[SPOILERS] yuris125 praying to RNGesus

[yuris125]

You know, my start kinda sucks




I have room for two more cities on the eastern coast, but then it seems to peter out into tundra. One spot on the northern coast, which requires iron working. And nothing else in proximity to the capital - I will have to look beyond the big huge desert in the middle for further expansion, or perhaps find something overseas

[yuris125]

I once again got blindsided by tundra/ice tiles used to simulate high elevation hill areas. There is still some green in the south, but then the continent just ends




Shows the preliminary dotmap for the south. There is an argument to be made for moving both eastern cities 1N and the southern one 1E, losing useless peak tiles for some coast, but also restricting the middle city to unirrigated plains wheat as the only food source. Could still be ok if the city just works some cottages and some coast. We'll see if I reveal anything to the west to influence my decision

I am almost certainly ignoring the plains cow, don't see a good way to utilise it

I'm starting to question my decision to start with Monarchy. I am charismatic, and expect to do a lot of early whipping, so cities won't grow that large - how much do I need to raise the happy cap? The most immediately beneficial tech would be Math for better chops. On the other hand, with as much food as I have at the starting cities, I might struggle to contain whip anfter, and HR can help overcome with that. Also, with wine as the only happiness resource in sight so far, it is beneficial to unlock the ability to improve it. Finally, with room for expansion potentially limited, I may need to start growing cities to large sizes early, so HR could be essential mid-term - which again makes is attractive to revolt as early as possible, when the cost of anarchy is minimal

Easiest solution would be to skilfully pop one of them from a hut so far I got two huts which gave gold, and have two more I know about

With all of my initial expansion going along the coast, I'm strongly considering an attempt at Colossus

[yuris125]

The good news - I found more settlable land to the south




Scout also got an XP hut, will become a Woody 2 for faster exploration

The bad news - the desert is absolutely humongous




Found a desert gold, but don't even know if it's worth settling a city just feeding off a plains cow and working the gold?

This scout will pick up the hut, then go in general NW direction, while the archer needs to turn around and patrol the desert around the start. Will still be a while before non-animal barbs spawn, but I don't want to be out of position when they do

[yuris125]

Actually I am Holy Rome, probably difficult to settle an unprofitable city once rathauses are online. Maybe I'll just get one SEE of the gold, work the oasis, the gold, and a windmill on the plains hill, and it won't be completely useless - even if it will stay at size 3 forever

[xist10]

Thats the spirit.

[yuris125]

Even more land down south




Whereas west is looking fairly miserable




In the west we have a double rice city which requires iron working, a city with just a plains cow as a food resource, and a desert city for the gold. For the latter, the location is slightly better thanks to the newly discovered oasis, but still, it would be an oasis and a non-resource farm for food, then it will work the gold, a cottage or two, and a plains hill mine. Nothing to be excited about

So the gameplan is clear - go south

Looking to start a settler in the capital next turn, put two chops into it, and switch to HR when the settler is on the move, as we do with slavery so often. Then I might get a library up and a great scientist for a Math bulb. I will be doing a lot of chopping, so Math is high priority, but next research has to be Metal Casting - I need triremes to protect seafood from barb galleys, and am likely to face competitions for Colossus

[yuris125]

Contact!

The western scout ran into Commodore's




There's also brown borders peeking from the fog - that's not Commodore, I think that's Pindicator

Well, guess it's a good thing land in this direction is crap - as long as I don't overextend and keep an eye on the area, there shouldn't be a great amount of tension. I may have to give up the desert gold, or revert to the original spot which is closer to my starting cities. But even if I do give up on it, it's kinda whatever

I could've finished Monarchy this turn, but would involve working a lower food tile, and I saw no reason to - as I said, I'm planning to revolt when the settler is on the move. Think some players already settled their 3rd cities - and I thought I was fairly fast on my settler....

[yuris125]

A few thoughts

I don't particualrly like my starting city as a bureau capital




It is going to be a decent production city with good food and 5 hills, and grassland tiles can be either chopped / workshopped or lumbermilled. But when it comes to commerce, it's lacking

Exploration in the southwest revealed this location, which is not fully dotmapped yet, as I could reveal more resources in the area. But I see myself moving the capital somewhere to this region and cottaging the area sooner rather than later




Biggest concern is proximity to Pindicator, who is playing Mongolia. His 3rd city (I'm pretty sure his borders I discovered are from the third city) went in my direction, and I really have to be mindful of a keshik attack. As I said, right now I think we can coexist peacefully, thanks to all the crappy land between us, but it could change if he also has eyes on the south

Here's how this region is located in relation to his third city - it really isn't far, especially for keshiks




Keshiks are all the more scary because I'm yet to find horses. I remember from test games that they can be scarce in some regions on totestra, but I do need to find and claim source, otherwise I'm at a huge disadvantage with no access to 2-movers

Finally, I'm somewhat surprised that neither Commodore nor Pindicator adopted a religion. It's an interesting dilemma, on one hand losing an early turn to anarchy has the least lost city outputs, as you have few worked tiles. On the other hand, it can slow down the snowball too much to be worth it. I can see it being reasonable to delay adopting new civics. But when it comes to religion, with everyone running OR, and a significant proportion of early builds being city buildings (granaries, libraries, etc.), I really think getting it out of the way early is the play. OR adds 15 hammers to every double whip, so feels like losses to anarchy can be recouped quite quickly

As ever, there's argument for delaying revolts until golden age to avoid anarchy, but when will people have their first golden ages? I don't know if an early golden age just for civic / religion swap is worthwhile

We'll see how it plays out. I chose to eat anarchy turns and get all the swaps out of the way early, adopting religion the turn it was founded, and revolting to HR this turn, as soon as the settler for the 3rd city was on the way

[yuris125]

The more I reveal of this area, the more I come to conclusion that I will have to contest it




The plan has to be to take advantage of hills and forests near the start, build an army capable of defending against keshiks, and lay claim on as much of this area as I can. Maybe prioritise Engineering (which doesn't require Machinery in RTR), which makes sense anyway for Holy Rome (although I will have to look up how their unique pikes differ from normal ones)

My 3rd city, with the plan for the next 3




There's more overlap than I'm happy to see, but I can't find a better way to utilise all resources I'm given. Aachen moved 1N, closer to Chance Harbour, purely because I could settle it 1t earlier this way and it wasn'd losing any important tiles

The most controversial spot is the 4th city, which moves off the coast and loses coastal tiles just to claim the plains cow (along with some useless desert). However much hate plains cow gets, I think a 3/3 tile is valuable when I need to focus on maximising production. Coast would be more beneficial in the long run, especially if I land the Colossus - but if my plans work out, commerce will come from elsewhere anyway. That spot was so poor with just unirrigated wheat for food, I was thinking of skipping it completely and treating it as filler. Moving it off the coast makes it more viable and valuable in the short term - which is what I need to care about with early expansion

Now if only I could find some horses.....

[Miguelito]

Mirrored Chile layout