A wet corn is a very good tile, though a bit far from our capital. Those bananas will not come online for a while. A city between those bananas would be a monster long-term, but will be a slow starter for sure.
Perfect; thanks for the pictures! A city planted on those southern bananas would be interesting if we were CRE (or if there's first-ring seafood to their east). Not our next city of course though. (Nor our third most likely...)
I agree with W-SW.
All these lakes make the area a bit awkward to scout. They also reduce my confidence in the east being covered by sea; as mentioned before, it could be largely northeast with lakes south of it, in which case I may regret suggesting the south-western course, but we'll see!
It will not be easy to dotmap that area. My first thought was building between the bananas and NW of the corn to have two very strong cities. I`m a fan of building fillers that help the capital with cottage growth. I really would like to cram in a filler somewhere to the south of Borte semi-early. But then the cities to south need to be moved. Tricky. I agree that we need to build our second city somewhere else.
Another question is how we are going to pop borders in the early game? I like going for barracks, as it is a useful building anyway, but monument is cheaper...
How about a city 3 SE of Borte? It can steal the rice to get up to speed and gets that fur inside our cultural borders. With gems as well it could be a very good research city down the line.
Perhaps; we'll know a little more about possible cities in that area when the borders pop, but note 3SE can't share any cottages with the capital - just the rice and forest hill. If that region still looks like our best bet by T20, we can scout that way with our first warrior as well (depending on where the Scout has gotten). For the moment, I'm hoping we'll find something better for city #2 to share the clams and oasis in the northwest. Tough to dotmap indeed! Although I should probably just leave my traditional ded-lurker dotmap comment for the early game: "This dotmap has too much fog on it!" (But we're obviously working on that.)
The old fisherman smiled, blowing softly across the rim of his bowl of rabbit stew. The Khatunate scouts were eager for his stories: They had been generous to him, and kind. "Yes, I've walked all along the lakeside in my day," he told them happily as he waited for his stew to cool. "Finding the best places to spear fish along the banks, bartering with the little tribes in the rice fields over yonder and those green hills you can maybe just make out, way off beyond. I hear tell there's another lake that way, away out beyond the hills, or maybe more than just a lake if you can believe the wild stories old women tell around the fires." He took a careful taste of the stew and smiled more broadly. "Now that's good food. Been a while since I've eaten tolai hare."
Bolormaa, leader of the Khatunate's Üneg scouting clan, gently prompted, "And what of the far side of the lake? We've seen the distant highlands out there, far across the water, and they seem greener and wilder than anything we've seen before - though almost of a piece in some ways with the lands across the river, where the highlands dip low, out of sight."
With a quiet laugh, the old fisherman answered, "I've heard it said that the leaves seem always greener on the far side of the river, no matter on which side you stand. But yes, I have seen those highlands. I've seen the thick and tangled vines that hold that riot of plants together, green and sickly, with serpents and poisonous insects and spiders as large as your hand. It's no fit place to live. I hear tell of water beyond that too, and if those old women around the fires speak true, perhaps it's all the same vast lake, wider than the plains between here and the eastern Alph! Or maybe it's only tall tales to impress the children and guests like myself." He shook his head. "That I don't know, but I can tell you this: Don't be fooled by the bright green of those vines - of that place they call a jungle. It's no fit place for a man to live." He smiled again, at his stew and his new friends and the poplar forests in which they'd been hunting game with obvious success. "Not like here."
Bolormaa watched him eat his stew. Still young and hale herself, she had been leader of her clan for only a few years - all of them among the birch and poplar of the woodlands at whose edge he had met the old fisherman. Born among the grassland slopes that gently rose and fell between the rice fields and Deed Tusgal Nuur, some years after her clan had parted with the others that settled around the Khatunate Palace, she had never seen the settlement of Borte except from afar, high on its hilltop, with little columns of smoke rising from its cook-fires to Tengri's sky. She knew of the Eternal Empress only by the legends of her people and the word of her mother and father. The time was coming though to move on from the woodlands, in spite of the warm fur of their foxes and sable, the abundant wood for fires, carts, and tent-poles, and the good hunting her people had found there - as the old fisherman could now attest. The distant hills were tempting, but there were other tempting lands as well, and if the legends of the great water were more than mere fancies for children, those hills across the lake might prove the very end of the world - or at least of the land.
There were other highlands to visit besides, including a rounded hilltop across the river valley, where yet more forests seemed to march, sparser perhaps and no doubt less rich in wildlife than the woods where her nomadic clan had for some years made their home, but still a forest, and there was every reason to expect it to continue along that riverbank where the land leveled out further on: Out beyond this threatening "jungle" and almost in the opposite direction from the great water - if there were truly a lake of such impossible vastness beyond those hills at all.
Thoughtful, she considered, sifting soil in her hand - an old habit she'd picked up from her father when she was young. "I don't fear snakes or spiders or insects, old friend," she told the fisherman, "but the hunting may not be what it is here if everyone must always watch for danger and poisonous plants at every step. Is that all there is in those highlands - a lush, green wasteland where no man or woman dwells?"
