The Clan do not start with any techs, so his score will be 0 points until he settles and gets some from population + the palace (which gives wonder points IIRC).
He had points in the initial save because I accidentally left him with Ancient Chants, which the AI gets for free on Monarch (I generated the game with Tasunke as Player 1, so everyone but him inadvertently had AC for free).
(February 21st, 2015, 00:47)Bobchillingworth Wrote: The Clan do not start with any techs, so his score will be 0 points until he settles and gets some from population + the palace (which gives wonder points IIRC).
He had points in the initial save because I accidentally left him with Ancient Chants, which the AI gets for free on Monarch (I generated the game with Tasunke as Player 1, so everyone but him inadvertently had AC for free).
Ah. Makes sense. Thanks for the info. Well in anycase it is clear he didn't settle yet. Good to know.
Our scout explores a relic from a bygone age...only to hear the last whisper of the fallen god of winter echoing. Mulcarn's old followers, the Illians, have been scattered to the winds, never to return. We can only feel joy that their frigid ice-fields and tundra will not be there to stop the advance of the burning and blackened terrain our demonic rituals will bring...
In due time, we will cover this world in fire and blood and leave nothing behind but ashen wasteland...mwahahahaha.
Ahem. Sorry, didn't see you there.....Ahem... Jormungandr is set to expand its borders by next turn; giving us that tasty looking rice field to cultivate. Next turn also brings the prospects of our first goodie hut! Fingers crossed for technology bonus!
Borders have popped and here't the city screen for those interested.
The village discovered by my scout did not give us a tech, but the map provided shows some interesting features:
Note the hut above the barrow and east of the mountain I'm already drooling over the resources/Patria I spy in the immediate vicinity, and those Standing Stones on the river with nearby northern coastline looks great. We have landed in a lovely corner of the world if I do say so myself.
Greetings, and sorry for the recent inactivity. My bout of technical difficulties is over, and we are back on schedule for regular posts. That being said, turn 5 was taken and nothing of note happened. This early in the game, turns where I simply move my scout and press enter are common and I will therefore not waste yours and my time with a post every single day.
The remnants of ancient Patria-the once mighty empire brought low gives our scout pause. It serves as a sobering reminder of the dangers of this world. We will not be so foolish as to suffer the same fate. With the ruins at our scouting troops back, we are finally positioned to explore our second tribal village! What gifts will the foolish natives bestow on my people before we take their land and make it our dominion?
And the natives give us... a map!
I am dissapointed for the sake of our tribe. I had hoped to gain valuable technological insight to catch up to our rivals who have outpaced us.
Nevertheless, knowledge is power, and with this map comes the location of our first enemy: the Baselraphs. These filthy carnies are led by the somewhat unpredictable Clown King Northstar...for now they will be avoided. There is still a village to in view to the east to explore and given the clowns greater score, they are unlikely to have received a map of us! For the present, we will pretend we do not know of their existence so that they are unaware of our location. This leaves us with more options for strategic expansion.
Here is a VERY tentative outline of a possible Sheaim empire. The important thing to note is that northwest city. It is IM(inexperienced)O an ideal spot. Not only does it snag the important gold and incense resources, it also comes as close as possible to completely filling what appears to be an Isthmus. This would hopefully provide us a defensible border with the Baselraphs, and prevent their settlers from encroaching on our rich heartlands to the South and East. Of course, this comes with risks. Being so close to the Baselraph capital is a bit of an aggressive settling move and gives Northstar plenty of incentive for making me his number 1 target/enemy. My hope is that by doing it South of said resources and Odio's prison, it gives him just enough room to not feel immediately threatened, while obviously preventing him from aggressively settling near me.
It is generally wisest to ally with your closest/first met rival, and therefore secure one border while expanding/warring in the opposite direction. This is my fervent hope as our first priority is survival and we must play nice with our enemies until our necromancers are powerful enough and our auxiliary planar demons numerous enough to reveal our true intentions.
