[SPOILERS] Seven Isabellas of India

[SevenSpirits]

Animal Husbandry in.



There is no horse here! I was 100% assuming that there was, and I still didn't go for AH over BW. If anyone had done that they would have been pretty pissed off, I think. If I'm not mistaken this happened to Nakor.

On a lighter note, that Incense city is looking beautiful.

[SevenSpirits]

Turn 53: a fairly good turn.



I delayed whipping this galley two turns so that it could overflow directly into a granary, which with 30 overflow and expansive, will just barely complete the turn after. The delay was necessary to finish research of pottery.

This galley will immediately ferry the 4xp warrior and the axe over to the western land, then turn around and pick up a settler and a worker. The settler will probably be whipped from Rebel Miners too, at size 6. (Yes, it will be a bit unhappy at size 5, but it grows insanely fast with a granary anyway.) It's possible I will also make a settler in Alpha Centauri but I need military too, and it's got a near-complete barracks. Most likely I will just keep Rebel Miners on settler duty, as it needs as many 3-pop whips as possible to stay at maximum productivity.



Alpha Centauri finishes the Great Lighthouse this turn. Yay I guess, it's only going to produce a couple gpp at the start, as I only have 2 cities. But soon enough it will be quite useful, and most importantly no one else has it.

It's true that I sacrificed development to get it this soon, which cancels out some of its value. However, I think this was better than alternate scenarios:
a) I never attempt it, and someone else gets it at a later, more efficient date, reaping amazing value from it.
b) I attempt it later, and may or may not be the one who gets it. I'm not really interested in playing risky like that.

Demographics became pretty much untrackable a few turns ago, so I would not have had certainty in landing it had I waited for even my first settler/galley.

Heres's an overview shot of my island:



My workers have been extremely productive. The only turns you could consider wasted have been the road on the chopped forest (which did only cost 1 net worker turn, and provided useful flexibility), one turn put into roading the oasis for lack of a better task, and the road on the tile that was supposed to be horses (but I'm now guessing is iron, in which case that is a good road after all). Being able to get all my resources up immediately after revealing/unlocking them has been quite nice. In the next few turns I'll build a cottage or two before I can start shipping my workers off to other lands.

Tech-wise, I have all the critical ones now. As I've kind of got commerce covered for a while, my priority is food and hammers, and to that end I will probably head for happiness techs - first, a religion! Giving Rebel Miners +1 happiness will be quite nice, for a start. If I miss Hinduism, I'm probably the only person with Masonry so far, and will be able to take Judaism. Other important techs include:
- Writing
- Monarchy
- Metal Casting

Yes, whoever gets Oracle->Metal Casting is going to enjoy their Triremes (and Colossus), I think. And it won't be me - turning yet more hammers into beakers at this point would be pretty silly.

[pocketbeetle]

Congrats on GLH!

Where are you thinking of placing the Incense city?

[SevenSpirits]

With current information, definitely on the northerly incense. Being riverside it will give a free commerce immediately, which is more valuable than having a 0/0/7 tile to work later. It's coastal, freshwater, immediately has two FPs to work, and will soon gain a horse! As a small bonus, I will gain incense immediately upon researching Calendar even if my workers are busy elsewhere.

I was planning to found there as soon as I saw a river incense with a FP next to it - the other tiles that have been revealed in the intervening turns have only made that option seem more attractive!

[SevenSpirits]

All right, I've done some exploring now. I was told there would be barbarians.



[SIZE="3"]Hello?[/SIZE] Hello? [SIZE="1"]Hello?[/SIZE]

Guys? There aren't any barbarians here. Raging or otherwise. So what's going on? Well, basically, I think there must have been a good number of pre-placed barb cities. With each of them churning out units, they could easily hit the max number of barbs by now. That number for monarch is 1 barb per 40 unowned land tiles. Raging barbs doubles that, so 1 per 20. And the map has about 737 land tiles. (The land component of my score is for 14/737 tiles, which I don't trust completely because I actually control 15 land tiles. My domination land area percent is 2.04, which matches up with 15/732 through 15/737, depending on how your round. So it's clearly close enough. 737 or thereabouts.)

