[PB90] naufragar's Ottomen don't have a leg to stand on.

[naufragar]

I've been so busy that I didn't even report on founding my first colony!


Copper appeared in the best possible place. Warrior on galley to stake a claim somewhere. The worker overflow will go into an Imperialistic settler. For those of you with sharp eyes, yes, that is an anomalous coast tile under my galley.

[naufragar]

Holy smokes. Deity difficulty wilderness produces so many barbs:


According to Vodka, we've got a 31% chance to die, which is massive. So damn annoying.

[Charriu]

Does Vodka include the chance that an animal does not attack

[naufragar]

Does Vodka include the chance that an animal does not attack

Forgive me, I'm quite stupid and learn very little and very slowly.

[Charriu]

Animals have an extra dice roll before a fight, deciding if they attack or not

[naufragar]

And I had somehow instantly forgotten your notes on animals and resource tiles.

The following three checks are only done if moving into the tile does not result in a combat....

- any bonus resource (hidden or not)
...

I should've remembered that the wolf in the west couldn't attack my warrior because he would first have to step onto either the silver or the cow. As I said, I'm an idiot.

The warrior survived with minimal damage:


You can see that I've got a pretty good network of fog-busters. Hopefully the barbs bother someone else.

Here's a picture of my core:


The early game of PB90 has been interesting. I wouldn't go so far as to call it fun: it's been stressful knowing there are Fin and Org civs out there. It's also been a real headache figuring out how to leave my island. You can see my second city building a worker at size 1. This is one of my big taboos. Whenever possible, I try to let new cities start to grow immediately and use workers from more developed places. The disjointedness of the empire prevents that. I will send one of the two capital workers along with the new settler so that a city founded by the silver can get started. Otherwise, that city would be unfeasible. It still is practically indefensible. 

I'll settle my fourth city for the gems. I'll remind lurkers and myself that this is a Deity/Small game, which means just absolutely crushing maintenance costs. Techs won't cost so many beakers, but I won't have many beakers left after giving all my coins to Sid the Tax Man.

I'm not really a big planner. I generally play by feel. I'm not as aphoristic as some of the Realms Beyond people, but here's one proverb of mine: Lighthouses suck!

That's it. Lighthouses are just absolutely terrible, and I feel bad every time I build one. I have no math behind this. As I said, it's just a feeling, but take a look at my capital: It currently has a happy cap of 6. With silver & gems, it'll have a happy cap of 8. I have 6 good land tiles to work: 2 wheat, 1 furs, 3 green riverside flatlands. Even if I didn't want to work a plains cottage or scientist or something, do I really want to spend 60 hammers to go from 1 to 2 food on a couple coastal tiles? Once the happy cap gets higher, I'll probably build one, and Edine probably gets one to boost the Fish, but I'll be annoyed when building them. Ugh. Lighthouses suck.

I realize I don't often talk about my planning much. I normally just report what's going on. This is because I would hate for people to think that I plan.  As I said, I play by feel. But if we must plan: Deity/Small costs are absolutely brutal and mean that Imperialistic is practically worthless. This means I need to rely on my other trait, Philosophical. Because of the Deity/Small setting, I need to get to Currency as soon as possible to turn a profit. I have a feeling that after two more cities my tech rate will be completely underwater. I think, therefore, my tech path has to be: Animal Husbandry->Pottery (for desperately needed cottages)->Writing. At this point we turn off tech while building two libraries to generate two Great Scientists. We use one in the capital for an Academy. (Given the relative richness of the capital, I think an Academy is an excellent use of a GP.) We use the second Scientist to bulb Math. Hopefully we've built up enough of a bankroll by then that we can turn on research, funnel it through the Academy, and get to Currency before the end of the game. Deity/Small. Yuck. 

[naufragar]

I would like a second experience point, so I'm trying to goad the wolf into attacking:


Otherwise, quiet game.

I saw this:


And I wondered. I believe from the fog bleed that Miguelito (of the Inca) is my Western neighbor. I wondered if he discovered me. He hasn't met me officially, so perhaps not. It's always possible he saw the same fog blled. Inca, apart from being Financial and having the absolutely amazing Terrace, also have the quecha, which means a warrior on a galley is a bit scarier than it otherwise would be. Yuck, the Inca are so strong.

Of course, I could have misread the color and my neighbor might not be Miguelito.

[naufragar]

Been slow to report. I met Aristobulus last turn, who's playing Montezuma. His scout is in my stack:


He's already got one more city than me, and I'm Imp! I'm almost certain his scout trekked across the icy wastes, which means that I probably only have my immediate land to expand into. Across the snow belongs to somebody else, I bet.

Ari has been around forever, but the last game he reported was several years ago. I don't think he's reporting this one. I'll ask around over at Civforum about his style. I really like Montezuma, and got a chance to play him in PB88, but I doubt he's going to do so hot this game. His traits are quite weak compared to Fin/Org and I haven't seen enough food on this map to make Sacrificial Altars overpowered.

[naufragar]

Aristobulus (Ari) is a vet, but I wasn't able to read much about him. His PB88 appearance wasn't reported by him and touched on only briefly by his neighbors. Hagen, on the other hand...



(Civforum's Hagen is our Civac2.) Civac is an amazing civ player. I read his PB88 thread a while ago, and he played extremely cautiously, so that may explain why he has two warriors stacked up. On the other hand, poking with two warriors could cause us some upset. We should be completely safe, but it would require us to respond and I would prefer to not be shifted from my plans.

A silver lining is that his leader, Qui Shi Huang, is not good (Ind/Pro). The dark cloud, however, is the absolutely terrifying Cho-ko-nus that Civac can field. Interesting game. My demos are pretty bad, but I'm #3 in land area and about to found a fourth city. So far, so Imperialistic. Let's see if I can translate that into anything.

I suspect that there are only a few tiles of frozen wasteland along the "spines" of the continents. That means everybody's going to have long, stretched out empires along coastlines, vulnerable at a million points on land and by see. We shall see.

[naufragar]

Quick report before I disappear again (and you all first. Civforum's gonna have to wait a bit. )


I've got a galley ferrying some units to the outer continent. The plan is to dock the boat in Bursa so the worker can step right out onto the deer, saving a turn. This is complicated by Civac. He could have two warriors on the ice tile 1SW of my earlier sign and has yet to play his turn. If he moves to those hills, we could be in trouble. I am a resolute avoider of clock games which means if I got first for the next couple of turns, he could force a spear whip out of me at Edirne. If he moves to the plains hill while playing second, I won't have a chance to see if his intentions are good or evil and will need to whip. This would annoy me extremely, so hopefully he stays away.

We mined our silver by Ankara. We don't need luxuries just yet, so that worker probably chops. I can't decide if I'm willing to whip off the silver tile for a granary.

Happier news:


This is with tech turned off. With tech on, we're 5th in GNP. I'm not sure that this is enough evidence to validate the Sailing before Bronze Working opening, but I'll just say I'm glad to be back playing Imp. Whenever I don't play it, I get twitchy.

Of course, I now need to figure out where the next wave of expansion goes.