[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[civac2]

Should be 1 food in the box and 5 hammers in the work boat.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 2 (3920 BC)
After that worker kerfuffle, we're off. The scout is working it's way counter-clockwise around the small lake, and the south is looking juicy:


I'm very glad we didn't go for CHA here; so far we have both hunting and one metal lux, and two calendar. Those gems might be contested, but still. A city S or S-S of the pigs looks increasingly likely.

[civac2]

We are going for Meditation first as indicated above. The availability of two fishing resources makes this viable. We can build two work boats, followed by a worker. Bronzeworking will be slightly late which will force us to waste some worker turns on a mine but that's not a big deal.



We will research Meditation on turn 10. Two of our competitors have also chosen civs starting with Mysticism, Gavagai's Aztecs and Miguelito/Ginger's Holy Romans. Presumably they start with a forested deer like most players judging from the food and productions stats. If they have two deer resources trying for Buddhism is not unreasonable for them. However, with their worker first starts it would delay them more than our attempt delays us.

If they build their worker in 10 turns they would reach Meditation in 11, they have the option to switch off the deer at the cost of 1 turn on the worker to reach Meditation in 10 turns, in which case the die would decide. Theoretically, 9 turns would be possible working an oasis. Since the global minimum production is 3 this case is extremely unlikely.

[civac2]

T00: work boat; working elephant; Meditation
T06: work boat done (going north for the fish) -> work boat; working clam lake
T07: fish netted; working fish
T10: size 2; working fish, elephant; Meditation done -> Agriculture
T14: working fish, clam lake
T15: size 3; work boat done (netting clams) -> worker; working fish, clam, elephant; Agriculture done -> Mining
T20: worker done (improving wet wheat) -> warrior
T21: Mining done -> Bronzeworking
T22: working fish, clam, plains forest (120)
T23: working fish, clam, elephant
T24: size 4; warrior done -> settler; working wheat, fish, clam, elephant
T26: worker makes mine
T30: settler done -> worker?
T32: Bronzeworking done -> ?

These numbers are OK. The religion gambit doesn't hurt us much. Maybe the mine will even be useful. There will be some additional cost to pay due to later EXP potteries down the line. The little micro trick working the plains forest over the elephant reduces the settler build time by a turn by maximising overflow from the warrior.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 5 (3800 BC)
Border expansions gives us a bit more view of the west, while the scout has been working it's way east. The terrain is pretty rough and narrow.


Prime candidates for cities is S or 2S of the pigs, and 3E or 4E of the capital, but still nothing that screams "settle here". Southern lands seems pretty low on food, so this will be a challenge to dotmap. The ocean fish north of the capital came as a surprise, but I guess it's not technically orphaned when we can claim it by settling on the silks.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 10 (3600 BC)
Reporting this game is slow, but so's the scouting. We've just unfogged a very food-rich peninsula to the east.


If there's a way to pick up that clams from the south (doubtful), we could plant a very foodrich city on the hills 2W of where the scout is. If not, we'd likely settle where the scout is, and 3W1N of it.

Oh, and we landed Buddhism this turn, so part one of the plan is complete. I wonder if we beat someone to it. We're also tinkering with plans to build Stonehenge, but that depends on how much it will slow down this already slow start. On the positive side, all that water looks like neighbor distances will be quite large. Judging from map dimensions, I'd say about 17 tiles as a baseline.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 15 (3400 BC)
We're the first player to both grow to three and get our second tech, so we're at the top of the scoreboard. Jack also grew to three, but only researched his first tech. The second workboat also finished, so we're top GNP for a bit as well.


The scout is backtracking so there's nothing new to report, but we've settled on a tentative dotmap for the area. First city will share the wheat and ivory, before either reaching south to the corn and crab or further east to the cornucopia peninsula.

[civac2]

We have reached size 3 in unison with our fellow fish eaters. The city now makes a 5 turn worker.



Interestingly we got the extra culture of the holy city already on the turn Buddhism was founded.

The scout goes west next to look for another city spot. The best one we have is right now is ShareCare which can take the wheat and is connected via waterway but does not add any further resource until it both gets a culture expansion and we research Animal Husbandry. Both of these conditions will not necessarily be met in the near future. This turn a forest grew on the city tile to make is just a little less appealing. The desert tile to the south (marker is hard to see) would be a decent spot. But again no Animal Husbandry to wrangle the pigs.

The reason for this post is actually to jot down the slightly revised micro for Tarkeel.

T20: worker done (improving wet wheat) -> warrior; working fish, clam, unimproved wheat
T21: Mining done -> Bronzeworking
T23: working fish, clam, elephant
T24: size 4; working wheat, fish, clam, elephant
T25: warrior done -> settler
T26: worker makes mine
T31: settler done -> worker?; Bronzeworking done -> ?

We speed up Bronzeworking by a turn at the cost of 2 food hammers. The settler gets built in the same amount of time but is started a turn later. We will be able to see copper on the turn the settler is available. Perhaps we can improve on the location of the second city with the extra knowledge. The worker will be able to chop immediatly. With the old plan it would have been idle for a turn.

Demo:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 17 (3320 BC) First Contact
We interrupt the scheduled every-5 turn report with the following news bulletin:


Zulu hordes are approaching from the west!

In all seriousness though; Julius Caesar of the Zulu isn't the neighbor I was wishing for, but at least the west isn't the worst direction. Even more reason to send our scout that way. I also find Mjmd to be reasonable most of the time, AshThorn not withstanding.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 23 (3080 BC)
Scouting to the west/north has been slow due to the terrain.


There's a small floodplain valley right where we met Mjmd's scout which would be nice to claim, but we don't know enough to make a definitive dotmap just yet. The plainshills with the T18-21 mark looks like a good bet though.