RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Irgy]

Personally I'd normally be inclined to keep my empire a little more connected and compact by settling the closer sites first. There's no need to land block any AIs here, and you're not likely to lose those sites to the other humans.

But with no barbarians and all your long NAPs the need for a compact defensible empire is not so big while you're still REXing. Also if you plan to settle those SW horses then either city is a little bit of a bridge towards them.

I'd say settle whichever city will get set up and become useful quickest, accounting for the extra turns to road and walk to the gems. Which might depend on some of those fogged tiles near the gems too.

[Lord Parkin]

Message received from Mackoti:

hi,
Good to be helpfull and i am sure screenshots exchange is alowed.
regards,
Mackoti

Can someone confirm whether it's actually allowed to share screenshots this early in the game? Not sure if we want to anyway, but it'd be good to know whether it's against the rules or not.

[Lord Parkin]

Personally I'd normally be inclined to keep my empire a little more connected and compact by settling the closer sites first. There's no need to land block any AIs here, and you're not likely to lose those sites to the other humans.

Right, but there's also the awesome power-resources of Gold and Gems to the south, which more than make those further away cities worth the effort. Especially so since there's virtually no risk of anyone attacking us for a long while.

But with no barbarians and all your long NAPs the need for a compact defensible empire is not so big while you're still REXing. Also if you plan to settle those SW horses then either city is a little bit of a bridge towards them.

I wasn't planning on settling those Horses anytime too soon - unless there's something to suggest we might need War Chariots for defence earlier than anticipated. But just thinking ahead to when we do want Horses, it makes sense to settle the better site first, even if it is a bit further away. In my opinion anyway.

I'd say settle whichever city will get set up and become useful quickest, accounting for the extra turns to road and walk to the gems. Which might depend on some of those fogged tiles near the gems too.

Indeed, will have to decide fully after revealing the tiles around the Gems. Default at the moment is probably the Corn-Fish-Gold site though, unless something spectacular's revealed around the Gems.

[tizer]

DECIDED RULES

1. No Tech Trading
2. No Nukes
3. No War Elephants or related UUs
4. 24-Hour Turn Timer
5. Unrestricted Leaders
6. No Pauses
7. Amount of Land/Water Up to Mapmaker
8. No AI Takeover
9. No Duplicate Civ/Leaders
10. No Huts
11. No Spies/Missions
12. No Random Events
13. Settle or Golden Age all Great Spies
14. No Permanent Alliances
15. No Vassal States
16. No Changing Builds/Research Late in Turn in Bad Faith/Consistently
17. The Heroic Epic and West Point can only be built once you have a qualifying unit that has always been yours, and if joined to a GG, the GG was one you spawned yourself
18. Snake Pick
19. Default Starting Units
20. Normal speed
21. Monarch difficulty
22. No diplomacy until players meet in-game
23. 10 teams
24. Tatan's Leader/Civ Ban List (plus HC & Vicky) in play
25. No Barbarians
26. Map-trading at first contact
27. Ivory is Krill's decision (no 'Phants)
28. Cylindrical World Wrap

Message received from Mackoti:


Can someone confirm whether it's actually allowed to share screenshots this early in the game? Not sure if we want to anyway, but it'd be good to know whether it's against the rules or not.

[tizer]

(from the first post in the sign up thread)

[Lord Parkin]

Ok tizer, thanks for that. Also - welcome to posting at the forum!

Hmm, so then comes the question of whether or not to trade maps. Personally I'd rather not, since we know exactly where mackoti is but he doesn't know much about where we are (aside from a vague comment of "to the east"). In fact, the only "benefit" I can see in trading maps is in a bit of token goodwill from Mackoti, and even that's dubious. It just doesn't seem worth it to me to trade away our map so early on to a civ so far away. Plus, they could use information we provide against us later (such as where our Horses and other resources are). I'd rather just stick with descriptions of places if we have to, and avoid screenshots for now. Anyone else have an opinion here?

[tizer]

Ok tizer, thanks for that. Also - welcome to posting at the forum!

everything for a city name

Hmm, so then comes the question of whether or not to trade maps. Personally I'd rather not, since we know exactly where mackoti is but he doesn't know much about where we are (aside from a vague comment of "to the east"). In fact, the only "benefit" I can see in trading maps is in a bit of token goodwill from Mackoti, and even that's dubious. It just doesn't seem worth it to me to trade away our map so early on to a civ so far away. Plus, they could use information we provide against us later (such as where our Horses and other resources are). I'd rather just stick with descriptions of places if we have to, and avoid screenshots for now. Anyone else have an opinion here?

guess that depends on your planned diplomacy with them; i agree it can be a diplomatic boost in the beginning but you would gain not much else

[Senseless]

The corn fish gold site seems better for the time being than attempting to grab the gems. The gems site seems like a bit of a reach distance wise for a 3rd city.

