Aurorarcher is looking for blood

[Aurorarcher]

Hmm... Interesting indeed. The game was restarted but I had already done some moves. I moved my scout to that grasshill; two tiles diagonally to NE, found pigs nearby. I'm probably going to settle my city there, losing 2h plant sucks but the health penalty is killing my growth if I don't settle next to river. That incense seems to be on an island (probably). I can't still settle a city 1N of Fish or 1S of forested plain hills later.

Also my scout went through the portal and found something interesting. Pretty cool layout, well done mapmakers! Pics to come later when the new save comes to me. I'm still debating between firing RoB after settling or saving it for my 2nd city. The capital surroundis have 3 excellent tiles to work so I'm probably leaning towards firing it right away.

Things I noted while opening the save though: Mardoc&Jale settled on T0 while Dave moved. Interesting.

[Aurorarcher]

So yeah, here are the promised pictures.

Capital to be settled on T1. Losing some mines later sucks but now the city will be healthy even early + 4 very good tiles to work with early.




Forbidden Zone. Found Jale's Hunter, those other railroads most likely lead to 3 other hunters of the players. One question to lurkers or mapmakers: How does those portals work actually? If my opponents go to Forbbiden Zone and try to teleport back they'll end up to their own portal next to their start, right (and same with my own units)? In other words, does the portal in the middle treat each civ differently? If the question is something that can't be answered because of the rules, then that'd be good to know also.




Moved my scout through my own passway and I think I now know why Illians was banned in this game.




Demos T0.




Can't tell a whole lot from this except that Jale & Mardoc both did settle on a plain hill and are working a 3f tile in the 1st ring. If the starts are similar they must've moved (I had no 3f food in the 1st ring), but it's not certain that starts were that identical.

[Bobchillingworth]

Unfortunately, portals are one-way and only direct to the 0,0 coordinate. You can change it, but to the best of my knowledge doing so requires modifying the special config file used to run the official scenarios that come bundled with FFH. Which is a shame, since I think there's a lot of potential for a map where portals are the main means of travel.

[Aurorarcher]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

[Aurorarcher]

Shit. Should've revolted to Religion while I moved... .

[Aurorarcher]

Agri -> Calendar -> Crafting seems like a good way to start. Could go Crafting first but that slow settler by 2t.




All worker movements have not been thought trough yet, and obviously they'd be roading towards 2nd city more.

Worker -> Worker -> BP -> Settler felt pretty good in my sims when firing RoB asap. Settler comes out on T30. With one worker start I can get settler out 2-3 turns faster but then I have some unimproved tiles + I can't afford to road to my 2nd city site in that case, which means 2 worker start is the way to go.

Then I can also get a 2nd settler out by T39 right before I grab Mysticism to get my first EC up for a GS. Just need to get a decent production going on. Capital can build EC in 3 turns. With some overflow even in 2 turns. GS comes out somewhwere around T50-55. Otherwise the capital will focus primarily on settlers/workers due to high foodhammer tiles. Depending on the situation I'll probably give a run to Drama if I'm in a big enough lead or/and then head for CoL quickly.

[Aurorarcher]

The map has 1157 land tiles ~ 230 land tiles per player. Map dimensions are 76x48 which means there's about 70% water in this map! That's a lot of water. I think the forbidden zone may be its own continent at equal distance from the players.

Some scouting. Possible city spot 1S of the scout. Could also settle on the ivory to share the FP from cap but I doubt I'll do that.




Also that Sugar is nice for happiness but the tile is Marsh. I hate that stuff. Anyway, in the land of icy-flooplains there are a lot of resources.




Demos T1.




Being the only one with 2h/t start kind of feel that others settled on plaihills. Some people have plenty of water tiles in the first ring, worst seem to be 4 water tiles. I believe me and Dave (the only ones who moved) have inland cities while the others are next to coast. Dave is leading in the GNP (+2 from CRE and resarching Calendar).

[Aurorarcher]

Some more scouting on T3. Reagents, okay commerce tile to work with early.




Warrior is going back to capital for security reasons. Last time I underestimated the map size I got eliminated around T5 by Bob. Taking zero risks here even though I'm 99% sure that with the 230 land tiles per player I won't see any opponents too soon.

[Aurorarcher]

Currently blitzing. It's good as early turns as ehm.. quite boring.

Anyway, met Jale's scout on T7 a little bit south from the reagents, and on T8 Mardoc found my borders! The map is not that big afterall then... Good thing I have my warrior in the capital.




He didn't declare war on the next turn, and not even a turn after that turn (my culture blocks the path, which is actually a good thing). Mardoc played conservatively here, he thought that the price for declaring isn't worth it (he couldn't see my capital) for the risk of getting his scout killed and also potentially destroying our relations. By not declaring, I feel like Mardoc is trying to play it safe with me and avoid aggression. It makes perfectly sense with slow start with elves, though his EXP might make his cities spawn quickly...

By finding me on T8, it seems that the distances between each civ is ~15-20 tiles.

Notice that by moving I orphaned the fish NW from the capital. Not a big deal but sucks. In the forbidden zone I am about the enter someone else's side of the land of ice. Early map speculation is that this is like a donut in the middle with all the civs (obviously), and then there's a separate land mass around this donut with the iceland. And then there are some islands here and there close to everyone's start (pre-Optics acces). I also tried to draw this crap in paint but it became a mess so not showing that .

Jale grew to size 2 quickly (Mud golems are built with hammers). Both Jale and Mardoc got their first techs (Agriculture) on the same turns as me, and that is T8. I'm going to build 2nd worker right away, it's gonna take 7 turns.

It's actually good for me that the map looks a bit more cramped in the "mainland" than I originally thought. Calabim with Morois is a very good in the early warfare (ok that's not THAT early), and AGG means it's very unlikely that anyone wants to attack me early. Thus I might be able to put the pressure more on my neighbours.

I sent my scout back to capital on T8. I have enough information in the south for my 2nd/3rd city places, and I'd rather scout the north some instead of gaining some minor information in the south & dying to an animal.

[Aurorarcher]

I'm not so sure of Jale's conservative play. In the PBEM XLV he declared on me in this kind of situation. For that reason I had to move two units within range incase Jale moves to that plainshill tile by declaring war. He also is already up to C1, guess he killed an animal without taking any hits.




My warrior gets 65% odds against that scout if Jale goes to that forested hill. It'd be risky for me... not 100% sure what to do if he moves there. My worker finishes a Farm on Rice on T13, would be a shame to cancel that work.