[Spoilers] Hashoosh, Gaz and the crew - The CANZAC Alliance sail the high seas

[Gazglum]

Fastest turn ever! 2 hours later its back in my box.

Yuri's power keeps pace with ours at 11,000, so there is a danger that he is going animal husbandry and planning to chariot us. We shall keep an eye on him.

I've decided on a theme, at last, to fit with my nautical mood. Fictional vessels. So our capital is now the Dawn Treader, and I have plenty of fantasy and fairytale ships in my memory to call upon after that. Suggestions from the crew always welcome, as long as they delivered with the sufficient respect for the chain of command.

Apparently we met Dhalmed last turn, or he met us, though I don't know where. His scout must have come and gone. So only Whosit remains hidden. Everyone is Size 3 except Ilios.

More importantly, we can now look upon the River of Gold.



It's good, but still a bit lacking in food. NExt turn we'll know if there are any other resources down there.

Ilios land. I suspect someone else is close down here as well. Ilios has great land here but needs tech to work, so he'll probably expand away from us to start with.

[Gazglum]

We reached size 4 and finish a second warrior at the end of this turn. The 2nd warrior might have been a bit of a waste, but I thought if we did 1/4 of a granary instead it would have decayed almost down to nothing before we got back to it. The warrior can poke around Yuri or take up position at our 2nd city.

We're now in danger of running away from our improvements, so it's time to stagnate on 4 and focus on expansion. We have 7 forests in our BFC, so I think a 2nd worker to chop out the settler might be the best call. Also, the workers can then immediately help improve the 2nd city.

Q, I know you are unsure about that, you are welcome to sim!

Where should that city be? Gold river has got rice, but it's a little awkward. We could found where the warrior is and get a religion to pop the borders though. I'll check over near the wheat/clams site too and see if there is anything else worthwhile there.



One thing is clear from my scouting - this is a food poor map. That's probably not great for our leader, but at least we're not philosophical.

Demographics look nice, as we have allowed ourselves to grow more than the others.



Finally, Yuri is continuing to put EP into us. According to the foreign advisor he hasn't met anybody else, maybe his scout was eaten. For now though, presuming he checks our graphs, we are unlikely to be able to surprise him with 3 vultures.

[Gazglum]

Turn 19: First Blood

Our warrior in the south fell today. His body was unexpectedly savaged by wolves from the fog, his blood washed into the Fleuve D'Or, where it will help fertilise the great floodplains of the south.

I guess its a good thing that we built that second warrior. But it does put us in a bit of an annoyance. I had wanted to use southern warrior to explore the vicinity of the wheat/clam site, while checking on Yuri with the other warrior. Then whichever way we went with our settler, a warrior would be ready to escort him.

Now we probably need to decide where to put our city and have a warrior ready to meet the settler. We could still explore wheat/clam, but then not get back up to the north if we want to pressure Yuri with a city on the river there. I will have to think about the future more than I am comfortable with, especially since we still don't know where copper will be.

Dot-maps will be needed soon...

Meanwhile, here is what we discovered of the south before our tragic loss.



Everyone else has now discovered bronze working, and will be further on their way to a second city than us. Our advantage is in better commerce, for now. In further annoying news, it turns out that the western coast seems to extend indefintely, and so our scout in Ilios' lands isn't able to curve back around to us. He is forced to journey ever on into the west, in the hope of finding Whosit.

I am filled with a sense of gnawing unease. Stay tuned for more details.

In the meantime - lurker question. If I build 2 cities before getting a religion, is there any factor that will effect which of the non-capital cities it will be founded in, or is that completely random?

[Qgqqqqq]

If I build 2 cities before getting a religion, is there any factor that will effect which of the non-capital cities it will be founded in, or is that completely random?

It will be more likely to found in the city with the greatest population, but otherwise it is random.

I think that our second city has too my mind two basic choices, south of the plains cow or north-east of the wheat. The city with the plains cow would focus on farming the floodplain in its first ring and serving as a worker/settler pump with its high hammer output. We would probably ignore the gold for now, as we don't need the happiness early on and it's not a very good tile to work in the early game. The other alternative is north east of the wheat, and would serve as a more commerce-focussed city, growing and whipping off its cottages shared with the capital.
I think the gold city is probably the stronger city, especially as we have enough happiness for the capital to take most of those tiles anyway, but if there is still time for him to loop back, the warrior could explore the south east to be sure.

