Herein Lies a Brief Summary of the First 50 Turns (contained in Videos 1 and 2)
This is for those of you who may be interested in the more "traditional" Civfanatics form of storytelling that has faded away a little bit from this site.
Of all of the sponsors in the game, I found the background story of the People's African Union the most appealing. Where the world was filled with strife, the PAU struck down its inner discord and rose up. As moguls from the East and West looked to sap Africa's resources as the inflection point (spelling doom for humanity and the end of potential extra-solar space travel) neared to form their own seeding operations, Mr. Barre, the front man of the PAU, worked his back room magic to make sure that his people would also have a chance to leave Earth.
Normally in deep space travel one of the more interesting problems is that if you send a ship that will take 400 years to get to a destination, shouldn't the progression of technology mean that someone will eventually invent a faster way to get there and beat you to the planet you are seeking? The crisis on Earth is a pretty solid solution to this problem, and it's sad to think that the fate of Old Earth has probably long been sealed by the time these seeding ships reach new worlds. But so it goes.
Landing Site Revisited
Although it is appealing to have a canal city, there aren't too many other choices for me to settle. There are plenty of food resources, sure, and making trade routes should be a piece of cake. Sadly, water tiles aren't great in BE unless there are resources, and I see none here. But this is my first time firing up the game, I'm not going to reroll out the gate. Good news may be just around the corner.
At least with continental surveyor, I'm quickly able to see that I'm on the southern end of a large continent. First one to the planet and you choose a remote icy hell hole. Good job Barre. Just want to be left alone?
First AI Landings
Amazingly, the AI decides to visit as early as turn 0. Maybe it's because I'm playing on standard speed.
The PAC (Pan Asian Cooperative) lands first. Half a world away.
ARC (American Reclamation Corporation) lands right next door to the PAC. So hopefully they'll keep each other well occupied. Or maybe they'll become the very best of friends.
The World So Far
Exploring north reveals a few aliens, a few resource pods, and some more Firaxite. I think to myself "okay this is very likely a supremacy game." Sure, none of the stacks are that big, but they're close. Of course, without resource icons on, I don't realize my explorer is sitting in a nice spread of Xenomass. Only 2 stacks per tile, but it's one of those things where I hope resources on the map can be a little further differentiated without simply having on the icons.
But with Icons on you can see that so far I've only got a narrow funnel to expand into. At least that should make city placement choices simple. Having gone early Pioneering to get out another outpost ASAP, I hope to place one city on the west coast within 3 tiles of the firaxite and another on the southern coast near the river delta. Of course, I have no idea if rivers matter in BE. But old habits die hard.
Go screw yourself Adept Blue. One tile away from where I was going to settle first. Of course. The thought of blowing them off the map quickly crosses my mind. But...the trade science...
