seafood that ways. The corn is nice though, should explore the much long than expected land in that http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/newre...#direction. More forests if we want to chop out the GLH still, we'll see.

Gaspar hates nice hills, it seems. Nothing too special upriver from us. Maybe city plant on the dessert hill to share the wheat?

Sven (who's still named scout, d'oh) found some really lush lands to the east.

Hey! I see happiness resources! That's nice. Although, also, y'know, sadistic. Gaspar bans cities > 5 pop until the Monarchy/Calender/Iron Working.

Bastard.

[Commodore]

In other news, turn 5 demos:

I choose to believe that only MFG means anything. The border pop means that we're now working the river wheat, which gives us an extra shield over everyone else working the floodplains. Which means nothing, I suppose. 'cept, check me here, Bismark is also working the flood plains, to push out the tech a little faster. Eh, not a big deal ATM. Sven, you think you can track the techs?

Agriculture is a turn faster due to the commerce from the river.

[Sven]

Things have been a wee bit hectic for me the past couple days; demos will be up within 24 hours. :D.

[Commodore]

Things have been a wee bit hectic for me the past couple days; demos will be up within 24 hours. :D.

No worries, it's been a busy weekend here too. I've had little time to do more than play, screenshot, and send onward. I do have a Turn 5 set of screens now, of perhaps more interesting than before. Also, a way-too-early dotmap incoming.

[Commodore]

Well, turn five dawned with Spock pronouncing a blessing upon farmers.



Which means that in, oh, four turns Gaspar will be able to farm our wheat. The following choice wasn't very hard:



Lesee, jungle hill elephants, grassland dyes...anyone want an over/under on our horses being in a forest?



It's looking cold up there, apparently cold enough for penguins...which have eaten all our seafood.



The local area is looking quite nice, wonky happiness resources aside. There are two city spots that leap out at first glance for me:


Usual caveats (most prominently, horses) apply. Both are coastal, which would give us a chance at the GLH if that's still in the cards, both have good food. Red is weaker as a second city overall, its only early appeal sharing plains sheep with Aquilonia. Only one forest and one icky desert hill means that would be Red's main production method.

Blue Dot has four forests in its BFC and dry plains wheat in the first ring, which is pretty nice, in addition to a plains hill plant. If we could land Hinduism (or Buddhism, ick) in Blue Dot and give it some heavy worker love, I think the GLH might be achievable. Unless one of the Ind people decides on an early push, or someone has stone nearby.

Greys are preliminary thoughts, baring exploration. Dark Grey next to dyes looks like the best bet to share the wet capital wheat, which would be nice...but at the expense of coastal planting, which is a no-no for GLH builders. Making an ass out of poor Ume here. Light greys might be better with seafood, if both sheep are shared with other cities I actually would worry less about sharing the wheat too...but then again, that would mean a nice grassland square gets missed by everything. Again, more scouting is needed.

Which actually brings up a side thought. Starts aren't mirrored, naturally, but they might be rather similar. I wonder if we'd had a warrior start like everyone else if we'd have headed west first, into the forested lands. We might actually wind up expanding into the open side of our capital first because of our scout here. One think is, I'm glad we went east first, because now that turn 5 is done the wildlife should start getting restless, so ending turns on trees or at least hills will be a good idea.

[Commodore]

Okay, I'm an idiot, the ivory can be camped pre-IW, it'll just have sucky yields.

Anyone know the ETA for Barb warriors on Prince/Quick? I suppose archers will take a while after that. Actually, further, how are the barbarian unit/city spawns calculated in general?

[Sven]

Barb units won't spawn within two tiles of another unit or in sight range of a player.

City spawn details I'll get back to you.

Don't really need to worry about barbs on prince, the warriors produced while growing cities are enough of a defence.

As for research, looks like mali microed a turn to a 3/0/1 tile to get agri a turn earlier. Doesn't hurt the worker buildtime iirc so they may as well have.

As for city sites, I really think the second should be placed to piggyback food off of the first. Just need more exploring to figure out whether IMO it should be sheep or wheat.

[Commodore]

Well, a northern site looks a little more viable now:



It's because penguins, as everyone knows, hate clams.

We'll continue to loop around, although the western side of our land looks more backfillish to me, barring thin peninsulas. I'm not worried about barbs in general, I just want to keep our scout alive long enough to explore our whole first ring.

Fuzzy next plan is for warrior > worker > settler once the worker finishes, and Wheel > Mining > BW > Polytheism (if Hinduism available) as tech path. I like getting roads for our workers early. If Red Dot is settled first, maybe fishing will be woven in there, likewise if there is a seafood western city spot. The only problem is that's a looong time 'til cottages, which hurts.

[Sven]

Fishing is a nasty tech and likely not worth it just for a ring two fish and unirrigated rice city site.

I personally think we can afford to go full steam to Pottery if you're going to go the two worker before settler route. BW takes a relatively long time to get and you may as well be working cottages instead of working mines so that you can whip granaries as soon as BW comes in.

[Commodore]

Turns are rolling along, if not very interestingly, at least quickly.



There are some nice city sites up there, but I'm going to wait for more exploration before I parse 'em.

As you can tell above, Gaspar popped out and is happily farming his wheat. Next up is a warrior, who will be built in five turns, just as Aquilonia grows. And as the wheat gets farmed.



Choices will need to be made at that point. My impulse to go worker > settler is probably the right one, but I'll need to make sure that doesn't result in the second sheep pasture sitting around unworked for a few turns. If I want to grow a little more, could always go for putting a few turns into building wealth, erm, Stonehenge.

So, what am I looking at here?



I assume AH is a military tech, thus the soldier count upping. What's being researched now? Is our own GNP also in this average?