[Spoilers] Pericles of the Graeco-Mayans

[Sylon]

Founded Mutal- Which I forgot to rename to Athenai- this turn. Alas, the screenshots came out poorly, so pictures will have to wait.

Moved my warrior 1SW this turn, started a warrior and started research on fishing.

[Sylon]

Warrior due in four turns, as is fishing.


Athenai, turn 2

Now, about that spare fish to the West. That cheeky, *insolent* spare fish was hiding in the two fogged tiles prior to my settling of Athenai, as they were blocked by the forest hill. Had I seen them, I would have settled 1W, losing the sheep, and trading the Northern fish for the Western one, while freeing up a good spot for a second city.

Still, as it is, having a stronger capital isn't a bad thing. So for now I'm content to let the fishes go.



The lower end of the peninsula. I'm struggling as to whether I should name it the Greek Peninsula, or the Yucatan Peninsula. Greek or Mayan?

The warrior down below moves onto the forested hill west next turn. I have no intention of letting another fogged fish resource go.



Now this is fairly interesting. According to my calculations, there are approximately 513 tiles on this map. Borders pop next turn, which should allow me to confirm this.

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Speculations from the Acropolis

What is 'Speculations from the Acropolis'?

Speculations from the Acropolis is a little column you might see popping up time to time. This is where I use my much-vaunted skills of foresight to predict the moves and game plans of my opponents.

Watch it! Behold! And when all is done you can go to the lurker thread and laugh at how terribly off my predictions are.

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-Ruff is going to for worker techs first, while planning to get a religion later. He will gamble on the fact that out of the three mysticism-start civs, I am Creative and Mackoti is expansive Inca, which lessens the attractiveness of an early religion. This will give him some leeway to delay religious techs.

-Mackoti, naturally, will go worker first, while probably researching hunting (I assume that everyone started with a furs tile in their BFC). He might go for a religion, but that is up in the air.

-Pegasus will eventually try for a religion. If he fails, he might look to Stonehenge.

-And if he succeeds in getting a religion, no one will bother getting Stonehenge until later. The most likely culprits in this scenario would either be Mackoti or myself. In this scenario, Pegasus and Ruff will likely go after the Oracle, hoping to generate GPP and snag a tech along with it.

-Finally, the last possibility is that Kodii gets a religion. If he does, however, it would be a mere side-effect of his going for Priesthood and the Oracle in order to get Metal Casting for Mints.

[Sylon]

Moved warrior back 1NE. I figure I can send my second warrior to defog those two tiles later. Borders will pop at the end of this turn.

In the meantime, stats!



The stats here shed a little light onto what the other players are up to. Someone out there is working a three food tile, while one or, more likely two players, are working zero food tiles. I'll wager that said players are, of course, Mackoti and Pegasus.

Health-wise, it seems to indicate that everyone else has started in a more heavily-forested region of the map than I have. It is likely that the chap with the highest life expectancy also settled next to fresh water.

And as for land area, Kodii is clearly leading at 13 tiles in his expanded BFC. (Everyone else has not gotten their border pops yet) This, of course, means that he, too has a coastal start. It is likely that he is the current leader in life expectancy, too.

Of the other opponents, someone has an even lower land area than I do. It would seem that my start of approximately 6 or so tiles in the initial square borders is the norm.

GNP-wise, the lowest GNP is 16, 3 points below mine. 2 points can be taken off for the Creative culture boost, while the remaining one point is from working the furs.

Top of the chart is Kodii once more, working a coastal tile with his financial trait. My earlier assumption of Pegasus and/or Mackoti working a forested plains hill still stands. The remaining player, Ruff, is most likely the player who is working a three food tile.



On to the game settings. The game is at Noble, so city-spamming won't bankrupt a player easily. Sea level is high, map is small. The map script isn't stated, so alas my earlier figure of 513 tiles means little.

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Now, a question to the lurkers, if there are any of you out there:
Are the screenshots too large? Too small? Just right? And on that note, are there too many needless screenshots? Do I use text effects too much?

