[PB70] Charriu tries to promote the arts again

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Risa Ohki - Final Fantasy: Pray 'Toki no Hourousha (Wanderer Of Time)'

This amazing piece from Final Fantasy VI is from 1994. 1994! Just 6 month after the game released in Japan. I can't say it otherwise, but when it comes to video game music played in a concert setting Japan was miles ahead of the West in this regard.

Fans will immediately recognize this piece as the main theme from the game itself. There are so many beautiful additions to notice in this piece. The most obvious of course the vocals by Risa Ohki. But it doesn't end there. Just to name a few things everything the harp does in the beginning and across the piece; the strings when they are not playing the main melody especially from 2:10 onward or the drum giving a certain momentum throughout the whole piece.

The downside to this being the recorded in 1994 of course is that it's hard to buy an actual recording. This is from the album 'Final Fantasy Vocal Collections I -Pray-'. Get it whereever you can.

T34:

---

Bronze Working is in and the second copper is exactly where I expected it thanks to mirroring. Thank god this game is a diplo game or otherwise I would not know about the second copper 1E of the wheat in the lower right. But then again I have a warrior on the way to explore that direction.
Next tech is Pottery and then Writing. Unfortunately nobody has finished Pottery yet. As you can see I also connected the ivory, giving my city enough happiness so that the warriors can go exploring. Normally I wouldn't do this, but since some players are too afraid of the barbarians, I don't have to fear them too.

Speaking of the other players. Let's start with Bing as there is nothing new. Yes nothing. He hasn't said one word. I really don't know what he's doing in this game. I think he grew to pop 2 at around T23 then pop 3 at T31 and pop 4 at T34. Is he going for two workers? But then why did it take him so long to grow to pop 2 then. Or did he the crazy thing in going for two workers and then working a plain forest hill to get a workboat out sooner. I really don't understand what he is doing. Of course he is late to second city compared to the rest, who all already settled (last Mjmd in T32). I hope you lurkers nag him a bit so that he reveals some stuff in his thread. Oh and last but not least, of course he is still putting espionage into me, because he hasn't setup priorities.

Let's talk about somebody, who knows how to use a chat program. Here is the latest Mjmd diplo

Charriu: Speaking of something different now that we have maps. I think it's worthwhile for both of us to get foreign trade rolling sooner then later. I can say for sure that my second city will go on the stone-island sea.
So should you settle that coastline too we could get trade going.

Mjmd: grats on 1st city; interesting that Ginger/Scooter only behind a turn. I'm betting Imp SD isn't too far behind

Charriu: Probably and Bing is late. I think he was on 1 pop point until T23 or so. And thanks for congratulating

Mjmd: I'm sure you noticed but I stopped my EP on 43 ?

Charriu: Congratulations to settling the second city

Mjmd: FINALLY

Charriu: T32 isn't that late. And I can say you are not the last to second.

Mjmd: it felt like it was with the forested banana lol; normally its fine

I hope I can establish a good border with him. More about that region when I stitched up a complete map for dotmapping. Now there is one last event that happened T32:




Yes I've met Scooter.

Charriu: Well hello there. With my scout move to your south we have offically met each other. ?

Scooter: Nice to meet you! I would ask where you’re located, but I’ve heard you’re neighbors with my neighbor Bing which I guess makes us very much not neighbors. Mind spoiling the surprise and telling me who we’re next to? ?
Also - humble request not to declare and enter borders. Mainly just don't want workers or tiles worked interfered with as I'm sure you understand! There is definitely room to go around if you head northeast - you'll be able to get through

Charriu: You mean your northern neighbor that must be Superdeath.
Don't worry. Even without your post I wouldn't have declared war. Don't want to ruin trade routes.

Scooter: Ah interesting. Ok. So, it goes:

Myself
Bing
You
Mjmd
Superdeath

And of course wraps. Is that right?

Charriu: Yes. A long diagonal stripe across the wrap

Scooter: And I figured you wouldn’t, but it’s been a minute (and by minute I mean closer to 10 years) since I’ve participated in a full diplo game so I thought I’d mention it just to be safe
Ok that’s what I suspected. Interesting setup
I guess in terms of natural land strip borders that makes us fairly natural friends on land, though I’m guessing our borders may be closer by sea

Charriu: There's more. I think I am just across the sea to your north-east.

