[SPOILERS] Team SsS

[Sandover]

Turn 9:

Standing on the hill gave us some nice visibilty but sadly there's no resources in sight.

[Sandover]

The way I see it there's three different paths our warrior can take from here:

Green: "The protection of Sandograd comes first. We've been away from home for too long."
Purple: "We've explored enough of Shades. Time to head east."
Red: "Following that forested ridgeline will get us a good view of the surrounding land. The citizens of Sandograd will be safe for now."

[Sandover]

Also note that Kalin's team is the first to have a score increase, suggesting their capital grew to size two after working a 3F tile.

Joao (EXP/IMP) of the Incans (agriculture, mysticism).

Either they
a) grew while researching fishing to hook up a water resource
b) grew while researching med/poly to get a religion since a worker wouldn't have much (if anything) to do
c) went quechua first since they wanted to stay safe while sending off their first unit to explore
d) grew since they wanted to be at size two and have hammers in a quechua before starting a worker
e) or something else

I'm not going to speculate any further since there's no point in guessing what they're up to at this point. Could be useful keeping this in mind though, in case we end up having them as neighbours.

A valid thing to note is that score increases (or the lack of them) during the next few turns will give us a good idea of how many teams started a worker out of the gate. That, in turn, will make it possible for us to wager a fairly educated guess regarding how many starting warriors are likely to be running around searching for undefended capital cities.

[Square Leg]

I would probably favour purple although the SP in me wants to go red!

Another option would be E,E,E this would give less of a view and leaves us a little vulnerable to bears on the flat, but means we can get to the hill at purple dot with the warrior never being as far away from our lands...

[Sandover]

E,E,E instead of purple would cost us six tiles of visibility.

[Square Leg]

It would, but it would gain us the knowledge of warrior not being more than 4 tiles away from the capital.

However, If another warrior approached from any one of the corner tiles (to see if our cap was undefended) they wouldn't be able to see the centre tile. There are trees and no hills to stand on. If they got a bit frisky we could obviously bluff that we started worker first and left the warrior at home after seeing what happened to Mortius in RBP2.

That could buy a few turns to get our warrior home to a raptuous fanfare! :2dance:

I'd be persuaded to go Purple based on that...

[scooter]

I think I'm going to be the dissenting voice and say that probably 70% of me is saying to take the chance and go with red. That area below the capital looks so food-deprived right now that, with this being a balanced map, I've got to think there will be something worth seeing...

That said, I'd be completely fine with purple too, especially with a map that has got to be at least a little bit cramped. I'm not sure that losing 6 tiles of visibility is worth the E-E-E idea though...

[Sandover]

Turn 10:

Personally I'm fully willing to take the risk of going red, and I decided that 70% of scooter is enough support to do so. Lets hope Square Leg doesn't get to chance to use a "I told you so" in the next few turns.

scooter's hunch was correct though. Riverside grassland pig discovered!

Also note that Kalin/Nakor's team scored another six points. I'm pretty sure that means they have discovered fishing.

And finally, a lion appeared to the north of our borders (didn't bother taking a screenshot).

[Sandover]

Turn 11:

Our warrior is now six tiles away from Sandograd, and it's likely that he will never get to travel this far away from home again. The big news this turn is the discovery of some silk and a mixture of random terrain further south.

Four teams got a score increase. Three of them discovered a tech and Ruff's capital grew to size two. I'll probably look into this a bit more later on.

[Square Leg]

This area is looking better and better - there are hills and rivers - production and commerce. I think it is too early to be talking about city locations but it is worth considering securing this area if possible!