[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[Commodore]

I'll be finally resuming research next turn. It'll be three turns to Currency. The second island city goes down in...three turns. Noice.

Sugar Bunker and Floyds Knob are going to be strict hammer-pumps, feeding grass hill mines on flat grassland farms. Gross, I know.

[Commodore]

I'll probably see a new turn tomorrow morning. Joey has a single hour he plays, so lots of holdup.

I don't know why he cares about the reload. There were only three people who could win at the beginning, and Harry got taken out early. This is Mackoti vs. TBS, so they're the only two who absolutely cannot miss turns, them and their neighbors. The rest of us are just dinking around.

[Mardoc]

I'll probably see a new turn tomorrow morning. Joey has a single hour he plays, so lots of holdup.

I don't know why he cares about the reload. There were only three people who could win at the beginning, and Harry got taken out early. This is Mackoti vs. TBS, so they're the only two who absolutely cannot miss turns, them and their neighbors. The rest of us are just dinking around.

Maybe he believes there are more ranks than Winner and The Rest?

[Commodore]

Maybe he believes there are more ranks than Winner and The Rest?

Absurd! No such thing. 1 winner, 24 losers.

Still fine to have fun in the box, play out it all. Just not like a skipped turn matters and it's smashed the turn pace; we've played one since Friday.

[Commodore]

Turn 100, Rome

We're small but we're also hopeless. Welcome to 375 BC. Rough and Ready gets settled in two turns, and then we are well and truly done with settling. Game winner TBS already has 50% more cities than I have. Plako has a couple more cities, Gavagai is eating all of Bandit, even Pindicator is getting massively more land. I'm a rump state long before Astronomy. My land area is creatively inflated, but that's going to go down swiftly. Manufacturing needs Metal Casing (GNP reflects me testing MC at 100%), and I'll have a nice tall empire to take over when the knives come out. My only consolation is that probably won't be until after the era of Praetorians.

My neighbors are a peaceful bunch:
-TBS must be pushing his northern neighbor(s) pretty well, because he hasn't had to fight anyone down here.
-Superdeath is falling behind; his only contribution to the game is crippling me. So good job I guess?
-Pindicator is healthy and nearing chucklenaughts. He's also only just now out of room, I suspect he'll be planning a strike soon.
-Gavagai is the regional high power, methodically munching on a newbie. He's not going to gain anything like a game-winning lead from Bandit, though.
-Bandit is delicious and served with a Chianti and fava beans.
-Naufragar is wrecking peace bonuses for trade routes left and right, but he's tough enough and big enough to live for now.
-Plako is joining Gavagai for a sedate meal but I don't think he's snapping up the core. More likely he's looking to claim coast for his GLH.

I really don't know if I'm going to make it to Astronomy in time to have a good solid chunk of midgame Colonization Fun. The Academy is up in Swallow Hill and won't hurt things, but I'm going to be sitting pretty firmly at 2-turns-gold for every 1-turn-beakers. Maybe there will be a little wealth building but my queues need to keep busy with forges, barracks, praetorians, and in a few cases forums. I coulda had an Ottawa here, but opted to whip and under-worker instead. The four more riverside cottages that go down here will be my last cottages in the game.

Here's to a continued quiet region.

[Commodore]

In interesting discussion land...

What the heck is up in Realms Beyond with these expansion rates?

If you'll note, here at turn 100 I have a dozen cities in my squeezed little empire; every one of my (admittedly quality) neighbors is doing better than me in cities. That's crazy, gang. Looking back, not even all that many games ago, at Pitboss, say, 13th; Dtay was the early game leader with ten cities at this point. Now any ten city boy is hopeless.

These expansion rates are too damn high

I'm not entirely sure what factors the most into this. Some of this is just that we're better players as a community than we used to be. In PBEM 77 on a considerably less lush island map, base BtS, I still had 11 cities on turn 67 (quick speed). And RBmod has generally become a little more friendly towards expansion. But mostly, I think the maps are just getting nutty. I understand the desire to lock down players into their initial positions with gnarly capitals, but natural maps can have decently attractive places too. There's a ton of game skill to turning crap into viable cities, finessing a dotmap that spins straw into gold. And this sucker is less lush than some other recent ones! Not hating on you personally Ref, please note. But these maps need to get under control.

Scooter and I spoke about this. Only time I'd do another artificial map if we could pack a nice tight PBEM 25-esque spacing with like 30 people on a tiny tiny map. Otherwise...why not just do a natural Totestra with a classic-era start?

[Krill]

I have not looked at this map. I do not know of land quality.

I can comment that you have stated that there are a lot of land tiles. Does not the fact that there is more land here than other games influence the comparison?

[Erwin]

I'd imagine aiming for balanced maps affects the decisions about lushness. If the map is very dry and the land is of bad quality, one extra food resource or for instance, different placements of an equal number food resources on the map can really have a huge impact on the balance and gameplay. Whereas if the map is lush, one extra food resource doesn't maybe matter that much. Could it be that people are more concerned about map balance these days? I'd expect it to be so.

I'm not sure if my thoughts about lushness and map balance being linked together make much sense, but that though affected my design of pb39 map, which arguably is too lush and I personally experienced that lusher maps seem to be easier to balance.

[Commodore]

I have not looked at this map. I do not know of land quality.

I can comment that you have stated that there are a lot of land tiles. Does not the fact that there is more land here than other games influence the comparison?

There isn't this side of Astronomy, though. Pretty standard-size map with the New World(s).

[ipecac]

You're not the only vet in '38 who thinks that RB maps are now overlush (but for different reasons).