Turn 54 to Turn 74 – 1840 BC to 1040 BC
“The Cambodian Dark Age.” This 21-turn, 800-year period in Cambodia is called “dark” because it will forever remain unilluminated by the light of the primary historical record. That is, I am too lazy to retroactively report these 21 turns in my usual style,
. You can have a
pictureless summary with only a fraction of my usual meandering detail and charm instead.
Other than that, this period was a fine time to be alive for Cambodians everywhere, and not “dark” at all!
(the dawn of the Cambodian Dark Age)
• Hunted 3 Scouts lurking to my southwest, between Bie and the mountains.
o BING-ac’s Scout had Woodsman II, and I did not notice that until too late, so it escaped after seeing Bie’s city tile.
o naufragar’s Scout failed to flee when I gave it the chance, so it was destroyed by Flanking I the Chariot after seeing Bie’s city tile.
o Finally, Commodore’s Scout was destroyed by Nameless Spearman without seeing much.
o Small Benefit: GG points, XP points (Nameless Spearman now has a second promotion after another 1 XP from a suicidal Barbarian attack), denial of information to rivals.
o No Costs: Foreign trade routes irrelevant from PRO, no use of rivals having geographic or current unit position information of that place that I can think of, and my rivals are mature and reasonable people that will not hold a grudge about this, right?
• Settled city #4, “Ban”, in the southwest between Pig and Gold. Surprise! The idea was, naufragar (moreso) and Commodore (lessso) were making me worried about maybe losing the race to that important area, which seemed to be the most contested. So, I delayed the double-food place in the east and settled this instead. Also, this spot was closer, so easier, and had Gold for happiness just in time to soothe some excess oppression unhappiness.
• Founded a religion: Judaism, on Turn 69, in the Holy City of Bie. Why? I think I had not mentioned the plan at all before the Cambodian Dark Age, right? Well, I still had plenty of free money from the huts, and this seemed like a good use for it. Gold is my only luxury, so a religion could help. Also, I need strong culture in many cities, not just one or two special cities, to control the many vital peak and pass tiles all around, and I think Missionaries and Monasteries can be a good component of that culture. I cannot count on a free spread of a foreign religion anytime soon, so I founded my own.
o Bie is a fine place for the Holy City. The culture claimed Gold and some useful peaks, and it is nice and safe as a not-quite-border city. The other fine candidate was Ban, but then it got a free spread in fewer than 5 turns, so now there really is nothing to complain about.
.
o An unsolved religious mystery: who founded Hinduism? When I discovered Mysticism EOT 54, someone I knew already knew Polytheism. For various reasons, I figured it was Gin-guelito who founded Hinduism, but now I realize that cannot be true, because their culture graph obviously does not have Holy City culture. So who is it? Naufragar the State Buddhist, but why? Pindicator or Gavagai, but then which of my contacts knew Polytheism, and why did they research it?
.
• Switched the prospective location of city #5, “Bolan”, to be at The Celtic Gate itself instead of among the nearby Sheep and Cow I have talked so much about, AGAIN. The barbarian city of Navajo appeared 1 tile north of that planned spot, and it was defended by Archers, not Warriors. Well, that is what I deserve for my earlier comment about the hyper-random Archery situation. I do not know enough about Barbarian mechanics and when Navajo appeared to figure out if I had been “wronged” by that or not. Whatever. I had no choice but to redirect the Settler elsewhere while I assembled some units to attack. (This was a whole saga of turn-by-turn back-and-forth, cities switching builds again and again, Workers building roads in the wilderness, madness!).
(the end of the Cambodian Dark Age)
• Lastly, I explored the far south with Zhou Daguan. He moved slowly and safely at 1 tile per turn along the southern coast. Now the geopolitical situation of naufragar and Gin-guelito has been revealed. The coast continues through the black fog in their culture, I am certain; they have no other neighbors and nowhere else to go but what I can already see now. They are in a long-term deathmatch, I think, and naufragar must think so too. Very interesting!
Lastly lastly, have this screenshot for global perspective. That might be the same sea on both sides of the black fog.
From what I can tell, oceans on Tectonics maps with settings like ours are usually like big, roughly semi-circular bites taken out of the solid land from the north or south edges. My capital is on a narrow border between two such northern bites.
) in the north between the Cow and Copper. It is slightly inferior to the eastern Sheep and Cow location, but it is closer, quicker, and cheaper, and I think I need Copper now. I do dislike settling such a safe spot so soon though.
You're in a much better position than me by T50 in PB64.
.
.
