[Spoiler] Master Auro Has A Living Army

[haphazard1]

My scout didn't have such luck and got killed by a bear early.

"Bears just kill you."

Contact is made.

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, sucks but usually the scouts die before T30. The wilderness is just so dangerous.

Dave's land is really crappy looking. A lot of jungle.



Not that it matters when you can just get everything from those caves!

[Aurorarcher]

I'm 5t away from 3rd city, none else has 2nd yet.

So how have the others played the opening?

• Dave did go straight for Fishing as he is supposed to when playing as Lanun. He then quickly hooked up his first Pirate Cove on T15. I don't think he has done much of scouting.
  
• Cairo didn't settle T1, he surely wanted to find perfect place for his capital with 3rd rings. Went worker first. He has grew to size 8 so far. Something I'd expect as Kurios. Lost his scout.
  
• superjm's opening has been the strangest. He didn't go worker first, and grew to size 5 right away if I remember correctly from blitzing. I think he was scared of being attacked by someone with great early rush units...
  

[Aurorarcher]

3rd city settled: Möbius!

Dave still only with cap, I believe superjm has 2 (well, someone has), and his GNP is in a toilet right now (showing 10 ). It possibly can't be Cairo. Superjm must've built too many warriors or something. Or the 2nd city is quite a distance away from cap. Either way... 10 GNP with CRE + culture from cap... that's not great.

[Aurorarcher]

Just settled 4th city, Gauss this turn:



Gems! That's nice. Jungle, not so nice... Notice I settled on Rice (was jungle as well). Not optimal but I'd rather not wait for BW here, so it works for me. The city can use horses, ph and two farms. 5th city going close to Cows / sheep / crabs. Clearly better than 4th but considering quick hammers. Also, I actually want to settle E/NE direction, as Dave is there. The faster I get there the better. My beastman in the north is trying to find his way back home.

I already researched Carto and revolted to save in maintenance costs while moving settler. Next I need commerce/beakers badly to keep up with better techers (Dave, Cairo). Chants -> Education is the way to go to spam cottages. Then Crafting -> Mining. It'd be nice if I found some not jungled commerce resources nearby. Other options for research boost (but not that great): Fishing, there are some lakes + sea foods available. Sadly the one 2S of cap is only available to me once I get forts. Mysticism (for ECs), eventually I want to build those. Mysticism after Mining is decent since I obviously need more hammers to build ECs. BW is a high priority around that time though, but that's still a long way to go.

[Aurorarcher]

T53, lots of seafood nearby... (I have a worker on the Sheep tile)



I think I'll go with the super city, it's a slow starter but once it gets going it's amazing.

[haphazard1]

The marked tile does look like a very nice spot longer term. And it does have the sheep to help get it growing.

I do not remember the rules on work boats for lakes with sea food resources -- would you be able to get a work boat to that crab?

[Aurorarcher]

I don't remember it that well either...

But I think in FFH you can't build wb in a city next to lake even if there is sea food, unless your city is also next to sea (= more than 10 water tiles)

So my plan is to get it hooked up eventually but I can only bring wb there if I use forts as canals. And for that I need Masonry.

[Aurorarcher]

Found Incense, but not very food rich area, with border pops Clams... I can see there's coast east from Incense. Hopefully there's more sea food 1 tile away from the hill. That'd be perfect. I must say the placement of commerce resources has been quite clever so far .



The land between me and Dave. My scouting warrior is 1W of Cotton.

[Aurorarcher]

I made a costly mistake. I settled my 6th city, Pythagoras, almost immediately after 5th and it's crashing my economy. It'll be fine once I get Education but it'll be painful till then...




You can see Dave's border very close to me.

This is where I should've settled for 6th city (notice my signs... I thought about it beforehand also but didn't do it), for Incense, I need commerce desperately! Now it'll be my 7th city but it'll take 6 turns to settle...



Demos. I am clearly leading in CY, but that's mostly because my # cities is double to what others have. That commerce though...