[SPOILERS] 3 Players, 1 Civ, No Clues - Tatan, Nakor, and Serdoa are Darius of Rome

[Serdoa]

I agree on the scout movement. Warrior for one turn in the jungle (so another SE I guess) before we move him back?

[Serdoa]

And I ended turn. As we were not last to do it we can move immediately next turn right?

[Serdoa]

triple-post... hitanykey also got a tech it seems (score of 35). That makes it 3 techs from huts now for slowcheetah, ASM and hitanykey. Why couldn't we get that lucky?

[Nakor]

Agree on the scout moves as well. Not a lot to do this early in the game....

[Serdoa]

Ok, going to play our turn now.

If someone hasn't noticed, Meiz got a tech as well from a hut. That makes it 4 civs getting a tech:

- ASM
- slowcheetah
- Meiz
- HitAnyKey

Also MackSeven finally settled. But they haven't finished turn yet. Also I was thinking why they needed so long. Maybe the moved away from their initial spot (like I think Rego in PB4) just to find out that it is the best spot nearby and so had to move back?

[Serdoa]

We found our first non-capital food resource:

Yes, the rest of the land is pretty bad. I mean look at all those hills... I guess I soon will have to find out if it is better to build cottages on those hills or mines and use them for building research...

Oh well, it gets worse btw. North of the pigs and mountains comes the ocean (you can hear the sound of the water at the shores) east of the mountains are more mountains (eagles screeching) and forests (some other birds). And jungle (apes???)... god I wasn't aware that you could play this game blind if you simply hear what the sounds tell you

Below a shot I did when I try some fancy stuff with the flying camera, just for the laughs

[Nakor]

Interesting lands indeed!
Guess we're going to use the pigs/hills for a Hammer city if we can find a suitable site.

Scout NE-SE?
Warrior NE and moving slowly back to the capital?

Once border pops we might see if there is a dead end up north or not...

At least we know we're at the eastern end of the Pangea. That will make it easier for us to get a good defensive front. But makes us vulnerable to Sirian Doctrine strikes in about half a year. Gues we'll just have to build a zillion tanks and start them all moving east...

Seriously, if we weren't Rome TGL really is an interesting option in this position.... but I really think we are going to use those preats combined with catapults to have some fun.

Maybe Lewwyn kept moving to make sure he has a city close to someone else so he can start his crazy "bounty hunt" play. If we meet him soon, I know where to preatorians will be going...

[Tatan]

According to Suetonius, Nero was planning to rename Rome Neropolis, so you're not far off

Ha-ha, I didn't know that! Ah, silly, ego-maniacal, frequently insane Roman emperors, such easy targets for ridicule.

Oh well, it gets worse btw. North of the pigs and mountains comes the ocean (you can hear the sound of the water at the shores) east of the mountains are more mountains (eagles screeching) and forests (some other birds). And jungle (apes???)... god I wasn't aware that you could play this game blind if you simply hear what the sounds tell you

Considering how many hills are to the east, we might be looking at a whole mountain range blocking us in. Well, we did agree to a rocky pangaea.

So, should we start bringing Romulus the warrior back? I would love to get a look at the coastline from that grass hill 1SW (maybe there will be some seafood!), but I would also love for us not to get eliminated on turn 7 , so I dunno. Remus the scout could either go 1NE->1SE to defog the coastline to the north, or 1E->1SE to look around from the desert hill. I guess I lean towards the former myself.

EDIT:

Seriously, if we weren't Rome TGL really is an interesting option in this position.... but I really think we are going to use those preats combined with catapults to have some fun.

Agreed.

[Serdoa]

Well, ok, I will probably be the sole preacher of that for the rest of the game, but I look at that completely differently. We are Rome, fine. We have - as far as we see - bad land. We do not know if we have copper, horses or IRON. Those praets are going nowhere if we can't build them, right? But even if, what then? We need to get this land somehow productive otherwise our praets will be so late that others will laugh at them and thats all what they'll do. Btw, is any civ we face AGG? Because if so don't even consider attacking them. C1,S1 axes are making short work of non-agg praets. Oh, catapults and HA as well. And dog soldiers. Honestly guys, I faced the threat of possible praets in PBEM25 and have quite extensively thought about them. Heck, I even chose my civilization based on countering them. Just to find out that really, countering them is done like with every other unit -> collateral. If we get praets out to someone so early that he does neither have HA nor catapults, then he either didn't scout us nearby, has dog soldiers or we have given up so much to get them early that we still have no chance at winning.

Quite honestly, we have shitty land, we have an island nearby and we start with Fishing, Mining. Do you really need more incentive to consider TGL? Only other viable play might be Oracle -> Metal Casting -> Colossus. But I would gamble that one of the IND-civs does go for Oracle... so, from my pov we should either try TGL or find another way to make our land viable. And going for non-agg Praets with an unbalanced map which might very well not have given us any metals and without knowing which neighbours we have doesn't sound for me like that other way tbh.

[Serdoa]

Scout NE-SE?
Warrior NE and moving slowly back to the capital?

Agreed on both. Scout NE with 1 move though and reconsider if something interesting is seen.