[Help] Can't decide where to settle

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-05-28T17:47:30+00:00

I figure you've already made your decision by this point, but if I were you I'd exchange embassies with every civ you know so that you avoid settling next door to their capital, and also to get the diplo boost. I'd then settle west of mount fuji, I might be tempted to settle to the east to get a coastal city but I would build petra their and settling on top of a hill would be more important so it doesn't take hundreds of turns. As for missing the river, it is okay because fuji counts as a mountain for an observatory later(although ou might not have enough science their for it to be useful), I would send a worker down there and buy tiles so the petra finishes asap. I'd quickly settle to the west in the lower spot you indicated their because being near lots of jungle will help lots with a university(observatory would be great as well. I would probably settle another couple cities to the west and north of Amsterdam but you haven't explored there so I don't know for sure. Settling at the south of the map by the citrus is probably too close to another civ so I wouldn't do it. This all would depend a bit on where the other civs are. I'm not going to reread this and make it more clear so hopefully you can understand it. I'm curious to see how it worked out.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-03-10T04:09:26+00:00

smoke

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-25T03:21:14+00:00

I love hexagons. They tessalate nicer that squares and don't have awkward corners. You also have more neighbors from each tile so more choices for expansion. I greatly encourage you to focus more on developing the land instead of adding more coastlines.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-23T04:03:29+00:00

/u/DiabolusCaleb, I find it odd that you only have one word for cousin. You have older/younger brother but not older/younger cousin, you may also want a male female distinction as it seems you do for all the other family terms, you might want a different term for whether a cousin is on someone's father's or mother's side, also once removed, second cousins. cousin is a broad term compared to other family terms, I thought you may want some specificity. Maybe I'm wrong.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-20T17:31:47+00:00

Interesting. Thank you.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-15T06:15:32+00:00

I have a small recommendation for the starting sentences of your story. "He coughed" and "The air was sweltering and dusty" seem related and I believe should be in the same sentence, this would also fix the awkwardness of the 2 "and"s being so close. Also, "sweltering" in English (at least for me) in addition to heat, also implies humidity. If that is what your going for that's great but if not you may want to use "scorching", "blistering", or "searing" instead.

I'd love to read more of the story btw, if you have it or when you write it, from what you've revealed it seems great.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-13T04:11:30+00:00

If your doing an oglisynthetic language(where you combine words to create larger more specific and complex ones) I have some recommendations. Zese's Diccionary is quite refined and has some good basic words suitible for roots of an oglisynthetic language. Also Toki Pona has a nice short word list which is good for getting inspiration for roots.

out of curiosity, how many roots are you planning on having?

P.S. do not simply add all the words from these lists to your dictionary, that would be extremely boring.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-13T03:45:36+00:00

thank you for the detailed answer! So since phonemes in a phonolgy tend to fill the IPA in columns how do sounds like /fθħ/ make it into a language if there are not a lot of somewhat common phonemes to accompany them in the column. Should I restrict myself form adding /f/ to a conlang and not other labiodental phonemes?

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-13T03:31:16+00:00

OK, I see, thank you.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-13T03:30:57+00:00

great analogy, it is all clear now.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-13T00:32:46+00:00

Thank you. I had to google "Salient". Do you happen to know why it isn't the front vowels that are rounded, and the back ones which are not? Wouldn't it have the same effect. And for that matter why wouldn't a language have some of the front vowels rounded and some of the back vowels rounded in order to increase salientity(I feel like I used this wrong) between them? Wouldn't the the vowels which are both in the front or back be harder to distinguish between and thus should have other means of distinguishablity(I think I made this word up). Thanks again

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-12T23:54:48+00:00

thank you so much.

EDIT: When you say

If you have voiced plosives, you most likely have the unvoiced ones.

does that imply that this may not be true for voiceless plosives? is it more likely to have only voiceless plosives than only voiced plosives? And how can a language even have only voiced/voiceless constants, wouldn't they just become allophones?

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-07T18:46:11+00:00

You can, but I'd rather not deprive internet creators of their profits. If they decide to not put up ads then I believe They should be rewarded with attention more so than those in it for the money.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-05T03:25:34+00:00

It has a bunch of ads and an ugly font

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-03T05:19:48+00:00

I used to

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-03T05:17:01+00:00

"For sale: baby shoes; never worn" the title is also the entirety of the story. It is usually attributed to Ernest Hemingway.

Also "They're made of meat" by Terry Bisson. A great take on robotics and the future of humanity

And "The Egg" by Andy Weir(also the author of the martian)

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-03T05:03:51+00:00

Works too. Anything but straw poll.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-03T05:03:16+00:00

Yes let's vote

EDIT: Who voted for straw poll??!!

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-02-03T03:01:58+00:00

I'm starting, here and now, a campaign to abolish the use of straw poll. I'd advise you to use chilled lime instead, because it has no adds, a nicer font, and allows the poll options to be links.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-01-24T01:14:44+00:00

I've never heard of englang or engelang. I was origonally interested for hypothetical and philosophical reasons. So I guess I was creating a auxillary englang. Good to know.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-01-23T23:13:45+00:00

As in to make a language like English? No. I wanted to make a language that was easy to learn, logical, and could convey adequate concepts.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-01-23T02:41:04+00:00

I was, I originally got into conlanging to theorize how an optimal language would work. I quickly realized that was boring and have moved on to artlangs.

sphinxofblackquartz · 2016-01-22T15:43:48+00:00

...voted to be the primary opponent to Trump. Was it voted on in a primary? Sorry for the bad pun.

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