MET A NEIGHBOR. Sorry for the lack of updates the last 2-3 turns, just hadn't scouted out anything interesting and nothing had been built. But now that I have a confirmed neighbor, lots of endless speculation to come.
Here's the shot
Here's the rest of my known land
Opponent analysis based on half-read prior pitbosses (hey I'm new here, I don't have much else to go on) to come. I speculate Jowy/TheBlackSword are off in the east with a slight southward bent, based on geography/where the scout appeared.
Ok, so I've read PB9 and PB2, and from both (though I realize PB2 is a very long time ago) Jowy comes off as one of the weaker players at Realms Beyond. So as far as neighbors go he's a pretty good one to have. I don't think I intend to go super aggressive against him anytime soon since this is a NTT game and economy is key, unless he's right behind beyond the fog in the east or something.
A potential problem with this is Jowy is playing Pacal of India, which even in the RBmod is the econ king. Versus I have the aggressive trait. Unless I outplay him skill wise (potentially possible, but I feel uncomfortable asserting I'm more skilled than anyone here until I have some direct evidence), he's going to be able to expand and tech faster than me.
Really capital and copper location will determine alot of this, if he's rushable and I have easy copper it might be worth it. Particularly because I almost certainly have bronze working far before them. They got a tech as turn 7 rolled, which means given their starting techs and the fact that they got a city size point increase they probably researched fishing and are currently building a workboat. That's only with a brief "gut-intuiting/memory" analysis though, so I'll break out the math in a bit and see if that all checks out.
What this means military wise is they yet remain 2 techs away from bronze working, AND probably have to research hunting or ag before then to be able to work a land food. So if they're super close an aggressive ax rush could be very possible.
But if they're significantly further than like 10 tiles away (very likely given the map I've revealed) peace still seems rather appealing. Finding their capital is becoming a priority, which means I might need to change what I do with my scout. If I think i've revealed enough of the southern area for 2nd-city determining purposes he might just strike off east to find Jowy/blacksword.
So its been a pretty exciting 2 turns. We got bronze working and popped a hut, both with very positive results. The hut I popped (I saw it last turn, which I didn't update, then got it this turn) gave us the wheel! Noice. While popping something like Iron Working would have been hilarious / awesome (I think iron working can come from huts, right?), the wheel is definitely a good draw. It will speed my path to pottery, which I'm beelining to at the moment. It will also give me some added flexibility with worker turns, so instead of sitting idle a can plop down a road.
We also got bronze working, and have copper right where I was planning a second city site anyway! Though, you'll notice I guessed copper was likely in those hills a few pages back, so +10 prescience points to me. I think right now I should settle city #2 where discussed earlier, 2N of the copper, chop out a barracks, and then turn it into a production powerhouse.
Speaking of that, the specializations of my early cities are coming into focus for me. My capital makes a good hybrid (as most capitals oft do), with floodplains for commerce and hills for production. A city settled south near the gold (sharing clams) will be a good short term commerce pump for the early game, and then I can make some cottage farm cities to the south-east.
Final note - my scout could get attack next turn. We should be fine given its just a wolf and I'm on a hill, but fingers crossed against a bad die roll.
RB mod change. People get a bit annoyed when players can pop stuff like Metal Casting from sheer luck, and other players have to build an entire 60 turn strategy around Oracle to get it early, for example.
Met another neighbor! The scout's location indicates Old Harry's capital is probably to the south. This substantially changes the dynamic of our continent, and also the order in which I need to settle things. Once I do 1-2 more moves to finish off this fog south of my capital, I'm going to strike out either South or East to find one of their capitals so I can get a sense of the lay of the land.
Amusingly, I approached OH's scout from an entirely difficult direction than that of my capital, so if they go out to deliberately find me they'll probably end up running into Jowy instead.
Of course one of Jowy or OH could be messing with my sense of direction in the same manner, but nothing I can do about that at the moment.
I'm going to keep all my EP's on Jowy until I have graphs, then switch them all to OH.
So nothing has really happened lately. My scout survived another fight with a wolf and got the woody 1 promo, and is now healing. Worker completed a pasture and is now chopping out a second worker since my city grew to size 2.
Sorry for the lack of updates/pictures, as I mentioned on the tech thread my normal civ laptop stop functioning a few days ago, and in the process of switching where I was playing I got off the rhythm of updating. That's no real excuse, but that combined with lack of interesting decisions made me lapse a bit. I promise more pretty pictures and updates to come.
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Ok, so here's my thoughts going forward. I've unfogged the territory immediately around my capital, enough for settling in the foreseeable future. Now that that is done, I'm going to prioritize figuring out where OH and Jowy are (I realize they have other teammates, but those are the members with the shortest names )
Jowy is somewhere in the east, OH is somewhere in the south. These are I think reasonable conclusions based on where I HAVEN'T found their capital, where I found their scouts, and where their scouts were coming from. Given my scout's current location, finding OH is probably the easier task, so I think I'll strike out south, sticking vaguely to the coast (I suspect everyone/most of us got coastal starts from the land area points) but going inland for hills and stuff.
Hopefully neither OH or Jowy will snipe that hut still sitting north of my capital. Given I know OH's scout didn't head north (since I headed north-west towards my capital after encountering him) Jowy is the more likely person to stumble on the hut with his scout, especially if his capital is on the same latitude as mine. Nothing much to do about it right now, hopefully I can pop it with a warrior after my settler is out.
These screenshots are from a turn ago, but nothing much has happened since then, just moved the worker to the cows and the scout 1S.
We also now have graphs on Jowy. Nothing he could do at the moment besides an insane early rush/choke would really affect me much, so I'm not going to do that careful of parsing, but from the power graph at least I can see he lacks bronze working or much additional military besides maybe a warrior.
So, in sum, plans for the next 10-20 turns (not necessarily in order):
1) Locate OH's capital
2) Pop the hut north of my capital
3) Settle 2nd city 2N of the copper
4) chop out a barracks at that city
5) get cottages up and running on the flood plains
6) Settle a city south of me by the gold, exact spot being debated between a couple of spaces.
After that, I'll have to reevaluate priorities based on where everyone is located and how they expanded. If I could manage to grab those floodplains SE of me that would be great, but they could easily be closer to OH or Jowy than to me. Well OH can't be THAT much closer given what I've mapped out, but Jowy could easily be right on the other side of them or something.
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