[SPOILER] Asoka of the Vikings (Nakor & Gaspar)

[Gaspar]

I apologize to the lurkers if we're not particularly exciting to follow in this game. Its largely a function of Normal speed - the early turns are really boring. When you contrast this with the level of thread spamming I engage in PBEM12, you might think I'm not interested in this game. That's not true, and as our scouting allows for slightly better vision on the immediate area, techs come in which provide vision on strategic resources, and we start having the ability to do more than hit enter, you'll start to see fun things like dotmapping and short and long-term strategic plans. For what its worth, here's the picture of the known area north of our fair city:



The land is lush in good base terrain, but it is extremely resource poor. Thus far the most attractive city sites are not pictured on this map, but lie to the east and to the south. I feel fairly strongly, however, that we're going to have to expand north, particularly NW & NE, as those are my speculated locations of neighbors. I liked not running into any other civs when we had not yet trained a warrior, but now that we have one with another on the way, I'd really prefer to make some contacts, both to not be left out of the diplomatic loop, and to start getting some research discounts. One of the things that stands out in this game vs. the typical quick-speed PBEM game, is that your early tech decisions matter a lot more. Spending 20-ish turns in the dark as to any strategic resource is painful. I say this because there has to be some stuff to the north, there's no way that one gold and one cows is all there is to be had in that area. Honestly, I'd really like to train another scout or two to get very good visibility in the surrounding areas, but its tough to justify wasting the hammers on that sort of thing in this type of game.

So no dotmap yet, want to see a bit to the west (which is where the scout is heading) and also if we can see horsies nearby before committing to anything. I'd suspect either the FP site or the Fish/Wheat site to the east are the most likely places for the first settler. I should also mention that I suspect we'll use a fair amount of overlap here, the terrain almost demands it.

To make this post in any way interesting, I'll say that we'll have to find a way to attack religion somehow here. Just a complete waste of Spiritual if you can't use one row of civics. While I don't think Buddhism/Hinduism will be options, as I think we need at least AH, Agriculture, Pottery, Mining, BW before we can detour to the monk path, and there's virtually no chance that those will still be on the table when we get there.

[Nakor]

We could beeline CoL after the basics. It worked for me in PB2.

I agree, I'm interested as well, it's just that nothing is happening really.
We need to have BW before we consider city placement.

We could build another scout after our second warrior while growing to size 3 before we go worker - settler.

[Gaspar]

We could beeline CoL after the basics. It worked for me in PB2.

I really need to read your thread one of these days. I've only read Spullla and Jowy and the game writeup threads. That was so much work, I couldn't bring myself to read another. Going Math -> Currency -> CoL is an option, though I think also going down the road to Theology is as well, since that route lets us pick up the two key religious Civic techs. As said earlier, way too early to make any decisions. Good to talk about, though.

[Nakor]

Not much new for you lurkers.
We've build a second warrior and will get a scout out before we start on our settler. Once AH is in we can decide about a second city. Third should go to a copper site.

[Gaspar]

What I'd really like to see before we settle next is what's the furthest reaching defensible terrain to both our NE and NW. I don't know if there will be chokes, per se, but if there are, I want to settle them first. And if there aren't, I want to settle the closest thing to one first. Once we've established our NE and NW borders, we can go about aggressively settling in the north. Just have to be sure whatever we choose is defensible, but we can't afford to play a conservative game, as we have neither super-strong traits nor a particularly sexy Civ. I'd rather go out early because we over-reached then hang around for 300 turns of irrelevance.

[Nakor]

Agree! Let's have some fun!

[Nakor]

Microed Greenland to finish scout in 2t and grow to size 3 in 2t.
AH still 5t away...

[Gaspar]

And the game just got interesting. We met our first neighbor, and, I must say, probably the last guy I wanted to see on our doorstep - plako. Here's the picture of the meeting:



And this was in our inbox (if I didn't see the scout, I'd never have checked):

Hi Nakor and Gaspar,

I'm happy to tell that we've met in game and I'm glad to see you as a neighbor again Nakor. After logging in you'll see my scout NE from your capital.

If you're intrested, I would be willing to open a dialogue to share some intelligence info. Furthermore maybe you would be intrested in negotiating some mutually beneficial deals e.g. what is your opinion concerning NAP?

Best regards,
Plako of Emoticonfederates :-)

Glad to see you as a neighbor again, eh? I wasn't there, but my last recollection of you and plako as neighbors had you guys on opposite sides of an alliance. Perhaps your recollection is more pleasant than mine would be in your shoes, Nakor.

That said, I think it could be beneficial for each of us to direct our resources in alternate directions. But I'm not especially comfortable signing a NAP without seeing where he is and what the geography between us looks like. Still, zerkers and CKN come in at the same time so it doesn't behoove either of us to be against the other. I will say our other game is proving just how superior your diplomacy skills are to mine, so I will leave the decision in your hands. I'll send plako a simple "Got it" reply and we can get back to him tomorrow.

The scout continued scouting. The new scout will complete next turn and move towards the east. After the scout, Worker -> Settler? I wonder if we should go Settler -> Worker, as we really don't have anything for the Worker (s) to do yet. If you're not going early wonder/early religion, I really see no reason to delay getting the next city out there. By the time a Settler completes, we should have good visibility on both the areas to our NW and NE, which should be enough to think about a dotmap. No barbs means there's nothing to stop us from REX other than the other Civs. So diplomacy is extra important.

[Nakor]

Plako!

We had a good relation in PB2, although we were on different sides. I almost convinced Plako to change sides and help against Spullla near the end. Unfortunately that came a few turns to late...

Info is good, a NAP as well, but that depends on how far away he is. I'll see what I can manage.

Let's go settler-worker in Greenland. Get that second city out!

[Gaspar]

For discussion's sake, here's what we each had to say about plako in the beginning:

plako + DL antisocialmunky: Catherine of China
Imp/Cre, starting techs Agri/Mining, Cho-Ko-Nu, Pavilion

Plako is a good player! Made a huge comeback in PB2.

Guess he's going to rex like crazy! Really don't want to be close to him. UU is nice, UB not that special, but has a nice synergy with Cre.

plako: Catherine (CRE/IMP) of China

*Catherine was on my short list of desired leaders. Creative is great because its one of the few traits who have both a strong, "Always on" passive benefit, as well as good cheap buildings. Imperialistic is meh, but I do think cheap settlers have some value, if you can leverage them. It basically just translates to getting your first couple cities out faster. The Chinese UU is solid, but more importantly than cheap pavilions is that Agriculture/Mining is the strongest starting tech start.

*plako is clearly a strong player, with an excellent rebound in PB2. Still, before we pat him on the back too hard, lets not forget that if Whosit kept his foot on his throat, he would have been the 3rd player eliminated in that game, so he's not infallible.

What's my thoughts now that I know he's nearby? I suspect he's likely to play a bit of a cautious early game, learning some lessons from past PBs. Its also worth saying when we pat him on the back for his comeback, it was basically a TGL-fueled success. While he should be commended for 1. Escaping to the islands and 2. Getting TGL built while at war, RB has learned a lot about TGL since PB2, and I don't think anyone would have been quite so willing to open borders and give him those extra trade routes. I don't know that he's necessarily going to go that route here, though there's enough water around to make it a consideration. Honestly, I'd think strongly about it, since we're Organized, but with all these Industrious civ's around, I'd really rather just avoid early wonders and instead maybe capture them from others who build them.