[SPOILERS] Team Unpronounceable Unicode Symbol: True Grit

[Ceiliazul]

Maybe they found a triple gold, double corn spot and they're discussing swapping to settler immediately...

Krill, I think the go-to frowning was directed at mapping waterlines and such. Anyone else have a problem with lat/long calculations?

[Sisu]

Turn finally rolled! Guess they realized that it wasn't worth fussing over triple gold double corn when they lack the techs to improve them



I increased the resolution to which I resize screenshots, so let me know lurkers if this broke anything. Ceil, thinking 99 next, with the plan to loop northeast? We have four luxes revealed early (one improvable immediately, two Calendar, and one Monarchy), so at least we aren't in Australia like those poor guys in PB5. I'd like to reveal a precious metal for synergy with our cheap Forges, but you can't have everything. Still really want to find some food...



As we have only one Creative civ in the game, and he founded t0, we can get a direct tile count on Rome. A full BFC is 21 tiles, and rival best last turn was 8 tiles, so we can safely conclude he started adjacent to a 1-tile lake but is otherwise inland. I'm not excited about Aggressive Rome being inland where production and iron can be found, but if he's not getting any use out of that Fishing starting tech, I'll content myself with that.

Also, I'd like to get veteran consensus on the use of goto into the fog to discern map size, but it's not a huge deal. I just want to get my sandbox roughly matching reality and figure out the approximate expected distance to my nearest rivals.

[Sisu]

Wow, while I was out 8 other teams played their turns. Now we're just waiting on Azza (who, if the Local Time feature on his RB profile is to be trusted, is Aussie). I guess everyone else is in the Americas/Europe, judging by their playing times - this could be awkward if/when he gets into a war.

Oh well! It seems likely from CivStats like he'll get to it during my night, but then he can bang out two turns and we might see a roll tomorrow evening.

[Ceiliazul]

Logged in quickly, there's a riddle on the spice tile next to scout...

Keeping in mind how much fog the border pop will remove, I don't recommend 99. 39 better, or maybe 32 if you solved the riddle. Either way gets your scout safely into the Eastern woods by ~t10.

[Sisu]

I can't get into the save right now, but is it Freshwater? That's the only thing I can imagine you'd discern from looking at the save.

Since no river is in evidence, that implies a 1t lake 6 or 9 of the spices, depending on what other tiles have the freshwater flag.

[Sisu]

Got into the game and yup, the spices and the grass 8 of it are Freshwater, so there's a lake 6 or 9 of the spices. Nice catch, Ceil! I still want to juke north a little - the row of tiles 8 of the elephant won't get busted by the borders expand. 9, see where the lake is, and then evaluate?

Chat with Ceil, posted for lurker perusal:

Ceiliazul
ooh, jungle visible

Sisu
once borders expansion fully defogs the southern site's BFC I'll update the sandbox to include its tiles and start projecting forward a few turns
I'm really torn about going for religion after AH vs going for Pottery; with the low-food capital, whipping is weak, and I really want to get started on cottages to make its tiles stronger
the alternative is to just farm its riverside grass (recottage them later) to get to a respectable food bonus to use the whip
Yeah, we are smack in the middle of the southern subtropical zone
jungle 3 rows to our north, coniferous 3 to the south

Ceiliazul
hmm, total map 100x60 with 2077 land tiles... that's a lot of water
nearest water is probably to your North, judging by the river

Sisu
whoa, that big?
that's practically Huge size

Ceiliazul
that's what you said: 51+50+(-1 for the scout tile counting twice)

Sisu
well, keep in mind that if some of that was through the defogged region, it would have counted the scout's 2 moves
instead of the 1 units get through fog iiuc
if you're right about the land/water breakdown that explains why most of our rivals seem to have drawn coastal starts, though we still haven't seen water ourself

Ceiliazul
you really should try out flying camera more
you can see trees and hills even in the fog.
Startling lack of voids around you (which represent water)

Sisu
*nod*
I'm trying not to overplan at the moment, since I'm not experienced enough to have a better algorithm for micro than brute force
and brute force is kind of time intensive for obvious reasons
just move the scout, screenshot it and demos, end turn
complain about everyone else taking their time in my spoiler thread :P

[Ceiliazul]

I was looking at fresh water, but I'm not expecting a lake.

The circled hill will reveal a lot. Everything on the city side of the blue line will be defogged when borders expand.

[Sisu]

I had a moment of "wait, what else could it be? It can't be a river" before I realized what latitude we were at and put two and two together with the tile bleed next to the grassland. Oasis?

Also, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking wrt borders expansion. I plead that it was 12 AM when I made that post. 39, then. Turn has rolled, but my Civ on this computer is ugly and low-res, and I won't hold up the turn by getting to it in the USA morning.

[Sisu]

Sweet, most everyone played overnight, hopefully the turn will roll fairly soon.



Moved 39, this is what I found. Barbs start spawning next turn, so no more ending turn on flatland. As I see it, we could go 36, 39, 93, or 99. Maybe 33 if we want to scout a little further afield? This region might make a good ~fourth city - plains river sheep are 4/1/3 tiles for us, I believe.



No change from last turn.

[Sisu]

New turn! Though retep finished his t4, rolled, and logged out without ending his t5... I hope that doesn't come back to bite us.

Our borders popped, revealing this land up north:



Two grass cows! Wet corn for the fp/ivory site! I'm pretty ecstatic about this; I think the FPH 22 of the wines is the best choice for city #2 for tile-sharing purposes, though it does miss out on a river grass it could have settling on the bare ph just below it. Thoughts, Ceil?



Moved the scout 39; next turn I'm going 96 to look at that southeastern forest by the mountains, then 78 the turn after to sit on the hill peeking out of the fog above the floodplains.



Demos. Azza has 7 land tiles in his capital square, which sounds like coastal settle to me. We can work backwards from averages next turn to work that out for sure.