AT Can't Drive 55

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, looks like wheat first (as opposed to deer first) does get the worker done 2 turns earlier... but at a cost of 20 food and 12 commerce. Hammers are the same. That's assuming I just grow, which I probably won't do - I'm thinking I'll start building the first settler around size 3, it will likely go north and share the sheep. So there' more figuring to do, but it seems like being more efficient worker wise is has a fairly large cost. Which isn't surprising, given that my most powerful tile is improved 10 turns later. I was surprised by the food difference, but that's probably from slower growth.

[AutomatedTeller]

My general plan is to scout by sending my scout SW to the PH, then to what I think is another hill, then west. I think there's a chance that the coast is right to my west - in the NW corner, there's a hill which may be on the coast, we'll see. If we get to the coast, then we'll swing south more and then around the cap to find spots to settle.

my GUESS is that my 1st settler will head north, to share the sheep and maybe the deer at some point, but we'll see.

[AutomatedTeller]

This feels like a builder game for the first 50-100 turns. There are 4 interesting possibilities for danger:

Jowy, with the dog soldier. This is potentially the most dangerous one. If Jowy goes mining/BW, he can get a dog out by, turn 24, 2 by turn 27 which could get them to a cap by turn 37-40. I should have chariots by then, so I should be safe.

jowy or commodator, with protective archers:

Both of these guys start with hunting. If they go worker/archer (and have a similar set up to me), they could get one out by turn 17-19 or so, which puts an archer at my door turn 30-31. This is a significant risk and what happens depends a lot on whether they pick up a promo on the way from barbs. I dunno - seems very risky and I don't see either of these guys making a play that way.

gavagai with war chariots (anyone with chariots)

Assuming that horses aren't in the fat cross, he'll be able to get them hooked up around turn 30-35, one or two built by turn 32-38 and to my borders by turn 38-44 or so. that's dangerous, but I'll have chariots of my own and I should be able to see it coming, so maybe archers. this seems to be the most likely way I lose by turn 50, but it does not seem really likely.

So, a near farmers gambit, with enough mil to handle barbs and a wandering warrior.

[AutomatedTeller]

obviously, we'll reload for Jowy's techs

but I went in and played. My techs look fine (I think Jowy's are the only ones different from Base BtS anyway)



My next move will be the PH i marked. My (current) plan is to put a city at either the red or the orange circle (probably the red), but who knows. Either of those will hook up immediately - Red has the advantage that I might be able to use the worker on it immediately, to build stonehenge. I dunno - we'll see.

The blue squares are what I think are water - I know the one by the deer is, because it has freshwater.

Ok - exhausted from turn 0 analysis

or not.

I have another calendar resource, so that's 4 happy. My guess is that I have at least one of gem, gold, silver or fur available to me. My guess is that I don't have whales (I suspect that people with coastal starts have whales, those without have wine), but that's a pure guess. 5 happy is nice. The main issue is that 2 of those happy gain health with a building, not happy, and the 2 that do get happy, get them with different buildings (market for ivory, theaters for dye), so that's not the greatest.

[AutomatedTeller]

As you can tell, my theme (by far the most important part of the game) is rock songs about driving.

Hitch a Ride is, of course, a classic rock song from Boston's amazing debut album. It's not the biggest hit from that album, but since I'm from Boston, it seems to be a good start.

I love this album - its a great "going out for a drive in the summer" album

[AutomatedTeller]

Also, it does look like we all have landlocked starts. The fishing civs all had the same score growth. It's possible we have mirrored or nearly mirrored starts.

[AutomatedTeller]

So, my initial plan was to build stonehenge in city #2.

I'm not sure that's the right plan now. It might be best to just build units, granaries, workers and settlers for now, placing cities so that I don't really need to expand borders except where it is absolutely necessary. I'm planning on getting a lot of cities, since each city is cheap and has gives 2 cpt off the bat.

I can go hunting->AH->mining->BW->fishing->pottery->MC and then figure out what to do. Maybe toss sailing/masonry in there for GL if that looks useful - maybe hand build pyramids, maybe pick up polytheism for ToA and a 50/50 shot at a currency bulb. if I time that right, I can make people think I used the engineer for pyramids

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 1.



Huh. Well, that's one way to balance stuff. Put stone and marble right near the cap Not a criticism or anything.

I think making a dotmap will be fun.

Red is the set of moves I'll send the scout. Orange is where I'll probably send the first warrior.



I guess there are coastal starts.

[AutomatedTeller]

There are between 2 and 4 coastal starts. I kind of think 2, given that 2 civs start with fishing.

I think the 21 GNP is Gavagai, either going AH or an exotic Pottery first. Why? Well, only other person it could be is Jowy going AH with 2 pre-reqs, but that means that Gavagai would be getting 19, which gives an average GNP of 17.7, which would round to 18. Of course, I don't know if the demo screen rounds or truncates.

None of this matters, of course. People are going to get what they get when they get it

[AutomatedTeller]

Turns are moving pretty well.



More food. Lots of ways to dotmap so far.

1413 land tiles means 176 land tiles per person. Add in, say, 40 water tiles and that's about 210 tiles that are "mine", which means I should be able to expand to about 220-230 or so... or get to mine and then start building military to take someone elses, of course. That's between 10 and 20 cities. Quite the build fest.