[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[Banzailizard]

With the thread title I almost expected a naming convention related to trees.

[suboptimal]

The thread title is more about the constructive criticisms offered on my gameplay in PBEMs 10, 15 and 16.  The naming theme was alluded to here:

Turn 1 – You Say Pítati, I Say Potato

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The thread title is more about the constructive criticisms offered on my gameplay in PBEMs 10, 15 and 16.  The naming theme was alluded to here:

Turn 1 – You Say Pítati, I Say Potato

You're too kind - I feel like I was pretty harsh in my criticisms of everyone (while keenly aware that I was throwing stones while dwelling in a crystalline home myself).

[suboptimal]

The thread title is more about the constructive criticisms offered on my gameplay in PBEMs 10, 15 and 16.  The naming theme was alluded to here:

Turn 1 – You Say Pítati, I Say Potato

You're too kind - I feel like I was pretty harsh in my criticisms of everyone (while keenly aware that I was throwing stones while dwelling in a crystalline home myself).

Well, you weren't the first one to state that I tended to lose the big picture.  Besides, even if it was harsh it was still constructive.  There's also the fact that I've seen many of the more...veteran...dwellers of these forums point out that the lurker threads are where the lurkers get to rant about the gameplay (and it's usually pointed out when one of the players goes bonkers in their own thread about the gameplay), so harsh words for players in that thread is almost to be expected (cue lurkerati flamethrowers quoting this post in 3...2...1...).

Turn 20

Mashed has grown and I move the new citizen from the turtles to the grassland hill forest SW of the city center.  The builder will be done in three turns (EoT22) and with improvements the city will grow EoT27.  Of course, whether or not the improvements get done is up to the barbarians:




They haven’t moved.  My experience has been that this early the in the game barbarian units will not enter the capital’s territory unless/until they have a unit to attack.  As for what that warrior is up to, perhaps the same logic applies to other cities.  I test this by moving the slinger to the NE wines.  This should draw the warrior across the river (and even the slinger in this direction), allowing me to move back into the city and taking a shot at it.

The warrior moves one tile SW, sees some hills in the distance, then moves to the wheat.  




There’s coast to the northwest.  As for the volcano, well, Ağri Daği is definitely not on the list of Nubian place names.  The Google tells me that it’s the Turkish name for Mount Ararat.  A quick poke at the XML game files shows that Nubia only has one volcano name listed (and we’ve already “used” that) and that this name is in the general list.  Therefore I have no way of knowing (yet) whether or not we’re the first in this area or not, at least based on the place name.  I’ll go around the south side of the volcano and make a decision – from the sheep NE of the volcano it’s a six turn transit to the borders of Nazca.  

Internationally Kaiser founded his city, Alhambram probably found a new natural wonder and TBS has completed his second tech.  

Pantheon in 2 turns unless Archduke hits 25 the same turn we do.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The thread title is more about the constructive criticisms offered on my gameplay in PBEMs 10, 15 and 16.  The naming theme was alluded to here:

Turn 1 – You Say Pítati, I Say Potato

You're too kind - I feel like I was pretty harsh in my criticisms of everyone (while keenly aware that I was throwing stones while dwelling in a crystalline home myself).

Well, you weren't the first one to state that I tended to lose the big picture.  Besides, even if it was harsh it was still constructive.  There's also the fact that I've seen many of the more...veteran...dwellers of these forums point out that the lurker threads are where the lurkers get to rant about the gameplay (and it's usually pointed out when one of the players goes bonkers in their own thread about the gameplay), so harsh words for players in that thread is almost to be expected (cue lurkerati flamethrowers quoting this post in 3...2...1...).

At the moment I think it's mostly Woden flamethrowing by himself in the lurker thread. Everyone else is hanging out either here or in the Archduke's thread, it looks like. 

Turn 20

There’s coast to the northwest.  As for the volcano, well, Ağri Daği is definitely not on the list of Nubian place names.  The Google tells me that it’s the Turkish name for Mount Ararat.  A quick poke at the XML game files shows that Nubia only has one volcano name listed (and we’ve already “used” that) and that this name is in the general list.  Therefore I have no way of knowing (yet) whether or not we’re the first in this area or not, at least based on the place name.  I’ll go around the south side of the volcano and make a decision – from the sheep NE of the volcano it’s a six turn transit to the borders of Nazca.  

Internationally Kaiser founded his city, Alhambram probably found a new natural wonder and TBS has completed his second tech.  

Pantheon in 2 turns unless Archduke hits 25 the same turn we do.

So we're pretty sure Khmer DIDN'T name that lake, right? Because they would have named this volcano and river if they'd been here first,* to say nothing of meeting Naza. 

How many tiles are between Nazca and Mashed? It's probably a fair bet that another player's capital is roughly the same distance south. I don't advise making contact if it's at all possible to avoid it, but at least glimpsing borders and knowing where they are (and who) is valuable intel. Alhambram's Hungary rush is a good example.

Also, if we lose out on GotF by 1 turn I'm reserving the right to chastise you for not joining the Cult of the Clam God. 

*I appreciate the limits of the simulation, but still, it's a bit weird that other civs know each other's names for things. It's not like the Khmer explorers could leave a note - we haven't even INVENTED writing yet.