Scooter: Makes sense. I hadn’t sketched it out yet to see where exactly the overlap happens, but I was guessing it was something like that.

Charriu: My minimap confirmed it for me

Scooter: Our shared neighbor seems to have gone for an interesting start

Charriu: Oh yes definitely.

Scooter: I haven't tried to figure it out in great detail, I just know it's odd

Charriu: I think T23 grow to pop 2 and T31 grow pop 3

Scooter: yeah. especially odd given that I assume the capitals are soft mirrored like most things

Charriu: Very odd

Scooter: given that he hasn't settled, worker-worker I guess

Charriu: Yes capitals are similar. Seems like it, but I think it's wrong for this start.

Scooter: I think 4/5 of us agree given that the rest all planted first city around the same time
What's he like as a player by the way? I have no frame of reference. I just know being next to Protective Skirmishers is mildly concerning if he's prone to aggressive play

Charriu: Defended well enough in his games, not that well on economy. Not particularly aggressive. I would be more worried about the other side

Scooter: yeah. at least the other side is a Known Issue. I wasn't loving the idea of being squished between war chariots and skirmishers

Charriu: In other terms. I think we have some trade potential with calendar. Silk, Sugar for my dye, spice

Scooter: Oh nice. Yeah that would be good for sure. I expect Calendar will be reasonably popular given the food abundance that will push city sizes up. There's def a chance my spare silk is contested. will have to see how the borders shake out. some of these calendar happies are conspicuously halfway between players

Charriu: Yeah, just as if someone planned that. ?

Looks like Scooter is somebody you can work with.

[Charriu]

I leave this here for your enjoyment.

[Tarkeel]

That's a pretty good stitch. Or did you recreate it all in a sandbox?

[Charriu]

Recreated in a sandbox, but I still took multiple screenshots and stitched them together. I think I got pretty good at it by now.

[Charriu]

The song

https://merregnonrecords.bandcamp.com/tr...dom-hearts

Music: Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus - Fantasy I: Kingdom Hearts

Prepare for another big one as we settle another city this turn. This is from the very first concert I attended called Symphonic Fantasies, but I listened to the premiere in Cologne and not to the concert in Tokyo if you are wondering. It was an amazing concert and you will hear other pieces from it here in the future.

Like with the last bigger medley there is way too much to talk about in these brief sections. As you may already know this is a medley consisting of music from the game Kingdom Hearts composed by Yoko Shimomura and excellently arranged by Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo. I recommend getting a comfy chair and just listen to the whole piece because it's so beautiful. It has one of the most beautiful interpretations of 'Dearly Beloved' at 8:57 and an amazingly cheerful 'Hand in Hand' interpretation right before that at 7:00. But listen to the whole piece it is worth it.

Let me finish this small section with a small side story that happened during that concert. Back when I attended it, I and my friends had an extra ticket, because someone got ill. We were able to sell the ticket to an elderly woman before the concert. Let she be in her 80s. Of course we later met hear again in the concert hall as she was sitting right beside my mother. While she was sitting there she noticed the people coming in were not the usual concert attendees. They were mainly young people and especially some came in unusual cloth. So finally she asked my mother about that and what this concert is. She then noticed that she visited the concert hall on the wrong day for the wrong concert. Of course she was a bit shocked about that, but she decided to stay since she was already there. She never have played any video game ever before let alone know anything about this kind of entertainment.
After the concert she was amazed about how beautiful the music was and how happy the young folk were about the music. She never imagined that video games could have this kind of music and she promised to tell all her friends about it. One of the loveliest moment during this concert.

As for buying this piece you can do so at bandcamp. If you want to know more about the concert and/or buy tickets you can do so at https://www.gameconcerts.com/en/welcome/. Oh and last but not least. The solo pianist you've heard is called Benyamin Nuss and is also doing a lot of piano variations of video game music, if you are interested in that.

