The Spartan Academy

[notyoueither]

Time for this to be established.

First topic. Exploration patterns for our soon to be 2 warriors. I assume the third is going to stick around the capitol. He could poke his head around a bit, but not too far.

[Arrian]

I definitely agree that warrior #3 should stay close to home.

I favor sending the first warrior North, the second West to the Mountain, and then perhaps South (depending on what he sees from the Mtn).

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

What about sending the first down the river to the coast before heading north? We need to find a good site for the first coastal city. That may be our second city.

[Arrian]

Perhaps the 3rd warrior can be sent due East, to scout the city site at the mouth of the river (is that a lake the river empties into, or the ocean?). That will only require a couple of moves, and then he can come back.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

The reason I think scouting that city site can probably wait for the 3rd warrior is that I'm almost positive I already know where we should build:

6, 6, 9 from EotS. That would put it across the river with enough overlap to use one of the irrigated furs right away (meanwhile EotS is using FP or the other irrigated fur, size 1 after building the settler). I did that in the test scenario you set up.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Placement of our second city depends on what bonus food tiles, if any, we might find near our capital. Ideally, I'd love to stumble across some cattle.

What do you mean by, "6, 6, 9"?

It might be useful to have the second warrior move south a little, then back up north to finish looking around our capital area, and then head west since that's the other direction besides North where there may be vast distances to explore looking for other civs.

[DeepO]

nathan: East, East, North East. It's what you type in on your numerical keyboard (actually, very intuitive way of describing where to go! )

DeepO

[Arrian]

Yeah, because of the isometric layout of the map, I'm not always sure about what people mean by the standard directions (N, S, E, W), so I sometimes throw in the number keys for the moves instead.

I too am hoping for some cows (Grog likes cow tipping).

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

Is it a good idea to uncover the ring around the capitol fully before thrusting them out into the darkness?

How else do we establish the best spot for city #2?

[Theseus]

First off, bear with me guys as my posting frequency has slowed down.

Second, I'd like us to discuss "map characteristics" a little bit. The short discourse that Aeson gave in his "Scouting" thread made me realize that we haven't discussed maps all that much. I played with them a lot when I was first trying to figure out the settings that would help to generate "killer AI civs" but with less focus on how the landscape is modeled.

Here's what I originally observed / guessed:

"That's an awful lot of plains... I predict horses to the SW of our capitol.

I believe the river indicates that there will be hills and / or mountains to the NW.

There will probably be some desert to the north, and if the island is big enough I would expect a jungle barrier on an E/W axis.

There *should* be more grassland to the south and west of us, depending on how nearby the coastline is."

What do we think now...

[Shiber]

I have to agree.
Should we send the warrior to the nearby mountain, as was suggested, to improve visibility?

[DeepO]

when a warrior reaches the mountain doesn't matter to me, but maybe it would be a good idea to go immediately West after the mountain with him, searching for the coastline. Rereading Aeson's thread, I have to agree with him that the best way to judge our map settings is to scout horizontally first.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Can we clear the ring around the capitol first? Guys?

[Dominae]

Here's a new idea to discuss while we wait to see more of the map: should we use Barbarian encampments as training centers for our troops, or should we just swoop in for the easy 25 gold?

In SP I've often used an accessible Barb camp as a sort of "Monolith" (remember SMAC?) that trains units. Since we're not Militaristic, this may help out quite a bit. Getting a few Spearmen to Elite status would really help in an early skirmish.

Thoughts?


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Can we clear the ring around the capitol first? Guys?

The best way to clear the ring around the capitol is send the first Warrior to the mountain, then North, and the second Warrior South then West.


Dominae