Of those tiles, at least 5 * 15 = 75 should be owned. (I'm sure some people have a third city at least by now, and I'm not sure if barb cities count. I'd guess they do.) That leaves at most 662 / 20 = 33 barbarian land units before they stop spawning. That's just over 6 per player. So all it would take is a city and a couple huts per player (as barbs like to park on huts), and that explains why none are roaming around. And I suspect there's more than 1 barb city per player left! So they aren't about to spawn new units anytime soon, they're only going to train them in cities! And most of those trained units are on guard duty. This is officially weird. Btw for reference, barb water units spawn 1 per 1600/2 - 1 per 800 - unowned water tiles. That's what - one freaking galley? Unfortunately for me I don't know how much water to expect on this map. But maybe it's 84 * 52 tiles, which I think is a standard size. That would be 4368 tiles, of which 737 are land, so 3631 water tiles. So FOUR galleys. That's almost one per human!

Anyway, as you can perhaps see, there are barb city borders in the west. My warrior will check the positioning of that city while the axe explores in a more northerly direction.

How about the economic front? I pretty much had my eyeballs pop out when I saw the land here. Flood Plains? Marble? Multiple rivers? Grass river cows? Jeez. I'd be in a ridiculously good position if I'd made a galley and two settlers instead of a lighthouse and another lighthouse. Thing is, I didn't know the land was this good, and I also expected some, er, barbarians. No matter. When I scouted the Underpromised Land, Alpha Centauri had just grown to size 6, so I switched it to a settler and whipped the turn after (this turn). So I'll get started on the settling soon enough.

In any case, the other players don't seem to be doing too much better than me, and I only need one more turn after this one to land Hinduism. Buddhism was founded a turn or two ago btw, which makes me (pending confirmation) a lucky bastard.

I'm going to assume whoever went for Buddhism is now going to build a marble-boosted oracle, a feat which I'm not going to bother trying to stop. It would just be a crapshoot and like I said earlier, converting hammers to beakers is not a priority right now, even if it's +100%. Actually: I wonder if the early fall of the Great Lighthouse, and the subsequent landing of Hinduism, will scare the Buddhism guy into rushing the crap out of it. That would be pretty amusing.

I'm pretty delighted to be in this game right now (though lurking would be interesting too). It's so different from the others! I think this is probably a very cool map.

[Ilios]

We demand dotmaps! And resource pointer on!

[pocketbeetle]

We demand dotmaps! And resource pointer on!

And cookies!

Edit: and tinfoil conspiracy theories!

[Bobchillingworth]

All right, I've done some exploring now. I was told there would be barbarians.


Guys? There aren't any barbarians here. Raging or otherwise. So what's going on? Well, basically, I think there must have been a good number of pre-placed barb cities. With each of them churning out units, they could easily hit the max number of barbs by now. That number for monarch is 1 barb per 40 unowned land tiles. Raging barbs doubles that, so 1 per 20. And the map has about 737 land tiles. (The land component of my score is for 14/737 tiles, which I don't trust completely because I actually control 15 land tiles. My domination land area percent is 2.04, which matches up with 15/732 through 15/737, depending on how your round. So it's clearly close enough. 737 or thereabouts.)

Of those tiles, at least 5 * 15 = 75 should be owned. (I'm sure some people have a third city at least by now, and I'm not sure if barb cities count. I'd guess they do.) That leaves at most 662 / 20 = 33 barbarian land units before they stop spawning. That's just over 6 per player. So all it would take is a city and a couple huts per player (as barbs like to park on huts), and that explains why none are roaming around. And I suspect there's more than 1 barb city per player left! So they aren't about to spawn new units anytime soon, they're only going to train them in cities! And most of those trained units are on guard duty. This is officially weird. Btw for reference, barb water units spawn 1 per 1600/2 - 1 per 800 - unowned water tiles. That's what - one freaking galley? Unfortunately for me I don't know how much water to expect on this map. But maybe it's 84 * 52 tiles, which I think is a standard size. That would be 4368 tiles, of which 737 are land, so 3631 water tiles. So FOUR galleys. That's almost one per human!

