[SPOILERS] The Return of the Angel King

[Jowy]

A wild lion appears and saves the thread from page 2.

[Jowy]

Scout wins and earns an experience point!



Here's the finished map of our island. HitAnyKey's capital blocks any path to the southeast.
Now the question is which I fear more: a Skirmisher choke, or barbarians. I reckon barbs, because they will spawn for certain.
So I should send the scout back to prevent spawns near my borders.

[Jowy]

I recalled Commodore talking about the map in the organization thread and went to check back on his posts. Found this gem:

Okay, looks like we're in a current equilibrium a bit low of 34, but that's fine; I'm going to make me map, make it for 30-33+one Shang-ra-la-peaky-city-full-of-settled merchants working spies. Sullla gets Darius of India, that's then only civ I'm "assigning".

...that being said, I am going to slide the scales a bit, and you will find variable density upon this map based on preferences. There will be lusher equatorial spots with tighter spacing and more realistic temperate zones with north of 220 tiles per person, and I'll roll each person in their preferred "band". Now these are not OCC tightness spaces anywhere, OCC chanters like Brick are best served teaming with reasonable more normal folks like Mardoc; we're not cramming anything, and the variance should be lower than the de facto variance of PB13. BUT, please do not pull a retep people, going wandering will earn you mapmaker bile.

This gives a little more info on the map. Apparently I was thrown in this duel because I wanted the map to be small. It's not the same fucking thing. I wanted everyone to have less land, not for me to have less land and others to have more! It's like voting for a wonder to be banned or not, with the result being that those who voted for it to be banned can't build it, while the rest can.

[Jowy]

In light of recent RB smurf drama over at PB16, I too have to confess something.

Surprise, it's me!!

[Jowy]

We've got horses. It should speed things up, giving us more food and hammers than the desert hill gold mine would. I need to sim it out and check on the tech timings though.

[Jowy]

False alarm. We need hunting before we can improve the horse tile, and our workers will be tied up elsewhere by then.

[Jowy]

Deer was improved, and we jumped to #1 in Food, despite some cities already being size four.

[Jowy]

Here is the north completely unfogged:


Nothing too exciting. Moai city grabs another eventual grassland mine.

[Jowy]

The island is not uninhabited. Good f'n game. Ain't gonna be much of a contest with others getting 220 tiles, and us forced in a duel getting what, 50 tiles?

[Jowy]

I might have to risk it and go for it anyway. What are my other options? Conquer my neighbor who has protective skirmishers and a hill capital? Go south where the risks are the same, but the land seems worse and the cost of getting there fast is higher? I suppose the one positive side of this is that Yuris was only now scouting out that coast, 26 turns into the game. Chances are that the north island is inhabited by a 220 tile lottery winner instead of two close quarters duelists like ours. Which would mean that as long as I don't land next to his capital, which is going to be completely up to luck, I might live for a decent amount of turns before he inevitably conquers me with his superior amount of land and cities. However, the one thing advocating for the southern island is the variety of the happiness resources. There is incense, sugar, wine, and even stone on that island, things that we lack on ours. It does seem like I'm designed to settle there, but I can't exactly trust the map maker to have that much foresight considering the completely absurd setup we have to begin with. Still pissed about being non-randomly (!!!) placed on a shitty small island, having to meta the shit out of this map just to hope to secure a third city with actual land tiles.