[PB67] Tarkeel flips the table

[Tarkeel]

Turn 2 (3920 BC)
The west looks like a rather isolated area, but will be interesting to see how far south it expands.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 4 (3840 BC)
The east looks nice and defensible (over land), both Clammy and PorkyUdders can be shifted a tile north if needed.


The scout is going to takea peek south and see if it's possible to walk around that body of water; if not I think it's best to double-track back to check out the west.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 5 (3800 BC)
The south looks like it curves around the water, so the scout will follow it:


Borders expands and we swap over to working the clam, bringing Agriculture in next turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 8 (3680 BC)
We found our first neighbor int he south, Charriu. That's probably one the better neighbors we could have.


Givent he location of seafood there's not a lot of options in dotmapping the western landbridge, something like this looks pretty good before BronzeWorking comes in and we have to redo it.

On the C&D side, Bing grew to size 2 this turn, Mjmd finished a tech T8, and Bing and Ginger finished a tech T7.

[Magic Science]

On the C&D side, Bing grew to size 2 this turn, Mjmd finished a tech T8, and Bing and Ginger finished a tech T7.

In a full diplomacy game, can you try to just ask your rivals about what they are doing?

[Tarkeel]

I think we agreed on only communicating with those we've met, and while you might ask, they might not answer truthfully or at all.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 10 (3600 BC)
The scout continues along the shore, which seems to be more barrier-sea than lake at this point.


Also had a small talk with Charriu, and that relationship is off to a good start, which reminds me that I'm still due an opponent overview. He revealed that his scout came from the east, also across a landbridge, so I think this might be a central contested landmass with barrier-seas towards the capitals.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 15 (3400 BC)
The scout has been circling the water, which is indeed an inland sea:


Mjmd's scout just arrived at the capital, and we had a nice productive chat. He freely offered up the area between us:


Unfortunately, that nice stone down in the south seems to be more in his area of influence than mine, but we might able to negotiate something down the line. I sent him back this information about the area between us, and the knowledge that he can't pass through my capital.


He also informed me that SD is to my far east, and I told him about Charriu to his west.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 21 (3160 BC)
The scout has been traversing the inland sea, and what I though was an island turns out to be a peninsula:


If you squint just the right way, the revealed area looks sort of like a distorted map of the Mediteranean: My capital is in the Alps, with green Iberica to the SW, the Italian peninsula to the south. Gibraltar is sealed of in the west end, and Suez as the eastern narrow landbridge.

Back to the game, our first worker Friedeman (almost) had time to finish a mine before BronzeWorking came online last turn, but it's worth finishing it before going choping next turn. Copper is in pretty accessible locations, but unless the scout turns up something amazing in Italy, I still need to settle the pigs first for a workboat on the clams.

I traded capital map with Charriu (mainly to trade knowledge of strategic resources), and he's got quite the green paradise:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 28 (2880 BC)
Nothing much has been happening. The capital has grown to 4, and is making use of the plainshill mine we had time for to crank out it's second worker. Meanwhile the scout has been traversing bad terrain and has only just now arrived into fresh areas to explore.


We traded for Mjmd's maps this turn:


Combined with what we've got from Charriu:


This seems to confirm my suspicions that this is a distorted world map: Charriu has Africa to himself, Mjmd is piggy-in-the-middle in Asia, with Superdeath in Mongolia and Ginger in Indo-Australia. There seems to be added a new continent between Australia and Africa which we suspect is home to Bing, whom nobody has met. Let's take a deeper look at my own start in Europe.

The positive is that I seem to have only two land neighbors, both of whom are reasonable. The downside is that they both have more and better natural land to expand into. There's literally only two directions for me to expand; southwest through Iberia has plenty of food and grasslands, but not that much room before we hit Africa. This is the direction I have to expand into first, not the least because it leads to the only early luxury I can grab, which is still a 3rd/4th-ring city deep in Charrius area of influence. I can also expand east across Europe, which is extremely food poor, where I meet both SD and Mjmd at some point.

In short, this isn't the map I signed up for, and I don't think I'm alone with that feeling. I'll play it out to T50 atleast and see how I feel then.