T41:

---

As you can see I settled my 3rd city: Shimomura. The city is named after gamings probably most famous female composer: Yoko Shimomura. She was responsible for those famous games and OSTs like Street Fighter 2, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana, the Mario & Luigi games, Xenoblade Chronicles, Final Fantasy XV and of course the Kingdom Hearts IP. She also did some lesser known stuff like The King of Dragons, Gargoyle's Quest, Live a Live, Front Mission, Parasite Eve and Radiant Historia. To say she did a lot is an understatement.

The city itself will most likely be my Heroic Epic city as it has enough hammers on hand. That it is on the coast is just a bonus. Quiete a few more things happened the last turns. At around T34 I met Superdeath and had the first diplo interaction with him.

Superdeath: GREETINGS
My long lost scout has found your red borders past the lush land of mjmd.

Charriu: Nice writeup. ? Hello there. In which way is Mjmds land lusher then the others? I assume you want to get past me with your scout. Unfortunately there is no peaceful way anymore. If you have to declare war, I would appreciate it if you go via the northern route along the coast.

Superdeath: Mjmd's 2nd city site is just a much better layout plus access to a ton of resources that my area doesnt have via 1 city. (not that you would want 1 city to have all of that RIGHT NOW) but still.
Aye, ill take the north path once i get on up there.

Charriu: Oh and if you go through the north we also don't have to stick to a turn split order.

Superdeath: Sounds good

[After he was through my territory]

Charriu: You forgot to send a peace offer. ?

Superdeath: Yeah.. past midnight here and I'm rushing to get these turns done b4 heading to bed. Feel free to send one

Charriu: Already did no pressure

Superdeath: What are your thoughts on the map? I have a couple grievances

Charriu: LOL

Superdeath: Not in the resources.

Charriu: Not enough sheep on plain hills this time for you

Superdeath: More of a I'm sad that there seems to be rather clear cut borders.

Charriu: Yes, I already wrote in my thread that this map is a good RB hyperbalanced map, but a bad map for a diplomacy game

Superdeath: I really liked pb48
No real clear borders
Gavagai was playing,
It was grand

Charriu: We can always reroll another map on T50 until everybody is happy. ?

Superdeath: Hue hue

Charriu: And to be clear. That was me being sarcastic. ?

[followed by some more not-game relevant chatting]

I propose that Superdeath has to start in complete deserts for the next PBs. Maybe then he will appreciate a good map.

Then in T38 something surprising happened. Bing actually settled his second city. For reference that's when the first people started settling third cities.

Then at around T40 when Superdeath left my territory he almost met Bing, but know Bing moved west out of Superdeath sight. To bad.

Now Bing was sitting at my border with my scout and I was expecting him turn declare war and move in. This is when the unthinkable happened.

Bing: Yo, my scout just invaded you, hope you don't mind
pls don't kill him

OMG he can talk.

Charriu: Congratulations to settling a second city

Bing: Yo, my scout just invaded you, hope you don't mind
pls don't kill him

Charriu: On which tile is your scout now? I can provide you a path through my empire that's the least obstructive

Charriu: I presume you are on any of the three marked tiles. By moving across the line you are out of my territory without interference by T44. Please make sure you play after me for T41 as per the turn split. Other then that we don't have to stick to a turn split if you follow the path.
[provided a screenshot with a path for him to go along]

Bing: [provided his scouts position via screenshot]
so like this? Thanks for your understanding

Charriu: Yes exactly.
By the way. Could we stop pushing espionage into each other. Would rather work on the graphs of the other players, too

Bing: ok

Careful Bing. You could use too many words in a diplo game.

Lastly some more diplo with my favorite neighbor.

Charriu: Hey, just wanted to let you know that with T41 I will have explored all the missing tiles between us. I could then stitch a map together for us, so that we could discuss the border. Would that be fine with you?

Mjmd: yes

Charriu: Oh and Superdeath just met me last turn.

Mjmd: ya I figured it would be soon. He warred through me

Charriu: Sticking to his persona. ? He will do the same with me. But if I'm not mistaken then he found you pre-T25. Could he not moved around you?

