Cut more Crap **Spoiler**

[Robi D]

If your playing the game and still alive you know the drill so piss off


Otherwise welcome

You can also follow the general development in the open thread here

The game specifics:
- Barbs are off
- City razing is off.
- No tech trading
- No vassal states
- Normal speed
- Two settlers, one worker, two warriors, plus a warrior or scout depending on Hunting.
- Level is Noble
- Map is toroidal

The players:
Robi D - Washington
Killer - Lincoln
PP\Akots\Shabba - Zora Yaqob
Matrix - Wang Kan
Stapel - Suleiman
socralynnek - Saladin
Wosret - Peter
Gahamiam - Mehmed II
NHJ - Louis XIV
azzaman333 - Justinian I
Beam - Isabella
IanDC - Elizabeth
plattfuss - De Gaule
Dandridge - Churchill
Idiansmoke - Catherine
(EDIT)Kaleb - Alexander

Also i am pleased to say Mauer has volulenteered his services to assist me in playing the turns along with the wealth of knowledge

[Robi D]

So i got Washington. Wouldn't exactly be my first choice but that who i got. He's expansive and charsmatic (iirc) so i get half hammer workers which will useful for the earlier stages, although this is somewhat reduced by the fact we all start with one anyway. I also get extra happy people which should come in very handy since there are no happiness resouces in sight for now and i'm sure not a favorite to grab an early religion.

Also the map is torroidal which i have never played so i load a SP game to check it out. For those unfamilar its a map that wraps around north and south as well as east and west and has an inaccesable centre with the land the shape of a donut. This means once we get to astronomy everyone is pretty much equally close to everyone eith by land or sea so having a decent amount of coastal cities is a must

Here is a screenshot of the start


The crude arrows show the moves the 2 settlers made from there starting locations to the E and NE.

I was able to get one city going, the second will be founded in the settlers current spot. The idea behind the moves is this. Robigrad with its two food resources gets extra hills in this location that can be worked. Production is a key in MP games so its nice to have a production city up and running right away. The socond settler was moved to give that city more tiles for its self to use and to give me a coastal city since Robigrad was moved away from the coast.

The reasearch of animal husbandry was a bit of a no brainer since i'll have 2 pigs and a cow within the two cities.

The third warrior with be my explorer for the moment. Main thing i'll be looking for is who my neighbours are and how far away they are.

[mauer]

Archery or Bronze first? Also, are you going to chop the barracks?

Oh, and do I need any kind of update on this? I haven't played civ since you stomped me down in that last PBEM, so I'm not sure on the build.

EDIT: I can't tell if that's a hill just south of your second settler. Do you think the plains tile 2 east would be better?

[Robi D]

Originally Posted by mauer

Archery or Bronze first? Also, are you going to chop the barracks?

I think AH is better since it gives our worker something to do and give us the food to start growing. Plus if there is horses nearby we can build some early chariots. And i wasn't planning on chopping the barracks, just didn't see the point of building more warriors at this stage and i don't have any other options

The baisc plan is if the is horses, then wheel is the next, if not then hunting and archery. It a large map so we really shouldn't be that close to each other so exploring who is around is an early priority. Mining and BW will come after either of those.

Oh, and do I need any kind of update on this? I haven't played civ since you stomped me down in that last PBEM, so I'm not sure on the build?

The latest patch 3.19

EDIT: I can't tell if that's a hill just south of your second settler. Do you think the plains tile 2 east would be better?

It is a hill and going 2 tiles east would lose the corn from the city which is where the worker was headed. I'm not fussed about having some overlap i think the main thing is to have the cities founded asap. They both have plenty of food where they are so getting new cities started shouldn't be a problem

[mauer]

Corn? I see no stinking corn. That 3.19 is gonna be a mutha for my internet. I'll try and get on it this weekend. If we find horses btw, I can bury the dead ones.

[Robi D]

That corn!



Second city now in place. A bit more of the map is revealed which shows some seafood off to the east of Mauerville. Looks like a potential 3rd city site.

Also i have been told that its not a torriodal map but a grid map with torroidal wrap. This means 4 neighbours instead of two and it insures a decent level of seperation.

[Robi D]

Turn 4

Well not a huge amount to report but some things are starting to take shape.
First off the worker has arrived and is building a farm at the corn. As soon as Mauerville hits pop 2 i'll switch to a worker build. At Robigrad i'm thinking of sticking with the barracks so we can have at least one city ready to build units with promotions.




Down south the exploring warrior has uncovered some interesting terrain. Another two food resources close to each other along with some hill means we got another good city site. The warrior will now head NE to see if there are any other potential city sites nearby


Finally i decided to perform some espionage outside the game. I wanted to get a feel for what the others thought of their starting location, so a did a little fishing in the open forum by throwing out some bait

Have to say i'm really disappointed with my starting location, i've only got 8 food resources to use

I didn't have to wait for long for a bite

Originally Posted by akots

Is the map that unbalanced? Eight is a lot even between two cities. Ethiopian capital has no food resources at all.

Ethiopia, less food - check!

Unfortunately the mapmaker barbu chimed in that he double checked and found the map balanced, damn spoil sport I sure as hell will blame canada from now on.

Still some info is better than none at all. And i still have a trick or two up my sleeve

[Robi D]

Turn 7

Found a hut which gave me 42 gold. Also found another food resource (corn) but i am yet to find any that help the happiness side of things. I continue exploring to the north with my warrior while next turn Mauerville will be switched to a worker build with its pop increase

[mauer]

Just a thought here. GNP is looking like it might be a problem. What were your thoughts for another city? Looks like you might have another "decent" production spot to the south. Or you could plop a city on or near that hill 4 East of Robigrad and start some cottages.

[Robi D]

It isn't as high as i would hope but there isn't a lot that can be done about it immediately. Although with commerce, research, espionage and culture thrown into GNP with BtS it does muddy the water as to the prosperity of others.

As for other cities there is plenty of options with all the food bonuses in the area. Definately a good production site to the south and a commerce one to the east. Mauerville itself could have some cottages.

For the benefit of those who haven't be in the game and are following the spoiler, we have hit turn 10.

Here is a view of the known world

As you can see there is plenty of food in the area so lots of options for future cites. Warrior will continue northwards to the coast.

And here is a shot of the demographics

GNP is a little low but otherwise no other worries at this stage. Someone has already managed to get a size 3 cities which is pretty handy work.

Score has fallen behind but AH isn't the cheapest tech and it will be done soon. Still no sight of any happiness resources.