[SPOILERS] scooter tries again: back to school! (Willem of Vikings)

[scooter]

Totally believed it. And utterly unsurprised.

I actually should not have been surprised either by just counting tiles - but I hadn't done that yet. Have yet to have somebody come by and say hello to me, so I guess my northwest neighbor took a different scouting path.

[scooter]

T9-10 find a hermit in a cottage on a lake

First though, I met the dirty Aztecs:



Ok I know Dazed isn't playing the Aztecs, but I can't remember who he IS playing, so he's green, so I call him Aztecs. Because I want to. Know what else I found? CLEAN ENERGY.





In this case though, the windmill is premade, so the "pays you back" happens instantly. Especially since we are FIN which means extra cash money. Good. Anyways, next turn I found a mysterious cottage:



Hmm, a 3 tile island with a cottage on a grass hill? NEAT. So it's official, IC routes are a go again, and this time the island sucks less than last time. I'll prioritize this accordingly and then go all Viking on anyone who gets in my way. Finally, the west, relative to my capital:



This part looks familiar. That mine is interesting. Guessing copper, possibly iron. Also the corn tile under a forest was super cool last time and I'm excited about its return.

That's all for now.

[scooter]

Ok, been quiet on this front lately, but here's a quick shot of the south:



Then the area around my capital:



Given that Pindicator stayed at size 2 for awhile I suspect he was building a size 2 settler, so he'll likely get first city built. I may be a touch behind, but that's ok. City will go 2S of the fish I believe. I just can't talk myself into the northern site which would build 1T sooner, but isn't as strong a site as the south has floodplains, river, and grass hill riverside windmill which is all great stuff for FIN.

[Merovech]

For what it's worth, I also like the southern city site more.

[scooter]

For what it's worth, I also like the southern city site more.

Me too - northern one is slightly more convenient because it's roaded for me already, but southern one is a stronger site.

Welcome to RB by the way.

[Merovech]

Me too - northern one is slightly more convenient because it's roaded for me already, but southern one is a stronger site.

Welcome to RB by the way.

Ahh, thanks for the welcome; I've been lurking for a little over six months now, but I just made an account. I figured it might be useful, since I'm finally getting BTS in a week. This game in particular looks incredibly interesting.

[scooter]

Ahh, thanks for the welcome; I've been lurking for a little over six months now, but I just made an account. I figured it might be useful, since I'm finally getting BTS in a week. This game in particular looks incredibly interesting.

Very cool, pop into a game sometime for sure once you get BtS running. It's fun. And yeah, I think this game should be real good. Lot of options here, which I've been mulling over some today. Still planning on a more proper "overview" post at some point here - just probably bitten off a bit more than I can consistently report with this, PB5, and Diplomacy.

[scooter]

T16 commissions first settling party

Alright, little bit longer update as I start to delve into planning.

First, finally got a settler out:



I expect this is pretty average at best in terms of getting the settler out. Quickest should be Dazed and Seven with their +1F supermarkets - that makes them a couple turns quicker. Target is the plains hill 2E of the ivory. I'm going to go onto ANOTHER settler next, as I want to take advatange of the nice nearby land. This is very well setup for a nice tight REX grid here. The second settler will just take 4 more turns, and it will probably go either 1S of the town (plains hill) where it can share the wet rice and then once border pops (yay CRE) it can grab the corn. Not to mention it has quite a few forests. This'll give the capital time while I tech Pottery. I'd like to get a granary in here rather quickly, given it's a bit more valuable than normal given the setup. The other alternative for city 3 is the northern "c?" sign where I can share some really nice tiles. The main downside there is I need to deforest a jungle to use the wet rice which makes me want to save that spot for just a bit.

Also, I lean towards an early IW here. This is to unlock the two jungle rice (at east of this screenshot and just north of the "c?" location). Also, I'm thinking about an Oracle run to unlock MC (and more importantly Colossus for super cool 2/0/4 everywhere). The downside is the techs between me and Oracle is something I'd like to avoid as CRE, so I'm not set on that yet. Alternative is making a run at GLH, though I feel like GLH is a little bit weaker here than it was in PBEM32 (there feels like more "tiny" lakes here and fewer coastal spots - though land/water ratio is practically idential), so I'm not so sure. Though it will certainly be strong regardless.

So we'll see. Overall, grabbing that Marble would mean an easy 1T Oracle if I did it right, which would be a nice boost. It would be slightly tempting to Oracle Monarchy instead and go hardcore vertical on mass FIN cottages, but overall Colossus strikes me as more powerful than getting Monarchy earlier since I have ivory, whale, forest preserve, etc all set for me already. The alternative is ignoring all this stuff and rushing for Maths as there's a lot of forests near the start. Also, this exists:



Obviously "my" stone would not be this one, but it would be to my west. I could probably get to that stone right in time for Maths. Hanging Gardens is already awfully attractive on this map given that a REX-y type strategy is still good here. The one drawback here is that this doesn't help the economy nearly as much as something like Colossus would. So yeah, lots of nice options here. I'm slowly working on narrowing them down, but until then we'll get a fairly tight grid of cities early on to maximize the tiles and minimize maintenance.

[scooter]

T17-18 goes all land rush on your face

T17 settler completed, straight onto another settler:



Can't say that I've ever gone settler-settler before. Not that I can remember anyways. T18:



This is why I like these nearby spots - the mine completed here, letting me jump OFF the elephants which is definitely a weird choice to be making. This means next turn I can give the new city either the whales or the elephants right off the start, which goes quite nicely with a 2 hammer plant. Anyways, end turn and bronze to my west in an expected spot:



And east:



Interesting.

[scooter]

Ok, I need to name cities. I think I'm going to rename the capital, so I need two city names. So, question for the lurkers - each person can answer:

What was/is your major in college?

I'll name cities after majors of lurkers here, whether you are a current college student or you went a half a century ago. So get your major names in, and you'll get cities named after them.