I think we should consider settling a strategic resource fairly soon. I know it's a big map, which makes an early attack unlikely. Still, it just doesn't feel right to go much longer without some kind of defense other than warriors. The tile 1NW of the sheep near our capital seems to be a decent spot. It's got food from the sheep, freshwater from the lake for farms, 4 grassland hills and the horse tile once our borders pop there. Maybe a good 4th city placement? Overextending ourselves chasing the gems to the south seems like a mistake, at least for right now. I agree that the land in that direction is more fertile, but It also looks like it would be harder to defend. Don't we want a compact core of cities that are easy to reinforce? Expanding to the south more once we are more established militarily seems like the play.

I don't think trading screenshots right now gains us anything. We don't really care about the exact topography of the territory of the other civs, do we? Eventually this information might be useful to determine what strategic resources right now, but we aren't planning any aggression as of yet, so this information doesn't really help us. Revealing our maps can only make an invasion easier, which we are currently weak to as it is.

I'm probably just being paranoid worrying about early aggression so much. I figure though that it's better safe than sorry. Also, we will almost certainly have to fight a war at some point so worrying about the defensibility of our city placements seems to be a good idea regardless.

[Lord Parkin]

everything for a city name

Fair enough.

What would you prefer, by the way, when the time comes? Simply "Tizer", or some variation like "Tizerville"? Or something else entirely?

(Everyone else is welcome to put forward suggestions for variations on their own names if they wish. Especially the dedlurkers, if they're interested.)

guess that depends on your planned diplomacy with them; i agree it can be a diplomatic boost in the beginning but you would gain not much else

Yeah, pretty much my thoughts. We don't really gain anything substantial from sharing maps right now, so I reckon we should just politely decline them and move on.

[Lord Parkin]

The corn fish gold site seems better for the time being than attempting to grab the gems. The gems site seems like a bit of a reach distance wise for a 3rd city.

Yeah, I think I agree with you. Unless the Scout reveals something amazing soon, let's not stretch ourselves too far for the time being. I think it'd be difficult to reach the Gems spot in time with a road anyway, whereas we can manage to get a road to the Corn-Fish-Gold site before it's founded. The extra trade route income and (I think?) slightly reduced maintenance from having a road connection does help a bit.

I think we should consider settling a strategic resource fairly soon. I know it's a big map, which makes an early attack unlikely. Still, it just doesn't feel right to go much longer without some kind of defense other than warriors.

Fair point. Although this is far from an ordinary map, so it's expected that some unusual strategies will come into play. Still, it feels a bit odd going so long without a military resource.

The tile 1NW of the sheep near our capital seems to be a decent spot. It's got food from the sheep, freshwater from the lake for farms, 4 grassland hills and the horse tile once our borders pop there. Maybe a good 4th city placement?

Yeah, that spot seems decent (though not brilliant food-wise; hill sheep isn't that great). I just noticed something else too - that spot has freshwater from the lake, which I hadn't realised before. That makes it so there's no downside to not settling on the river 1N of the Sheep - previously I thought we lost health, but we don't - so settling 1NW of the Sheep (whenever we do it) seems like the best idea. That is, unless we discover a better food resource for that northern Horse city in a few turns after exploring more.

Overextending ourselves chasing the gems to the south seems like a mistake, at least for right now. I agree that the land in that direction is more fertile, but It also looks like it would be harder to defend. Don't we want a compact core of cities that are easy to reinforce? Expanding to the south more once we are more established militarily seems like the play.

A compact core is good, but it isn't as essential on a map like this where there's tonnes of room for everyone and no real advantage to anyone fighting a long-distance war early on. Thus, I don't think we need to be particularly concerned about military defence early on. We do need to be concerned about over-extending ourselves maintenance-wise though. However, in the case of the Gems site, the gold from the Gems more than offsets the increased maintenance, so it's worth settling as soon as it's practical to.

I don't think trading screenshots right now gains us anything. We don't really care about the exact topography of the territory of the other civs, do we?

Not really, apart from a vague curiousity about whether the land forms we've seen so far are repeated in other parts of the world (which seems reasonably likely anyway).

Eventually this information might be useful to determine what strategic resources right now, but we aren't planning any aggression as of yet, so this information doesn't really help us. Revealing our maps can only make an invasion easier, which we are currently weak to as it is.

Yep, I agree.

I'm probably just being paranoid worrying about early aggression so much. I figure though that it's better safe than sorry. Also, we will almost certainly have to fight a war at some point so worrying about the defensibility of our city placements seems to be a good idea regardless.

Well, since we're unlikely to be attacked early, any cities we found around this time (unless they're ridiculously far away) will be defensible by the time they need to be defensible. It's good to be cautious though, and great to have a voice suggesting alternative paths to consider. We'll definitely think about settling the northern Horse city before the Gems city, depending on what else our explorers find (or don't find) around those areas over the next few turns.

For the present though, I think we're all agreed on the Corn-Fish-Gold city for the very next Settler, right?