[SPOILERS] DaveV is not clowning around. Well, maybe a little bit...

[DaveV]

First turn, first player!

I revolted to Agrarianism, sent units out to explore, and started farming the rice.



I'm trying to use dropbox for images again, please let me know if you can't see it.

[Jabah]

One picture is indeed showing for me.

[DaveV]

On turn 2, I renamed the capital to Ronald McDonald. He's probably the best known clown in the world thanks to McDonald's huge advertising budget. My sister in law worked for the local Ronald McDonald house for a while, and they do a lot of good for people that really need the help.

[DaveV]

Turn 3:



First event. I received 29 gold; on the low end of the range, but much better than goblin poop.

Observant viewers will notice that my warrior is already back in my capital. One of the hidden advantages of Creative is that you can do a lot of exploration with border pops, so I'm not going to take any chances early.

[RefSteel]

One of the hidden advantages of Creative is that you can do a lot of exploration with border pops, so I'm not going to take any chances early.

Wow, I'm too used to lurking normal-speed BtS. I just realized/remembered that on Quick speed, Creative borders pop after ... just 13 turns? Or 12 if you're in the Religion civic. That is fast!

[DaveV]

Since it's turn 8 and animals are now on the map, I've pulled my scout back inside my borders. Here's a zoomed out view of my exploration:



Unless I see something really good on the capital border pop, my next city will go west of corn. It's crap for commerce, but on a hill, very good for hammers, and it's coastal for future offshore trade (fingers crossed). There's a goblin fort 3N of the corn, so a long time from now when the borders expand over the fort I believe it will stop additional spawns. Poison goblins are a pain, particularly the archers.

[DaveV]

Borders popped after I ended turn 13 (1 turn late because of my revolt on the first turn).



I have a scout/warrior pair on the sheep, belatedly moving down to investigate the river in the south (I spotted a corner of the river in the fog a couple turns ago). The wheat is also interesting: it's wet, which means the tile NW of it is a lake unless I'm really misreading the fog. I'm also thinking that 3NE of the capital is probably a better spot for a corn city, since it can work some river tiles for commerce. It will be quite a while before I have Sailing and need a port city. Horses should appear at the end of next turn, so that may be another factor in the second city location.

[DaveV]

Finished AH, no horses appeared. Maybe resourceless units are looking like a good idea.

[DaveV]

Second turn today, I moved the explorers to the river source:



Looks pretty attractive. This city will be a pretty good fortress, on a hill, nestled in the mountains, with a river protecting two of the three approach tiles. The four foodhammer forested deer is a good tile that doesn't require any worker turns. I can steal the sheep from the capital, which can switch to the floodplain for the same foodhammer yield (after it's farmed), and eventually farm the riverside grasslands to give the new city some actual food. Sold.

Note that I'm taking a big risk with my worker pasturing the cow. The tile 2SW of the cow is fogged, and a lizardman could charge in from that tile to ruin my game. I'm relying on barbarians' preference for defensive tiles over bare flatland tiles.

Note also that the crab appears to have ice to its south, meaning I'll have to build a city (or, in the distant future, a fort) to the SE or SW of the crab to put fishing boats onto it.

Finally, I was planning to research Mining next, but I'm going to squeeze in Festivals first. Might as well get started on rolling the dice on Freaks. For the same price as a Freak, I can also build a Marketplace and Carnival (thanks to Creative discount). Normally, I'm not a big fan of buildings in this game, but so far that looks like my best shot at having an actual economy (and stacking up a couple more happy faces).

[RefSteel]

Nice to see a bit more exploration, with good results! (And I'm sure there must be horses around someplace!)