Mjmd: he wanted to scout little spit of land to the west and that caused him to miss the timing window

Charriu: Ah ok

[a few turns later]

Charriu: Hey just a headsup. A warrior of mine is coming from the north of your third? city. I have no offensive intention. I just wanted to explore a path for future trade routes.

Mjmd: 2nd actually. I did not go for gold first. Am I crazy. Maybe

Charriu: Not as crazy as Bing. ? Settling the second city in T38 on this map

Mjmd: I think Cornflakes may be doing SDs micro. Either that or he learned early game micro. ? He just settled his 3rd

Charriu: Cornflakes for sure. Superdeath had enough time to learn game micro. Why should he suddenly do it

Well next up my dotmap for your enjoyment and afterwards I will have the talk with Mjmd.

[Charriu]

Dotmaps starting from south to north



The south

Kondo: Already settled will be a mixed hammer and commerce city longterm. Helps the cap grow cottages.

Shimomura: As already said. Heroic Epic city, access to copper. Coast access to the east.

Banana City (Yellow Spot): Very odd placement I know. I was looking through the map for a good Globe Theatre spot and this is what I came up with. It will be straight up on the border with Mjmd. But should keep itself up with Nationhood and enough culture.

Corn City (Light Green Spot): Commerce spot with some specialist potential. Will secure the border somewhat there. Mjmd should be fine with that spot I think.



The north

EastCoast (Dark Green Spot 1SW of crab): A simple fishing village with some added towns for good commerce. Also helps grow the caps towns.

NorthCoast (White spot): I will build this up as a production city as best as possible.

Gem City (Dark Green Spot 1N of gems): Gives me access to gems. Has a crazy food output for specialists as well as enough commerce from coast

Masonry City (Red spot): This will be my Moai city. I expect it to have one of the Masonry resources according to mirroring. Will have enough production to get Moai up and continue as a great hammer city.

Sad filler city (Viking color spot): A sad spot with almost no use lategame when the other tiles are gobbled up by neighboring cities. Until then it helps grow cottages for the cap and the...

Wallstreet city (Black spot): I will fill this city up with commerce. Depending how the game turns out I may even move the capitol here for better maintenance, if I manage to capture cities from Bing.

Pig city (Blue spot): Another production city. The cow is not a food resource it's a hammer tile.

West spice city (Purple spot): If it's a border city it will be hammer focussed if not then commerce. If I feel overly aggressive towards Bing it goes 1NW on the hill both for defense and to claim the deer resource.

East spice city (Yellow spot): Commerce city on the border, but most importantly secures the second spice resource. Depending on the situation with Bing could also go down 1S for defense.

National parc city (Brown spot): Will be settled last for obious reasons. If enough forests survive it could be a national parc city.

As for the order of settling:

2nd: Kondo
3rd: Shimomura
4th: Wallstreet city
5th: Masonry city
6th: West spice (As soon as I can defend it)
7th: East spice (As soon as I can defend it)
8th: Gems city
9th: Banana city
10th: Pig city
11th: Corn city
12th: East coast
13th: North coast
14th: Sad filler city
15th: National parc city

As you can see from the order I'm focusing heavily north. That's why I want to secure my border with Mjmd diplomatically. The Mjmd region is just less attractive with all that jungle there. Hope I can find a good deal with Mjmd.

[Qgqqqqq]

When would you aim to invade Bing, if that's your intention? Is it still with Cossacks?

[Charriu]

Definitely after the time of Skirmishers. We will have to see. I first want to fill up the land before I engage in a bigger war.

[Charriu]

The song

https://ericbuchholz.bandcamp.com/track/...ss-zelda-2

Music: Eric Buchholz - Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Princess Zelda"

You probably know this tune already as it's one of the famous tunes in video games: It's Zelda's Lullaby. But Eric manages to improve on it in so many ways. It starts quite familiar, but as soon as the brass instruments start at 0:20 and especially with the strings at 0:30 you notice this is somewhat different.

Yes the melody is still present, but the foundation is so much broader and slowly but steadly pressing forward. But Eric always finds a way to turn switch between these parts and the small and tender parts of the piece. I just love it as he manages to give you this warm feeling when listening to it. Grandious.

You can by this directly on Bandcamp, but don't just by the single song. Buy the whole album. It's worth it.

T50:

---

It's time for a classic T50 report. But before I turn to my empire let me show you what my newly built workboat uncovered in the last turns. This will be a very food heavy city 1NE of the marble. And on top of that I cleared the path for an additional trade route way towards Scooter. With this it's also clear that I don't have to settle on banana. In other exploration news my scout followed the coast north from Scooter and is now at Superdeath's border. We signed open borders this turn thanks to me discovering Writing maybe I'm even the first player to that. Superdeath has disovered Sailing most likely going to the Good Lighthouse. I'm wondering if I already give him trade routes. Also somebody went for Mysticism maybe followed by a religion. But let me turn towards my empire:




As you can see I'm still at 3 cities unlike most other players, who have 4. This was quite deliberate. I noticed that maintenance costs are a bit on the higher side here on the map, so I feel fine to first prepare my economy for the next cities. According to my plans I should be able to get Currency a good chunk before T100. I also plan to run scientists in the upcoming turns both for research and the first great scientists. That's because I whipped 2 libraries already this turn. Once again I'm very happy to manage to do the whips so that it shows as a 4-pop whip in PBSpy. Always nice to mess with the C&D people a bit. Another reason for the scientists is that I'm running a low game on workers, I only have 2. I know I know shockingly low, but I think I can get by with those for a good time. Let's look at the individual cities.




My capitol is prepared to generate the first great scientist in the upcoming turns. I managed to finish the granary the same turn I finished Writing thanks to working the plain forest hill for 3 turns. That way I will grow back quickly and thanks to the additional happiness from ivory I can run 6 pops in the city. With the 2 scientists and 6 improved tiles it has enough tiles to work for now. After the scientists is generated it's main priority is whipping the upcoming settlers for the northern expanison.




Together with the capitol, Kondo is the financial backbone of the early game for now. The library isn't primarily to run scientists but rather to increase the beaker output from the good commerce tiles. Plans are to finish the granary here afterwards and then start on a galley for the first island city.




The future military city, Shimomura is preparing to finish a library without whip (don't want to loose the two strong tiles). It will finish a granary after the library and then start on military. While doing the military it will also work on the second great scientist. The city will also get another mine on the hill 1N and a farm for some better growth.

This is it for now. My big hope is that the other players overdo it on expansion and bust their economy crawling towards Currency. This should give me a enough time to get even on expansion as well as maintain a tech advantage.
Now having said all that the most important thing already happened shortly after T41, because then I had the talk with Mjmd about the border, which I will document in full here:

Charriu: And here is the map of our border region. By the way don't think too much about the explored tiles on the edge to the east. I forgot to make those unexplored in the worldbuilder.
I need some more time to write down my dotmap in the thread and then I would be ready to talk about the border



Mjmd: Are you settling on the banana for the fish west coast?

Charriu: Don't need to. There is an island 1S 1SW of the fish. Forgot to paint it in. Didn't think it was relevant for the discussion

Mjmd: So what are you thinking?

Charriu: Well I counted tiles and the midpoint actually isn't the lake. Rather the grasland 1S of it.

Mjmd: I imagine you want hill between banana and rice

Charriu: Yes. I wanted that spot.

Mjmd: Makes sense

Charriu: Let me paint in the spots that I wanted to settle.


As you can see I have two spots for the banana city.

Charriu: What I noticed is that our border is heavily jungled unlike my border with Bing and I guess yours with Superdeath.

Mjmd: It is. I wont be up that way for a second. I would be fine with red which would give you two resources if I can settle hill. Nw of jungled rice. It doesnt look like you have any cities in that area. That would give me river tiles.

Charriu: You mean 1NW of rice and 1W of dye?

Mjmd: Yes, I had a city pencilled in 1n of dry cow I would have to give up on. But I like river tiles ?

Charriu: Let me paint those two spots in our colors for a better overview



Mjmd: Yep those spots. Obviously if you want to settle yellow I will gladly take a city 1n of cow. But I'm fine with the above

Charriu: Ok then let's agree on that. Should I change my mind and settle yellow, I will let you know. I don't know about you, but because this region is under a jungle I will focus more on the other side, which is easier to settle and develop. I presume the same would go for you, because you have a worthwhile floodplain region between you and Superdeath.
What I mean is that I very much appreciate it if we could continue the good neighborship we had in the past PBs. ?

Mjmd: Of my first 5 cities only 1 is planned in the north. Rest are all towards sd

Charriu: Similar for me. All the next cities will go north.

Mjmd: T75 nap? T100? Up to you

Charriu: Let's do T100. I doubt we will have contact until that anyway. What I would appreciate even more is a good partnership. We can trade my spice for your other calendar resource in the future.
And as you may know I explored the coastline to you, so that we could start open borders and foreign trade as soon as possible.

Mjmd: I may* end up with a 2nd incense. There isnt a lot of happy

Charriu: That 'may' also applies for me and the spice of course

Mjmd: Definitely designed to facilitate both conflict and trade

Charriu: Well we all start with ivory and gold. Gems are nearby. So it's not nothing

Mjmd: It's quite a bit of early game happiness, but not so much later, which design wise I quite like

Charriu: Yes, it's a well made map as can be expected from Tarkeel

[Charriu]

The song



Music: Joshua Morse feat. Jeff Ball, Laura Intravia - Final Fantasy VI 'A Glimmer of Hope (Searching for Friends)' OC ReMix

Final Fantasy VI is famous its great soundtrack. Here we have a piece from the later stage of the game. This is played on the overworld map while you reassembling your team of characters. The original has a very somber tone, which is beautifully captured in the early piano section. But like in the original the pace picks up around the midpoint turning into a more hopeful melody with the added flute, strings and percussions. Yes it's not a full orchestra not even every instrument is 'real', but it's such a beautiful arrangment that I had to post here.

This song is from one of many overclocked remix albums. Yes, not only does Overclocked Remix do single remixes, no the also make full albums (over 70 by now). You find everything about it here: https://ocremix.org/album/46/final-fanta...e-and-ruin

T58:

---

After discovering the marble island I turned my work boat north to explore the stone island. Unfortunately I discovered that Bing settled up on me. Now you might say. Ha that's what he gets for ignoring expanding fast. But even if I have settled fast I probably would not have prevented this city. In my opinion there where better spots to settle for Bing at the time. Of his 5 cities he has 3 went down south, so he is ignoring his equally important north, where another calendar luxury lies for him. Now I don't know if he just used his last city to secure that resource. So what did this city near me give him. Yes it's not a bad city with the fish and cow. He gets another resource of spice, which he already safely secured with his copper city. The main reason why I think it would have been better to focus north for him is that he saw that I was expanding slower, so there was no rush to settle up and secure this second spice. I also do not strictly consider this a pink dot as it is only 1S of the mid point.

In other great news as you can see I finished my first great scientist and used him for an academy in the capitol. So why did I run this strategy? Well I already explained earlier that I want to focus on great scientists and even settling them (Blasphemy ). I'm basically running the same strategy from PB67, which I never got to execute to its fullest. Back in PB67 I finished Writing in T46 and the first library in T48. The first scientist was out in T58. Here in PB70 I have the following times. Writing in T49, library in T51 and first scientist out also in T58. So why am I telling you all this. Well because in PB67 I had an additional bonus in the form of the American UB Carnegie Public libary, which some players deemed overpowered. Yes, the map is different and I have a gold resource here which I didn't have in PB70, but I achieved similar times. Hopefully I can prove that the American UB is not overpowered like some people think.

In other international news. Scooter founded buddhism and executed the Oracle-Metal Casting plan. I expect him to finish the Pyramids around T75 with an engineer. Superdeath also founded a religion: Hinduism. I expect an early shrine from him thanks the Egypt UB.
Next turn I will finally settle my 4th city, so long as Bings warrior around that area does not interfere.

ATTENTION
Lastly an important note. I will be on vacation on friday. I will post extensive plans for the upcoming 10+ turns that any global lurker can execute. I would be very glad if anybody can take up the turns for me during my vacation.