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

[Dark Savant]

Okay, I took a closer look at what Coeurva is doing.

He can't have produced a second worker before his settler; he only had time for one chop before he must have produced his settler (t29 at the latest, since he revolted to Slavery by then).

He produced a warrior on t31 while growing to size 4.  He can now produce a settler in 5 turns from scratch, or a worker in 4 turns.  I'm not sure how much we want to prioritize advance settling in his direction.  We might want to get an axe down there sometime to discourage him from playing farmer's gambit.

The tech he completed on t31 might not have been Agriculture -- which he could have completed on t30 (even with the turn lost to anarchy).  There's a chance it's actually Mysticism or even Masonry, but it can't be worth any soldier points, as the only other possibilities (The Wheel and Archery) are worth more than 2000 points.

[ipecac]

War dec to get through is normal. Just don't step in any of the tiles he wants to work.

[Dark Savant]

War dec to get through is normal. Just don't step in any of the tiles he wants to work.

Okay, understood.

Gavagai just planted Edirne directly on the forest tile, for +6,000 km^2 of land; i.e. the three fogged tiles NW/N/NE of the city/worker/injured-warrior are all water.

(The real-life Edirne is in the European part of Turkey, used to be called Adrianople -- you've probably seen that city name too playing this game -- and isn't nearly as important as it used to be; it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire for a while before Mehmed II conquered Constantinople.)

[Dark Savant]

Turn 34 (2640 BC)

Sam completes the pasture on the pig, and our crop production rating is no longer so anemic.  

Our warrior busting fog to the northwest discovers this:



There is a prime city plant site somewhere there, though I won't be changing the plan for orange dot; that's too far away at the moment.  I'm thinking the tile just NE of the warrior, which does fit in with our current dotmap.  It might be worth making that city #4 instead of blue dot; the main trouble with that is that we'd still not have a coastal city on the eastern sea.

I declared a scouting war on Gavagai, and our scout is headed for this mountain pass:



I offered an immediate peace treaty with Gavagai.  I think that following the flood plains to the west of Edirne would have led to a dead end peninsula again; Mardoc likely doesn't want to make defense too easy with 1-tile chokes between players.

In poor micromanagement decision news, I realized that 90% science was producing 9.90 flasks per turn, so we threw away 3 commerce the past few turns from rounding.   I set science to 0% this turn so we can thereafter run it at 100% to avoid issues with Civ 4's half-assed decimal rounding.  (We're already committed to the world's slowest Agriculture discovery, anyway.  )  I'd completely forgotten that was an issue even when researching first-column techs.  That also explains why Coeurva was 1 turn slow getting Agriculture.

C&D: Lots of new soldiers, and Krill showed up with a tech.  This has to be Bronze Working; his last new tech was 15 turns ago, no religion was founded, and it explains the soldier leap.

dtay's capital grew to size 4 and he also planted a new city.  He was last to play on t33, and I'm not familiar enough with CivStats to know which turn he planted on.  GermanJoey also planted a new city, definitely this turn.  These two new cities have a total of 3 water tiles between them (land area +15,000).  Krill and Ventessel are the players yet to plant their second city.

I'm not sure why Ventessel hasn't planted yet; it's possible he whipped a second worker instead of a settler.

[Dark Savant]

Gavagai accepted the peace treaty; our scout got kicked SE onto that grassland hill.

His worker made the obvious move of starting a pasture on the pig.

[Dark Savant]

I'm wondering if Krill is already somehow in a potential turn split.  It isn't with us, at least!

[Dark Savant]

I just logged in to play t35.

I take that previous post back.  We ARE involved with Krill!  

[Dark Savant]

Turn 35 (2600 BC)

Our first turn resembling anything momentous.

Our scout joins Krill's in the mountain pass:



He has contact with Gavagai too, of course.  That must have been a confusing three or so seconds seeing those two different shades of green.    (I'm not a woman, or more strictly, I don't have two X chromosomes, so I have a harder time seeing that.  The gene for the green cones in your eye is on the X chromosome, and there's considerable genetic variation in it unlike the red or blue cones, so people with two X chromosomes are better at distinguishing shades of green on average.  No, it isn't by much except in rare cases.)

And I have both good news and bad news about the warriors busting fog north of our capital.  First, the good news:



That potential site he's now standing on now has FIVE food resources -- minimum!  And now for the bad news of the turn:



There's an incoming barb warrior ready to disturb our plans for orange dot.  A Combat I warrior on flatland only has a ~68% chance of beating a Monarch-level barb warrior, so I took the high land, which will still only give me ~80% odds on defense.    That's the best we're going to get, though.  Maura built a road for 1 turn and then awakened, in case I have to move him next turn.

I may have to start building a road in the direction of the other warrior, in which case we might end up planting our third city there after all.  That's going to hurt our GNP given the distance and lack of a trade route.

This wouldn't have happened if I had kept that other warrior fortified on that forested hill, of course, but the chance of this happening is fairly low and scouting information is also valuable.

I have a question: That warrior is probably going to interfere with my plans to plant a third city rapidly.  Do you think it's worth rolling the dice at ~68% odds to not delay our plans?  Any early hit to the growth curve is going to be a problem.  We'd fall behind significantly if we lose that warrior (I would probably have to whip the capital for a warrior, ugh), which basically ends our chances of being competitive.  Normally in a single-player game you'd just restart if something like this happened.  

Actually, I think I understand the risks involved.  What I'd like to know is: what do other people do in MP when faced with something like this?

I flip up science research to 100%.  Let the binary research begin!  All espionage moved to Krill, of course.

C&D: Coeurva just whipped his capital for 1 pop this turn.  No other population changes and no new technologies.

Gavagai's espionage was split between us and someone else this turn, which suggests he was not specifically directing espionage at us, which in turn suggests I was in fact his first contact and Krill is his second.

[Dark Savant]

I confirmed in my sandbox that the flatland combat odds are 68%.

If the barb warrior approaches, I think the best thing to do is to have Frodo move on the hill with the warrior.  It can build a road there instead of on flatland, which won't delay the planting of orange dot and only delays him improving orange dot by one turn.

If our warrior loses on defense (~20.1% chance, vs. ~31.9% chance in any flatland combat), we are in serious trouble anyway.  Yeah, serious barb trouble having built 4 warriors for 2 cities.  

[ipecac]

Turn 35 (2600 BC)

Our first turn resembling anything momentous.

Our scout joins Krill's in the mountain pass:

Ha!

If the barb warrior approaches, I think the best thing to do is to have Frodo move on the hill with the warrior.  It can build a road there instead of on flatland, which won't delay the planting of orange dot and only delays him improving orange dot by one turn.

That sounds like the best under the current circumstances.