[SPOILER] PB37 Dark Savant tries not to be a blatant MP n00b

[OT4E]

Barbs could take that city.

[Dark Savant]

Barbs could take that city.

That's true, but I don't see how that could cause a 2-point (1 pop) loss, since dtay's cities were size 4 and 2 on t44 and he didn't gain points during his turn (no fresh size 1 city).

I'm mystified.  Is there something I'm not understanding about the scoring system?  Or maybe I just need some sleep?

[OT4E]

Barbs could take that city.

That's true, but I don't see how that could cause a 2-point (1 pop) loss, since dtay's cities were size 4 and 2 on t44 and he didn't gain points during his turn (no fresh size 1 city).

I'm mystified.  Is there something I'm not understanding about the scoring system?  Or maybe I just need some sleep?

Score decrease on turn roll is most likely lost city to barbs, another explanation is that he could have starved one of his cities.

[Dark Savant]

Score decrease on turn roll is most likely lost city to barbs, another explanation is that he could have starved one of his cities.

Okay, thank you I'll try to work out the numbers, I just wasn't able to get them to add up last night.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 45 (2200 BC)

Sandro gets kicked out by Room 101's holy city culture (I forgot that would happen this turn, not next turn), continues north, but still can't find Animal Farm's borders:



I'm not going to investigate that western spur of land, since Gavagai's was a dead end.

Here are our warriors warily glaring at Gavagai's fortified warrior near Castleview:



Those two warriors have things covered in case Gavagai declares war, though that would be more than mildly irritating.

Coeurva's warrior is now wandering back towards the coast.

Harmondale (city #2) finished a warrior, which headed west.  It'll grow to size 3 next turn; I'll have it whip another warrior, then produce a work boat that can go scout while I produce a settler for green dot, which I plan to do after it regrows to size 3.  Harmondale may get a trade route to green dot before it is connected to the capital.  

Overview: Our commerce situation is poor, not that that's surprising with an emphasis on expanding faster than others.  Not helping is that I probably still should have been running science at 0% then 100%, which I'll restart now (better late than never).

C&D: I can't make the city population numbers come out right, so I'm going to abandon that for now.  Gavagai's second city of Edirne did grow to size 4.  I can still follow total population and number of cities, and I can prove that there are no new cities that still exist.

Coeurva's city planted on t43 has 2 water tiles in its borders, incidentally.  All the subsequent border gains since then are from Krill's holy city of Room 101.

It's starting to get hard to follow technologies, of course.  dtay showed up with a tech that is probably Pottery, but might be Animal Husbandry.  JR4 did likewise.

GermanJoey has a new technology that is almost certainly Bronze Working.

Krill somehow finished a tech in just one turn, which has to be something started and abandoned in favor of Polytheism.  I'm guessing he has one of those numerous silver resources mined in order to be generating this much commerce.  Coeurva also has a new technology, likely to be Pottery.  I can take a closer look at these next turn once their effects on the power graph show up; the only action there lately is Krill's 6th citizen causing a small bump.

[Dark Savant]

I took a closer look -- Krill can't have moved his initial settler anywhere but north at this point.

So I'm heading that way with our scout.

That also tells us that Gavagai has plenty of space to expand, and that he'll likely beat Krill to that mass of food to Istanbul's northeast.  I'm unsure what to do with this information.  My best guess is that Gavagai will continue to expand away from us, and that Gavagai has that warrior (1/3 of his miliitary) parked outside of Castleview as a way of encouraging us not to continue to expand that way.  Any further cities of ours that way probably count as offensive pink dots, so I'm reluctant to advance beyond that without a serious advantage.

And I can't think of a way that Gavagai would know for sure he's getting extra space, though I'm sure he at least suspects it.

How should I fit this into the larger strategic picture?  The window for a early rush is already gone, but an early-ish attack is still possible.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 46 (2160 BC)

The warrior from Harmondale pushes west, finding another copper tile.  Yeah, no one's going to be able to deny copper this game.

Pippin moving along to blue dot ran into a barb warrior, so I covered that worker with the warrior in the area.

I started a work boat instead of a warrior in Harmondale last turn -- oops -- but I was planning on one of each anyway.  At least this way I get an extra turn of work boat scouting.  I whipped it, and I should be able to finish a warrior with the overflow.  I'd catch the remaining overflow in a granary for one turn, and then I'd be size 3 so I can start on a settler for green dot -- I think we should plant green dot before yellow dot.  Or something in the area; I might move green dot to exploit the newly discovered wet corn.  (On the other hand, the reason why I produced a work boat was to promptly work the clams at green dot.)

Our rice farm is finally under construction!

The homeland situation looks like this (Coeurva's warrior has yet to move):



Yeah, we're currently last place in score.    Some undiscovered rival is now first in soldier score.

Sandro finally sights Animal Farm's borders, northeast of Krill's start:



Next turn I'll have to decide whether to go northwest, or try to slip past Animal Farm to its northeast.

C&D: Coeurva's tech last turn is definitely Pottery.  Krill's tech last turn is Fishing; he didn't get enough soldiers for anything else affordable.  dtay and JR4 both recovered the population they lost last turn.  Ventessel also gained a population point.  No new technologies.  CML has been researching for long enough that he would have The Wheel by now, not sure what he's up to but he probably is (or was, if he was after Hinduism and gave up) chasing a religion.

[Dark Savant]

GermanJoey just whipped his second city (from size 3 to size 2), so he absolutely has Mining and Bronze Working now.  Someone revolted to Slavery last turn, so it was probably him.

[Dark Savant]

Incidentally, searching Google for Coeurva's later city names results in his spoiler thread as the top result.     Hit ^W as soon as I realized that, but if you're not a global lurker, don't do that.  

[Dark Savant]

Gavagai moved his warrior away from us.  I was thinking he might keep his warrior there as warning against a potential rush from us, but I suppose he's satisfied we're not going to imminently send a half-dozen axes his way.

I'm still undecided which way to move the scout next.  I don't think I actually need vision on Animal Farm.  If I head northwest, I can either find someone, or evidence that the land northwest from our core is a peninsula.  (I still think the latter is more likely.)  If I head northeast, I will probably have to declare war on Krill to get through, since he's at about our orange dot, and that is readily blocked by one city in both our and Gavagai's land.  Krill did very likely just produce a quechua in Animal Farm, so if he wants to he can terminate our scout.

Northeast is the way to go if the land is tiled as you suggest.  And Mardoc did mention GermanJoey's tool in the setup thread, so I think that's more likely than my suggestion of a rough triangle, which would suggest that I turn northwest.

I'm uncertain which way to go; I can't read Mardoc's mind here.   Unless you have a strong feeling one way or the other, I'll probably at least move to that hill 2 SW of Animal Farm, which will suggest if there's a decent way for our scout to crash through his territory.