DaveV talks like a pirate, me hearties!

[DaveV]

@Mardoc: By the time city 1 can be built, I'm close to having finished research on mining in my sims. So it can build its workboats (and one for city 2) pretty quickly. The gold mine is one of my best tiles; city 4 ends up working a pirate cove and a bunch of forest tiles (it can share the hills and lake with the capital, but the capital has priority on the good tiles, especially the good production tiles).

Moving city 2 one tile south is a good suggestion.

@Brian: City 3 is really low on production, so I hate to put it on the hill. That location would also require a border pop before it could work the cornsilk.

Heron Throne would be great at the capital, but it's more than two settlers' worth of hammers, so I don't want to build it too early.

[DaveV]

Turn 1 finally rolled around. I exposed a few tiles outside the original area:




Looks like a good map for Expansive. If my math is right, circumnavigation is available.

Demos are mildly interesting:



High GNP must be the Creative guys. High MFG and low food is probably an Industrious civ working hammers to get the 25% bonus on their worker. Someone didn't do a 2-hammer plant.

I'm going Fishing first: it means working some pretty bad tiles for a while, but the sooner I can start pumping up those pirate coves, the better. It's a slow start, but accelerates quickly. According to my sims, I can build exactly three warriors while I'm researching Fishing. I kept running low on warriors in my sims, so I'm not sending my warrior out exploring. The scout is going to move the the southeast, since the terrain looks a lot more favorable for a 2-mover in that direction.

[DaveV]

Nothing interesting on turn 2. Turn 3 scouting reveals more tasty Lanun city sites:

[DaveV]

More happies!




I'm planning to make a circuit of the presumed small salt lake and end up back near my capital. Haven't met anyone yet.

[DaveV]

More exploration...




My capital grew to size 2 at EoT, the first city growth.

I'll enjoy my first place position while it lasts (which will be shortly after the other guys finish their workers).

[DaveV]

More exploration:




jalepeno grew to size 2 (as expected for the Luchuirp). No animals in sight.

[DaveV]

Here's a rotated map, which usually boggles my mind a little when other people do it. It shows a much bigger picture, thought.




Aurorarcher wins the race to the first tech. He started with Ancient Chants, so that's almost certainly Agriculture.

Still haven't met anyone. Some math: the map is 72x36, so assume the players are laid out in a 4x2 grid. That would give 17 tiles between capitals vertically and 16 tiles horizontally. I've exposed 22 tiles vertically, so I should have started encountering familiar territory by now if the starts are mirrored. That means the capitals are staggered (like Charlie Brown's shirt, in my favorite analogy), or the starts are not mirrored.

I'm still planning to circle the lake (assuming my scout survives that long, I have yet to see any animals); I prioritize finding future city sites over harassing a neighbor. The map is looking like blobs of land encircling mostly salt water lakes.

Demographics, to savor while they're still looking good:

[DaveV]

My usual luck with scouting units:




A couple more animals are visible at the capital:




... and no miraculous win for the scout.

[Brian Shanahan]

So basically it's grow, grow, grow for a while then. Some quick turns coming up.

[Mardoc]

Demographics, to savor while they're still looking good:

Hah! We should spend most of the game happy to look at the demo screen. Perhaps a brief period while pushing for the second city, where someone else will look better.

All that water is looking incredibly promising. Can I persuade you to use the 2nd or 3rd warrior to scout a BFC around the gold/pig area? A canal city (say, 2N of the pig) would be awesome early if there's usable food nearby. Could have a capital-built cove or two, gold/pigs in the near term. Strategically, both a canal and a chokepoint are useful things to have.