[PLAYER THREAD] Brian's Awesome Thread of Awesomeness

[Brian Shanahan]

Turn is played (we're up to 19 now). Miguelito's offer was World Map for World Map, which I greedily accepted.

The world:

Mr Freeze:

Poison Ivy:

King Tut:

Not sure who we're going to call Auro of the Svarts though.

And finally a buffer city site between us and Bing:

In game terms, the settler is out and moved towards the city site that will grab the gold and steal the wheat. I queued up a warrior and after that will be a second worker. Our second city will look to build culture first before going onto building a stable to get out some horsemen. I think we need to fill out our immediate areas and then decide on a plan of campaign. We're fairly covered by mountains but that does also mean we might find it harder to attack without being spotted way out.

[Brian Shanahan]

PS this is the obligatory post about how we got royally screwed over by the map maker and where we wonder what we did to him in a past life.

But no, seriously, looks to be a fairly even map so far.

The one thing I might say (and I don't think it disadvantages us) but looking from the mountains, I think the land between Bing and Q is very open compared to the rest of us (no choke points), which might force them into fighting each other.

[shallow_thought]

Wow that's a lot of new info to process. From blindly wandering to half the world visible in two turns.

We definitely need to scout south though, find out how close Auro is.

[Brian Shanahan]

Wow that's a lot of new info to process. From blindly wandering to half the world visible in two turns.

We definitely need to scout south though, find out how close Auro is.

Scouting south is a priority. Will be playing the game in a few minutes, just need to download the fix for the version of Civ4 I have on a USB to play at my parents' house.

Edit: Save is played. Sorry for the lack of pictures, don't have Imgur login details.

Founded my second city Mt. Erebus at the City flag for the gold. It stole the wheat from the capital (which I must rename) and started on a Reliquary for the culture (and given that it's looking like a unit pump the spirit guide promotion). My current worker moved to the plains tile north of the city to farm next turn.
In the capital, the citizen who lost the wheat tile is going on to the grass forest to get the growth and warrior both done next turn, when it'll do a worker. I'll turn on the governor to see the best configuration for getting the worker out.
In exploration, my scout went south west onto the jungle, to travel generally south to scout Auro. It found marble and a cow. The warrior in the north west found another plains hill sheep, enough for a filler city up there in the medium term.
In economy, I went all gold for this turn to plump up the coffers as we're 0 gold at -1gpt. Next turn will see HBR back on.

Just looking at long term civics, given the general hilliness, aristograrianism is definitely the way to go here. It'll allow us to farm most of the flat ground and mine the hills while ensuring decent food, some commerce and hammers. Definitely most of the city sites are going to be more hammer oriented than cottage suitable, though the capital will get a few for early commerce at the least.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for the lack of comment last night, I was over at a friend's house and didn't get to play until late. In summary last turn consisted of me growing my second city, my south east scout finding nothing and my north west warrior finding also nothing.

Today was slightly different, my scout went south west two tiles and found some Finns:

Here, I'll just move my scout NW>NW away from the border, no need to be antagonistic at this early stage, even if a worker would really help our growth curve. From the position of the worker and what he's doing, I'm guessing that Auro's getting ready to settle in this area too. We'll need to scout out the land between ourselves and him and figure out where to plant our border cities.

I also took my first demographics screenshot:

We're ahead in food, middle of the road at best in GNP and hammers. Interestingly enough, despite not really doing anything warrior wise we're second in power. Got slightly lucky in respect of animals I'd say.

And finally the locality:

Almost a complete scout, we must swing a unit back east to check out the few unrevealed tiles in that mountain range and get a better view of our south but so far I'm happy with our scouting efforts, especially with Miguelito giving us 3 civs worth of map knowledge. One thing I didn't mention was that Miguelito planted his second city to his west, sharing a riverside rice from the capital and picking up a gold tile and later the fish. Good spot.

The way the map is set up, the best avenues for combat are definitely north south. Most of the mountain ranges generally range north to south making east west fighting harder, while at the equator there are wider passes to allow for more manoeuvring around or behind fortress cities.

[shallow_thought]

I opened up the save this morning and had a look - definitely agree with not needless antagonising Auro. I don't think there was any way to signal "we're definitely leaving that worker alone" other than moving away, so I'm hoping he doesn't have to pull it back for a turn to no good purpose ...