[pocketbeetle]

You're doing absolutely fine, no complaints here at all.

[Sylon]

@Pocketbeetle: Thanks!



Turn 4 itself is of little note. My borders popped this turn, and I discovered that by toying around with the worked tile I can boost the amount of overflow into the planned workboat on the Turn 6. For now, I'm still working the furs tile, but next turn I'll swap to the forested plains hill.



The revised stats post border pop. This latest bit confirms that I have the least amount of forests in my BFC. Of course, Pegasus and Mackoti get the +2 health bonus for being expansive, but losing to both Ruff and Kodii is unfortunate. Then again, I did move my settler.

(Of course, it might also be due to freshwater bonuses being in play, which hopefully means a lake and not a river.)

Regardless, having a mere two tiles to chop in my capital is quite a bummer. I'll have to prioritise the settling of a production site first, to make up for the deficiency and get those workers and settlers going.

Athenai has the whip, yes, but the whip alone loses to the combination of whip+chop. The settler move has secured me an extra food source, which would work nicely in getting it to work a scientist early.

Production-wise, it seems my earlier prediction of either Mackoti or Pegasus working a forested plains hill was incorrect. Had either of them done so, the highest rival hammers would show up as five (If I remember correctly- could someone confirm whether or not bonus hammers show up in the demographics screen?). The chap with the highest production, then, is either a non-expansive leader who is working a forested plains hill, or a non-expansive leader who settled on a plains hill working a two-hammer tile.

Of course, there is also simply the possibility that Mackoti and/or Pegasus did have a forested plains hill in their BFC, but simply happen to not be working on a worker just yet.

My crop yield values are off, too. Though it slipped by me earlier, the demographics screen clearly lists my food total of 4 as fourth place. In fifth place is whoever is working a plains hill tile (It being, to my knowledge, the only tile which appears in BFCs and lacks any food production), which means that the other two players are working at least two food tiles. And it would seem that they are in fact working two food tiles, since should another one of them work a 3 food tile, the total food would go up to 20/5= an average of four food. The deceptive average of 3 is caused by rounding down the figure 3.8.

As far as two-food tiles go, the two possibilities I can think off are either a forested grassland fur tile (Which is probably available to all players for balance) or a two-food three commerce lake tile with Financial. All other options are inferior to the fur tile.

Therefore my speculations are as follows:

-Kodii is working a lake tile.
-Ruff is working a forested plains hill.
-One of Pegasus or Mackoti is working a three food tile.
-One of Pegasus or Mackoti is working a forested grassland furs tile.

Do the figures corroborate my speculations? Taking into account tricky round-downs, the total financial yield of all 5 players ranges from 85-89. Each civ gets a base GNP of 16 (8 commerce, 2 culture, 4 espionage from palace, 1 commerce from center tile, 1 free beaker), for a base total of 80. Kodii and I are Creative, so another +4 is added. I am working a furs tile (+1), Kodii is working a three-commerce tile (+3), Ruff is working a F-P-H (+0), One of Pegasus or Mackoti is working a 3 food tile (+0) and the last person is working a one commerce tile (+1), for a total of 89.

The Production demographics does not corroborate this as definitively as the GNP one does, but it does not deny it either. Therefore, I stand by my speculations.

Why, yes, I do in fact have a lot of time on my hands. Why do you ask?

[Sylon]

I am an idiot.

To be exact, there is nothing wrong with my calculations above, as far as I can see, except that Mali does not start with fishing.



Turn 5 sees more of the lowlands revealed. The shape of the peninsula means that I could probably afford to go lax on defense to the north, though I must watch out for amphibious invasions.

Also, note that as of this- well, last turn, Pegasus, Ruff, and Mackoti have all gained a small boost to their score. This means that they have either researched fishing or hunting- Of the two, fishing is more likely, unless they lack any Agriculture resources, in which case they would go for hunting-animal husbandry.