[Gazglum]

Ok, well despite my sadness at potentially giving up the north, I think you are right. And if its one of the southern sites, we do have time to get our warrior down to scout the clams. We'll also learn a bit more in a few turns when our bordesr pop.

Found Dhalpir with the scout in the far west. Are we sure this map is cylindrical? If it is, he should be not far from our own lands, just east of us. But pulling out on the map doesn't show and wrap - is that just because we haven't fully explored yet?

Also - do you get +1 to ships for running a scout right around a cylindrical map?

Finally, Yuri keeps piling EP into us. I think we need to think longer term than just him, and so probably start putting EP into others, while making sure we keep graphs on him. Q, if you think we need to keep pumping just against him, give me your thoughts.

[Qgqqqqq]

Nah, we can don't need to know Yuri's tech, I'm fine with moving off him. I seem to remember cylindrical being mentioned somewhere in the tech thread, but I'm not sure. I believe it comes up in the settings screen?

You can't tell wrap by zooming out, that only works once you've explored sufficiently or have Stonehenge/calender.

You do get the circumnavigation bonus on cylindrical maps, dependent on the water level but I highly suspect that this map has enough to trigger it. We'd probably meet straight sea if we ran our scout west like that, but its probably worth a try - you never know there might be a passage

[zakalwe]

Cylindrical is just the opposite of toroidal. It sounds like you're debating whether or not the map has a tilted axis, i.e. if the wrap is east-west or north-south. You can tell using goto commands into the fog. If the wrap is east-west, you will be able to find a point where the shortest route oscillates between heading east or heading west.

[Gazglum]

Cylindrical is just the opposite of toroidal. It sounds like you're debating whether or not the map has a tilted axis, i.e. if the wrap is east-west or north-south. You can tell using goto commands into the fog. If the wrap is east-west, you will be able to find a point where the shortest route oscillates between heading east or heading west.

[Gazglum]

Turn 21: THE VULTURE METAL

So yeah, we are a cylinder. It looks like its 50 tiles east/west, and we've only explored 28, so Dhalpir and I must still be a fair way apart.

So this was a big turn. The metalurgists on the good ship ANZAC suddenly had a mind-blowing realisation.



+



=




And copper is thankfully plentiful. Thanks Commodore, from the hungry people of Sumeria.




I'm going to send my guy down to explore it, but this makes me think that a second city east of the wheat might be the way to go. With the third city by the gold.

Tech wise, I'm uncertain. We could get a religion in 4 turns, and I want one. But if we get it now, we lose the opportunity to border pop. But if we go by the wheat, we won't need to border pop that city anyway. We don't really need archery with copper so close. Fishing we'll need to pick up soon for the clams, but not immediately.

Long term, we have a good teching rate at the moment. I was thinking of trying to go through priesthood and code of laws towards civil service, and try to land it with the oracle. Is that too crazy? Metal casting isn't really worth oracling in RBMod, but if we could land civil service it would be a big coup.

Q, what would you research next? We could get al the religions!

Finally, note the desert hill copper at the top of that screenshot. I'm assuming that's not Yuri's only source, because that would be really cruel to him if so. But if his second city is founded near the stone/corn/copper we'll know he needs it, and if he needs it then he can't have it.

If he founds a second city on the flatlands by the river, then 3-4 vultures might be enough to move it into Camp Glum. We shall watch the north with interest.

We are top in power by 1000, which is from our extra population in the capital. So nobody has more than bronze working + warrior.

[Gazglum]

Turn again! Happy New Year!

My micro plan for the settler is to get him out on Turn 27.

22: worker finishes, 3 hammers overflow into settler. START CHOP
23: 3/65, switch a cottage to forest tile DON'T FORGET, + 9 hammers
24: 12/65, + 9, + chop 13 hammers. START CHOP
25: 34/65, + 9
26: 43/65, + 9, + chop 13 hammers
27: 65/65

I hope that works, i don't normally work things out like this, but it looks ok to me.

Meanwhile, here is Dhalpir's land: