[pb72 spoilers]: the esteemed gentleman's literature and book club

[greenline]

The rapid turn pace leaves me with no time to catch up on simming. Hopefully this being a greens game will not bite me for my lack of heavy micro!




The work boat scouting before it gets added to the new city revealed a pig by the copper. This might be the better third city, since it shares wheat with the capital and doesn't grow as slowly as the cow + plains hill sheep city.




Further scouting around the new capital location reveals a natural land barrier. Doesn't seem like this land is on the 'front lines', so to speak.

[greenline]

Played another double turn. Settler is out and will found city by the corn + fish next turn. Revolted to slavery. Next decision: what to whip in the capital, what to build in city #2?

[greenline]

So the lack of replies to my posts showed me something. Clearly, the authors and books I have been picking are too boring and too obscure. Who's ever heard of Hawthorne or bothered reading Plato, really? Time to fix that.




Dune, in addition to being a major motion picture that came out in the last 5 years, is also a hefty science fiction novel. Besides winning many accolades, some credit it with codifying the nascent genre itself, and it's easy to see why. The desert planet the book is set on, with its sandworms, military helicopters and laser guns, and inventive moisture farming, looks and feels like many other properties you've probably seen if your life. While copying the aesthetics and surface details of Dune was very common, though, far fewer writers decided to copy what lay at the heart of Dune.

Dune is fundamentally a novel about people first and technology second. People entirely make up the roster of protagonists and antagonists. There are no sentient aliens to be found here, just the odd animal you haven't seen before. The technology itself is rarely the focus of the plot or the characters, and tends to feel familiar as it explains details of how the people get around or what they're doing. There is the prerequisite excuse for faster than light travel, there's futuristic weapons that exist alongside the good old atomic bomb rather than replacing it, there's this new chemical substance that gives people longer lives, but the end result of that is not some kind of Star Trek enlightenment, but commerce. As oil is the lifeblood of our current high tech civilization, spice is the lifeblood of this one, and the man who can control it would be king.

Indeed, the future Dune suggests is one where, as much as technology changes, people hardly do. The world of Dune is one that features bickering a landed aristocracy (one that rules planets rather than parcels of land on those planets, but I digress), and a universal emperor, an emperor whose claim on the world seems to be receding day by day. The power vacuum implied by a weak emperor is sure to result in chaos, and it is a violent power struggle that forces the protagonist to flee into the desert, and to take up residence with the locals.

It's in that section, where Paul and his mother are wandering the desert, that the book has one of my favorite passages. It's a short section where Paul decides to take a short sip from his limited supply of water, and as he opens the flask, all the animals nearby are suddenly looking at him intently. I've never seen a better description of a truly desert-like planet, where water is that scarce, though many authors have tried to get a similar effect.

For all the praise I could say for the book, I do have a rather significant criticism, and that is that the book simply does not appear to be finished. A strange criticism, perhaps, for a book that already clocks in around 800 pages, but one I cannot abandon nonetheless. The book tells the story of Paul being driven into the desert, shows his first meeting with the tribe of Fremen that live there, then abruptly cuts two years in the future to show him as the leader of the Fremen and riding a sandworm to bring the fight back to the people who first drove him away. Missing in that cut are all kinds of worthy details that the author will never get a chance to provide, now that he's dead. Strangely, he spent the rest of his life after writing the book on increasingly ponderous sequels that seem to have been written in reaction to people thinking the protagonist was a cool guy, showing the descent of Paul and his newly forged empire into increasingly unpleasant sounding nonsense. I can't help but feel that was a waste.

Also, for as much of the original book was details of people and a planet that are good to read, it also includes a particular scene that was a staple of many books from this time period, where the protagonist takes psychedelic mushrooms AND THEY BLOW HIS MIND. No doubt the author experimented with these in college or during Woodstock. I was not impressed.

But I would still highly recommend Dune for everything else it has to offer. Just go in knowing that there's a slice missing from the cake.

[greenline]

The actual turn details were rather busy, at least as busy as the ancient era scout moving can get:




The capital I set to finish a workboat at the same time it grows to size 4. I think it makes sense to whip a settler for the wheat / copper / pig spot next: that can grow to size two right away borrowing the capital wheat. It'll need to whip a monument, but it can pump workers with the wheat and copper.




The new city was already hooked up to the capital even though there wasn't time to finish a road between the two. That PRO trade route being available right away was a big boon - it meant finishing Fishing a turn sooner, and having the second city immediately start working the fish. The worker is farming the corn. I plan to have this city start on a second worker when it hits size two. It doesn't need a border expansion for a while.

AH due in 8 terms of break even research, then pottery in six. We could do hunting in between to grab the capital ivory, but it's good as a 2-2 tile and the happiness isn't sorely needed right now. Getting EXP granaries online seems more important.




In the deep south, our scout finds Bing's capital. Not the worst neighbor to have. CRE is annoying, but the land makes for pretty natural and chokey borders anyway. Looks like his first city was sent in a different direction, unless he hasn't built a settler yet.

Hoping for some advice once you get back Tarkeel. This is the part of the game where I typically start to feel lost.

[greenline]

Another turn rolled in. I am very unfamiliar with simultaneous turns, so I am hoping this does not break the etiquette rules:




Declared war at the start of the turn just to move the scout in, then offered a cease fire. If that is a double turn or messing with a turn split please let me know so I can fix it. The intent was just to get a bit of extra map knowledge, not anything like a real war.

[Tarkeel]

I'm finally back home and put a version of the PB73 map out for review, so catching up on this. Sorry I've been a bit absent when the turns were rolling.

Firstly, declaring war on a double move like that is sort of breaking the etiquette thread; there most likely wouldn't have been anything different happening if you'd done it later though, so unlikely to be contested and reloaded.

For cities, I think the north and south sites you've identified are both good: Biggest question is, how badly do we need copper? Terrain towards Bing seems rough, but we might have other neighbors who know where we are but declined to make contact. I think going copper first was safer, it should definitely be our next city before reaching for the floodplains.

Agreed that AnimalHusbandry needs to come in soon; I usually like getting Hunting done first for the pre-req bonus though, and improved ivory is even better. I'd also avoid running break-even and go binary research, you risk losing commerce to rounding at this stage of the game.

I think I'll try to get a look in tomorrow, and I do have some thoughts on Dune for later.

[greenline]

I don't think the scout move was a double move - I moved the scout before Bing played, then Bing played, then I declared and moved the scout the next turn. But I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Could swap research to hunting now to try and work on saving those few beakers. I'm not sure when the worker labor for the capital would be available to improve the ivory, as that will be competing with getting early cottages online.

I can login and swap it to binary research.

[greenline]

Logged in and hunting is only 3 turns at 100%. So might as well do that for the pre-requisites bonus.

[greenline]

Next turn: Bing did not reoffer a cease fire or peace treaty. I moved the scout away.

I didn't want to play the turn right after that because me and Bing are still at war. Damn, this is confusing. Do I have to follow turn split rules until the scout is away from his capital?

[Magic Science]

Next turn: Bing did not reoffer a cease fire or peace treaty. I moved the scout away.

I didn't want to play the turn right after that because me and Bing are still at war. Damn, this is confusing. Do I have to follow turn split rules until the scout is away from his capital?

You did the right thing. You should follow turn split rules until the war is over.
Every war must be treated as a "real war" for turn split purposes because you don't know what the other player is thinking or planning or when their actions might make a double-move problematic.

In this case, it seems from PBSPY like you did the right thing so far, so no worries. You declared war on BING T33, right?
BING double-moved you T33/T34, which was wrong since he was at war with you. However, in this case, it seems from your posts that it was probably irrelevant and not worth doing anything about. Is that double-move a problem for you? 
It's just good to have good habits all the time.

For now, this etiquette thread still stands: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=7311