mesnoth Turn #3

Gamemaster's Post
Mesnoth Turn # 3

Reserved Points: 1 Maintaining crytal aura

Faith: 20 (1+20-1)
Fear: 0 (0+0)
Population: 28

Technology Known: Weaving Bowls/Plates/Mats, primitive farming (mansa, manboo, and rice)

Projects: Develop weaving lash together cottages done turn 4, domesticate yams done turn 4

Gamemaster's Post
Description

In the dull days of a hot nigerian summer the tribe was working faithfully trying to weave reeds into baskets and getting mostly matts when they suddenly felt inspired and saw what they were doing wrong. That very night they were able to store their harvest of Mansa grain in tight containers away from the damp, from birds, and from mice. Stored this way it kept fresh longer.

Later that year Mesnoth rewarded his people by giving them the Manboo plants and the secret of rice agriculture. He also gave them the task of domesticating the wild yams of the island, a harder task as the tribe has no idea how to plant things in dry soil. There attempts to learn have already helped them cultivate more swampland though as they have discovered that they can use Manboo stalks to poke holes in the soft silt and push seeds into place thus allowing them to cultivate the plants more quickly and easilly.

The great amounts of rice, manboo, and mansa plants growing around the island however have attracted a lot of fish and birds who eat much of the harvest. The people only eat well because they are able to harvest the grains quickly and put them into floating mansa reed baskets. Unfortunately with the coming of the wild game the predators are approaching in greater numbers and already there have been a few accidents. Mostly tribesmen having to dodge out of the way of hippos who want to eat the grains.

Mesnoth's Post:

(1) First I'd like to teach the tribe to make woven "fish traps" that are able to catch fish and crustatians in the water near the island. They'll have to be weighted since the Mansa floats, but that means they'll also be easy to get to the suface, just untie the rocks from the bottom and they float up! This is the technology I'm talking about: http://www.fao.org/teca/content/fishing-shrimp-pot-fishing

I'm also assuming the people know how to swim but if they've been wading in I'll impart swimming instructions at the same time so thay can swim down under the water to plant and harvest the traps. I'll give the vision to the group so I'll spend the 9 for a mass vision, I figure it won't be much more than that because my population isn't larger than it was first turn.

(2) I'm going to spend a few faith points to guide predators and large dangerous animals away from the feilds during the upcomng turn. Without good carving tools even sharp spears are a bit beyond my people and we lost knife making last turn because this island lacks the stones for it. I'm going to have to come up with some better way to protect my people but for now this will work.

(3) As the food supplies increase I want to spend points to increase the fertility of the people this turn and make sure to breed a tall strong race with no negative genetic conditions. The resulting children should all have perfect eyesight, a resistance to tropical disease, and be perfectly fit, naturally strong, and attractive. They may be african but I also like long black hair like asians have rather than that short curly stuff.

(1) The swimming will cost 10 points since the people don't know how to swim and it'll take a mass vision to get the skills to enough people to really cement them in the culture, these folks really have an aversion to going too far away from the island I don't think the skills would be too popular without some urging from you, too much fear of crocs in the deeper waters, or worse. Justified fear at that if you hadn't been specifically scaring predators away they are pretty defenseless. The same vision can impart the fish trap skill for an extra 3 points for a total of 13.



(2) you have seven points left and even with the discount it takes them all to ward away predators for the full turn and that's with me being generous. This is normally a ten point action, with your discount it's 7.5 but since teaching the people to swim and then having them eaten by a crocodile would be aweful I'm being nice and rounding DOWN instead of up, in future turns I reserve the right to go either way!

(3) your out of points for this turn.

Mesnoth's Post:

Ok I can live with that, somehow my people are fairly weak. I'm going to have to fix these cowards next turn!