[SPOILERS] Dark Savant leads the noble Inca as half-noble Churchiill

[Hitru]

Dark Savant, would you like to have a dedlurker/team-mate for this PB?

I did not sign up for this game as I was not sure if I wanted to play in two games simultaneously, but it was so much fun that it would be nice to partisipate also in this one.

Disclaimer, I have seen starting fat crosses of other players (but can't even remember which belongs to who), but other than that I am practically unspoiled. So if any lurker thinks that I should not participate I will of course stand back.

And if you want to fly solo I understand.

[Dark Savant]

I log back in to rename my civ.  (It's a popular naming scheme; I'd prefer to let others know it's already taken.)

Also, another thing I can do on the first turn is this.



Those numbers go into my C&D spreadsheet.  C&D is going to be quite practical with only seven rivals.

There are 1362 land tiles, on a map with (64 * 40) = 2560 tiles total, so that's ~53.2% land.  I think that's too much to allow circumnavigation not just in base Civ 4 (max ~33.3%), but also in RtR (~45%).  So nope, no getting early circumnavigation this time.

(Lurkers, please let me know if that interpretation is incorrect -- it's not going to come into remote consideration for a while either way though.)

Also, 1362 land tiles is only ~170 per player.  That's not a whole lot, but it's actually slightly more than PB37 (~168), which had neighbor distance of 14 tiles.

I'm fact, I'm going to base a working hypothesis that this map is tiled similarly to PB37, until I encounter evidence to the contrary.  Assuming that to be the case, I would have exactly two neighbors, and the chance I have at least one Aggressive neighbor is ~86% (and it'll be higher if my hypothesis is wrong).

[Dark Savant]

Dark Savant, would you like to have a dedlurker/team-mate for this PB?

I did not sign up for this game as I was not sure if I wanted to play in two games simultaneously, but it was so much fun that it would be nice to partisipate also in this one.

Disclaimer, I have seen starting fat crosses of other players (but can't even remember which belongs to who), but other than that I am practically unspoiled. So if any lurker thinks that I should not participate I will of course stand back.

And if you want to fly solo I understand.

I was prepared to go it alone, but I'd actually appreciate it for someone to advise me not to make military mistakes.  (I think I can avoid the non-military kind well enough.)

Thank you for the offer, I'd gladly accept.

[OT4E]

I was prepared to go it alone, but I'd actually appreciate it for someone to advise me not to make military mistakes.  (I think I can avoid the non-military kind well enough.)

I will remind that you need to kill someone to win from times to times.

[Dark Savant]

I was prepared to go it alone, but I'd actually appreciate it for someone to advise me not to make military mistakes.  (I think I can avoid the non-military kind well enough.)

I will remind that you need to kill someone to win from times to times.

Yes, which is why I probably need the reminder to build more axes or swords sometime, right?

[Dark Savant]

Turn 1 (3960 BC)

Aside from discovering food and figuring out where to put our second city, I need to figure out the lay of the land.

The working hypothesis is that we're on a long narrow strip of land, so I'll need to figure out what directions the land stretches out in.

That water visible to the southwest is all fresh.



It thus won't be a waste of time to have the scout go poke through there.

There's another lake to the southeast the scout can look across, and we can also take a look at what looks like the coast already there to our south.  Scout heads SE - SW from the hill.



There's more food, and that's already a good-looking site for a city.  No seafood yet, but I'm sure it'll show up.

I'll start keeping track of demographics.  Right now, they don't tell us anything, other than no one else having water in their first ring.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 2 (3920 BC)

No point having the scout investigate that little peninsula -- I can always have a random quechua investigate later.

Let's walk west into that forest.



Ooh, cows.  Yeah, that's an even better site for a second city.

I wonder if a lot of rivals have sites like that?  It's even highly resistant to amphibious assault later in the game!

Or maybe we just have food like this in every direction; I don't know yet. 

On the other hand, I'm already beginning to wonder where the luxury resources are that aren't our starting ivory (on most maps you'll at least turn up a Calendar resource like immediately), but if they happen to be scarce, that just amplifies the advantage of being Charismatic.  

[Dark Savant]

Turn 3 (3880 BC)

I'm the slacker this turn, so I get to play two turns in a row.

Pushing the scout west reveals more food and more coast.




That's a second little peninsula with food at the end.

C&D: No one built a warrior at 5 hammers/turn.    superdeath's borders expanded from being Creative; he has no water in second-ring.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 4 (3840 BC)

Speaking of luxuries, there's one!



There apparently isn't food everywhere.  Ah, well.    Well, unless you count all the freshwater lakes near the coast.  All those enhanced by lighthouses will eventually add up.  Aside from that, there still isn't any seafood.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 5 (3800 BC)

King's Landing's borders expand; that hill at 8 o'clock now in my borders lets me see across one of those lakes.  And that's enough to see that my scout heading northwest wouldn't be stuck on a peninsula.  Off we go!



Okay, so luxuries definitely weren't forgotten.  Maybe Mining luxuries will be a little hard to come by, but I wouldn't mind that much as other players.

The border expansion shows another river complete with floodplains, and some deer.  The scout found some more deer, and is now standing on that sugar tile.

I'll have the scout complete most of a wide circle around the capital before actively looking for other players.  Animals will start spawning imminently.

That's even more coast without any seafood, incidentally.

C&D: Everyone's borders have now expanded, which includes zero water tiles anywhere.  This is also the first turn someone could have researched a technology, but no one seems to be in a hurry to research Archery.