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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 93 (550 BC) - Part 4 (C&D)

Score tally:

• Us: +13 points for +1 pop in each of Castle Ironfist, Castleview, Sorpigal, Garrote Gorge, and Fountain Head; -5 points for a -2 pop whip in Sorpigal (39 pop total); +6 points for researching Meditation.
  
• CH/DZ/Ventessel: +2 points for +1 pop in Anchorage (13 pop total).
  
• Coeurva: +2 points for +1 pop in Dragonish Sicil; -2 points for a -1 pop whip in Stygian Terrace (46 pop total).
  
• dtay: +8 points for +3 pop (+1 in Angle); -5 points for 2 -1 pop whips (37 pop total).
  
• Gavagai: +5 points for +1 pop in each of Edirne and Samsun (46 pop total); +6 points for 5 land claimed by the second ring of Konya for 20 turns.
  
• GermanJoey: -3 points for a -1 pop whip in Masked Moon (39 pop total).
  
• JR4: Uh, he got 21 points.  He might well have a Classical tech because it's been a while since I've seen him get anything.  It couldn't be Alphabet or anything we can research. t94 edit: He also planted city #10, Sugabala. Tentatively marked down for +3 pop plus new city (41 pop total), 1 land tile, and a Classical technology.
  
• Krill: +3 points for +1 pop (35 pop total).
  
• yuris125: +3 points for +1 pop (18 pop total); +6 points for researching Writing.
  

I forgot to mention this, but a scouting work boat has found another one of JR4's island cities -- it can get vision upon it next turn.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 1

I open to take a look around, and am greeted with this:



Okay, I wasn't expecting that.  If he wanted Open Borders, why didn't he propose that before?

Our economy is in rough enough shape that I don't think I can just automatically reject this.  I'm still inclined to say no, but I have to think about this.

Also of note:

He didn't ask to trade World Maps.

He just got Currency.  (!)  With the +1 trade route, he does get extra value out of Open Borders, if we accept.

yuris125 did accept our trade, so we do have his map in exchange for three spare resources (which includes the locations of some more of Coeurva's cities).

[Dark Savant]

Okay, after going over the trade route formulas, it doesn't look like this will increase our own commerce by more than a few.

The trouble is that this is technically a Large map, and Coeurva is a next-door neighbor on the same continent, so in most cases we don't get more than the bare minimum 1 base trade ... so even a +175% bonus to base trade doesn't get us anything over our existing trade routes to Mist (+100%).

There is something else to consider -- GermanJoey has a frightening-looking peacetime economy; Krill's potential military also is if Gavagai doesn't attack him very soon.  Gavagai has a lot of pop too, and while dtay is behind in score he's going to catch up.

In other words, it might be worth having the non-veterans team up to do something about the veterans -- if that could somehow be arranged in a no-diplo game.  Except I'm not sure I can at all guarantee that Coeurva won't just take a swing at the former CML again, for instance (except if he wanted to do so, why'd he sign a peace treaty with a large military advantage?)

I think I'll still have to say no, but I can think about this some more.

[Dark Savant]

I'm going to say no -- if you think we should re-propose Open Borders with Coeurva/Bacchus, let me know, since it'll be a while before this turn ends, too (dtay cannot play today).

[Dark Savant]

Actually, you know what -- we can make a counter-proposal where we ask for some GPT in return for Open Borders, since we don't gain much from it otherwise.

How much should I ask in return?  I don't think he'll gain much in trade either, at least currently, so I don't think I could ask for much.  The biggest thing he'd gain is "okay, let's not burn down his cities".

[Dark Savant]

I think I'd actually want about 5gpt for such a protection deal, right now (the amount would increase as time passes); but I'm not sure I want to propose that directly.  I really have no idea how people haggle in MP no-diplo.

I could ask for, uh, 8gpt?  10gpt?

[Dark Savant]

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 2

Let's check out this new map from yuris125.  His modest 5 cities with 19 pop look like this:



dtay has settled close enough to Yuri that there isn't room for anything other than border filler cities in between.  (Or they could settle the jungle; dtay might do that because he's got Iron Working, though he has to have crushing economic problems right now.)

If you look closely, you'll see that Coeurva's southernmost city has a barracks, not a library.  In fact, so does his other southern city we can see.

His capital has a library.



Oh, it also has an academy (it's on the flood plains), so we know where his Great Scientist went.

I somehow have Krill's latest map information, so Krill and yuris125 probably traded maps.  Yeah, I'm playing this turn even slower than normal because I'm taking in all the new map info we got, aside from trying to figure out what kind of offer to make Coeurva, if at all.

