Post making contest 4.0

This is update #210.

• Trott as Poland has 20% off social policy cost (this is how the mod balances the civ I won my first Deity victory with) and so he's the first hapless sod to discover what the new policy trees look like...
  
• So he opts for Tradition. "It's traditional" that is definitely a good argument I would recommend it for everyone bar Sjin and Rythian (they are the only two people I trust to do anything different)
  
• (IN BEFORE HALF THE GAME OPENS HONOUR)
  
• actually that's a point Tom could probably get away with Honour just go knock on the doors of a few city states with a battering ram that would work I RETRACT MY PREVIOUS SNIDE REMARK
  
• multiple people are having barb troubles maybe the winner of this game will in fact be the barbarian hordes
  
• fun fact two: in the mod Babylon doesn't get their free scientist until Philosophy sorry Smiffy
  
• YES A TWENTY FIVE TURN GREAT LIBRARY IS A GREAT IDEA
  
• Smiffy: "I am surrounded by barbarians" this is technically a true statement because there is one brute in the very far north and another in the very far south HOWEVER
  
• WHY ARE THEY ALL SO OBSESSED WITH WRITING DO THEY ALL WANT THE GREAT LIBRARY
  
• high quality content: six people all fall for the same... oh gosh I can't believe I'm saying this but sadly this is what it is commonly known as... they all fall for the "noob trap"
  
• SMIFFY THAT BRUTE WAS STANDING ON YOUR BORDERS LAST TURN YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR SCREAMING ABOUT HOW IT CAPTURED YOUR WORKER
  
• this only strengthens my belief that the barbarians will win this game
  
• Trott: "look at those workers there, hammering away at those cattle" Mark: "well yeah, they've got to tenderise those steaks"
  
• Mark we need to talk about the Zone of Control mechanic or rather we don't because that is a concept best explained pictorially and I can't draw as fast as I can type
  
• ATTILA THE HONEYBUNS
  
• Mark: "When do you start building the next settler for settling a city?" Sjin: "probably about turn 103?"
  
• (actual answer: *vague handwaving* a good rule of thumb is pop four normally and pop three if you really want a spot badly but honestly with these guys ANY TIME SOON WOULD BE NICE)
  
• Sjin: "I can see two Polish scouts, what is this, a fucking army?" ummmmmm a double scout start is incredibly standard practice on a pangea
  
• Smiffy: "I don't know where the barbarians took my workers" YOU SHOULD HAVE PAID ATTENTION
  
• whilst I remember Smiffy is a good example of why building an early worker before you have a unit to keep it safe is A Bad Idea
  
• TOM THOSE CITY STATES ARE NOT TO THE "RIGHT" OF YOU
  
• HOLD OUT YOUR HANDS PLEASE AND TELL ME WHICH ONE YOU THINK IS WHICH
  
• Tom: "there is a sweet spot just south of that river that I have my eyes on" *circles shitty marsh and flat tundra with his cursor* you are seriously overvaluing Old Faithful
  
• LOOK AT ALL THOSE SHEEP TO YOUR EAST TOM YOU GET PLUS ONE HAMMER FROM PASTURES
  
• I repeat the barbarians are going to win this game
  
• you would have thought that one of the few things these blighters might have managed to get to grips with would be retreating
  
• BUT YOU'D BE WRONG
  
• Turn 18 - Mark: "Right, I think I know where I'm putting my next city." Rythian: "Look at this pro, already planning where he's putting his next city" UUUUUUHH
  
• Trott's land is actually good Tradition land (it's a river system, basically) but man this looks like a smallish pangea if he doesn't get a move on he won't have any
  
• it is still only turn 19 but as there are always roughly the same six spawn locations on an NQMap pangea I can say with reasonable confidence that Rythian's bottom left, Smiffy top left, Sjin bottom middle, Trott top middle, Tom bottom right, Mark top right, but with bays cutting Smiffy from Trott, Sjin from Rythian and Tom from Mark
  
• I AM GOOD WITH MAPS OKAY
  
• MARK HAS QUEUED A SETTLER THAT'S AMAZING
  
• TOM EVEN ACTUALLY HAS ONE OUT OH MY FUCKING GOD
  
• IT'S NOT EVEN A LIBERTY SETTLER I CAN TELL FROM THE CULTURE PER TURN so he hard built that on pop two OKAY THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY A GOOD THING
  
• Smiffy continues to try building the Great Library without any tile improvements and thus only FIVE HAMMERS
  
• (at the very, very, very, very best he might have SEVEN but I believe that would be causing him to starve)
  
• and he's even researching Philosophy rip
  
• the sad thing is he's probably even going to get itttttt SJIN YOU HAVE EVEN LESS OF AN EXCUSE TO BE RESEARCHING PHILOSOPHY
  
• I am at least glad that Tom understands the concept of escort units
  
• RYTHIAN NO
  
• also these are hexagons not squares
  
• SJIN
  
• SJIN YOU ARE A DUMB
  
• okay so Sjin attempted to steal a city-state worker with an archer and you can probably guess what he in fact did
  
• (he could have not made peace and attempted to steal it later because that archer was an upgraded scout and thus would have been able to sit two tiles away, laying it wait until the workers wandered out again when they thought the coast was clear and then BAM)
  
• Rythian looks to have a decently sized peninsula to himself so if he settles a nice blocker city in the mountain range north of him he can have his tight turtling four-city tradition empire that he always dreams of
  
• SMIFFY NEARLY KILLED BOTH HIS SCOUT AND HIS SPEARMAN TO GET HIS WORKER BACK
  
• ooooooh here's a question that'll bug me was Earth Mother Sjin's best choice or should he have gambled on One With Nature the part of me that remembers him last game with Sinai sitting just outside his borders for the best part of forty turns says maybe Earth Mother was the right call
  
• Trott: "how do I found a pantheon?" okay on vanilla you'd have an excuse because Sjin picking his would have caused the amount of faith required to found one to go up mid-turn and thus prevent you from choosing just then HOWEVER THIS IS THE MODDED GAME WHERE THAT DOES NOT APPLY WHAT DID YOU DO WRONG
  
• SJIN
  
• OH MY GOD SJIN
  
• SJIN
  
• HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND UNIT MOVEMENT THIS BADLY
  
• okay Sjin had another chance at stealing Mogadishu's worker it had come out again and Sjin was two tiles away so he declared war and ran at it with his spearman... straight onto the hill. The hill between him and the worker. The hill that used up all the movement points on his half-health spearman and put him in city bombardment range
  
• PREVIEW: Mark does not understand the concept of escort units huh

tl;dr - ESCORT YOUR FUCKING WORKERS AND SETTLERS AT ALL TIMES

End of message.