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

[Dark Savant]

That's a sign gavagai might attack. What's his power like? That needs turn by turn monitoring.

This turn's power graphs show us being equal.

A chariot is in the area but not visible to Gavagai, and the axe moving north should arrive next turn.

[Dark Savant]

Also, would Gavagai actually show those axes to us if he really were going to attack?

He could hide them on the tile 2E of Ankara, then build a 1-turn road 1 SE of Ankara and move in out of the fog.

[Dark Savant]

Since Gavagai could assemble an attack force more steathily, I don't think this is really an attack; I feel it's more "leave us alone".  Not that it's going to stop me from moving in a 3XP axe next turn and starting walls -- we don't want to give him any ideas.

Speaking of suggesting things and Gavagai, if we suddenly move the workers away without chopping the forests, this does suggest to Gavagai that our scouting is good enough that we know we're getting beat to the Great Lighthouse.  That's okay, right?  I could pretend to chop forests for another turn, but I'd rather get our workers to do more useful things now, and our worker guard back into Castleview.

[ipecac]

It's him dominating the 2nd half of the turn timer that worries me, not the slow trickling in of defenders.

Speaking of suggesting things and Gavagai, if we suddenly move the workers away without chopping the forests, this does suggest to Gavagai that our scouting is good enough that we know we're getting beat to the Great Lighthouse. That's okay, right? I could pretend to chop forests for another turn, but I'd rather get our workers to do more useful things now, and our worker guard back into Castleview.

That's less incentive for him to prepare to attack, so that's good.

[ipecac]

Also, would Gavagai actually show those axes to us if he really were going to attack?

It's possible that he wants to lull you into thinking he wants peace.

edit- my bad, he can't yet move them across the river with roads 2 spaces in one turn. That's all right then.

[ipecac]

raze Whitehall

Do it

And yes, you and Gavagai will build up troops. Usually some stable state is reached before the prisoner's dilemma of building troops as garrison/possible offense goes out of control.

Oh, I guess that's all there is. And it turns out we wasted that rice tile.

Not necessarily. With stone, settle Rice, and work the corn, chop/whip a Moai and you'll get a decent one....but that corn is dry. There could be better sites.

[Dark Savant]

raze Whitehall

Do it

He's got 4 turns to come up with a good defense, then.  If he moves his roving chariots in, for instance, that isn't going to impress 2 spears even from a boat.

Oh, I guess that's all there is.  And it turns out we wasted that rice tile.

Not necessarily. With stone, settle Rice, and work the corn, chop a Moai and you'll get a decent one.

Sorpigal is a superior Moai site, though.  And we want to find Stone first, though it's probably on one of the islands nearby that "wasted" rice.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, my sim is clearly no longer quite precise; when I have time I'll redo the whole thing.

It's still no more than a little off, though, and it suggests the island city will add 7 to expenses; it will add 11 to income the moment it is planted.  Profit!

I'll come up with estimates for research times based on that.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, I'm going to run gold for one more turn, then start to sprint to whatever our tech is after that.

We'll have about 180 gold, and can run max science for 5 turns from t80-t84 (roughly 50/turn before arrow or KTB bonuses).  We then have to run at breakeven, but we'll have our island city planted by then.

So all these assume I only turn science up on t79:

• Archery: done on t80.  I think I like this tech better than you do, because we would save 10 hammers on every non-urgent defender we build.  (It still doesn't seem that great.)
  
• Meditation: done on t81 if we squeeze out some extra commerce.  Which we would want, because that's the turn Castle Ironfist is producing a settler, so we could have the overflow go straight into the monastery.
  
• Writing: done on t84, ~31 overflow (about a half turn of research)
  
• Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing: done on t87.  That makes it look like it's worth it to research through Meditation and Priesthood if we want Writing.  (In practice, it would be delayed a bit, because I'd stop for a few turns to build the monastery, but that's worth it if we do this.)
  
• Writing -> Alphabet: done on t96.  (I didn't presume this builds libraries before starting Alphabet, which would probably save some time.)
  
• Iron Working: done on t85.  Ventessel just finished researching this, which will help a little.  This is fast enough that we can't have settler #9 quite ready, though we could have workers in place to mine the jungled silver at Sorpigal; I think we could have another settler in place by about t87.
  
• Metal Casting: done on t91.  No one has this yet.  We could use our already set up stele and partially chopped forests at Castleview to make a bid for the Colossus there.
  

Adding any cheaper tech before Iron Working or Metal Casting will add about 2.2 turns per turn taken for cheaper techs; we'd shave a bit more time if we built a monastery or libraries.

Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing -> Alphabet would probably finish in the late t90s.

Techs that take more than several turns can probably have a turn or two shaved off by additional development.

[Dark Savant]

Which technologies we pick partly depends if you think we'll actually be in a longer war with Coeurva soon because of the amphibious raid plan, and whether we'll even be launching the raid -- if he has strong defense by t81 I'm not going to attack him.

I'm not sure what his reaction would be if we launch a successful raid.  We wouldn't be in a position to fight a real war, but very likely he wouldn't, either.

We want to make a tech decision by next turn, because that's a good time to start burning gold at 100% science.

Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing -> Alphabet, straight-out Metal Casting, and straight-out Iron Working look best to me.  Right now I'm actually tempted to do straight-out Metal Casting but I'm far from convinced that's a good move.