Thanks, BSPollux! It looks like an entertaining scenario you and Deckhand have prepared for us.
Thanks to both of you for the hard work you have put in, and to all the admin staff helping to keep things running smoothly.
Due to the slight delay in getting the team threads open, we are scheduled to get the starting saves tomorrow!
So I am going to go ahead the throw a few initial thoughts and ideas out for discussion, rather than waiting. Not that we need to start playing immediately of course -- lots to discuss first!
Obtaining information on how to woo the three queens will obviously be crucial, since we can not "luck into" fulfilling a requirement. We must have purchased a secret before fulfilling it for that action to count. So we will need to make an early push to obtain the various secrets. But first we must decide which ones, and how many, to purchase.
Technically we only need three secrets -- one for each queen. But some of the secrets may be difficult/costly/time inefficient to complete, and worse they can become obsolete/no longer possible. Only one secret per queen is guaranteed to be impossible to become blocked, and we do not know in advance which ones that might be for each queen. So we will need to purchase at least one secret for each queen, and then decide if we think that goal is the one to go for or if we need to purchase more secrets for that queen. We may want to purchase all the secrets just to give us more options, but the escalating costs may make this very expensive.
Finally there is the other secret, for the general directions to each queen. Do we want to purchase that one at all? I guess that will depend on who we meet when, and how much exploration we manage to do.
I am guessing we will end up purchasing 6-8 secrets total, but that is only a gut feeling. We may end up wanting/needing all of them. In any case, we are going to need plenty of cash to bribe Willem, or a bunch of surplus workers, or both. Of course, we can't even begin making purchases until we find Willem's capital (to send workers) or reach Currency tech (for cash buys) or Willem reaches Currency tech (probably don't want to wait that long).
On the start itself, we have some interesting choices of food sources. I need to look up Pericles' info -- we have a scout, do we start with Hunting or has the start been modified? If we have Hunting then the deer tile is quite attractive. Plenty of seafood, including on what appears to be an island to the east -- a city there for off-shore trade routes could pay dividends. And of course those gems to the north are high-priority targets to help generate funds to buy secrets.
We do have a worker added to our start, so we should be able to get off to a much quicker start than normal for Immortal difficulty. Opportunities for worker stealing to get more, for our own use and for payments to Willem, would of course be highly valuable. This is something we have not done well in previous SGOTM compared to most of the top teams.
Note that there are 9 opponents on a standard size map. Unless a lot of land has been added, things are going to be significantly more cramped than usual (6 opponents is normal for a standard map). We have been told that Willem is on our continent, and we start with contact with him. We need to maintain at least neutral relations (+1) to be able to purchase secrets, so we will need to be careful to avoid giving offense.
Anyway, those are my initial thoughts until we can actually examine the save.
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