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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 67 (1320 BC) - Part 5 (C&D continued)

I'm also going to keep closer track of cities and what's in them.

• CML: no contact; he has 4 cities with 10 pop, with Stonehenge in one of them.
  
• Coeurva: no vision on any of his 6 cities with 15 pop, but we do know the locations of 4 of them.
  
• Gavagai: Istanbul: 5 (no buildings), Edirne: 4 (no buildings), Ankara: 4 (no bulidings), Bursa: 2 (location unknown)
  
• dtay: no contact; he has 3 cities with 13 pop.
  
• GermanJoey: State of Yue: 6 (location known but no vision; must have a granary); Seven Mysteries: 5 (monument, granary); State of Zijin: 1 (location unknown); Heavenly Star: 1 (granary); Yellow Maple: 1 (location unknown).  One of the two cities whose location is unknown appears to be 4N and 1W of Gem's current location.
  
• JR4: no contact; he has 5 cities with 19 pop, and exactly 7 pop in city #2, the Buddhist holy city.
  
• Krill: Animal Farm: 5 (barracks); Room 101: 5 (Hindu holy city, terrace); Wigan Pier (only a guess for location); 12 Monkeys (only a guess for location).  The latter 2 cities must have 3 pop total.
  
• Ventessel: Anchorage: 3; Juneau: 3.  We don't have vision on either, but we do know where they are, and one of them has a +1 culture building.  (It might not be a barracks, but may be a monument, come to think of it.)
  

[Dark Savant]

While the game is down ...

I'm sure Gavagai is worried we'll attack him, especially since his archer lost the forest defensive bonus this turn and we now can see Ankara doesn't have anything at all inside.  I've usually been ending after turn after him, and lately he's been logging on after I end turn.  I think that's him checking to see if we're attacking him.  (He wouldn't know we can't promote this axe to Cover.)

If I wanted to, I could have arranged to build a road on the corn tile and hit his archer with ~95.5% odds of winning, capture his worker, and menace his empty city.  I hope Gavagai knows we realized that and chose not to do it, rather than writing me off as a n00b who missed an opportunity.

Once we get a spear in Castleview, I may pull away the axe we currently have there -- we could probably use it on some other front more.  I'd feel better about that if we have two defensive units there, though.

[ipecac]

I want to attack Gavagai.

krill is not going to 'win' anytime soon,. Him building so muc military will only cost him further in growth, while ventessel is doomed but won't fall to krill so easily (well he shouldn't… if he spams archers)

[ipecac]

Your chariots shouldve trying to make opportunistic gainss agaist gavagai, not couevra. Gav will never be this vulnerable again

[Dark Savant]

Hmm, well, I didn't actually have anything in position to attack this turn, anyway -- I didn't know the city was empty until after I moved most things in the area.

The one chariot I had was just cleaning up that barbarian.

[Dark Savant]

Also, I'm not sure what the local metagame for this is, but I'd rather not launch an attack so soon after agreeing to non-aggression.  That can lead to a reputation that lingers across games.

Maybe people are so bloodthirsty they do that and people accept it, but I'm inclined to avoid it.

Okay, maybe that's a post facto justification, but there you go.   If we feel like attacking in another 20 or so turns, that's different.

There's also the problem that even if we had scored a smashing success against Gavagai, we still would have had so little military in the area that he could have threatened our Great Lighthouse build even then (though I really doubt he could actually take Castleview).  It's probably not that big a deal compared to knocking out an opponent, but it's another factor.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 68 (1280 BC) - Part 1

Sandro and Gem press northward, finding:



That's GermanJoey's city #5 we just got vision on.  Sandro will be able to advance for at least 2 more turns, and he can actually get vision on more of Seven Mysteries' tiles, but if this is a dead end we'll have to decide whether it's worth it to declare a scouting war at this point.  My inclination is still "probably not", but it depends on what Sandro uncovers.

State of Zijin (city #3) must be the one in the fog to the north of Seven Mysteries.  I presume GermanJoey planted it to seal off JR4.  Neither seems to be in a hurry to claim the jungle, so Gem's quest to add to our array of contacts will be delayed.  She's already east of the projected location of JR4's capital (2W,9N of the tile she's currently on).

In other news, GermanJoey hasn't updated his thread for ages, so now any global lurkers are learning about what he's up to from us, not him.  

[Dark Savant]

Actually ... State of Zijin is probably on the tile 4 north of the crab, isn't it?  I could have actually gotten vision on that city too; didn't think about that.    Oh well.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 68 (1280 BC) - Part 2

After Castle Ironfist and Harmondale grow 1 more size each (next turn), at least one and perhaps both can start settlers.

Here is my idea of where they should go, in the north:



Red dot is a very good site and it (or something else in the general vicinity) should be a high priority.  It's unfortunately yet another low-density site, but I don't see a better location for it in the area -- perhaps you could convince me otherwise?  I don't want to waste the horse tile, and I'm not sure I want to share the pig with Garrote Gorge anyway, since that city will want the pig pretty much full time once I can get it online.

Black dot is a decent filler site that's still low priority.

And in the south:



Green dot is still unplanted from the original dotmap, and I think we do want to plant it in that location, after all.

Orange dot is going to culturally compete with Coeurva's 6th city Whitehall, but that's still a strong site (there's another seafood out in its second ring).

Yellow dot claims two more seafood that I didn't catch in the screenshot, though I don't think this site is as high-priority as the others.

Purple dots are relatively low-priority (except to get ivory, if we're hurting for happiness), but I'm not quite sure where to place cities in the jungle, especially since we have yet to scout the nearby islands fully.

Pink dots are forward bases on Coeurva that don't otherwise add much, especially the left one.  I'm not sure how much of a priority right pink dot is.  (Yeah, they're not real Pink Dots, I know, but I'm running out of colors here.  )

Black dot is another filler site from the original t16 dotmap.

The other point is that now that we can build galleys.  I think it's better to build a work boat out of Harmondale next.  That one can scout more, and actually work seafood at green dot.  It can then work on a galley, if I don't feel I need actual military.  That 80 hammers still feels like a lot this early, though!

[Dark Savant]

Turn 68 (1280 BC) - Part 3

Checking the trade screens, I find this:



Those whales just showed up.  So yes, GermanJoey definitely has Sailing and has to be closely watched as a threat to build the Great Lighthouse.  He can certainly beat us to researching Masonry, because he already has Mysticism.

I tried to redo my micro plan to get out the Great Lighthouse faster, but I can't work out a way to get it faster than t84.

Sandro will reveal more of Seven Mysteries' terrain next turn so we'll have a better idea how much of a threat it truly is.