[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[NobleHelium]

Right then, save hasn't come in so I loaded up the messed up save to take a look at the settings.



Monarch, small, rocky, medium. I don't remember how to interpret those denominators in the score display, and after searching for a long time I can't find a post where it's explained (I've read such posts several times before). Oh well. Hopefully someone can post a link in here. In the meantime once we settle I can see how many points the initial pop is worth, and that'll be the rough estimate for a pop point (can't be off by more than one due to rounding), plus we'll see the land points in 20 turns. Does the 778 mean there are 778 land tiles on the map?

[NobleHelium]

Played. Warrior went north as discussed. Noticed a few interesting things from tile bleed:

More water in the north in addition to the coastline. Not a lake since that grassland tile does not have fresh water.

Demos (will always be after ending turn unless I forget)



A few interesting points here that I think I see, barring any mistakes. Mostly everything is equal, but:

1) Ellimist (Carthage) is working the same 3/0/1 tile as Kuro and me. They start with Fishing and I'm pretty sure the starts are at least mostly the same (resources might be different), so they could have worked a forest tile and built a WB. Since they are working the corn (or equivalent), they must be building a worker. Not sure if I agree with that, they could have had the WB out in 10 turns (assuming 2/1 forest), and be able to put a turn into a warrior and then grow before starting the worker. Obviously they'd lose one bpt this way until the WB came out, but they'd make up for it by being at size 2 several turns earlier. Many turns earlier in fact, since the worker takes longer to build the farm while the WB instantly builds the fishing boats. That's interesting actually, so it seems Fishing is stronger on slower speeds due to the instant building of sea improvements. Good to know. Should have picked Wang Kon of the Dutch.
2) Everything else is identical EXCEPT for the life expectancy. I have 88 because I have 8/9 (hence the inset). Nobody else has that. One person has 7/8, which must be EXP Ellimist but with one (or two) fewer forests in the BFC. So it seems the forests are not totally identical. Other person is Kuro at 5/6 (83 + 87 = 170 / 3 = 56.6_ -> 56), so I guess he has at most three forests in his BFC too. Thanks for the extra forest, Krill.

Is that useful information? Eh, not really. Probably not doing this every turn. Got bored waiting two days for the turn though, so I needed to do something.

[Lewwyn]

Alright, looking good. Nothing really to add at this point.

[NobleHelium]

A few more comments about the map. I was definitely expecting a plains hill start because I think Krill always gives people that to entice them to settle in place in conformity with his mapping plan. Likewise, from what I've seen the starts should be very close to identical. We definitely all have four land tiles in the inner ring from the demographics, so that's a good indicator. Resources may be different but I expect yields to overall be (nearly) the same. I wouldn't be surprised if he changed them a bit according to the techs since he specifically asked about them, or perhaps he wanted to pick a set of resources that is most neutral for all the starting tech sets.

I was hoping we'd get a forested hill in the inner ring to activate the EXP bonus. It seemed a lot more likely than hoping for a plains forest hill normally (without a PH start). But the number of sea tiles was definitely a lot higher than expected.

[Lewwyn]

Got the save early so I went ahead and pressed enter...

Scouting revealed:



Notice that that is a dead end there is water all around that grassland that sticks into the ocean. I suggest NE next.


And Demos:




And I forgot to change our details.

Reminder for next time.

[NobleHelium]

Will play in about an hour.

[NobleHelium]

So yeah. There's good news and there's probably bad news. You know how I said in chat jokingly that I hope we find gold? Well...



Bad news? I think we might be on a tiny starting island. Wang Kon of the Dutch would really have been good if that's the case. I wish Krill had answered my pregame map questions.



Warrior east or northeast next? Might be important to defog some water tiles to find potential seafood.

Nothing interesting in the demos, Kuro grabbed his outer ring of four land tiles.

Actually, you know, Portugal looks like it would be stronger here if we are on a starting island. Obviously it's looking very reminiscent of PBEM 6, and carracks would allow settling those islands that presumably exist for settling post-Astronomy. Feitorias are pretty expensive because their base building is pretty bad, but they're available earlier than dikes and carracks are definitely looking more valuable than east indiamen. Are dikes buildable without a river plant? Obviously this is all idle theory, but it's interesting to think about.

[Lewwyn]

Warrior NE I think.

2nd city 1 SW of the rice? Grabs rice, clams, gold.

[NobleHelium]

Depends on how big the island is. I think the island might only be five tiles wide (as it is tall). In which case we might want to pack more cities in, I'm not sure. What do you think?

[Lewwyn]

Depends on how big the island is. I think the island might only be five tiles wide (as it is tall). In which case we might want to pack more cities in, I'm not sure. What do you think?

I think we have time to explore yet and theres a good chance its not an island.