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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 71 (1160 BC) - Part 3

Domestic update:

Castle Ironfist is producing a settler currently at 46/100; next turn it will be 68/100 and ready to 2-pop-whip as scheduled.

Harmondale just produced a work boat that will go scout locally and then be ready to start seafood for the settler Harmondale is now building.  Harmondale also grew into unhappiness, but I'm exploiting the trick you told me about: while I'm producing the settler, the 2 food that would normally feed the unhappy citizen can instead be applied to the settler.  (Yes, that works in this mod.)

Castleview next turn will grow to size 6 and be done building most of the lighthouse for the Great Lighthouse whipping effort.

Sorpigal produced its whipped work boat; it uses the +1 movement to immediately plant fishing boats on the fish, now being worked.  Circumnavigation is already producing a tangible economic boost. The work boat to be produced next turn with the whip overflow can scout for a few turns before it needs to improve the crab tile.

Garrote Gorge now has its whipped barracks, will regrow to size 2 in 5 turns, and is starting a granary.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 71 (1160 BC) - Part 4

Already mentioned, but just to keep things in one place:

I moved the Sentry chariot to investigate Coeurva's nearby city, finding it unguarded at size 3 with a library:



Yes, I made the mistake of moving the chariot there and not to the plains hill where it could potentially take his city next turn.  

I'm not of a mind to start a war with our modest military, but he doesn't really have that much either, and if he can't properly reinforce Ignis Fatuus within 2 turns I'm planning to raze it.  We'd have about 85% odds on a defending axe, so it would have to be either multiple units or a spear.

I shift some of our zone defense military towards Coeurva in the event of war.  I keep our cities on domestic builds for now because I expect he'll actually reinforce the city properly.

And I figure he shouldn't be upset we're taking a look at his territory, because he still has his warrior looking at ours.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 71 (1160 BC) - Part 5 (C&D)

Keeping score is going to start to be problematic this turn, as it typically would be on t71, because that's when players who are not Creative or Spirtual get credit for their capitals expanding to third-ring, and it starts being a guessing game exactly how many tiles were claimed.  Still, I think I can follow along for now, though this is starting to include some conjecture:

• Us: +3 points for +1 pop in Harmondale (21 pop total); +16 points for 12 tiles claimed by Castle Ironfist's expansion on t51.
  
• CML: +2 points for planting city #5 (11 pop total); +16 points for 12 tiles claimed by capital expansion on t51.  He hasn't showed up with a tech since t56, and he probably didn't just now either since his capital expansion would have claimed only 7 tiles.  +1 pop/+10 tiles is not possible (that would have caused the new city to be +3 points).  +2/+8 might be possible.
  
• Coeurva: +5 points for +2 pop; -2 points for a -1 pop whip (19 pop total); +18 points for 14 tiles claimed by capital expansion on t51.  +3 pop isn't possible with just that and land tiles grabbed; +4 pop/+10 tiles is possible but doubtful.  I don't think he got a new tech, either.
  
• dtay: +5 points for +2 pop (16 pop total); +17 points for 13 tiles claimed by capital expansion on t51; +6 points for a mystery Ancient Era technology. edit: t73 update, that can't be; new hypothesis is +7/+15 points for +3 pop/+11 land.
  
• Gavagai: +5 points for +2 pop; +3 points for planting city #6 (18 pop total); +10 points for 8 tiles claimed by the planting of Ankara on t51.
  
• GermanJoey: -3 points for a -1 pop whip not in his first two cities (17 pop total); +19 points for 14 tiles claimed by capital expansion on t51; +6 for an Ancient Era technology that is probably Masonry for the Great Lighthouse.
  
• JR4: +8 points for +3 pop; -5 points for a -2 pop whip in Muqa (21 pop total).  Muqa dropped off of top 5 cities this turn.
  
• Krill: +3 points for +1 pop in Animal Farm; -10 points for a -3 pop whip in Room 101 and a -1 pop whip in either Wigan Pier or 12 Monkeys (12 pop total); +6 points for researching Writing.
  
• Ventessel: +3 points for +1 pop (8 pop total).
  

I have no idea what CML is up to in research.

Krill's 3-pop-whip was for the Oracle, which I know because I was the t71 turn roll player.  (I still haven't touched t72 yet otherwise.)

Ventessel did not gain any points for capital expansion to third-ring on t51 (and Sandro did see plenty third-ring tiles claimed, which would be worth more than the 3 points Ventessel actually got).  I have no idea how that happened; I don't see a way how he could have revolted more than once to delay that.  Lurkers, any possible other way for that?

Our power rating is higher than anyone we know, though 10,000 of that is our 5 barracks.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, I suppose one consequence of playing with a low military is that both of our neighbors have seen that and taken it upon themselves to expand a lot too.

A lot of their expansion would not have been avoidable; Coeurva is Imperialistic and is next to a neighbor who is stagnating in population growth, and Gavagai is Expansive/Creative and next to a neighbor who moved his initial settler away from him.

Still.  I'm having some second thoughts about my strategy of "play low-military, knowing people will be very relucant to attack someone who is Expansive/Aggressive".  I still don't see it as profitable to abruptly retreat from it, at least for now.  And we do have two settlers now in production (and both will be 2-pop-whipped).

Maybe you believe otherwise?  I haven't touched t72 yet.  I might be the turn roll player again, as everyone else has already played other than dtay.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 72 (1120 BC) - Part 1

I open up the game to start to play t72 for real, and I'm immediately greeted with:



Wait.

