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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 66 (1360 BC) - Part 8

Man, I forgot to report much on the building front.  

The chop at Harmondale completes; the worker there is due next turn, with 10 hammers of overflow even after the overflow division penalty.

Castleview finishes its double-whipped worker and starts a lighthouse with the whip overflow.  Worker #7 is named after Celeborn, who has the totally hilarious (and I swear genuine) alternate name of Teleporno.  

I started research on Mysticism, which we actually want.  It's partly for the discount on Masonry; partly because waiting on it will not help as in unmodded BtS, as there is no known tech bonus on it in this mod; and partly because we eventually want to build a stele (our UB, which provides a culture bonus) at Castleview to combat Gavagai's culture there.

Coeurva still has not completed any culture building.  That means he still hasn't built a library, and he just finished researching a tech last turn without doing the standard Civ 1/Civ 2/Civ 3/Civ 4 trick of accumulating gold during library construction.  What did he research Writing without at least two arrows this early for, then?

[Dark Savant]

Sometime we will also want to squeeze in Archery somewhere -- even as Aggressive not-Protective, archers seem to be worthwhile cheap defenders to use for the island cities that are now coming within the planning horizon.

Maybe we will want to get it while researching Masonry; I could use Archery as an anti-C&D swap target instead of Writing.  We have several more turns to consider that before Mysticism completes.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 67 (1320 BC) - Part 1

I move Sandro and Gem up north around GermanJoey's core, finding:



No sign of JR4, but GermanJoey has another city in Gem's direction which I may take a look at.

Seven Mysteries is GermanJoey's second city, and it's worth taking a closer look:



I'm glad I took the time to get vision on it, because that's possibly serious competition if GermanJoey wants to try for the Great Lighthouse.

I didn't take a screenshot of it directly, but it has a warrior and a just-built work boat in it; that work boat must be heading for the clam.

It also has a monument and a granary; it must have just recently reached second-ring.  It has a pig pasture, a clam, a silver mine, two forests, and a grassland hill that we can see, which is enough that I should keep an eye on it.

If he had it just complete a work boat, though, that isn't progress towards an overflow whip chain.

[Dark Savant]

I have to amend the previous turn's C&D report -- JR4 really did gain 4 pop points in one turn; it's the only way to make the numbers work out this turn.  We hadn't seen anyone gain more than 2 pop points in a turn before, though we just got 3 ourselves this turn, none of which I plan to whip right away.

Also in amended C&D, and more relevant to the turn, is that GermanJoey must also have Mysticism.  So we now know all 9 of his technologies he possessed last turn: Agriculture, Archery, Bronze Working, Fishing, Hunting, Mining, Mysticism, Pottery, The Wheel.  And he just finished a tech this turn, after 13 turns since the previous tech.

It must be an Ancient Era tech.  It's not Writing; I still can't trade maps with GermanJoey.

Is there any way to tell if it is Sailing, if we have Sailing ourselves, and without graphs, and without having to rely on a lighthouse showing up in the world view, or whales showing up in trade, or seeing a galley?

I don't know of one.  I have to monitor GermanJoey and this city very closely now.

[ipecac]

He might do resource trade with someone else, which means sailing

[Dark Savant]

He might do resource trade with someone else, which means sailing

Right, I'll check every turn for that.  And for Horses or Furs showing up on the trade screen.

His mystery technology must be one of Sailing, Animal Husbandry, Masonry, Meditation, or Polytheism.  The last three are rather unlikely, so I'll watch for any sign it's one of the first two.

No matter which one it is, he researched it rather slowly, especially since we now know he must have had silver connected and worked at his second city for a long time.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 67 (1320 BC) - Part 2

I'm wondering, how offended might Coeurva be by a Sentry chariot poking near his borders?

The south looks like this:



I'm planning to just have a single Sentry chariot check out his borders.

If we really want to, we can take the chariot due at Harmondale in 2 turns and have it team up with the other chariot, to, uh, test Coeurva's border security.  

If you're wondering that the terrain looks different, well, it is!  Coeurva chopped the forests near Ignis Fatuus, so if Coeurva's axe-heavy military doesn't include a spear in his border city, we could punish that.

I'm skeptical that's worth it (we don't have the military for an actual war), but let me know if you think it is.

[Dark Savant]

I am reconsidering sending Gem on a scouting trip home, though I still have a few more turns to make up my mind.

It's apparently going to take longer to find JR4 than I thought.  I'd also like Gem to poke around and uncover as many coastal cities of GermanJoey and JR4 as I can.

