[SPOILERS] Banzailizard and Woden go hunting!

[Banzailizard]

Turn 12

I didn't bother taking a picture, nothing really changed on my end.  Continued to move my warrior back north, continued to work on the settler.  Next turn will be more eventful as I get policy cards and sailing done.  

A couple of things about that barb camp. First, if the 7-tile run is in play, there is a city state within 7 tiles of that camp. Based on the CS south-west of your island, my best guess is south of it. My first galley out of my capital will swing south around my island and look. Second, we have to be careful exploring the map with galleys. Barb galleys are no joke, can come out of nowhere, and can kill a lone galley. If your galley survives, you are bound to have another barb galley come out of the fog and kill him. Best to explore in pairs. If the map is set up like I think it is (biggish starting islands surrounded by a bunch of little islands and some larger islands to fight over), we could be in for a bunch of coastal barb camps and lots of barb galleys, and eventually quadriremes. Probably best to have our initial galleys explore our immediate area and then get a small groups (2 or 3 ships; at least 1 group going in each direction) to explore the larger map. 

We are also going to want to keep some ships home, in case Thrawn shows up. His best play is a game of harassments and looking for opportunities to steal something. An unguarded city can be capture with 3 or 4 galley attacks, so we will want some guards eventually. I figure if he completes Sailing next turn and then starts building longboats, his first one will take 7 or 8 turns, so T19 or T20. Then, I figure 10 turns to find somebody. So, if that somebody is us, we can expect seeing his boat around T30. This should be around the time I start kicking out galleys but I think it might be safe to have your warrior near your capital, just in case.

I am fine with the suggestion of exploring in groups.  I think that my warrior will initially want to be by my second city. Barb galleys won't attack my capital but they will attack there. I might be better off adding in a second warrior somewhere which I want for exploration anyways.  This is another reason to get RND down I guess, they provide both an economic advantage, and some defensive advantage by spawning a ship.  How does taking out the city state feature into this timeline?  If thrawn shows up that early, any chance he might try to capture it?

[Woden]

For city state capture, we will want to find 3 for the boost to PP before taking any out. I have had it where I don't get the boost if I captured a city state before find a 3rd one, so capturing them too early can interfere with the boost. After we get the boost, we should consider capturing them quickly, while their DS is low. We should prioritize any that have multiple attack angles. If we find one with only 1 attack angle, we can leave those for a bit, at least until we have shipbuilding and can provide land support.

As for another warrior, I think we have other priorities but might be good to get another one out at some point. I am planning a few more before I finish Iron Working so I can have some in reserve that cost no maintenance, but that is after I get some galleys out, build a campus, and get a settler out for my third city. I also want a few slingers before Archery (which will be a while). For me, units give culture and if I can get out a bunch that cost no maintenance (with/without the card), that is just good culture. But for you, not sure how much you will want to invest in land units. You will want some but we will have to wait to see what the map looks like.

Realistically, I don't expect Thrawn to show up until we have some galleys out, so having your warrior by your 2nd city should be fine. I think he will follow the same plan as us and explore in groups, so I think a realistic timeframe would be T40s at the earliest with T50-T60 being a good chance he will be at war with someone. I do expect him to go after someone early, while he has a slight advantage, as has be his MO in previous games, so we will have to play a little more defensively than usual.

[Woden]

Turn 13-Gaul
Finished Sailing, started Mining. I think I will go Mining->Pottery->Writing->Irrigation->Bronzeworking-Iron Working and get my unique IZ before the end of the era. 

I think we got screwed with the natural wonder here...
   

The eastern tile on the small off-coast island has no yields and is labeled Impassible. That usually is a sign of a natural wonder not being generated by the map. Probably one of the mountain wonders. Not sure if there are other 1-tile wonders that are impassible. Regardless, doubtful we get the boost to Astrology now and I don't think it is worth a restart, do you?

[Banzailizard]

Well it would be good to know if others were similarly impacted.  If everyone is having the same problem its disappointing but not a big deal.  Probably not worth the restart but we can always add an asterisk if we loose. There is also a chance I have a natural wonder near me too.

England Turn 13

   

COL is done, so I added in God King and Discipline.  Sailing is also done so I started Astrology (16 turns).  If I work the turtles astrology finishes 4 turns faster (12 turns) but my settler comes out one turn slower, so for now I am keeping on high production in the hopes that my island also has a natural wonder nearby.  The second city site (still confusingly named city 3) got even better though, as I found yet another fish resource.  That means the RND will be +3, which is pretty good.  Headed up the coast by Greenlee Logh next turn and we will see more of my island. I can also see a bit more coastline off in the fog.

[Woden]

I wanted to check and see if it just didn't spawn or was it a mod that removed the natural wonder at some point while we played, so I loaded the start save in to SP and moved the warrior directly south and...
   

It was the Rock of Gibraltar. Looks like it was removed from the save file by someone (mod or randomly while saving). I wonder if I could add it again using Fireturner (not sure if possible in MP games). If I tried, I would let everybody know so we could give them the option if their NW was removed. I am pretty sure CMF/Inc found a NW, since one of them got 3 era points a few turns back. What do the lurkers think?

[Cornflakes]

Is the natural wonder visible in strategic view? I remember back when we were hacking the Worldbuilder the natural wonders were bugged but they still showed up in strategic view.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Kaiser has stated in the lurker thread that Gibraltar is supposed to be there. It showing up in the strategic view is the most likely explanation why this got through. It's firetuner time!

[Woden]

Is the natural wonder visible in strategic view? I remember back when we were hacking the Worldbuilder the natural wonders were bugged but they still showed up in strategic view.

Not in strategic view. I didn't get the boost and the adjacent tiles don't have the +1 food, +1 good, so it is not a visual bug.

[Woden]

Kaiser has stated in the lurker thread that Gibraltar is supposed to be there. It showing up in the strategic view is the most likely explanation why this got through. It's firetuner time!

Fire Tuning might be difficult because I don't think Rock of Gibraltar is a Firaxis Natural Wonder. It is not listed in the World Builder as an option to place and it is not listed at the Wiki. 

Kaiser, do you know where the Rock of Gibraltar came from. Am I mistaken that it is not in Firaxis' content?

[Kaiser]

I checked and believe it came from the "terra mirabilis" mod.
Interestingly, I never had that mod installed, but it is supported by "Got Lakes" mod and ended on the map that way.

However, me and you were able to spot the Rock of Gibraltar in SP, do you have by chance the Got Lakes Mod installed?
If yes, it might be that another player does not have it installed and for that reason it bugs out when the save passes that player?