I guess the natural ally based on geometry is Q, across the diagonal with little or no direct contact.

[Brian Shanahan]

I've played the save, but am too lazy to upload screenshots.

In terms of the turn, first of all Auro moved his worker away from my scout, I proceded to move the scout 1W>1N and then offered Auro a world map exchange to signal good intent (for now). North of the capital, I found a clam just off the coast in such a way that it will allow us to settle a city to also use the reagents (decent tile, bad resource). My other warrior north of the Illians fought and defeated a griffon out of the fog and won a promotion (he won with 2.2 health remaining). I'm thinking of promoting him Guerilla 1 (the hills promotion) and stuffing him in a hilly border city down the line.

Aside from that I continue to grow my second city and get a worker out of the first, I think a bit of infrastructure in the capital is next to grow it to the happy cap before doing a run of settlers with Mt. Erebus providing warriors for defence.

[shallow_thought]

I've played the save, but am too lazy to upload screenshots.

In terms of the turn, first of all Auro moved his worker away from my scout, I proceded to move the scout 1W>1N and then offered Auro a world map exchange to signal good intent (for now).  North of the capital, I found a clam just off the coast in such a way that it will allow us to settle a city to also use the reagents (decent tile, bad resource).  My other warrior north of the Illians fought and defeated a griffon out of the fog and won a promotion (he won with 2.2 health remaining).  I'm thinking of promoting him Guerilla 1 (the hills promotion) and stuffing him in a hilly border city down the line.

Aside from that I continue to grow my second city and get a worker out of the first, I think a bit of infrastructure in the capital is next to grow it to the happy cap before doing a run of settlers with Mt. Erebus providing warriors for defence.

Been to a wine tasting (and been too lazy to open the save), so ...

That said, sounds good. I still think it's worth trying to sketch out a long term tech plan even this early (or, at least, spend some time on thinking at the weekend). PHI bulbs are likely to be key, and getting them planned early is important, and that impacts choice of infrastructure (prophets or sages?). While building, growing to making good use of the CHM extended happy cap seems sensible, if worker labour can keep up.

[Brian Shanahan]

I've played the save, but am too lazy to upload screenshots.

In terms of the turn, first of all Auro moved his worker away from my scout, I proceded to move the scout 1W>1N and then offered Auro a world map exchange to signal good intent (for now).  North of the capital, I found a clam just off the coast in such a way that it will allow us to settle a city to also use the reagents (decent tile, bad resource).  My other warrior north of the Illians fought and defeated a griffon out of the fog and won a promotion (he won with 2.2 health remaining).  I'm thinking of promoting him Guerilla 1 (the hills promotion) and stuffing him in a hilly border city down the line.

Aside from that I continue to grow my second city and get a worker out of the first, I think a bit of infrastructure in the capital is next to grow it to the happy cap before doing a run of settlers with Mt. Erebus providing warriors for defence.

Been to a wine tasting (and been too lazy to open the save), so ...

That said, sounds good. I still think it's worth trying to sketch out a long term tech plan even this early (or, at least, spend some time on thinking at the weekend). PHI bulbs are likely to be key, and getting them planned early is important, and that impacts choice of infrastructure (prophets or sages?). While building, growing to making good use of the CHM extended happy cap seems sensible, if worker labour can keep up.

Hope the wine tasting was good. Good idea to get cogitating though tomorrow night won't be it, home to Bray Wanderers tomorrow night. But I can get to thinking over the weekend.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm going to be lazy again tonight, as I'm just back from a game, Cobh Ramblers (my team) beating Bray Wanderers 2-1 at home.

In game terms, Auro took the map trade, so I've the world mapped out. Now to meet Q and Bing and my explorations will be done. To that end, my griffon beating warrior moved south towards Ilian territory and will keep going to the Elves afterwards.

My second worker pops out next turn, he'll build a second cottage on the other cotton and after that will mine a few tiles before moving down to help the first worker flesh out Mt. Erebus. In demographics, I'm bad in manufacturing, middling good in GNP and tops in food. I think I'm consistently top in the food department which is good going the early game, now to turn that into actual power.

Aside from that nothing much happened this turn.

Will post the two turns of screenshots next turn.