[SPOILERS] HitAnyKey's Insanity Reigns Again

[HitAnyKey]

Ummm........





......yeah......




....uhhhh......



.....yeah, and stuff.....

[HitAnyKey]

So I guess this will be my thread for the spot I'm taking over for Catwalk. Started a new one, so that I wouldn't have to keep his thread title and all that jazz.


First order of business. I'm tossing out a begging request for someone out there who is willing to play my turns for me from April 5th through April 12th. I'll be having fun down in Disney World with my wife and will not have a computer with me capable of running Civ. I will have access via phone, tablet, and maybe my work laptop. So if whoever runs the turns for me can post screenshots (or email them to me) I can give very specific directions on where to send the units.

[HitAnyKey]

Next up, figured I'd paste into the thread the one game related post Catwalk made:

First order of business: I'm keeping Saladin of Mali. It seems pretty decent, I get fast granaries, no anarchy and super skirmishers. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to leverage Spiritual, but at the very least it saves me a turn early on and if I feel crazy enough to go for an early religion (I very likely am crazy enough) then I get that conversion for free as well. With fast granaries and CG/Drill Skirmishers I should be able to hold expansions very easily, that's going to matter quite a bit on a (hopefully) cramped map.

Mining/Wheel is not great to start out with, I hope I'll luck into a start with two grains or something. Else I may have to go for Bronze Working first and start chopping early. Building a grass mine after farming a grain resource also works out, though.

So basically my comments being...yeah, I don't got a clue. I most likely will not have any sort of PLAN throughout most of the game. I typically fly by the seat of my pants, making decisions as I go. Since I not only don't have the skill for all the C&D and micro-super planning and sandboxing and such....I simply don't have the time or desire to do so. I just like to play.

I'm actually happy with Spiritual. And being my usual self, I will likely make a pitiful attempt at getting a religion...and fail miserably....hence dooming me to a horrible bloody death.

His whole Mining/Wheel comment I'm not sure what to make of...other than knowing this does basically screw any attempt of me trying to get a religion, since I won't be starting with Mysticism.
I also don't understand the building a grass mine after farming a grain resource comment...unless he meant on two separate tiles. But we'll see what things look like when the game starts and I can see what my start looks like.

[HitAnyKey]

So the start location isn't too bad at least. Starting on a Plains/Hill, and have a Pig, Sheep, & 2 Spices in the fat cross.
Once I figure out the best/easiest way to post screenshots, I'll include one.

And since I have the Pig & Sheep, I kinda need to research Hunting as my first tech. Wasn't planning to, but I think it's necessary.

[HitAnyKey]

And this turn, the lunatics are lucky enough to run across some friendly villagers....


Who just so happen to give them a bit of gold:


Everything else continues as normal. And that coastal hill to the west of the scout currently seems like a good spot for a city. Will explore north and east next to see there's anything better for the city up there.

[HitAnyKey]

Not a whole lot to report. Just the basic scouting and waiting. I really don't know how everyone else does their super long-term planning, so sadly if anyone is even reading my thread (which is doubtful) you won't be getting a whole lot of that.

So most of what you'll get is just the current situation...as seen below:


Figuring out a city in the north is going to be a little tricky.
That grass in the middle of all those hills makes for a decent spot by having a port, access to all those resources, and being only 4 tiles from the capital. But sadly it doesn't have the protection of being on a hill.
Going 1S of that gives lots of those same benefits, gives it the increased bonus of being on a hill, and puts it even at one of those ideal distances of being only 3 tiles away. But it loses the Pig in the north.
But if I plan to eventually put another city on that jungle-hill in the NE, that would get the Pig along with sharing the Gems and Oasis.
Those two most northern tiles in the NW would be out of any fat-cross though, so if either of those have a hidden resource I would miss out on possible benefits of working them. But it might be worth the risk to have the nice city placement as stated in the north. Since those two cities would be coastal and on hills.