Slowly shaking his head once more, the old fisherman faintly smiled. "A wasteland yes, and lush. But there are a few people living there, you know. The jungles of those highlands guard such a secret that there are fools who would rather dare the jungle for it than wander a lakeside between the game of these woods and the fields where wild rice grows. It's not only the green leaves that shine upon those hills, but the earth beneath them bearing jewels that shine like the lake itself." He smiled. "Once, when I was younger, I traded for one - and I've kept it ever since, for it's easy to carry, and if a day should come when I have nothing else to barter for food or shelter and have caught nothing for myself, perhaps I too can trade it for something worth more than its gleam: If need be, to trade it for my life." He showed her the jewel, and it shone in the sunlight as if cut from Tengri's sky.
"May I look?" Bolormaa held out her hand, and the fisherman trustingly placed the jewel in her palm. She examined it carefully from all sides, feeling the hardness of its edges, watching the way the light played through it, and finally handed it back. "Not with us," she told him softly. "Should you meet with me again - I or any of my clan, or of the Khatunate from which we come, you need trade no jewel for food or hospitality from us: You have shared your knowledge of the world, and this we value beyond any jewel of the earth."
Photo credits:
Lakeside jungle: Adrian van Leen
Lakeside birch forest: Raymond Gehman
Coastal fog: Shari Weinsheimer
River and forested hill: Mongolia River Outfitters
Uncut sapphire: Vincent Pardieu
1) The turn rolled again! And nobody missed playing this time! Hurray!
2) Mack posted in the lurker thread, so CML isn't quite as intimidating now (maybe mackoti just posted in his thread to compliment him on his unquestionably brilliant snakepick selection or something.)
3) Inca (Thoth subbing for Krill) played again. And still hasn't settled a city! This is now on or over the borderline between trying a major gambit and distorting the entire game. The distance between civs near Krill's start will be completely different than everywhere else on the map, and Krill will have a very late start to his already-slow-starting civ. It may not be possible for him to salvage this anymore without Quechua-rushing somebody and taking their cap as his second city. I'd love to see him prove me wrong, but this isn't looking pretty. So there's about 1 chance in 8 he's moving more or less toward us, and we probably shouldn't base our whole gameplan around that possibility, especially as there's at least as great a chance he moved away from us even if we are neighbors, or that he moved laterally (e.g. ~towad a mutual neighbor). Probably worth assessing the threat though, which means we need some more strategic information.
The demos will help once he settles, but to start with, let's see if we can figure out how far apart everybody's starts are really: Minimum distance is supposed to be 11 tiles, but actual distance could be more, depending on how much water is around. So, for starters: If you mouse-over your name in the score list on the lower right-hand side of the screen, you'll get a breakdown of the total score for our civ. Second on the list should be "0 from land (0/###)" (zero because land points are delayed 20 turns) - the ### denominator will be the total number of land tiles in the game. (There's also a trick to get the exact map dimensions by zooming out and using the goto tool to check on the number of turns it would take to move, I think; that would answer the question more directly if it works.)
Either way, knowing the distance and then later trying to track him via the demo screen would let us guesstimate the timeframe in which he's most likely to attack somebody. Not much we'd do differently just at first anyway, but if we see his scout or his borders at any point, we'll know what to expect at least, and be able to start preparing if necessary. I really don't want that to happen, but it's starting to look more and more like it'll happen to somebody! (And if the distance is just 11 tiles, it could be - though I'd think it's unlikely - that somebody's scout has seen him already!)
(April 29th, 2017, 05:09)RefSteel Wrote: 2) Mack posted in the lurker thread, so CML isn't quite as intimidating now (maybe mackoti just posted in his thread to compliment him on his unquestionably brilliant snakepick selection or something.)
3) Inca (Thoth subbing for Krill) played again. And still hasn't settled a city!
Either way, knowing the distance and then later trying to track him via the demo screen would let us guesstimate the timeframe in which he's most likely to attack somebody.
Okay, mackoti is not a dedlurker in this game. Good to know.
I`m a bit concerned about Krill. He must be planning to settle up on someone to take him out. If we see a Krill scout shortly I think we need to discuss the possibility of going BW before Agriculture. Moving 5 tiles (or even more) before settling is not a friendly move so we should definately prepare for that.
Here is what the mouse-over tells us:
![[Image: pZS5J9A.jpg]](http://l.rgbimg.com/cache1BW2l4/users/t/ta/tacluda/600/pZS5J9A.jpg)
![[Image: birch_trees_along_a_lake_in_grass_river_...l_park.jpg]](http://paintingandframe.com/uploadpic/raymond_gehman/big/birch_trees_along_a_lake_in_grass_river_provincial_park.jpg)
![[Image: ocean-rocks-in-fog-14531278612608gvrR.jpg]](http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/10000/velka/ocean-rocks-in-fog-14531278612608gvrR.jpg)
![[Image: mongolia-river.jpg]](http://www.mongoliarivers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/mongolia-river.jpg)
![[Image: FA14-Lucas-fig10_169811_636x358_1355968473113.jpg]](https://www.gia.edu/images/FA14-Lucas-fig10_169811_636x358_1355968473113.jpg)