Kodii, however, has had no score boost. This, combined with the discrepancy in GNP, leads me to think that he is teching either BW or one of the religious techs, with his GNP being boosted by the prerequisite bonus.



Everyone else's borders popped this turn, with the gloomy revelation that I am, in fact, last in terms of number of tiles in my capital. At least I'm not alone.



City-wise, I've dropped from first to second place. Otherwise, not much to see here.

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Now, another question for the lurkers:

[SIZE="3"]The peninsula that Athenai caps is populated by Greeks and Mayans. Yet, both Greeks and Mayans had their own peninsulas in history. That taken into account, which of these two peoples should the peninsula be named after?[/SIZE]

A) The Greeks were the cornerstone of Western civilisation, and thus should have the peninsula named after them.

B) The Mayans were a highky advanced Mesoamerican civilisation, in some ways more advanced than the Greeks in their heyday. Therefore, it is they who should own the peninsula.

C) I have a dream- that one day, right there in Athenai, little Mayan boys and Mayan girls will be able to join hands with little Greek boys and Greek girls as sisters and brothers.

[pocketbeetle]

We're naming the land already? ^^

I'll take C!

[Ilios]

No way were the Mayas more kinky than the Greeks...

[Sylon]

Fishing came in this turn. Research is set to Agriculture, build set to a work boat, due in 6 turns.



Demographics-wise, My GNP has fallen from 2nd to 3rd place. I would wager that someone is working either a lake tile without FIN, or, more likely, a furs tile combined with the prereq boost.*

The drop in food seems to indicate that there are others who have decided on the same course of action as I did (See above). Thankfully, this is where that extra 1 hammer per turn comes into play- Even with a one-turn delay I'll be done before them. Needless to say, I'm not regretting moving my settler at all.



On the home front, our new warrior, named Euthymenes after the Greek explorer Euthymenes of Massalia, sets off to explore the great unknown. He'll be following the path laid out by the other warrior, now named Pytheas.



Pytheas himself will head East, while Euthymenes will take the West fork. Said West fork seems considerably shorter, and I'm hoping he'll be back in time to escort the settler out.

At the moment, I don't have to worry about being caught unaware by an early DOW, since any scouting units will have to be funneled through the strip of land linking the peninsula to what may or may not be a mainland (But certainly looks like one).

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A remainder that last turn's poll is still open! For reference:

[SIZE="3"]The peninsula that Athenai caps is populated by Greeks and Mayans. Yet, both Greeks and Mayans had their own peninsulas in history. That taken into account, which of these two peoples should the peninsula be named after?[/SIZE]

A) The Greeks were the cornerstone of Western civilisation, and thus should have the peninsula named after them. (1 Vote)

B) The Mayans were a highky advanced Mesoamerican civilisation, in some ways more advanced than the Greeks in their heyday. Therefore, it is they who should own the peninsula.

C) I have a dream- that one day, right there in Athenai, little Mayan boys and Mayan girls will be able to join hands with little Greek boys and Greek girls as sisters and brothers. (1 Vote)

No love for the Mayans alone, it seems. Of course, this poll is null and void if the land down South turns out to be a small island!

[Sylon]

Pytheas discovers some Spices South this turn. This is good news.

Alas, the supposed 'mainland' seems to be ending just at the edge of the fog. I suppose that means there will be no Greek/Yucatan peninsula.



C&D-wise, we've got something interesting this turn. Someone is researching a tech they have a prerequisite on! At the same time, there are two others who are teching basic techs. Might be Hunting, might be Agriculture. It's hard to tell.

Kodii is most likely going for a religion. This is a good thing, since it makes the Priesthood path less attractive for other civs. This is also a bad thing, since this makes the Priesthood path more attractive for Kodii, and if he gets the Oracle and slingshots Metal Casting, he'll zoom past the rest of us. The combination of Creative+Financial+Noble+Skirmishers makes him the most potent expander in my eyes. Not to mention, Kodii himself is one of the two veterans in this game.

We'll find out who's working that 3F tile shortly, since they should be growing this turn.