[SPOILERS] Ceiliazul's First Dance: Louis of the Ottomen

[Commodore]

For that, I promote you. How does a lifetime appointment as Commander of the Turkish Navy sound?

Sounds...really restful, actually. Not much actual power, but a nice salaried position with a decent health plan. I'll take it!

I'm pretty sure the raised health cap has virtually never factored into someone's choice of EXP.

You're right, the only games I've played where I've ever appreciated the health boost are when I was dinking around with Washington, where the higher happy cap means some very large early cities.

In other news, I'm having a hard time seeing the benefit of Stonehenge for you at all. Maybe if you had stone and it hadn't dropped after forty turns, 32 hammers for the GPP wouldn't be bad. If you find yourself worried about culture, though, I'd think that turning early hammers into another settler and then looking at the Sistine later would be better play.

The non-aggressive Preatorians are less scary than those much different beasts often seen in these games, the aggressive Preat. Just get cats if he starts looking ugly at you. Or hey, buy some from him, it's open diplomacy.

Finally, never wanting to contradict the glorious Ceilialouis, but how has fishing-pottery yielded better results than fishing-AH? Cottaged flood plains are lovely, but riverside grass hill pigs are an amazing tile, especially combined with fishes. At size two, you're pulling 12 foodhammers per turn, or 4-turn workers/6-turn settlers, and if you ever want to grow, lake tiles are equal to riverside grassland cottages for the early game.

'course, scouting could change everything here. If there's a wet corn or something your warrior spots, all the worry about fishing can be blissfully postponed.

[Ceiliazul]

Finally, never wanting to contradict the glorious Ceilialouis, but how has fishing-pottery yielded better results than fishing-AH?

Further sims have shown slam-dunk results, actually best with AH before fshing. I don't feel so bad about my starting techs in that case, as fishing is SO cheap to self research.

Regarding stonehenge, I agree I would only take it if it was low hanging fruit. Like if I already had stone hooked up and it was still laying around.

I wish we could get uncropped starting pics, but the wait is almost over ;-)

[Ceiliazul]

[img]https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3dp928r1mcofdw/pbem25.000.01.JPG?dl=0[/img]


Well I ruminated about moving, but the map terrain is obviously randomized, with random FP and foliage types.  I’d be wandering blindly, and although this capital is lackluster compared to some other recent maps… I just don’t see a reason to move off the plains-hill.

As I analyzed the bleed, and that ominous mountain, it occurred to me that the mountain was there ON PURPOSE to stop players from moving that way… boy was I right:



The warrior moved S mostly at random, but also because in 2 turns my creative borders will expand to the pig hill and reveal the West Fields.  

I take a demerit for not renaming my capital, I’ll try to remember that next turn.

[Ceiliazul]

AH first while building a worker. In rough sims based on the cropped start, that performed well, almost as well as the Roman start. Now with a full BFC to work with, that can be refined.

It's going to be a farmers' gambit, as almost required these days... and those flood plains are calling for a settler as quickly as I can supply it and protect it.

A 30x30 map with 5 players means 180 tiles per person, and if the mapmaker spread us out well, then I'm hoping at least 8-10 tiles between starts. This allows a bit of security for my warrior to range a little. The BFC has enough natural hammers to slow-build a 2 turn warrior at pop2. If I can get survive to t13, the capital should be secure from walk-ins.

[Ceiliazul]

T1 has come around. Everyone has played one turn, except Cull, who played 2. Everyone settled in place, everyone is working the best available tile. We’ll know soon enough how many went worker first.

The map is 30x30, but contains ~790 land tiles. That confirms there are no seas, but also there are many small lakes. Will some of them form defensible borders? (with no boats, they’ll be unbreakable walls for ages on end)

Warrior heads south again, one big reason is the low vision that direction. When the borders expand next turn we’ll see a LOT of the West and North, some of the East, but nothing new in the south.

I promise pics next turn when the borders expand. At that point we’ll have the beginnings of enough map to maybe zoom in on a 2nd city site.

[Ceiliazul]

I had ice cream before bed, leading to a fitful sleep. But sometime during the night I realized Cull (Sury) should be showing mfg 5. After a quick sim, proved myself wrong.

Note to self: no ice cream tonight.

[Commodore]

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that temporary bonuses, like Expansive making a worker, Imp making a settler, or Creative making a library, will show up on demos.

Ice cream is worth it.

Looking good overall, curious to see more map.

[Ceiliazul]

If a turn comes in today, your curiosity will be satisfied. (Or intensified, depending on fog bleed!)

[Ceiliazul]

Now that I know my leader/civ, is there a way to change the thread title?

[Ceiliazul]

Well, with the border pop we can start working the SE Flood Plains tile, which we’ll do until the worker is done. I guess I could swap to the pigs for no loss, and maybe cause headaches for any C&D guys.

The map revealed by the border pop looks great. The NW flood plains is a natural place for a city. The tile marked “food special” is zoomed and inset, it looks like a slightly different shade of green. However, after making the image, I simmed the appearance of different kinds of food and didn’t see that kind of change. The warrior will scout it next turn for sure.

The next big view will be in 11 turns, from the West from the bare grass hill, and I’m excited to see the North from the top of the gold hill.

This place is crying out for the guiding hand of civilized builders, and I won’t want to keep them waiting. Also, with all this foliage, Bronze working is an urgent need.