Wow, that would have been cool to know before I made the map


Anyway, glad you enjoy it! I've been happily lurking everyone's threads, but I figure that as mapmaker I should probably keep my comments to a minimum.

[SevenSpirits]

Turn 8.32098711 × 10^81

Um, oops, I mean: Turn 60!

I got Hinduism last turn. As I mentioned, Buddhism was founded two turns earlier. Polytheism was likely two turns more expensive for both parties, so I'm lucky we didn't both choose the same one, as I'm last in turn order.

And Hinduism has already been a big deal for me: the previous turn, Rebel Miners had grown to size 4 and had homeland unhappiness! I'm pretty sure that's because I was only tied 0-0 for cultural control of the city. Hinduism gave it 5 culture immediately, and the sadness was gone. Of course, Hinduism also makes people happy just on its own, because I'm spiritual! So now, two turns later, instead of being unhappy at size 4, RM is happy at size 5. I really wasn't counting on that homeland unhappiness in my settler-whipping schemes, so this is very good.

I'm going for Monotheism next. Why? First of all, it will quickly expand my borders in the third city, founded this turn. And secondly, it will let me have organized religion - a pretty big benefit, especially because again, I'm spiritual. Finally it's on the way to Monarchy, which would be pretty sweet too.

Here's the situation:



As you can see, I've added a various things to appease you all. The dotmap is definitely not final - I just don't have enough information yet. Any of those cities could be displaced a tile. But I certainly want as many coastal cities as possible. Tourist World's spot is great for a couple of reasons not yet mentioned.
1) It makes the galley trip from my home island to this new land only take one turn, as the galley can actually dock in Tourist World on the same turn it was adjacent to my island. That means the passengers don't have to waste a turn embarking/disembarking on the TW side of the ferry.
2) It will claim both important resources, horses, and marble, once Judaism spreads some culture.

Also visible in the picture, Space Marines has 9xp. That's because he killed a warrior guarding a hut just 1 tile NE of him the previous turn, and popped 5 experience. You know what would have been nice instead? A freaking map.

In city micro news, founding Tourist World netted me 9cpt! That's right: 4 from two trade routes, 4 more from adding a route to each other city, 2 from the center tile on river incense, and 1 for the flood plains it's working... minus two for maintenance. Getting a fourth city out will be just as amazing: It will add 10cpt from trade routes alone, 2 from tiles, and some negative amount from maintenance.

Lucky for me, that settler is due very soon. Rebel Miners is putting a turn into the settler before growing to size 6 and becoming unhappy. I'm not sure if I will work a grassland and grow in one turn, or work the plains hills mine to grow in two. I really want that city up fast, so probably the former. In either case, I'll whip the settler out immediately after growth.

Lastly: we've met Jowy! His workboat is pictured just under the yellow cookie. He met us last turn, but oddly enough did not send a greeting. I also noticed he only has 1 EP against me, which means he has met at least one other player and probably two (or three). So here's my conspiracy theory. Jowy, Nakor, and Athlete have already met up, and have formed a secret brotherhood with only one purpose: to get revenge on India! Oops, maybe I should have picked a different civ.

Anyway, I sent this message to Jowy, and we'll see how he replies.

Hey Jowy, I just saw your workboat, what a nice surprise!

How has your game been going? From what little I could discern from the demographics screen I think you managed to execute the best start of all of us. I'm doing pretty well but I made a mistake building the great lighthouse, particularly so early. It really stunted my growth, I should have been making settlers at that point instead. Ah well. Who would have though the barbarians would be so peaceful, huh? :D

SevenSpirits

[SevenSpirits]

Wow, that would have been cool to know before I made the map

Haha, I doubt any of us correctly imagined the result. Hindsight is great. But in any case I think it's a new situation for all of us, and that is fantastic. That's all we can ask for really: uncharted territory.

Anyway, glad you enjoy it! I've been happily lurking everyone's threads, but I figure that as mapmaker I should probably keep my comments to a minimum.

Of course. I'll be glad to discuss this after the game; maybe someone will even accelerate that by eliminating me!