If Gem continues north, though, she can not only get a complete slate of contacts, she can actually get home to our eastern sea faster than it will be practical for Sorpigal to put out an extra work boat.  Harmondale can build work boats much more readily than Sorpigal can, and Sorpigal's next two work boats have to go on its own seafood.  Castleview does not have the time to spare, and we don't have any other coastal cities.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 67 (1320 BC) - Part 3

Gavagai's workers chopping forests in Ankara are both done.  That gives us vision into Ankara:



He has no defense there other than that archer.

I realize a lot of people would take this as an invitation to attack, but I continue to strongly believe we should employ Gavagai as a weapon to hit Krill for us, so I'll let him get away with this.

I know you said that our neighbor's neighbor is a natural ally, but I don't think we want to let Krill just push the "I win" button.  Another reason to push Gem northward is so that she can make contact with our other natural ally.

I hope Gavagai somehow gets our message of "That situation to your north?  It's worse than you thought!  Please do something about it."  He would know that we know much more about Krill and his northern neighbor than he does himself; he would have seen that we declared a scouting war on Krill.

Domestic update:

Castle Ironfist grew to size 6; spear due next turn.  Castleview grew to size 4; it's still working on the lighthouse, and will be for a while.  I'll micro it next turn so it regrows to size 5 a turn sooner.  Our work boat from Sorpigal reached the whales this turn, and Castleview is already working it.  Sorpigal grew to size 2, and I'll have it whip a work boat and overflow into another work boat once its border is about to expand, in a few more turns.

We now have 17 total pop; that's 2nd in the world behind JR4 at 19.

Harmondale finished its chopped worker and is now set to grow.  I had new worker #8 (Curufinwë, better known as Fëanor) work on the nearby random cottage, because Harmondale will grow 2 sizes in 2 turns and otherwise be short on developed tiles!  I hadn't meant to build that cottage, but I only had workers start one there as something to do en route to elsewhere, and now it's going to complete.    Curufinwë is then scheduled to work his way towards Sorpigal to help with farming its corn once its borders expand.

Our spear moves back into Sorpigal.  Now that we've got chariots, I move out the warrior in Sorpigal; I'm going to position him to prevent barb spawning in the nearby jungle.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 67 (1320 BC) - Part 4 (C&D)

Score tally:

• CML: +9 points for 7 land tiles held in the first ring of city #3 for 20 turns.
  
• Coeurva: +2 points for +1 pop (15 pop total)
  
• Gavagai: -5 points for a -2 pop whip in Istanbul (15 pop total)
  
• GermanJoey: -2 points for a -1 pop whip (14 pop total)
  
• JR4: +9 points for 7 land tiles held in the first ring of city #3 for 20 turns; +2 points for +1 pop; -2 points for a -1 pop whip outside his holy city (19 pop total)
  
• Krill: -5 points for a -2 pop whip in Animal Farm (13 pop total)
  

Okay, for some detail on the C&D score tally:

CML and JR4 both planted their 3rd cities on t47, and I know that this caused global land area to increase by 14 tiles, but I didn't take enough screenshots to know how many in which city.  It turns out that both cities must have exactly land 7 tiles in first-ring; a split of 6/8 makes the numbers this turn impossible, and a split of 5/9 either way means that the other player would have gained more points this turn than actually happened.

That accounts for all of CML's point gain, and he's continuing to look really weak with only 10 pop.  And he's Coeurva's likely neighbor.  

JR4 also gained a population point this turn, but if he got 2 pop and a tech last turn, then +1 pop would have resulted in 3 points, not the 2 points that actually happened.  So he still has 11 techs, and he must have gained 4 pop points last turn.

Ventessel at least managed to pillage both silver tiles at Animal Farm, because they both just vanished from the trade screen.  The Incest Empire has copper again -- and it must be at Room 101, because we can actually look through the fog like this:



War between the White Walkers and the Incest Empire Update

Another 24,000 units of soldiers vanished during the turns of CML, GermanJoey, JR4, and Krill.  2,000 would be whips done by JR4 and Krill, but the other 22,000 must be units killed.

It's possible there's also hot war somewhere between the unknown players too, but oy.  The graph now shows the Incest Empire as the power leader, and judging from top rival power, he didn't lose anything this turn.

True to the Might and Magic CRPGs, dragons are overpowered.

It will be a while before Ventessel is completely finished off; it takes a lot to crack hilltop Protective archers with +40% cultural defense.  Still.  

We have 40-something EP with Krill now.  I'm now going to move all 4 EP to GermanJoey for now, and try to react in time if we're about to lose graphs on Gavagai or Krill.  I don't think it's worth caring about Ventessel at this point, bar a miracle.