[suboptimal]

Turn 20

There’s coast to the northwest.  As for the volcano, well, Ağri Daği is definitely not on the list of Nubian place names.  The Google tells me that it’s the Turkish name for Mount Ararat.  A quick poke at the XML game files shows that Nubia only has one volcano name listed (and we’ve already “used” that) and that this name is in the general list.  Therefore I have no way of knowing (yet) whether or not we’re the first in this area or not, at least based on the place name.  I’ll go around the south side of the volcano and make a decision – from the sheep NE of the volcano it’s a six turn transit to the borders of Nazca.  

Internationally Kaiser founded his city, Alhambram probably found a new natural wonder and TBS has completed his second tech.  

Pantheon in 2 turns unless Archduke hits 25 the same turn we do.

So we're pretty sure Khmer DIDN'T name that lake, right? Because they would have named this volcano and river if they'd been here first,* to say nothing of meeting Naza. 

How many tiles are between Nazca and Mashed? It's probably a fair bet that another player's capital is roughly the same distance south. I don't advise making contact if it's at all possible to avoid it, but at least glimpsing borders and knowing where they are (and who) is valuable intel. Alhambram's Hungary rush is a good example.

Also, if we lose out on GotF by 1 turn I'm reserving the right to chastise you for not joining the Cult of the Clam God. 

*I appreciate the limits of the simulation, but still, it's a bit weird that other civs know each other's names for things. It's not like the Khmer explorers could leave a note - we haven't even INVENTED writing yet.

I took another look at place names and did a deeper dive - as it turns out I didn't go far enough and only looked at the list of place names and not what civs they're assigned to.  So, we've seen the following:

Nile River - that's us
Nubian Desert - ditto
Bayuda Volcanic Field - ditto
West Nubian Lake - ditto
Mount Semeru - Indonesia
Lakshadweep Sea - India
Ağri Daği - Ottoman
Scheldt River - Netherlands

None of those civs are in this game.  I think the names that are popping up are because exhausted our place name list but just can't see them on the map yet because of the fog.  For example, each of the coastal areas off Mashed and Nazca may be named seas (Red Sea and Foul Sea) but we can't see the names yet and we used both names off our list before we found Lakshadweep Sea.  Likewise we've only got one volcano name on the list and we've found three.  The river south of Dauphinoise was found before the Scheldt - chances are that river will be named Atbarah River provided the game engine attempts to draw the name on the map.

It's 13 tiles from Mashed to Nazca as the crow flies.  There are two suppositions we could make about the map:

1) Each player will have a backline city-state to call its own
2) Each player will have three city-states within "reasonable" distance so that the Political Philosophy inspiration is available.

If we assume these suppositions then we should find one city-state north of Mashed.  I'll leave that for the last archer out of Mashed to go look for.  If (2) is valid then I would expect to find a city-state a bit south of that river south of Dauphinoise.  We'll get a slightly better view when that city's first built archer heads for Nazca via the southern route.  If something does look to be down there we should divert because if the terrain is open it might make for a better initial target than Nazca.  Once I upgrade the slinger and take out that camp there might be time to get that one down there for a bit of a peek.

[Woden]

At the moment I think it's mostly Woden flamethrowing by himself in the lurker thread. Everyone else is hanging out either here or in the Archduke's thread, it looks like. 

I will make sure to spit some fire in your general direction

[suboptimal]

At the moment I think it's mostly Woden flamethrowing by himself in the lurker thread. Everyone else is hanging out either here or in the Archduke's thread, it looks like. 

I will make sure to spit some fire in your general direction  

While you're here you really could have put the city-states a little closer and/or with less rough terrain. 

[suboptimal]

Turn 21




The barbarians are behaving as I want them to. Slinger moves back to the city center and shoots, doing 30 points of damage and earning 6XP. The slinger will earn a promotion with its next attack. It will need two more to kill the warrior unless the warrior decides to attack the city.

In the south I decide to move across the river onto the plains hill there.




Open land to the southwest, nothing interesting. The forest 2W and the tiles along the fog to the SE are not along water of any sort. I’m going to turn east from here and shoot the gap between the mountain chain and the volcano, then cheat back up towards Lakshadweep Sea. CMF, I forgot to note when you asked that the warrior is 9 tiles SW of Nazca. If there’s another civ down here they may be due south of the mountain chain. We might be able to get a glimpse south of there as we get onto the PFH by the volcano.

The relative amount of space and emptiness is reminiscent of PBEM 14, where I was on the 2-civ landmass with Woden. We had a lot of space between us. If this was the four civ land mass in this game I probably should have found someone by now.

Cornflakes and TBS have settled their second cities; Kaiser did the same last turn (well, his Turn 19). Pindicator has gotten a settler out. If Alhambram has gotten a settler out he’s disguised the timing with population growth. There were also era points being earned, with TBS and Cornflakes getting 2 and Kaiser getting 4. With only 2 points to our name we’re last in that scoring segment. Perhaps we should start discussing whether or not we want to try Dark → Heroic Age. We will get 4 era points when the slinger upgrades and more as we meet other civs, but that won’t be enough to get us to 11 to get a normal age.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Woof. Rough terrain will slow down a rush in this direction.

As for the age debate, I think a dark age is difficult, even if we're careful. We will probably stumble into 4 more from a natural wonder, plus at least 1 more from meeting at least one neighbor. That pushes us to 11 by my count, which leaves pretty much no wiggle room at all. We could always cease scouting to try and avoid it, but the cure seems worse than the disease there.