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

[Mardoc]

I can't read Mardoc's mind here.

  MUAHAHAHA!  

[ipecac]

Sounds good. Crash through will probably be the best plan.

[ipecac]

Gavagai would know he has extra space if he's scouted to Krill's starting spot. Alternatively, he's met Krill, and since he knows krill hasn't settle d closer to him Krill should be further away.


How to capitalise on it: are you good at the game of chicken? Such big MP games often involve 'who dares gets a big advantage', since you're daring your opponent to try to capture it and fall behind in growth at the same time.

[Dark Savant]

Sounds good. Crash through will probably be the best plan.

Okay, I was leaning that way, since it's very likely someone else is there.  I'll do that if I see a good way through.

Gavagai would know he has extra space if he's scouted to Krill's starting spot. Alternatively, he's met Krill, and since he knows krill hasn't settle d closer to him Krill should be further away.

It's unclear he actually has -- we saw his scout come our way, and I haven't seen it since.  We also saw a warrior returning to his core from Krill's direction; I'm unsure it actually had time to confirm the direction of Krill's movement.

I agree that it's more likely Gavagai knows than doesn't.

How to capitalise on it: are you good at the game of chicken? Such big MP games often involve 'who dares gets a big advantage', since you're daring your opponent to try to capture it and fall behind in growth at the same time.

I don't currently think an early attack will actually work out well, though some pressuring axes would be good.  I'd rather just develop under cover of Expansive/Aggressive.

I don't think I can quite get enough preparation at Castleview to get the Great Lighthouse efficiently with a tech beeline; there just isn't enough time to develop the city.  If we squeeze in Animal Husbandry first, I think I can do a more solid job of micro.  No one's going to build TGL fast ... it's nerfed in this mod, no one had a coastal start, no one is Organized, and only one rival is Industrious (and he's on the religious path).  So I'm sorely tempted to go for it, since this map has so much coast.

Oh ... when I was pausing the game, I saw Coeurva moved a second warrior towards Harmondale.  It'll be bounced by Harmondale's expanding borders unless he pre-emptively declares war on us, and we have a warrior coming out of Harmondale in 2 turns anyway (with 3XP, even!)

Why is Coeurva poking at our borders with 50% of his military (the power graph shows he had 4 warriors last turn)?  He definitely has at least one other neighbor.

[ipecac]

I don't currently think an early attack will actually work out well, though some pressuring axes would be good.  I'd rather just develop under cover of Expansive/Aggressive.

Considering using swords too at some point of time; they've been buffed in RtR and we'll want IW early anyway.

I don't think I can quite get enough preparation at Castleview to get the Great Lighthouse efficiently with a tech beeline; there just isn't enough time to develop the city.  If we squeeze in Animal Husbandry first, I think I can do a more solid job of micro.  No one's going to build TGL fast ... it's nerfed in this mod, no one had a coastal start, no one is Organized, and only one rival is Industrious (and he's on the religious path).  So I'm sorely tempted to go for it, since this map has so much coast.

That's alright. Failgold is an okay second prize because we'll probably be limping towards Currency anyway.

Oh ... when I was pausing the game, I saw Coeurva moved a second warrior towards Harmondale.  It'll be bounced by Harmondale's expanding borders unless he pre-emptively declares war on us, and we have a warrior coming out of Harmondale in 2 turns anyway (with 3XP, even!)

Why is Coeurva poking at our borders with 50% of his military (the power graph shows he had 4 warriors last turn)?  He definitely has at least one other neighbor.

He's probably a newbie. Maybe he wants to plant near Harmondale?

[Dark Savant]

Considering using swords too at some point of time; they've been buffed in RtR and we'll want IW early anyway.

How well do those work in MP RtR? Iron Working would take a long time to research, I don't think it's worth researching soon.

I suppose swords are also okay against horse archers/Numidian Cavalry, with their high base strength and free Combat I.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 47 (2120 BC)

With no sign of axes and no one even having Animal Husbandry, I whip the barracks in Castleview.  

Coeurva's warrior near our capital moved into the coastal fog, so he won't interfere with our blue dot plans, and in fact shouldn't know about them yet.  The barb warrior in the jungle did try to interfere with the road to blue dot, but the warrior defending Pippin handily won.