Next few rounds of scouting to that NE section will be the telling factor on that.
I'll almost definitely have the scout move along the territory to the east of that mountain, to then circle back along that eastern coast, such that he can then explore the area to my SW so I can confirm which direction I would be settling.

After this worker is made, I'll grow on a Warrior, and then start on a Settler while the worker improves the Pigs or Sheep (need to figure out later which of those two spots would get me the best output...since off the top of my head I don't know what the yields would be). If any lurkers wouldn't mind telling me what the yield would be of those two tiles after being improved, it would be appreciated. So that I don't have to waste time trying to search the forums for finding out what they would become.

As for Research, I'm really having a tough time with deciding what to research next. I really can't come up with any good plan. As much as I really want a religion, I don't see any good path (since I've had to waste time getting Hunting) that I might be able to beat someone to. Since I'm sure there's plenty others that started with Mysticism or are Financial and will just plow through the necessary techs. I might just be better off working towards military techs, even though that's not usually my better game plan. I'm typically a growth/builder type.

[HitAnyKey]

Continued exploration finds me another hut....


Which reveals....a map for us...


And our borders expanded this turn which shows us the location of another hut that we will eventually make or way towards.

Off to the west is a rather annoying layout of tiles. The only way to build a city to access both of those resources is to put a city on the tile directly west of that Peak. Which is not a city location I like.

[HitAnyKey]

And I've now met my first neighbor. Not sure how happy I am about it or not. Though I suppose I expected that we'd all be this close together. With any luck he thinks I came from somewhere in the north, and sends his scout somewhat in that direction.


I don't really have any time tonight to look into details about his Civ (not that I'm any good at that type of speculation anyway), but I'll take a look at things a bit later.
For now, I'll probably go SE next turn just to get a bit more visibility inside his borders before heading back SW towards my other hut.

[HitAnyKey]

Nothing really has changed much. Next turn I get my first tech and I've decided to move on to Bronze Working after that. Since I'm Spiritual, I really want to make use of being able to switch to Slavery as soon as possible (without the loss of turn most other civs would get) to start whipping things out. My worker when he gets created will be pasturing two good food tiles, so that I can whip and regrow relatively quickly. Also with seeing where Jowy is, I'd like to know where the Copper is so I can get a city settled there as quickly as possible to snatch it up. I might actually go Archery after BW to start building my UU Skirmishers. Maybe I can build up a good enough army to eliminate Jowy early on before anyone does so to me. This would be one of my first times ever trying to early rush someone, so it could be a massive fail....but this is probably as good a game as any to try my hand at it. But it's still too early for me to decide that. I might be better off building up next to him and us feeding off of each other with trading and tech bonuses, etc. But I already know there is no one to the north of us. And if his land by him doesn't extend elsewhere and if my land south of me also deadends up against other lands, we could actually be sharing a small island of sorts. Which means we'd either have to get galleys to expand onto those adjacent landmasses or fight each other.

Anyway, back to how things look right now. Before I moved, I see a Lion appeared from the NE. So it'll either chase me as I move SW towards my hut (which I'll get to in 3 turns) or once Jowy's scout hits the end of our landmass to the NW, he'll then run into the lion (and with any luck get killed by it). Jowy does now see my border, so he'll likely explore to see what it looks like around my domain like I just did around his. After moving, that fogged tile east of the peak in the below screenshot was uncovered to show a Rice tile that he'll eventually be able to utilize.

[HitAnyKey]

Well, I just popped my last hut and sadly it only gave me 39 gold. Scout will continue south to see what lies that direction. My worker just got completed this turn, so he'll go pasture the pigs. Decided the 6F pastured pigs will be better at this stage than the 4F/1H/1G sheep. Reason being that I would grow to size 2 and 3 that much quicker, and I think by the time I have one of those levels of growth the sheep should be close to done anyway. I haven't calculated any of it though since I simply don't really do that.