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

[ipecac]

that the map is going to have lots of stuff to move the settler.   

That is rather likely, since RB maps tend to be lush, and the start was relatively mediocre.

[Dark Savant]

That is rather likely, since RB maps tend to be lush, and the start was relatively mediocre.

Well, this is less likely to have actually paid off now:

Turn 5 (3800 BC)

Borders expanded, I move my scout west, and ...



... there's no significant new food; whales and plains sheep both barely count as food.

There's also more land to the east of Castle Ironfist than I thought.  That's salt water to the west of the scout, so we'll be founding many cities on the coast.  The scout's going north to defog tiles west and north of Castle Ironfist.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 6 (3760 BC)

From the last Demographics shot on t5, Krill has no water tiles in his territory.  Also, someone, very likely Krill, didn't plant on a plains hill.

This turn: dtay and Ventessel are the first to research a tech -- Fishing.  Anything other than Fishing or Archery can't happen this fast, since max speed for either Mining or Mysticism is 13 flasks per turn, which falls 1 flask short of their 79 flask cost.  Archery can't have been researched either, since there were no changes to soldier demographics.

From working the oasis for 1 turn, Ventessel has 4 overflow flasks, dtay 3.

In the "is anyone out there?" department, we made first contact interturn:



Coeurva (Cyrus/Carthage) is another new-to-MP player.

Our scout wanders away from the orange scout and gazes out upon the western sea:



It's starting to look like our continent is a giant narrow-ish ring, with plenty of coastal sites for Coeurva's cothons.  He logged in as I was getting a demographics shot; his scout is currently west of that silver hill.

[Dark Savant]

Coeurva's scout turned back into the fog, presumably to make a circuit around his capital.

It stalled long enough on the plains tile that I could see the post count in their thread tick up a few times.  I presume there were posts about scouting patterns -- either mine or his; he would have seen my scout's current location, so he can roughly guess where Castle Ironfist is.

The current plan is still to research Fishing after Bronze Working, but I might do Agriculture if we find a farm resource close to the capital.  I don't need to decide until t14.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 7 (3720 BC)

The scout turns up a grassland pig:



... plus that bit of land to the west isn't an island.

CML and JR4 showed up with techs this turn, which are almost certainly Fishing; Mysticism is the only other possible tech, as anything else is too expensive or would cause a shift in soldier count that didn't happen.  And Mysticism would just be a bad idea for many reasons. They're both probably producing workers, so are working the cow tile like us, so they'd be producing 10 flasks per turn, which means they would have finished Fishing with 6 flasks of overflow.

Coeurva, Gavagai, and Germanjoey must be researching techs that aren't Fishing or Archery; otherwise they'd have them by now.  Agriculture, Hunting, and The Wheel are eligible starting next turn, and so is population growth; all of these are unlikely on t8, and are much more likely on t9.

All of Coeurva's EP is going into us.

I didn't mention this before, but there are 1514 land tiles total, which is on the low side of what was said to be possible.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 8 (3680 BC)

The scout moves north and finds more food:




The scout is currently on a prime site for a second city.

Krill's capital expanded borders, and has exactly 3 water tiles in its second ring.

GermanJoey researched a technology.  This is likely The Wheel, which he could just barely get in 8 turns by working the clam, and which accounts for the 4000 total new soldier points that just showed up.  Nothing else makes nearly as much sense: no one else showed up with a tech, no one increased population, and if someone had produced a warrior they'd have probably grown to size 2 as well (with a plains hill plant and working a 3-food tile, both the growth and the warrior happen on t8).  This also means that he's probably producing a worker and not a work boat.

[Dark Savant]

Demographics is showing that someone produced 4 hammers from turns 5-7, but not on t8.

The best explanation I can think of is that Coeurva is going work-boat-first: 3hpt for 5 turns, 4hpt for 3 turns when borders expand to a 2hpt file, and 1 turn back to 3hpt, for exactly 30 hammers.  If he did that, highest rival crop yield should shoot up next turn, and he'll probably put a couple turns into a warrior while growing to size 2, which should happen on t11.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 9 (3640 BC)

The scout finds more seafood just on the other side of what turns out to be a 1-tile choke:



No one researched a technology this turn.  Also, best rival crop yield didn't go up, so Coeurva (who already moved this turn) didn't actually put a work boat on the clam this turn.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 10 (3600 BC)

Our worker completes and starts the pasture.  The scout finds a crab:



I'm going to use a separate, well-known namespace for our workers.  The name's obscure, though -- that's the "actual" Westron name of Frodo Baggins, not its standard English "translation".

Gavagai completed a tech this turn.  It must be Hunting -- he would have finished any cheaper tech earlier; he already has the other two techs that cost 96 flasks; and this exactly accounts for the extra 2000 soldier points that showed up this turn.  So he just finished an Expansive worker, researching Hunting at the minimum 10 flasks/turn, with 4 flasks of overflow.

Coeurva is still working on his first tech, and at this point it pretty much has to be Bronze Working, like us.

[Dark Savant]

Don't worry, I swapped working the cow to the oasis after that picture (so I'll get Bronze Working in 6, not 7; and grow in 8, not 11).

Once I move the scout a few more turns, I'm going to run a lot of sims to figure out exactly what I should do.  I suspect it will work out best to research Fishing then The Wheel next, since it looks like I don't have a pressing need for Agriculture.  (That'd be weird in unmodded Civ 4 ...)

We will probably go without Mysticism for a long, long time.  I do plan to make use of our mediocre UB sometime; I just suspect people will build Stonehenge and even the Oracle before we ever have a reason to research Mysticism.