Coeurva's other warrior is now here:



He already moved this turn, and didn't declare war, so his warrior is going to be pushed out next turn.  He'll have seen the lack of warrior in Harmondale (not an issue) and our mysterious work boat.

It doesn't look like there's a good spot for Coeurva to plant a city anywhere near Harmondale, or in fact on any tile we know about.  He might plant just west of that pig, or somewhere more to its west (which would be about his equivalent of orange dot) if he doesn't already have a city there.

Also, I have a new explanation for why Gavagai's warrior moved away:



He lost a warrior last turn. He's also conspicuously failing to plant a third city; his capital has been stalled at size 4 for a while.  No way to tell right now if he also lost a worker or settler.

Sandro tries to take a look at what's up at Animal Farm, and finds it's more like an Alpha Centauri tree farm with a decent number of terraformers at work:



Three workers for two cities; Krill isn't being negligent about those.  I can still push through, knowing that all eight tiles next to Animal Farm are land, but it's going to be slow from all that forest.

C&D: Both Coeurva and Gavagai are now putting espionage into us (Gavagai at half rate); I'm going to split points between them for now.

CML and JR4 -- everyone else who is Expansive and not Gavagai -- both planted new cities this turn.  +14,000 land area, so collectively 4 water tiles in their first ring.

GermanJoey's capital momentarily grew to size 7, then was whipped back to size 6.  Krill's capital Animal Farm also is now size 6.

CML just applied his first whip, for 2 pop.  That could always be a settler, but I can't help but wonder if he whipped Stonehenge fearing competition.

No new technologies showed up.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 48 (2080 BC)

We have Pottery now; research on Animal Husbandry begun.  Unit maintenance/supply is starting to sting, but I also value scouting too much not to do it.  Building roads to new cities, even more!

Harmondale has a warrior now; whip overflow is going into a granary for 1 turn before I start a settler.  Castleview built its whipped barracks , and I was going to have it do a worker, but I decided that a granary would be better since Castle Ironfist can supply more workers.  I can whip the granary after the chop comes in.

Because of that decision, we're actually going to soon have only 4 workers for 5 cities in my current plans.  I may delay the settler from Harmondale accordingly to build a worker, which I'll do if I think I'm going to move green dot.  We need to stall outward expansion a bit at 4-5 cities to develop our cities some, anyway.

Gavagai came back:



The zone defense warrior is back to cover things in case Gavagai declares war.  (And that snapshot was before I decided to build a granary next.)

Our scouting units near Harmondale find:



I'm definitely considering moving green dot; that peninsula isn't very large, and another food resource just showed up.  Also, I'm going to have the work boat poke near those newly discovered borders of Coeurva's.

It also looks like everyone has a single plantation happiness resource in their back lines, and another in the nearby jungle.  No masses of plantation resources on this map, apparently .

Sandro discovers both snowball and Snowball.  As in, source of growth and the pig in Animal Farm, respectively:



I had Sandro move back to the hill, since I didn't want to step on a tile Krill is using.  Next turn, I plan to declare a scouting war.

C&D: Population watch: dtay and JR4 both whipped 1 pop; Ventessel gained 1 pop; GermanJoey 's second city reached size 3.

No other new technologies this turn; CML neither built Stonehenge nor founded a religion.  I wonder what he's doing.

Average land area somehow just went up (+13,000 land).  I'm not sure how this happened.  dtay or CML could have chopped an early barracks or monument to expand city #2 (just one of those can't get +13,000 land though); or one or two new cities got planted without being obvious in CivStats (quick whip/plant).  A new city isn't from any player we have met, or GermanJoey (whose large population I can still follow).

[ipecac]

IMO you should only move the scout 1N into the forest if you are sure Krill doesn't want to move a worker there next.

RB people can get a tad irritated by their micro being disrupted.

[Dark Savant]

IMO you should only move the scout 1N into the forest if you are sure Krill doesn't want to move a worker there next.

RB people can get a tad irritated by their micro being disrupted.

Well, both of those workers will still be busy next turn working on their chops (I think one finishes next turn, the other 2 turns from now).  I don't think Krill has a 4th worker lurking back there.

There are also 3 forests to step on and only 2 workers, so I think it'll be fine.