What?

Why would Krill give me his map for absolutely free?  He knows that I probably would not actually learn much from it, but still.

Is there something I'm missing in the metagame here that would cause my hands to be tied if I accept it?  I don't think there would be; there may be an implicit peace treaty for maybe 20-30 turns, except I wouldn't be declaring war on him in that timeframe anyway.

Does he want to point me at Gavagai?  It would take me 10+ turns to come up with even a halfway decent serious assault force even if I wanted to.

I'm going to spend several more minutes trying to come up with a reason not to accept this, but I don't want to wait much longer because I don't want to tie up the game.

[Dark Savant]

Let me try to write this out.

Well, let's see.  Gavagai is not showing any real power on the graphs (I do have the latest ones on my computer); he and Krill are about equal.

It's very much possible Gavagai is about to make an opportunistic swing at Krill from his other side.  Room 101 is on a hill with +40% cultural defense, though; it should take a lot to endanger it.

If Krill was actually fearing some kind of assault, though, he wouldn't have sunk so much into the Oracle.  He knows perfectly well Gavagai would have noticed he was at war (and apparently doing well), and might be willing to hit him from the other direction while distracted.

Oy.  I hope I don't regret agreeing to non-aggression with Gavagai, but I won't break that soon without a very, very good reason.

I also can't come up with any reason whatsoever to decline the free map, though I'll continue to try to come up with one.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 72 (1120 BC) - Part 2

I have this image, let's throw it in:



I accepted the free map.  Let's see what we can learn from it.



Krill has vision on Anchorage but not Juneau.  Anchorage is size 4 and has both a barracks and a granary.  (Wait ... why does the city center of Anchorage have that weird cultural border immediately to its east?)

And somehow Krill has no vision on a couple tiles between Ventessel's copper and Anchorage.  So someone who is not-Krill, almost certainly a barbarian, severed Ventessel's copper.

Here's Krill's core:



The two newer cities are where expected, except that the "city #3" flag actually has city #4, which has a terrace.

Krill also somehow has maps of most of Gavagai's territory.  They probably actually traded maps.  Well, let's check out the new and improved maps of Gavagai's territory:



Things we learned:

• Stone does exist, and might be found off our northwest peninsula.
  
• Gavagai actually has two sugar, not one.  I suppose that addresses the question of Calendar resource balance.
  
• Ankara does in fact have additional food, making it an actual good city site anyway.
  
• Bursa, Gavagai's city #4, is size 3 with a granary.
  
• Konya, Gavagai's city #5, shows on the map but for some reason we have no vision on the city -- how did that happen?
  
• Samsun, Gavagai's city #6, is size 1, no buildings.
  

We already knew that Gavagai is expanding very quickly.  Not a shocking surprise with Expansive/Creative and with Krill effectively letting him grab the high-food area between their starts.

Krill has enough of Gavagai's map to know that he and us are staring at each other across a narrow choke, and that it would be difficult for us to actually launch an attack.  (Unless, uh, Gavagai left himself pretty much undefended.)  Krill wouldn't know Gavagai and we have a current NAP.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, Krill is evidently attempting to convey some sort of message, but I don't know what it is supposed to be.

"Look out, Gavagai is expanding fast, do something about it" is the best I can think of ... but well, there's a rival with even more cities on my other side.

I can't think of anything else he could reasonably be suggesting.

Oh ... and even if I do want to do something about Gavagai, he just moved an axe into Ankara.  Taking that city is going to require some serious force.

[ipecac]

Okay, Krill is evidently attempting to convey some sort of message, but I don't know what it is supposed to be.

What I see is that Gavagai is expanding away from you. It'll not be quick for him to send troops from his newer cities down south.

Yes, it's going to take some resources to hit Ankara, but you need to do it sooner or later, and at present seems like a decent time to prepare to strike.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, Krill is evidently attempting to convey some sort of message, but I don't know what it is supposed to be.

What I see is that Gavagai is expanding away from you. It'll not be quick for him to send troops from his newer cities down south.

Yes, it's going to take some resources to hit Ankara, but you need to do it sooner or later, and at present seems like a decent time to prepare to strike.

Hmm.  Well, we're not prepared to attack soon (unless we plan on Gavagai being negligent and not getting a spear there before long), and I won't attack soon anyway because I don't want to do a backstab, but we can think about a somewhat later attack now.  A lot of resources are currently going into the Great Lighthouse, which doesn't help.  (Incidentally, I worked out a faster way to build it, which I'll detail later -- it's now due on t81, not t84.)

Ankara's cultural defense is due to go up to +40% on ~t85.

I'm not sure what sort of attack force the MP metagame favors in this situation.  It doesn't seem like going chariot-heavy is a good idea, because Gavagai will likely get a spear in Ankara relatively quickly, and chariots don't leverage Aggressive fully.

So I think axes are better.  How many would I need to crack defenses there?  I'm not sure how many we'd want to build to beat down whatever defenses Gavagai can build up -- I can probably build that up faster than he can.

The major opportunity cost to such an attack would be getting an island city out early; the production that would be going into axes or chariots can't be applied to galleys with island settling parties.  That seems like a significant loss to me -- we would not be leveraging our circumnavigation bonus and perhaps the Great Lighthouse.

My inclination would be to wait until we have Iron Working (which we probably should get as our first classical tech), and invade with swords, not axes.  I'm not sure how you feel about that timing, though -- do you believe that Gavagai may get too powerful if left alone that long?  Is that the message?