Turn 2 and Turn 3 and Turn 4– 3920 BC and 3880 BC and 3840 BC
First, I investigated the population question from the Victory screen.
Our fellow players all have the normal 1 starting population. And according to my Worldbuilder test, Barbarian population does affect the percentage we see in the Victory screen. So the Barbarians do in fact have 8 population at the moment in this game. So they have a maximum of 8 cities and a minimum of 1 city.
Over the coming turns, I can keep track of player population with this Top 5 Cities/Wonders screens and the Demographics screen, and world population with the Victory screen. The difference will be the Barbarian population. By seeing how much that number grows turn by turn, I can try to guess how many cities the Barbarian have. For instance, if the Barbarians gain 8 population in one turn, then that will confirm that they have 8 cities. I think this will be practical to keep up until people start founding their third cities around T50, and by then I should have a good idea how many Barbarian cities there are.
Also, if we see a Barbarian city tile while exploring, then that would help a lot.
By the way, I checked the Religion screen too, and nothing weird is happening with that. The Barbarians do not have any religions. Or any Wonders, for that matter.
…
I decided not to try to build The Great Wall before a Settler. After deciding that, Animal Husbandry was the obvious choice of tech instead of Masonry.
This was not an easy decision. I delayed choosing a technology until Turn 3.
. But I got away with it. Meddling with dark powers not meant for man to understand is just part of a day’s work around here.
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Anyway, in a “normal” Raging Barbarians game, The Great Wall would be an excellent Wonder and worth building early. Building it in the capital before the first Settler would be a huge blow to the snowball, but it would likely be worth it. However, this is not a “normal” Raging Barbarians game, and in my opinion the known and possible changes from “normal” make trying to build The Great Wall so soon a bad gamble.
The Raging Barbarians might not be as aggressive as usual. Again, it is possible that Archery has been taken away from them. Also, we now know that they have between 1 and 8 cities, and those cities are probably well-defended, and if those cities are on our continent, then the garrison units might count against the Barbarian spawncap! There could be a lot less Barbarians spawning than normal if that is true. I also discovered on Turn 2 that Scooter has placed some Barbarian units on our continent in the wilderness, but set them not to move until Turn 120. This is really interesting and I will write more about it later. For now, the point is that those units might count against the Barbarian spawncap too. And they will definitely work as fogbusters for us, at least. The waves of Raging Barbarians might be a lot weaker.
And then there is Gavagai. I am not please that he picked Industrious. He is very likely to try to build The Great Wall very early, everyone knows that. Our Creative trait gets us 2 extra hammers from getting to work the Ivory tile 2 turns sooner. Those 2 hammers make no difference in any plan for building The Great Wall. Gavagai’s second prerequisite for Masonry and his Fast Workers can make a difference. There are so many slightly different paths to build The Great Wall that balance speed and development differently, but Gavagai just has a slight advantage along all of them. Except the stupid “work nothing but Ivory, improve Ivory first” plan, which is the same for both of us. Assuming his start is at least as good as ours. Which it probably is. Start imbalance is likely not among the ways this map is crazy. Everyone started on a Plains Hill and has a Forest of some sort to work. Superdeath expanded his borders at the same time we did, and we can see someone has 5 hammers too. So he has Ivory, and Gavagai probably does too.
Gavagai will try to build The Great Wall, and he has the advantage in the race. And if we try and he beats us, then that is terrible for us. A consolation prize of useless gold, and possibly left with no good defense against the Barbarians just as the grace period ends.
Building The Great Wall in the capital before a Settler is too risky of a gamble for me. I don’t want to do it. But let’s think about building The Great Wall later, about when the Settler is done and we have more information about the Raging Barbarians.
The plan for the next little while is of course research Animal Husbandry and finish the Worker. Worker goes Pigs to Corn to Ivory. Research Bronze Working and The Wheel, most likely in that order. Be sure to finish some Warriors as the capital grows, but I think there should be another Worker trained in there somewhere too. This plan will be worked on more now.
Exploring has been a lot of fun so far. There are anomalies everywhere.
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There are unnatural tiles that are not resources, but have yields as good as resources, but with their own quirks.
There is a Mine on a Grassland Forest Flat north of the capital. This tile is like a pre-improved Grassland Horse minus the commerce.
There is an Oasis Coast by the Gold. This tile is like a pre-improved Clam, but it interacts with ships differently.
There is a Floodplains Tundra Hill and a Floodplains Snow Hill. They can be Mined to have the yields of a Grassland Horse and a Plains Cow, respectively.
There is also a Cottage on the Plains Forest Flatland by the Corn in the south. That is like a Plains Forest Fur that must be made over time. Or maybe like a cottage on a new type of Floodplains, with a 1/2 yield instead of a 3/0 yield. Or maybe analogy is not the best way to understand all these strange tiles.
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These anomalies matter for our dotmap. I will mark them with signs next turn.
There is Fallout scattered on a few types of terrain. Fallout on land has no yields, costs 2 move, and cannot ever be improved. No way we reach Ecology to clean it up, so it will always be a hole in our road network and could have tactical relevance in war. The Fallout on the Mountains is just aesthetic (wait, except for the unhealthiness). And there is some Fallout on that Lake in the west. No yields, though it still provides fresh water. Healthy, I’m sure.
. And probably slows down ships too.
Which could be relevant because there is a Fort adjacent to that Lake!
Also Roads, but we already knew that.
NOTE TO SELF: We cannot pillage these Roads! No pillaging tiles in neutral territories!
This will be useful for exploring, and can speed armies on their way, human or Barbarian. I know Barbarians can physically use Roads and Forts, but I don’t know if they are smart enough to adapt their behavior to pathfind optimally regarding them.
And Barbarians will not pillage them, or any tiles in neutral territory.
Then there is the Barbarian Maceman guarding the Stone. When you hover over him, the text says “Cannot move (116)”. Also he let our Scout live. I don’t know how Scooter did this. Debug stuff, I guess?
The Maceman is accruing fortification, so he will have effective strength of 10 soon. I don’t think the Stone is a good enough tile yield-wise, to justify attacking the Maceman for a long time, at least until Horse Archer or War Elephants, but if we want the Stone for a Wonder, then it could be hammer-effective to attack the Macemen. Need to do some combat sims for that. Or The Great Wall could kick him out, but I don’t know how he would react. Actually I don’t know how he would react to culture in general.
This is a really interesting feature. Took me by surprise.
Lastly, the goodie hut by the Gold and Oasis Coast. “Technically disabled.” So none spawned on the base map, but Scooter added some in unusual positions manually. This one is a reward for Sailing. Or culture. Culture does have the best results, as I recall. I need to read Charriu’s thread again. I feel like there could be some out there guarded by Barbarians on our own landmass.
Lastly, I should mention the basic shape of the land and water. There is Coast in the north like the west. I can’t tell if that land to the northwest continues unblocked or not. Mangroves make flying camera work more difficult.
There is a mess of Peaks and Mangroves south of the capital. I want the Scout to make his way around that on his circle around home.
No big oceans yet. No deep ocean tiles at all.
This post is long enough. I will keep up a better reporting schedule from now on, but the game is very fast.
