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

[ipecac]

1. The knowledge that there are no better city locations does remove the tactic of wandering with the settler and disturbing map balance on T0 (with the exception of looking for a location from which to warrior rush because that's never going to disappear)

Is intending to warrior rush going to be his excuse for disturbing map balance? After insisting on so much in the map thread that the map be 'balanced but not too balanced'?

Suggestion to future mapmakers: to avoid this in future, just settle Krill in place.

[ipecac]

On more important consideration: circumnavigation will likely be huge this map, so sail that work boat!

I do want to have border cities start to put several hammers into a spear so I can whip one in an emergency, but I'm unsure when to start doing that.  Let me know when you think a good time is -- I didn't end the turn yet in case you think I should start now.

I can't say (will only be logging in possibly later today). Just know that hammers invested in units start decaying 10turn after the last hammer is put in them, by 1hammer/turn.

Are Krill and Gavagai at war?

[Dark Savant]

On more important consideration: circumnavigation will likely be huge this map, so sail that work boat!

Okay.  

Actually, I'm not sure if this map meets the threshold for circumnavigation.  Mardoc, is that possible on this map?

Are Krill and Gavagai at war?

Nope.

I swapped Castleview to a spear; there isn't anything else other than a granary for it to build right now, and growing the city above size 2/3 won't do much good until its borders expand and I can improve its second-ring tiles.

I kept Castle Ironfist on its planned granary build, since we do need that soon.  It doesn't have a barracks anyway.

[Dark Savant]

Oh, and Krill didn't kill our scout -- we'll get to meet Krill's victimlikely other neighbor in what should be only a few more turns.

[ipecac]

Logged in, but game crashed when I was trying to connect to a peer. Will try again later.

[ipecac]

Gavagai just planted to seal us off. Get a spear sooner rather than later..

[Dark Savant]

Well, I'm not certain how to handle all this, so while I played most of t51 I haven't yet ended the turn.  I'd like to see what you think:

Gavagai just planted to seal us off. Get a spear sooner rather than later..

That was much more aggressive than you made that sound:



He appears to be challenging that we planted a city that's basically first-ring for us.  I'm not sure why he'd plant there instead of claiming all the food to the northeast -- that city doesn't do him that much good for peaceful purposes no matter what's on the two unfogged tiles in its radius.  Castleview should still be able to maintain a hold upon that first-ring corn tile in the foreseeable future, as it will expand borders on t58, which will significantly outrace the 2 culture/turn that Gavagai will start putting into it then, since we'd be getting the inner-ring bonus and he wouldn't.  That will change if Gavagai's city reaches third-ring culture without us contesting it, though.

So I think the proper response is at least 3-4 axes backed up by 1-2 spears, though I still think I should finish the worker and granary in progress first.  I don't think building a settler for a 5th city is going to happen soon now.

And if I do that, I may want to swap away from that spear to an axe, since Castleview has a barracks and Castle Ironfist doesn't.  But in the current schedule, a spear from Castle Ironfist can't reach the front until t60, which might be too long.  What do you think?

Also, there's that barb warrior that just showed up.  I think I'll move the zone defense warrior to encourage the barb warrior to suicide upon it, but I wanted to get your input if possible first.  (I'm having the worker on the corn awaken every turn, in case I need to have it run away.)

I'm slightly tempted to congratulate Krill for winning the game already.  

Coeurva also just moved his warrior here:



He's already ended his turn.  

I'm not sure if this is an aggressive move or not.  (He may be thinking we might have planted 1W of blue dot, which would have teleported his warrior the wrong way.)  I don't know whether the two warriors should continue to cover those two specific tiles, or to retreat the northwestern warrior towards Castle Ironfist and let him step on the neutral-territory road, where he'll just barely have enough room to leave.  (The other warrior needs to cover the worker that just built a road there.)

I'm pretty sure I need to have the warrior leave since it'll need to cover Castle Ironfist soon anyway, but I'm not sure.

[Dark Savant]

I'm not sure if this is an aggressive move or not.  (He may be thinking we might have planted 1W of blue dot, which would have teleported his warrior the wrong way.)  I don't know whether the two warriors should continue to cover those two specific tiles, or to retreat the northwestern warrior towards Castle Ironfist and let him step on the neutral-territory road, where he'll just barely have enough room to leave.  (The other warrior needs to cover the worker that just built a road there.)

Actually, if I have that warrior leave, I can't cover both the worker at blue dot and blue dot itself, unless I change the worker's micro plans for the worse.

[ipecac]

Gavagai's city is perfectly reasonable. You're looking at it the wrong way round: sure, it's first-ring to your city but it's first ring to his capital, which makes it two opposing first-ring-to-capital cities sharing a border, which is standard. The border between your cities is 6-7 tiles from your capitals, which is fair and reasonable. He needs to plant there to have at least one city between his capital and your territory, and that city nicely seals land off for him.

It isn't at all aggressive (though in the long run your city will be more vulnerable, being on flatland), but a border city that he has to plant, sooner rather than later. And he can afford to do it sooner since Krill is further away, so there is less competition for land in that direction.

[Dark Savant]

Gavagai's city is perfectly reasonable. You're looking at it the wrong way round: sure, it's first-ring to your city but it's first ring to his capital, which makes it two opposing first-ring-to-capital cities sharing a border, which is standard. The border between your cities is 6-7 tiles from your capitals, which is fair and reasonable. He needs to plant there to have at least one city between his capital and your territory, and that city nicely seals land off for him.

It isn't at all aggressive (though in the long run your city will be more vulnerable, being on flatland), but a border city that he has to plant, sooner rather than later. And he can afford to do it sooner since Krill is further away, so there is less competition for land in that direction.

Okay, am I then thinking too much in single-player terms?  You need to grab resources with your second and third city, generally.  Come to think of it, though, that probably wouldn't fly at Deity SP, where you still have the "AI won't declare on you" halo early in the game, and you really do need to seal off territory like right now.

Okay, I'll continue to build the spear for now and develop.  We do need to get some extra culture in Castleview somehow, sometime, so it doesn't eventually lose the corn tile.  We may have to do it fairly soon, even, if we want to build the Great Lighthouse there (yeah going back to peacetime thinking), because that way we may regain control of its second-ring forests.  And people in these games seem to get very upset about chopping "their" forests.

I don't think it's worth swapping over to Mysticism immediately just for that, I can wait until Animal Husbandry is done.