[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[Tarkeel]

We researched Mysticism instead, thinking we'd be slightly more competitive for Stonehenge. We'd been better off with Fishing, but that's hindsight.

Fishing comes in after The Wheel, just in time for Coruscant's workboat and growing to size 4.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 45 (2200 BC)
So, this just happened:


Hopefully he'll let our scout through unmolested as long as we avoid valuable tiles. I sent the following to AT:

Hi, I've declared war on you in PB58 and will be taking the first half of the turn timer.

Twice now Serdoa has rolled the turn without playing a double turn, I wonder if he's in a settler race with Superdeath?

Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 46 (2160 BC)
We're making our way through AT's territory, and several city guards are making small perimeter checks. This is one of the reasons I don't like playing without barbs, it lets you get away with some very silly moves early on. Plans are in motion that I'll report on when they happen in the next few turns, but for now let's have a look at this:


I mentioned earlier that we'd gotten graphs on Superdeath, and we got Serdoa's as well now. It's quite telling which parts are similar and which are not. You can clearly see Serdoa's production focus as his second city built Stonehenge, and likewise Superdeath has been hampered by his starting techs and only just the last turns caught up (and passed us) in crop yield. His production is still far behind. GNP has mainly been influenced by pre-req bonus, except for gold coming online for both Serdoa (alongside the silly Stonehenge GNP) and me.

Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 47-48 (2080 BC) Kuati Royalty
Teh turns have been flowing today, and I'm taking a short break to report some big happenings. Firstly, we founded Kuat on the pink dot. The Accuser has just finished improving Kessel and is en route for Kuat.

Kuat is another important shipyard for the Empire, located in the Core Worlds. It has an extensive aristocracy practicing holding many house slaves.

Coruscant completed another worker, the Chimaera, before growing on a workboat.



The Chimaera served at the Battle of Endor under Captain Pellaeon, before becoming Grand Admiral Thrawn's flagship.

A brief view of our core:


Kuat is the first planet that wants a border pop, so it's growing on a monument. I'm thinking of adding a mining colony for the stone and building the Pyramids here.

Demographics

T47:


T48:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 49 (2040 BC)
We finally researched Fishing, and got some more visibility on what others have researched:


Nobody we know has Sailing or Masonry yet. Two people knowing Pottery fits with earlier guesses, and the third with Agriculture should be Ruff on T48. Here's an overview of my guesses to date; the ones in green I'm fairly certain of guessing correctly:



In other news, my sim is hilariously wrong when it comes to research costs now (probably due to known tech bonus). I'm growing Coruscant to size 4 directly on the workboat, and then a settler for before starting on Lighthouses, small and Great.

Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 50 (2000 BC) The End of the Beginning
Serdoa researched Meditation and founded Buddhism this turn, and Ruff founded his fourth city last turn, making up for a slow start.

State of the Empire
Our economy isn't exactly bristling, but we're making do:


I felt it was important to settle the best cities first, which is why we're spread out over such a wide area. Cities on the brown dot and jungle arms should seal us away from secondary opponents, and we can backfill a lot of the core. Being ORG and having access to two golds gives me the option of incurring slightly higher distance maintenance without crashing our economy.



Technology Thoughts
T0: Hunting, essential for bringing our strongest tile online.
T0: Mining, for fast research of BronzeWorking.
T16: BronzeWorking, for chopping settlers and workers.
T31: AnimalHusbandry, for bringing online the best tiles for all of our first four cities.
T39: Mysticism, for an attempt at Stonehenge
T45: TheWheel, for connecting cities and resources
T48: Fishing, for finally working some water commerce, and starting on Sailing

TBD:
Sailing, for lighthouse
Masonry, for Great Lighthouse, and possibly Pyramids
Agriculture, for Kuat's rice, and research bonus on Pottery
Pottery, for granaries and cottages
Potentially useful
Polytheism (?) for religion, culture and Monotheism

Random Map Musings

• We seem to have a pretty well defined area to our own, that's "smashed" into one other player for three crescent-shaped discs in total.
  
• This gives each player a primary opponent, and the pairings seems to be Serdoa vs Superdeath, AT vs Jowy and Ruff vs Us.
  