I missed this before, but Krill also has iron in his ridiculous capital.



The border between Gavagai and Krill now looks like this:



What I thought was a high-priority city site is apparently low enough priority that a barb city has popped up there.

Oh, and CH/DZ/Ventessel just came up with Writing this turn.  That means we're now the only civilization without Writing -- yeah yeah we're getting there.  I do make this trade offer:



Sure, let's prop up another lagging civilization in exchange for its world map.  

[Dark Savant]

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 3

DZ rejected our trade request; well, the main thing we were offering is Silver, and he may be able to connect that fairly soon.  

yuris125 cannot, on the other hand -- somehow, he doesn't have an easy way of getting it himself despite it being all over the map, even before Coeurva razed-and-replaced his city.  There are 3-4 silver up for grabs on his frontiers with dtay and Coeurva, except CML didn't settle aggressively enough to get any of those.

Speaking of yuris125, he hasn't played even though he was the turn roll player.  That suggests he might be in a turn split with dtay (who said he can't play until this evening), even though they aren't at war.

Closer to home, Bacchus (Coeurva's DL) has logged in and must have seen his lack of Open Borders with us.  As you suggested, I'll make a counter-proposal, just not this turn.

Westward Ho will be worth ~53 gold if we can launch a successful raid upon it.  (If it has 4 pop 2 turns hence: 20 gold base; add 10 * 4 = 40 gold from pop; add 2d50 = 110 gold base.  It will have existed for about 24 turns, so multiply this by 24/50 since that's less than 50 = ~53.)

Also, Coeurva's probing warrior will have seen us loading a galley in Harmondale.  I don't think there's any way for him to tell what's in there (unless he built a spy and put it in just the right place).

We know where another of Coeurva's cities is, though I didn't get vision into it; it's red dot:



That's his 4th city, Lifeblood.  It's the only one other than Whitehall that's a real threat to launch ships on that coast, and it's rather far away from the bay between us.  We don't know where his 10th city is, but it was planted just this turn.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 94 (525 BC) - Part 4 (C&D)

JR4 planted city #10, Sugabala, at the end of last turn.

Score tally:

• Us: +8 points for +1 pop in each of Sorpigal, Vertigo, and Mist; -5 points for -1 pop whips in Fountain Head and Mist (40 pop total).
  
• CH/DZ: +6 points for researching Writing.
  
• Coeurva: +2 points for +1 pop; +3 points for planting city #10, Carthage (boring, though I suppose he'll rename it); -5 points for 2 -1 pop whips, 1 in Westward Ho! (46 pop total); +7 points for 5 land tiles claimed by the second ring of Ignis Fatuus for 20 turns; +12 points for researching Currency.
  
• dtay: +5 points for +2 pop (+1 in Carpool) (38 pop total); +6 points for +5 land tiles (he must have credit for at least +2).
  
• Gavagai: +2 points for +1 pop (47 pop total).  Our map information on Gavagai is now getting rather out of date.
  
• GermanJoey: +8 points for +3 pop; +2 points for planting city #10, Heaventide (43 pop total); +10 points for 7 land tiles claimed by the first ring of Masked Moon for 20 turns.
  
• JR4: +3 points for +1 pop (42 pop total).
  
• yuris125: +3 points for +1 pop (19 pop total).  It's a bit of a relief that I can see he actually does have 19 pop.    edit: he planted city #6 this turn, so now he has 20 pop!
  

We are #1 in power now.  This feels strange; I don't feel like we actually have that large a military.  That's partly because we have a bunch of barracks that most other people don't, but do people really play farmer's gambit this much?  It does make sense, I suppose.

We're also catching up in population.  I am whipping more than our rivals.  I can also see that many of our rivals have pretty much grown their biggest cities to their existing population caps.  Except for the Incest Empire, that is -- I have no idea why Krill's capital is so small, it currently has a cap of 11 and is only size 8.  He hasn't whipped it that hard (it's not like he had any competition for the Statue of Zeus), and it was building that wonder until recently so it wasn't stalled on workers or settlers.  

[Dark Savant]

CH/DZ wants our World Map for his.

I'd be perfectly willing to give our map, if it weren't for the fact that he might then trade it to someone else.

I don't really have a way to convey that we already have a large majority of the map unfogged; CH/DZ wouldn't have personally seen our scout crashing through Krill's territory and running clockwise around Anchorage.  He does know that our scout is trapped in a seam in GermanJoey's territory, since his is similarly trapped.

We can live without the map, and CH/DZ does have Silver in his territory unlike yuris125.  It's forested and right next to GermanJoey's territory, and GermanJoey's borders in the area are about to expand.  I might try to offer again once that happens.