[PB62] Tarkeel and civac feel the need for speed

[Tarkeel]

Turn 3-4 (3840 BC)
The scout started circling south and didn't reveal anything on T3, but stepping on the hill this turn gave us contact with SuperJowy, along with dry rice and the seventh unique luxury.


Vanorober rolled the game into T3 but didn't play a double for some reason, and actually exited the moment he ended turn. He then waited to be the last to play it, but this time playing a double. The only way that makes sense is if he met Fabled/JR4 and didn't want to doublemove the scout away, denying knowledge of the contact. I think that would have been better handled with a PM though.

[Tarkeel]

So, I logged in to mark where SD's scout was, and lo and behold, Mjmd has found our capital coming from the west. This made me look into something I should have done earlier when I noticed it, but there's an artifact in the terrain where the new corn is that looks like 0,0 on the map. With some FoV and darkness trickery, the map dimensions seems to be 40x24. That's not a lot of space, coming out at 960 tiles in total or 137ish per player, in total. I really don't think there's any room for meaningful bodies of water on this map, and I predict a bloodbath.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 5 (3800 BC)
The capital borders expand, revealing food around the gems, and Fabled/JR4's scout. Agriculture is researched and we start on Mining as planned.


SD and Mjmd have both put full EP into us, while Fabled only has put half. Diplomacy advisor indicates that none of them have met each other yet.

[civac2]

Nothing new at the demo front.

[Tarkeel]

Right, this is really tight. I think the scout should go SW-NW to take a look at Fabled's capital (assuming it's on a hill). It can then go N-NW onto the hill and uncover the missing tile.

I wanted to place our first city between the gems and the rice, or one tile south, but it feels like we should put as many cities as possible on hills. There seems to be a plainshill 2W of the cattle that might be an option, but that's a rather offensive option that will probably need the holy city plan for cultural defense. Let's see what else the scout uncovers.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 7 (3720 BC)
Silverstone shifts from the fish to a plainsforest to speed up the workboat without delaying growth. Meanwhile, our scout uncovers Fabled's capital (and some surrounding terrain):


Yeah, starts are definitely tailored to perceived player skill. Not sure if we asked for such large discrepancies though, this will be a killer commerce hub down the road. At least Mjmd has met Fabled now.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 8 (3680 BC)
Silverstone grows to turn two, and works twin plainsforests to complete the workboat in two turns. The scout steaps on the hill between us and Fabled to unfog the map, and there's nothing too interesting:


We've spent some time discussing how to settle the area between us:


Red is where we anticipate they will want to settle, as it's a great spot: plainshill, cattle, gold and floodplains. It can also steal our rice, and will invalidate any other cities between us. We could try to reach for this ourselves, but feel it will be very hard to defend.
Pink is a similarly agressive plant from our side, invalidating any other cities between us. It's not a good site though, lacking a defensive hill and won't pick up any new resources, and can't share the fish from capital.
Yellow is where we're most likely to settle first, just so we are able to settle this area at all.

[civac2]

Tarkeel convinced me to have the scout take a longer path south of the peak.



Fabled's territory continues to impress.

We have finished the work boat using the plains forests over the last two turns. This is paying off now.



Silverstone is premier race track in the world.

We even get a KTB beaker this turn which accerelates Mining by a turn. Otherwise there would have been one missing.



From the soldier count it seems unlikely anyone build a warrior. Naufragar could have one, bt more likely he researched Mining (or Hunting).

[Tarkeel]

Turn 11 (3560 BC)
Mining completed for us, and it's straight on to BronzeWorking. Decoding demographics and KtB reveals that Mjmd researched Hunting this turn. There's been very little new techs that provide soldiers so far, and it looks like we're the only ones to grow on a workboat.

The scout didn't reveal anything interesting and is tip-toeing around to the western reaches.

[civac2]

Spotted a bear and Mjmd's borders.



Fabled got Animal Husbandry this turn. It's likely that his gnp dropped back to 16 from losing the arrow bonus although he is sitting in floodplain paradise.



This reinforces my read that he has a 4yield tile, probably forested deer. Someone else dropped back to 16 gnp and soldier points increased by 2k more than the 2k from Fabled. It's likely these observations are related but they not be.