[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[Mjmd]

I'm excited as we haven't really seen a corp used yet in CtH.

[Charriu]

Yep, me too. Thanks for the numbers.

[pindicator]

Map Musings
In short, I think this is one of the best pitboss maps I've seen, and it fit my expectations of the game perfectly. It gave everyone enough room to be able to expand and build, while still having close enough neighbors that you have to worry about them. Here's a list of which details I think made the map so enjoyable:

• The main contact points against neighbors were long, slender landbridges with jungle, making for stable early borders
  
• Having a large backline against the centre-spine to expand into, making early wars less profitable
  
• Meeting along the spine opened up more contacts, but there are still relatively few east-west passages
  
• Everyone had easy early access to copper, the main defensive resource, while ivory was early and secure
  
• Iron and horses, the offensive resources, were only available later on, limiting early rushes
  

I do have some very minor niggles:

• If the lake-whale had been inner-ring it would have made the choice to move or settle in place harder, especially if it was only inner-ring for settle-in-place. As it is, moving was the one right choice.
  
• Given how food-sparse the map is, that seafood we're forced to orphan on the eastern coast is just taunting. I get that everybody had the same choice here so it's not a balance issue, just something that feels bad.
  
• It probably would have been good to add gems to the astronomy-islands.
  

Fair points. I honestly got lucky with the move vs stay part of the initial settler as I didn't actually plan out moving being an option. If I had noticed that then I wish I would have done something very like you suggested here.

The fish were intentional, and honestly I wish I hadn't done it now for exactly why you said. I was thinking it was just a quirky artistic touch and that I'd continue this on all my future maps, but after the reaction I've gotten about it feeling bad I'm not repeating it.

Gems actually were on those islands in an early draft! But I didn't want any resources on those islands that you could not get anywhere else, as I didn't want to give any bigger bonus to the first person to tech Astronomy. Maybe I should have mixed silver and gold instead, in hindsight.

[civac2]

I don't quite the part about moving. It's tradeoff between one worker turn and 9+ commerce.

[Tarkeel]

Gems actually were on those islands in an early draft! But I didn't want any resources on those islands that you could not get anywhere else, as I didn't want to give any bigger bonus to the first person to tech Astronomy. Maybe I should have mixed silver and gold instead, in hindsight.

For us it wasn't worth invalidating Colossus to fight for those islands, and I think AT spending so much resources on settling them helped seal his fate.

I don't quite the part about moving. It's tradeoff between one worker turn and 9+ commerce.

It wasn't just one worker turn though; we also but got to work a 3/1 over a 2/1 for the first five turns.

[civac2]

Yes and you lose a full turn before that. In total you are actually down one hammer by moving. You make back 2 food by improving the deer faster which is probably better unless you need the commerce.

[Tarkeel]

The way I see it, you lose 3 foodhammers the first turn. The next 4 you gain one foodhammer, so you're up one. You then save a turn moving to the deer, so while they are improved the same turn in both scenarios, you can also credit it with 2 food that turn, when you actually want food for growing slightly faster. It does cost the initial commerce though. I remember we simmed it out, and moving was clearly the best choice. While we were tech-starved in the beginning, that commerce was never enough to get anything on a critical turn earlier.

As a side note, it also opened up the city spot for Nal Hutta in the dotmap, and in all fairness it was an extra turn moving to Kessel.

[civac2]

You lose 5 food hammers on the first turn. The food from the faster deer is what matters though. So you are right. It was the better decision.

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, you're right. It's been a while since I mulled over the details. There was also the hope of picking up some better tiles in the outer ring, but no such luck.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 205-206 (1460 AD)
We haven't been up to much the last turns, just moving in the last forces to assault Roy next turn. MrC captured Sabine on T204 and Xykon on T205, and Superdeath (surprisingly) took the island city of Blackwing T205, leaving just Roy. MrC did not move up any forces towards Roy, which we take as a positive sign. We've also refrained from pillaging any of his gains in order to improve relations.


We founded Gall in the spine to claim some good tiles, including an unused floodplain.

Gall was the site of a naval supply depot that serviced the construction of the first Death Star.

It's time to take a look at what the war has brought us:

• Miko (now Tibrin): Pretty crappy fishing village
  
• Thog (now Roche): A pretty bad hillside city; has some spare food from farms. Main benefit is lessened culture on Haven and Sullust.
  
• Gall (new filler): Can work a floodplain and three grasshill windmills and possibly pick up iron, so will actually be pretty decent.
  
• Nale (now Kirdo III): Very decent hillside city, can work several watermills and plainshill windmills, also picks up silver.
  
• Orchidaceous (now Bakura): Important crumple-zone against Jowy but also a decent city in itself.
  
• Vaarsuvius (now Corellia): Very productive river city (8 watermills!), good candidate for Iron Works, picks up silver.
  
• MitD (razed; now Duro): Allows for a new fishing village on the inner sea, not yet settled.
  
• Belkar (razed): Replaced by Yavin, a pretty decent hybrid city.
  
• Endor: Turned into a workshop town by AT, and is a decent production fishing village.
  
• Durkon (now Sluis Van) Will be a good production city
  
• DemonRoaches (now Dathomir): Fishing village
  
• Haley (now Brentaal IV): Decent commerce and production.
  
• Roy (now Bothawui): Great commerce (3 towns) and hills, not yet captured
  
• Elan (now Chandrila): Great commerce (3 towns and 2 almost-towns)
  
• Rendili (new lakeside): Can work floodplain town and watermill as well as two grasshill windmills, not yet settled
  
• Bloodfeast (now Kamino) / Antium (now Aquaris) / Rome: Most of the northern astronomy-archipelago, holds great strategic value and good resources.
  

In total 18 cities (assuming we capture Roy and settle the last two), most of which have some form of value.

Edit: Updated list with new city names