• Most of the land areas are very similar in shape, but with some variation especially in features and resources.
  
• From what I can tell, the starts for all players were mirror images, where the correct option was moving towards the game. This has forced everyone into very similar research paths. I think the whale should have been moved to first ring to making Fishing a viable starting tech.
  
• Because there are no barbarians and opponents were far away, I felt confident in running my warrior defenders on scouting detours, using them more as a screening force than escorts.
  
• In general though I have mostly good things to say based on what I've seen of the map so far.
  

By Popular Demand...

Planets:




Workers:



Various:

Demographics

[Tarkeel]

Turn 51-52 (1920 BC) Around the World
Our scouts have proven that the world is indeed round, and the layout was slightly different then anticipated, with AT our closest neighbor:


All the more reason to secure the southern borders.

Demographics

T51:


T52:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 53 (1880 BC)
Just a quick morning turn, we've turned on research for Sailing. Demographics:

The next settlers are coming out soon; Coruscant's finishes in 6, Fondor will start soon, and Kessel is building a worker first. Note that the ivory has a fish whose icon is cut off:


Preliminary dotmap, spoilered so you can make your own thoughts first:

Coruscant's settler could go for:
Cyan: Commerce city. Grabs no resources or meaningful land, but can work rivers and lakes for good commerce. Will also give Sailing-routes to Kuat
Dk Blue: Potential Moai, grabs land towards AT
White Ivory: Possibly the best option, grabbing food, luxury, some hills and grassland. Exact location is tentative pending on scout

Fondor's settler could go for:
Green: Commerce city. Slow starter, but should be able to work a lot of cottages and some floodplains. Might be better NE on the desert hill.
Brown: Fortress city on Superdeath border, this will be a pretty crappy but important city for locking that border.
White fishing villages: Most important here would be marble

Kessel's settler could go for:
Purple: Production city that can work quite a few hills and some floodplains
White Stone: Very slow starter, but claims important stone if we want to build Pyramids
Potentially undiscovered sites down south.

Right now, my instinct is Coruscant->Ivory, Kessel->Dk Blue, Kessel->Purple or Stone

[civac2]

I don't see a brown city spot.

[Amicalola]

Turn 53 (1880 BC)
Just a quick morning turn, we've turned on research for Sailing. Demographics:

The next settlers are coming out soon; Coruscant's finishes in 6, Fondor will start soon, and Kessel is building a worker first. Note that the ivory has a fish whose icon is cut off:


Preliminary dotmap, spoilered so you can make your own thoughts first:

Coruscant's settler could go for:
Cyan: Commerce city. Grabs no resources or meaningful land, but can work rivers and lakes for good commerce. Will also give Sailing-routes to Kuat
Dk Blue: Potential Moai, grabs land towards AT
White Ivory: Possibly the best option, grabbing food, luxury, some hills and grassland. Exact location is tentative pending on scout

Fondor's settler could go for:
Green: Commerce city. Slow starter, but should be able to work a lot of cottages and some floodplains. Might be better NE on the desert hill.
Brown: Fortress city on Superdeath border, this will be a pretty crappy but important city for locking that border.
White fishing villages: Most important here would be marble

Kessel's settler could go for:
Purple: Production city that can work quite a few hills and some floodplains
White Stone: Very slow starter, but claims important stone if we want to build Pyramids
Potentially undiscovered sites down south.

Right now, my instinct is Coruscant->Ivory, Kessel->Dk Blue, Kessel->Purple or Stone

We've talked about this quite a bit already but I should put my thoughts in the thread. 

I agree for sure on the three cities you propose being our next three. Would you consider though swapping so that Coruscant's settler grabs Dark Blue, and Fondor's grabs Ivory? Unless we 100% need the luxury now, I think starting the Moai city to be up-and-running ASAP is a higher priority; the sooner the better. That wonder is just so damn good, and with 2 foods to share and a 2/4/0 copper that city already starts strong.

As far as the other cities on there. I'm not sure if the filler with incense is worth settling, as it claims almost nothing new, and steals a different city's only food resource. I also think we should try to explore that ivory with a warrior before we plant if possible? To see if there are any other resources (not sure about timing and warrior locations). Another advantage to settling Dark Blue first.