Turn 7

[notyoueither]

We now have Gronk as a mate for Grog.

Start of turn...

Scores all 30, except Lux and us (25). Very strange. This means no one has hooked up a lux, in 6 turns. What are they doing?

[notyoueither]

Grog attains the summit of the mountain. He says uggh!

Plains (5) grass (1) hills (5) desert (1) and water (2 coast tiles; 4-4, and 4-1).

It looks like grass to the south of us, till we hit tundra. Hills, plains and desert to the west and north.

[alexman]

Is Grog ready for the uphill workout?
Tell him it's worth the view!

[Edit (x-posted): poor Grog, we tricked him into it. The view is mediocre. ]

[notyoueither]

Gronk moves 3. Nothing seen.

Not much threat of interloper from the West anymore. Warrior 3 (Hack, or Slash?) can scout the mouth of the river, most likely.

[notyoueither]

Turn done. Shots sent.

[nbarclay]

NYE, I wish you'd given us some time to think about what Grog saw before you moved Gronk, because knowing there's water to the west has a MAJOR impact on exploration options! My first instinct when hearing about water to our west is to want confirmation that it's ocean and not inland lake. After some thought, the easiest way to do that would likely have been to have Grog head west a bit and then circle back to explore our starting area and have Gronk go north to the second mountain and take over the northward exploration. But by moving Gronk immediately, you pretty effectively shut down that option. Worse, "3" takes Gronk to the east so he's in a weaker position to look west and verify quickly that there's nothing of further interest or concern in that diection.

[nbarclay]

Okay, I got the screenshots and it looks like there's a lot more coast visible than just the two tiles. So Grog won't have to go as far west to get a good feel for what's going on as I thought he might. I'm thinking 4-8 for Grog's next two moves just to confirm whether the coast heads more to the north or to the west (potentially important for contact/threat assessment), and then he can continue his northward explorations.

Nathan

[notyoueither]

Gronk can expand the view to the West after he finishes the sweep to the East and South.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Gronk can expand the view to the West after he finishes the sweep to the East and South.

Sounds workable. That option shows us more land terrain earlier, but means we won't find out quite as quickly whether we're likely to have one nearby neighbor or two (assuming we aren't all by ourselves).

By the way, seeing as we seem to be on a peninsula, all else being equal, we probably want to bias our expansion toward a northerly direction. Not that all else is especially likely to be equal.

In regard to no one's having hooked up a luxury yet, (1) more often than not, there aren't any luxuries in the starting radius (especially the first tier), and (2) on Regent or Monarch, there's lots of time to improve other tiles before luxuries are useful for anything but running up the score (especially for the Industrious majority). Furs and wines are the only two luxury resources that help with early growth. The others provide a gold bonus but aren't generally worth having a city laborer work this early in the game (and even wines often aren't).

Nathan

[Arrian]

I usually have several cities in SP play prior to hooking up luxuries, even if they are more or less immediately available. I usually have better things to do.

I am looking forward to checking out the screenies (2hrs, give or take). Hack and Slash should definitely be our next 2 warriors - NYE

-Arrian