Maps of the Known World - 730 BC

[FrustratedPoet]

[FrustratedPoet]

The following 3 pics are shrunk to 50% their normal size, to make them load faster. The full size versions of them should be in your mailbox.


GoW and ND

[FrustratedPoet]

Lands of RolePlay

[FrustratedPoet]

Fragments of LegoLand

[alva]

Legoland, has the potential of being bigger then Bob and why did Gow settle that (worthless) island?

Gow really settled in function of luxuries, more then anything.
They too should take notice of Alex's corruption thread

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by alva
and why did Gow settle that (worthless) island?

Perhaps they assumed all those hills must contain some Iron? ...... although I guess they would have researched Iron Working before then anyway.

[alva]

Maybe there is iron under that city?

[nbarclay]

No resources under either city on GoW's island.

[FrustratedPoet]

/edit: after seeing what Nathan said, this post was pointless.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Perhaps they assumed all those hills must contain some Iron? ...... although I guess they would have researched Iron Working before then anyway.

They only settled that island recently. They've only found it shortly after they've made contact with Lego.

[Dominae]

Some comments on the screenshots/maps:

1. Vox could have made much better use of their land, first by expanding faster and second by choosing a tigher city placement. Specifically, I would have put a city 77 from The Voice (on the Incense), and another 223 from it. Miller Town is well-placed as a temporary camp. Their gambit to block the isthmus then negotiate the border treaty was a a good one, I admit (especially if the Iron colony is their only source). However once they saw that that peace was us was more or less certain after the border treaty and tech deal, they should have focused more on expansion (as we did). They could definitely have been a more potent adversary.

2. Roleplay's "block" of the southern half of Bob was a very good move. We will have to watch their lands closely for some aggressive expansion in the near-future, as well as a Palace jump. If they play their cards right from now on (including avoiding getting attacked by Neu Demogyptica), they should be our toughest adversary in the latter part of the game. Had they started in the southern half of the continent, they wouldh have been a lot stronger now, but so would Neu Demogyptica.

3. In the next 100 turns, Neu Demogyptica is either going to "turtle" and try to play a very strong diplomatic/research game, or attack Glory of War. They lands are extremely defensible but they do not have much to expand into near their core (I guess they could relocate to Palace to Trippolis and focus on chopping Jungle and remain very peaceful, which would be very bad for us). If war breaks out between any of the 3 civs, it's probably going to be instigated by ND against GoW.

4. Our worst-case scenario if war does break out on Bob is if Glory of War and Roleplay team up and put "the squeeze" on Neu Demogyptica. This would require a lot of coordination, and ND is probably aware of this possibility and is making diplomatic moves to avoid it.

5. Glory of War seems to be doing okay, although I'm not sure why they've prioritized those two far-flung city-sites (Skulgaria and Port Isolation). I mean, I understand the reasoning, but it seems to me a waste of expansion potential.

6. There is not enough information on Legoland to make an accurate appraisal yet. Their isolation (like ours) means they'll surely be with us until the end of the game.


Final comment: We're hitting a peak right now, with the completion of the Pyramids and the (hopefully quick) elimination of Vox from our continent. But unless we get onto Bob somehow, we're going to have a tough time competing with their sheer land area advantage. War will most certainly break out among those three, so there is hope that it will tax their economy enough for us to keep up. But the more peaceful turns there are on Bob (before or after any wars), the further we'll fall behind.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Port Isolation is the city GoW got from Vox.

[DeepO]

First of all a question to be sure: the moment a WM gets gifted between two nations, all the improvements visible on the map are updated, right? So Vox now sees all improvements on our ground they previously explored, and we're seeing here the most up to date information on Bob improvements, correct?

Roleplay:
Remember that several turns ago, they were stuck at size 5? I'm still wondering why. If it was just a way of not spending commerce on lux, it was a strange way of doing so

I think they too would have been better of building a worker more, their capital would be double as effective if working properly improved terrain. Not only could the cow use some irrigation (for which a plain forest should be chopped, not ideal as they would need a hill worked to compensate shield input), but there is still a river shielded grassland unmined. They need it at size 5, which they have reached many turns ago.

Unless they plan on having a FP soon, corruption is going to be very high once they settle the cities South of Madrid. But both the border towns Santiago and Zaragosa have neccesary improvements in place: walls, temples, maybe a barracks even. They could focus on workers / settlers from now on.

Other then that, they have the best commerce land, in that there are rivers everywhere. Maybe can we offset that by having large coastal cities, working the sea. Otherwise, the moment they can use that land to peacefully expand bigger then us (unlikely if we get the Pyramids, but still), we're going to be lacking in commerce.

GoW: their 2 camps and the capital have nice terrain to work, with those winehills. But, those are only now becoming better then mined GS or forested game. Now, they need to start to switch to irrigation, which requires workers they do not seem to have an abundance of. If they have any idea of how much pop and cities we currently have, they would not start prebuilding a wonder, but invest in growth.

Those two little island cities: I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of those was the result of hut popping. They're really tiny, though, the only use they could have to GoW would be strategic: get a hold of some land away from Bob before any of the other Bobians has boats to use. Before electricity, they can only work sea for food, and at most a hill or 2 for production in Taiwan. (Taipei 2 forests)

ND: Seeing their terrain, it's quite easy to understand why they used a sword approach so far, and as long as they stay on the defensive, that will work best. A lot of mountains, and possible slowmover approaches, another easy reason for RP to focus on swords too.

ND is another nation in need of workers, I'm very pleased that we have not made that mistake. I understand their problems being non-industrious, and with limited workers they certainly improved efficiently, but still, nearly every city currently works unimproved terrain. They have a reasonably dense territory, but take more territory/city because of all the mountains. Also plenty of rivers, but they have expanded nearly to all rivers they have 'rights' to, RP certainly is doing a lot better.

Lego:
Lots of jungle, as said by them. I wonder that the northen part of their continent is what they refered to as a small peninsula If they were truthful, it should mostly contain mountains and hills. I wouldn't be surprised if GoW tries to settle up there, certainly if further exploration would reveal iron.

I think they certainly are going for a more pleasing city planning then ours, maybe even strictly 4 tile, even. If Panama would move up (given that there was no jungle underneath when settled), another coastal city 887 from Legopolis could be worth a settler. But they seem to have too much land anyway, best to settle it quickly, so no other attempts the same.

If they really are closer to RP then to GoW, it would imply that there is (nearly) a crossing between those jungle regions, maybe even below it. However, RP has no coastal cities on that coast yet, so there doesn't seem to be any risk. That may be great info to 'sell' to Lego, if they haven't sent their scouting galley in that direction.

Vox: I couldn't agree more, Dom. That's a 4 turn pump they're wasting. They could have build ample of warriors to upgrade, but as their iron colony was rather soon connected, and they are not able to ferry the iron away, they can have been doing real mass upgrading.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Bump
Shall we top this? And perhaps replace the maps with up-to-date versions?

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Shiber
Shall we top this? And perhaps replace the maps with up-to-date versions?

Yes and Yes, I think.