[SPOILERS] Insert witty title here.

[LogicalTautology]

Turn 5 Report

Our Scout continued to travel in a circle, and was rewarded by finding even more food! There's definitely enough food Northwest of Hogwarts to support at least 2 very good cities now, potentially more down the road. Awesome!


Another change in the Demos as someone has swapped their working tile to a 0/4/X tile (or 0/3/X if their centre tile is 2/2/X). Based on the turn number and the fact I have 50 beakers invested in Mining (Fishing costs 52), I suspect that someone might have swapped over to a Work Boat at max hammers after researching to Fishing. That seems highly dubious as an opening strategy, but it's the only reason I can see for someone to be a max hammers this early. It's also possible that someone had no 4 FH tiles in their first row but has the 0/4/X tile to work in their second row for the initial worker instead.


That's all for this turn. Not too much to do in the game itself of course since I'm still building my Worker and don't have to swap tiles until it pops in a handful of turns.

[Zero_1627]

Our Scout continued to travel in a circle, and was rewarded by finding even more food! There's definitely enough food Northwest of Hogwarts to support at least 2 very good cities now, potentially more down the road. Awesome!

What's more, Crabs in the lake promise food for yet another city - and one that would be Hogwarts' neighbor, instead of strung out in a line. Depending on further fogbusting, I now think north and south of the lake (Great Clams And Crabs Lake) may be good two first locations (roughly, of course - eg. only one of them needs to actually border the lake ). I think the empire needs to be a bit more solid (more productive cities, actual army) before going for further locations, unless immediate ones are really lousy (which seems NOT to be the case, thankfully!).
EDIT: I just noticed it's no lake at all, but an inland sea. So a city going for seafood should be coastal after all.
Also: would You go around it (SW from now)? It would delay scouting East of Hogwarts, but West already seems to be lush enough for immediate needs, and it would be nice to know. OTOH the Scout is pretty far already... I'm of two minds. Circle may be just what's needed to find someone, which means potential research discounts .
Also - another empire overview required! I suppose it would be good to get one every few turns... One next turn, another one after fogbusting S of Clams And Crabs Sea?
Also - I greatly appreciate screenshots of newly seen lands You provide! It's just that 'greater picture' is needed too (not instead ).

Based on the turn number and the fact I have 50 beakers invested in Mining (Fishing costs 52)

Fully possible - with abundant seafod I'd go for early Fishing. Also - did You note score changes? At this stage a new technology should be easily visible in score.

That's all for this turn. Not too much to do in the game itself of course since I'm still building my Worker and don't have to swap tiles until it pops in a handful of turns.

Well, in early turns You usually don't do all that much, and this is Normal speed .
Research path and build queues are set for the next thousand years (or two thousand...), so the most exciting (and important) part is fogbusting and potential new city locations.


Another EDIT:

Another change in the Demos as someone has swapped their working tile to a 0/4/X tile (or 0/3/X if their centre tile is 2/2/X)

I remember suspecting 2/2/X city center on someone on turn 1. 2/5/X total output would be consistent with working plains hill forest on top of that (Hogwarts does have such tile nearby, why shouldn't they). Perhaps they decided to just net seafood first and worry about worker second.
Another option is Expansive leader - 2/4/X total base output and +25% for Worker production on top of that. In favor of this option: Rival Average GNP improved. So maybe that was switch to not so much maximize hammers, but just keep total foodhammers and increase beakers a bit. This way 0/2/1 tile may be better than 2/1/0, and give observed result.

[LogicalTautology]

Turn 6 Report

And now we come to the first real decision of the game as our Scout needs to decide if he's going to do a larger clockwise turn of the Northern lands, or instead head back towards Hogwarts in order to scout the Southern lands. After some deliberating, he decides that although it would be nice to know more about the Northern lands, the South landscape is a little more pressing as there might be a potential site for our second city down there. Having made that decision, he heads into the woods he has already mapped out, knowing there is nothing new to see this turn.

We have contact! Alhazard must have his capital north of us, and so before long we'll want to get a unit to do some more scouting up there in order to see just how close they are. If we assume a relatively-straight beeline by the Sumerians, there's a maximum of about 18 tiles between us. Alternatively, it's possible he's just outside our field of vision and has been exploring in a circle as well. I don't think this changes anything in regards to our immediate scouting needs, though, since we still need to know what is to the south and also might be able to make another contact there to boot.

Demos show something fairly interesting: everyone else is up to 11 beakers/turn (after removing the Palace Espionage and Culture, and the free beaker).


Scorewise, Khan is up to 39 and everyone else is still at 33 (no screenshot).

That's about it for this turn. An overview is coming in the next post.

[LogicalTautology]

An overview shot of our Empire:

[Zero_1627]

Thanks for the overview!!!
Query: can next overview be done with resources on?

After some deliberating, he decides that although it would be nice to know more about the Northern lands, the South landscape is a little more pressing as there might be a potential site for our second city down there.

OK. Frankly I was torn - both options seemed useful!

We have contact! Alhazard must have his capital north of us, and so before long we'll want to get a unit to do some more scouting up there in order to see just how close they are.

We have scouted fairly far, and haven't seen any traces of culture. I think we may assume he's not right on top of us - eg. his first ring of cities would not overlap with our first first ring, we'll not be competing for first few cities. Anything beyond that may be a race, especially for particularly attractive sites.
Also, I expect other neighbors to be in similar distance. So I do not think that scouting of North to find Alhazard's city (cities, by that time) is all that urgent - immediate surroundings are more important. And I do not think inserting a scout into the queue would be important enough to divert from building workers, settlers, defenders, infrastructure... And Dogs will be too slow to take far from defended cities on other errands, especially as immediate surroundings should be already explored by then. I guess our current explorer would have to do his best. Lack of barbarians increases his chances .

I don't think this changes anything in regards to our immediate scouting needs, though, since we still need to know what is to the south and also might be able to make another contact there to boot.

exactly

Demos show something fairly interesting: everyone else is up to 11 beakers/turn (after removing the Palace Espionage and Culture, and the free beaker).

Other players may be getting contacts - and known tech bonus - too. I do not know how high it would be in this situation.

Scorewise, Khan is up to 39 and everyone else is still at 33 (no screenshot).

That would be consistent with him getting Fishing?

[Zero_1627]

One more thing: with a bit of luck, looking at movement direction of our scout, Alhazard will go search for Hogwarts to the west

[LogicalTautology]

Ah, but he doesn't know where my Scout came from.

[Zero_1627]

I thought that orientation is visible to all? Like we see his scout came from NE...
Anyway, it's a small hope - he may well go on his own planned way regardless of where he thinks our capital is.

Also, I always thought that 'show last set of moves' is a feature sorely missing in hotseat (or PBEM) play!

[LogicalTautology]

Turn 7 Report

Not too much to report here. Mining came in and research was started on Bronze Working. Alhazard moved and got visibility on our culture (and so can infer the city centre tile).

[Zero_1627]

Not too much to report here. Mining came in and research was started on Bronze Working. Alhazard moved and got visibility on our culture (and so can infer the city centre tile).

Well, one could always hope. If he got that far he'll probably come look in, too.

Also: Gems visible SE and extra Clams NE... Every direction can support (very) nice cities it seems!
City with 4 food resources possible, multiple locations with 3... We're in cournucopia . Serious dotmapping needed before 1st settler!