Turn 61 - 1560 BC
After seeing Joey land the two cities on turn 60, things seemed like they could be bleak. And don't get me wrong, it's still certainly going to be an uphill battle to claim the land on this continent. But hope came last turn with a map trade offer from Commodore. After mulling it over for a few minutes, I decided to take the deal.
Here is what it unveiled:
The New World
Wow, Commodore is much farther away than I would have imagined! You can get some perpective via the Ivory/Banana island on the right. In fact, there is another player in between that has yet to travel half the distance to meet us than Commodore did --
retep.
Stone is Ours
There are 4 decent city sites on what could be considered our part of this landmass and possibly 2 on the small bit of land north of Duquesne. Judging from this screenshot, we won't be contested by retep for our Stone (you can just see his borders south of the western Furs). He will likely challenge us for some Silks but the food support to maintain them is not the best.
Commodore's Lands
Here you can see all the resources bestowed upon Commodore. I still think our position is a bit better. HAK is directly to the south of Commodore, and is the only player I am not sure how we are going to meet yet (FYI, we lost our western scout to a barb warrior on the turn we met Grimace). Also, notice yet another instance of Stone beckoning across the sky blue waters.
Settlement Strategy
With this new info, I think we will be in a great position to claim 5 of the 7 sites showing in the new world (I am including the Ivory/Banana island), as well as at least 3 more on our original continent. Here is the settlement order I think would be best:
1. Filler site (Carrilion - founded T62) This site will grow to Size 2 in 4 turns and will have a Granary chopped out before it hits Size 3. I think that putting the Globe Theatre here and keeping the pop low will be a great way to quickly build more FWs and cheaper miltary units. We'd have to commit to that tech path over others though.
2. Lone wheat site to block - This location will eventually give us 3 plantation goodies (Dyes, Incense, Bananas) but will be slow growing with only a Plains Wheat. Still might be worth it to chop the heck out of Axes/Chariots and to stop the western expansion by Joey, or we can just let Joey think he has the upper hand and take this currently subpar site while we go for more productive ones, and then take it back later. Thoughts?
3. Stone site - getting Stone online will allow us to chop out Walls quickly in order to grab and protect sites like....
4. 2-crab site (couth of Fish site) - We go for this first to keep it from Gavagai if we have time. This site is viable because it has two first ring food resources. Plus the Fish site can have one of the Crabs within this site's culture while it works on its own.
5. Fish site /others - by this time, hopefully some growth will have occurred to give us 2-3 viable Settler producing sites. This will help us to get the Ivory site and the Deer/Clams site founded as well.
