In more pressing news, there are two unfortunate events that have gone on.
1. Calabim cast River of Blood, knocking my city down to size 1. Not too bad (especially since I ended up farming the rice second anyway :P) but combined with...
2. I have two spectres sitting 3N1W of my capitol. If they move on my directly that means they can attack after two moves. If they do the "wait outside the city for one turn" then they can attack after three moves. I could get out an extra warrior in this time, but only by completely cutting growth (working a 0 food tile.)
So it's a bit dangerous. I'm not sure what I want to do. Getting a second warrior is the safer plan, but it sacrifices 12 food to do so (from my size 1 city), and honestly it's early enough that a gamble like this isn't a big deal (not like I lose much work if I die.)
Post any thoughts, and I'll make a decision later.
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
3 turns, at 4 food a turn. This turn I put 3h into my warrior, and then the spectres move next to my city. Next turn I put 3h into my warrior, and hopefully the spectres sit around uselessly. Third turn, I put another 3h into my warrior, completing it, and then the spectres attack my city.
If I didn't have to worry I would have worked my 4f tile for those three turns.
Okay, I need to figure out what to research next. Right now I'm thinking education to rush towards code of laws, but if you have any input let me know. I'll try to get a practice game or two in to figure out if that's definitely what I want.
Hmm. Now that mysticism is in, I suppose going for Hunting wouldn't be the worst option. Building an Elder Council and running a sage could perhaps be a high priority at this point as well.
After hunting is in, lodging up would be nice. After that, a detour into Knowledge of Ether wouldn't be so bad due to the 'divided soul' ability for your recon line. Although I suppose it could wait until after Code of Laws.
Hunting + KotE would be farthest I'd go before starting up towards Code of Laws, but heading straight there would be an equally valid option. I wouldn't bother with a mage's guild until you had a few hunters up first though. Really I probably wouldn't bother until you had 3 cities or so.
Well, actually. Hmm.
Maybe going KotE first and getting a Mage Guild up might be nice, if you can commit to running 2 sage specialists (mage guild opens up a sage slot iirc).
----> After that, going straight for Code of Laws, and then going Hunting afterwards might not be such a bad idea. As Arcane you get Mage Guilds twice as fast as Hunting Lodges, and your first 3 or so cities will be defended by warriors either way. At this point, just see Elder Council + Mage Guild as a pure economic boost, don't even think about building adepts until we have more cities imho.
The two sage slots from Elder Council and Mage Guild will help bring your tech up for Code of Laws ... and getting KotE will help even your SCOUTS to have divided soul ability
So yea. I'd probably go KotE-> Edu -> CoL -> Hunting
and I'd start building adepts once we have around 3 cities or so. But I'd build the mage guild in the capital much sooner ... for the GPP
I think I want to skip KotE for now. I can just bulb it and then use my second GS for the academy. I don't really need it that quickly anyway. The rest of the plan works, so I'll probably just do that.