Now the safe play would be to settle near my capital first, but for the reasons mentioned above, I wish to get a lock on pretty much our entire current map, while forcing my northerly neighbors to expand in the opposite direction. It is then imperative that they do not know of our existence until it is too late. We must rush our first settler to that spot to secure it, but also provide enough of a military escort to prevent any hostilities, while not appearing with hostile intentions myself and spurring Northstar to militarize and possibly ally against me. A fine line indeed. In the best case scenario they would find out our existence when our borders suddenly popped up nearby. This is unlikely and of course Northstar may require us to settle elsewhere as part of a treaty.
Well, now that we've gotten a better picture of the world and started geographical planning, its about time we talked about technological planning. We are currently 2 turns away from finishing up research on agriculture, and 4 turns away from implementing it with our first worker. Our next tech options are:
1) Crafting, currently 12 turns. Crafting is something I foolishly overlooked. Some civs start with it, while the Sheaim get Ancient Chants instead. Crafting is fairly useless as a standalone tech UNLESS you start with wine in which case it can be great as a worker tech to build breweries, and lead you straight to mining with its chopping abilities. For the Sheaim, this is even better because mining leads to bronzeworking and PYRE ZOMBIES; arguably one of the most powerful troops in the game. While I mentioned I did not wish to attempt a Pyre Zombie rush, it would be foolish to ignore one of my most potent weapons. Thus I am kicking myself in the head as we started with not one, but 2 wine resources in our capital! For some reason I thought wine required plantations... Regardless, crafting is still a strong choice for our next tech.
2) Mysticism, currently 16 turns. My original next choice, Mysticism comes with the powerful God King civic and the essential elder councils to boost early research. An excellent choice, though God King functions best when you already have gold and production to boost (ie after Crafting/Education). Mysticism also leads to Knowledge of the Ether (currently 35 turns) which gives us our first fledgling necromancers. We want this tech ASAP.
3) Calendar, currently 16 turns. Calendar gives us plantations (we can build 1 in the capital) and the growth centric Agrarianism civic which boosts our soon to be tilled farmlands. This is perfect for explosive growth and popping an early settler for that Baselraph border city, or an additional worker. Calendar also leads to festivals which gives us our first economic building, the market.
All these are good choices, but which is best? I will be thinking this through along with which improvements to build first. Our worker will start with the rice tile, but the next step is debatable. It could speed down and farm those floodplains before running back to build a plantation if we choose calendar, or we could farm the plantation ground and head to build breweries if we choose crafting, etc. Of course the calendar option promotes growth somewhat at the expense of our economy/research and production isn't helped. And mysticism allows us elder councils and guides us to adepts, but with no breweries or mines, God King is handicapped a bit. Right now I'm leaning towards crafting, but am still ambivalent. Any insights or suggestions are welcome.
Oh, also, while Demographics are pretty useless this early in the game, this may be of note:
Ahhh, isn't our dark capital just lovely to look at...mmm... Ahem. As you can see we are in the majority in pursuing a worker first build. There is of course one who most likely churned out a warrior, and given the scores I think we can assume that was Tasunke. Let is hope that is the case and not the Baselraph scum. Yeah, yeah they're our future allies but scum is as scum does #LokiIsACravenPieceOfShit
May all our enemies perish and be devoured by jackals!
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.
(March 5th, 2015, 02:22)Merovech Wrote: Map pops are so disappointing.
I know, right? Especially since it's my second one. Though I did get the scope on Northstar, so not all bad. Definitely praying for better for the third and last goodie hut I've seen (1 turn away)
Also, I did end up choosing crafting for those interested. It should of been the first thing researched but better late than never and I need the early economy boost.
I'm already drooling over the resources/Patria I spy in the immediate vicinity, and those Standing Stones on the river with nearby northern coastline looks great. We have landed in a lovely corner of the world if I do say so myself.
For some reason I thought wine required plantations... 
Regardless, crafting is still a strong choice for our next tech.
