[no players] Geeks and Lurks and Nerds Better Scurry...

[NobleHelium]

Just read Gazglum's start. Generally speaking, a second food resource is better than a plains hill. I (re)learned that in PB12 and it was demonstrated in the "democracy" Pitboss.

He could have opted to settle southeast on the coast though. Obviously clam is not great, but it does get the PH and he still gets a second food resource for use.

[Sullla]

The plan for Gazglum currently is to attack him with Elephants and Catapults. I will finish Monarchy research shortly, and will start on Construction. Maybe Currency first - my economy is still in a reasonable shape, and could be improved if I start working Merchants, but if I continue expanding far off to the islands, Currency will become necessary. Also, doubling up intercontinental trade routes would be helpful. Not sure yet, will decide once I get there. But the current inclination is to go Construction first - I would prefer to get rid of the threat in the south sooner rather than later

Didn't want to offer this as advice in the Yuris spoiler thread: I'm not a huge fan of this proposed tech path. Going after Code of Laws, Metal Casting, Monarchy, and Construction before researching Currency is rarely a good idea, especially on a map with lots of island cities. Yuris is working quite hard to avoid the best economic option available. (Plus this is RB Mod, so elephants versus Gazglum's vultures isn't even much of an advantage.)

Elsewhere, Ilios has played a solid opening (if a little weak on the GNP front), Dhalphir is solidly in third place, and Gazglum/Whosit badly messed up their openings. I feel for the last two, since they had a great deal of enthusiasm and would have benefitted a lot from having dedicated lurkers to hold their hands and offer advice. Maybe we can write a postmortem for them after this game is over to provide some suggestions on what went wrong.

[Commodore]

Yeah, Gazglum seems to have done fine after turn one; sadly his turn one was to decide on moving to a one-food capital away from both two-food options.

[SevenSpirits]

I'm not even convinced that moving onto that plains hill was a bad choice.

I looked at his start and if he's doing poorly (I haven't followed this game at all), I think it's because he's charismatic and has a grand total of one good food resource (5+ food tile) in his entire empire. On top of the land being poor, that's pretty much a wasted trait. OK... that, and Yuri settled in his face with a holy city.

[BaII]

I'm pretty sure Whosit needs some start relying on a specialist economy now since his tech rate is abysmal. I personally think he should try and get out a few lib's out to run scientists and hit some key economics tech to get out of the gutter.

[thestick]

Think Gazglum should be building Jumbos instead of Vultures? And wow, Horse Archers sure are nerfed with War Elephants back in the picture.

EDIT: Whoops, he doesn't have HBR. Carry on.

[thestick]

In the East, I am taking a gamble that will sink my economy further. I have found a superb New World site, one north of Dhalpir's archer in this picture:

Marble, crab, cow, fish, silk, sheep. Plus another canal, that would give my ships the ability to threaten DHalpir if needed. I have a settler 3 turns away, with vulture protection and an archer and missionary hurrying behind.

So this is the new world from the current turn.

Gazglum now has a vulture in the area, and you can see part of his borders in the top left there. That means we are in contest for this area. I believe he's going for the tile that my archer is sitting on as a settling location. I don't know how close he is to having a settler in the area, but with a vulture around it's probably not far off - a few turns.

In the long term, this could cement control over the continent. But in the short term it will damage my economy, and if Dhalpir gets angry (it is closer to him than me, if only slightly), he could probably take it off me. But given my situtation I like the risky play, and it would be fun. If I do lose it, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

...any city that Gazglum can found, I can hit half a dozen turns later with three HAs and three axes - there's no way any island settling force can defend a city against that.

I'd rather not fight Gaz, to be honest - I was hoping I could nab the middle of this continent peacefully and focus on Whosit and Ilios - but it's not to be, it seems... It's almost a shame we don't read each other's threads, because I would rather Gaz know that I can shred his city and that he doesn't even try to found it, because that would be a better outcome for both of us.

[Ilios]

It looks pretty unfair to me, to the point I'd be pretty annoyed at the map. Guy in the middle has enemies in every direction, while the other four just have to worry about one real threat, plus the comparatively laughable possibility that this middle guy with 3 other neighbors can pose a military threat to them.

In terms of expansion, guy in the middle has to race to claim every bit of land he wants, while everyone else is expected to expand towards him. Island expansion and a little backfilling will happen afterward and guy in the middle will be locked out of it, not even getting a single island. It's true that at this point the other players will start to have a second real neighbor, and it will be over sea which is maybe more dangerous, but I still would not envy the middle guy in the slightest.

Agreed, which is why I'm letting him own a good 30% more land.

Putting more open land around middle guy doesn't really solve anything because people will expand towards him regardless, and the area will be filled with all players trying to claim what they can. Middle guy will probably even have a harder time, as other players can more easily settle highly defended blocker cities, while middle guy must keep military flexible. But the worst part is, after the land surrounding middle guy is claimed, everyone else still gets to backfill. There is some small effect of people preferring to spread evenly in all directions, as it's easier, but this should be a relatively small factor in the situation.

I realize it's possible I am overreacting, but I would not choose a map laid out like this.

Hah!