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

[Dark Savant]

t130:

Portsmith fell to GermanJoey, as expected.

He has a galley in place to attack either of two cities.  I think it just has one unit, so I think I have it covered, but my military ability in this game was never all that great.  Oh well, this is a good way to learn.  

I whip a ton of stuff.  I do that partly because I'm about to swap to Caste System in a Golden Age, so I need to get in the whipping now while I can, but a lot of it is defensive too.

I do try to avoid whipping core cities other than Sorpigal (which can regrow at a ridiculous rate now).  I'd like to grow them as big as I can for the upcoming Golden Age; I just got the Great Scientist for that, from Fountain Head, which now needs to grow.

[Dark Savant]

t131:

Wait, a forest chop with a forge is worth 37.5 hammers, and a 4-pop-whip of a wonder is worth 56?  I could have microed the Mausoleum to complete on t133 instead of t134 if I'd known that -- I thought it was 35 and 51.  Oh well.  It wasn't built this turn, at least.

All of GermanJoey's galleys are now out of sight; he's got triremes advancing but I have triremes of my own now to at least cover seafood.  I wonder what his next invasion plans will be.

dtay's power graph is spiking something fierce.


And in case it weren't clear, I'm much, much busier than I was even a month ago.  I still have 60+ minutes a day to play Civ, at least!

[Dark Savant]

dtay has started to rip into yuris125 hard.  Yuri is also whipping hard in self-defense, but that's not going to be nearly enough I think.


I'm not sure what Coeurva is thinking.  My best guess is currently just though he really ought to consider invading yuris125 himself so dtay doesn't get all his land.

I'm going to be building and shifting troops south so Coeurva isn't tempted to invade us instead.  I'm going to maintain OB still to also discourage that.

We also now have island border exposure to Krill, so I'm going to keep that OB treaty as well.  I would have seriously considered dropping that if I had gotten OB with dtay or GermanJoey, but neither is going to happen now since the peace trade bonus is gone.

I'm wondering if people are annoyed I'm feeding Krill, but at this point I'm not sure I have a choice.

[Dark Savant]

t132:

No one built the Mausoleum this turn.  If I'd done the micro right, I would have chopped all five of its forests this turn, but I started last turn and finished this turn.  It'll be ready to whip next turn.

Coeurva and Krill are no longer at war.  Coeurva has a rather high power rating so I need to continue to build military and shift it south.

I don't see any units of GermanJoey at the moment other than his now-garrison in Portsmith and his two triremes.  I'm not going to build any more of those myself -- caravels are already within sight.

I still feel like I'm going to collapse like a house of cards at any moment.  

[Dark Savant]

t133:

GermanJoey now has a couple of galleys moving around.  I moved one of my triremes to the wrong place for blocking them.  Oops.    Sigh, one of these days I might actually have something resembling competence at multiplayer war.    Well, he has two triremes of his own nearby, he can muscle past if he wants to anyway.  Castle Kalindra may well fall next turn.  That's not a big deal compared to the other two cities I've lost.

One problem with letting GermanJoey keep these cities is that our communication on the eastern sea will eventually be blocked.  I'm going to see if I can scrape together a force to retake Portsmith.

There's no sign of GermanJoey building more advanced units (caravels, crossbows, etc.)  He has to have the tech for them by now, right?  He had a Golden Age to accelerate technology to ... something, I don't know what.  Why haven't I seen that yet?  He generated a Great Artist whose use I haven't identified.  No one's claimed the Great Artist at Music yet; maybe he wants to pull replace-Great-Artist-with-another?

We've lost graphs on GermanJoey and I'm not sure we can get them back readily.  I'm lazily building only a couple of courthouses right now, in cities with low production far away from GermanJoey.

We are somehow 6th in power now.  We've overtaken ... Krill?  I'm curious as to why Gavagai hasn't attacked Krill while he's still vulnerable.  Krill has a significantly longer frontier to defend.

No one built the Mausoleum!  I whipped it this turn.

Machinery is due on t135.

[Dark Savant]

Looks like I lost Castle Kalindra.

I wonder how incompetent this looks -- I'm Aggressive and have circumnavigation, and I'm losing cities, plural, in an island war.

 

Oh well, lesson learned.

[Dark Savant]

t134:

Actual good news, for once!



We're still relevant, dammit!  

Andrei Sakharov is used to fire a Golden Age, of course.  Some last-minute whips ensue.

I flip to Caste System to generate the Great People for the next Golden Age.  Castleview already has a bit of progress, so it now has a bunch of starving artists.  I'm going to hold off a bit on starting the other GP because the other high-food cities need to grow more, and I'd rather not use Sorpigal for the next GP -- it needs to work every single coast tile it can now.

I'd love to swap to some other civics, but we don't have any, thus announcing to the world how far behind we are.  

Coeurva also just spawned a Great Scientist and also started a Golden Age.  I wonder how close that wonder race was.  He swapped to Caste System, Hereditary Rule, and Vassalage.  Oy!  Yeah, we need to catch up badly.  If yuris125 does crumble quickly Coeurva is likely to attack us -- well, I'm planning to put up as much resistance as I can.

Krill has some triremes, plural, pushing through our waters.  Where the heck are they going?  There aren't any galleys with them.  

I move a trireme near GermanJoey to block him from reinforcing Portsmith.  Even if I retake it he might just be able to take it back, but it's better than not trying at all.

Science schedule looks something like: Machinery t135, Compass t136, Optics t138, Monotheism t139, Monarchy t140, Feudalism t143.  I hope that isn't too slow ...

[ipecac]

What's your power score compared to the others? It sounds like you need a lot more military.

[Dark Savant]

What's your power score compared to the others? It sounds like you need a lot more military.

We're still #6 -- yes, we need a lot more military.  Maybe I should swap things like the courthouses in outlying cities to more military ...

We can start to build crossbows next turn.  Those strike me as actually worthwhile, since GermanJoey is attacking us with phalanxes and swords, and I've seen no sign of longbows or anything else past Classical.

[Dark Savant]

t135:

GermanJoey showed up with a straight-up peace offer.

I suppose I can't say I'm surprised by this.  On the one hand, if we remain at war, it makes it much more likely either Coeurva or Gavagai will jump on us, and then I'm in possibly game-ending trouble.

On the other hand ... he made this peace offer at the exact time I finished the Mausoleum and fired off a Golden Age.  I think I'm much more capable of striking back against GermanJoey now as I was against dtay a dozen or so turns ago -- that's partly because the geography makes it much easier, and partly because I will actually be in halfway decent shape to wage war not that long from now.

I'm going to turn this down for now and look around (I can always re-offer the treaty), but I think it's best to turn this down.  I'd be perfectly willing to make peace and forget all this happened if we could make a white peace -- status quo ante bellum.  Shame that isn't possible under this game's rules!  GermanJoey does have 600+ gold to ask for, but no gpt, and I suspect he wouldn't be willing to part with enough for me to definitely want peace.

There's the consideration that GermanJoey is concerned that dtay is potentially running away with the game and would prefer I retaliate against dtay.  I might otherwise be planning that now ... except it's much easier to retaliate against GermanJoey (he has a much longer frontier to defend), and if GermanJoey were actually so concerned with dtay's position, he wouldn't have declared war on me in the first place.

I'm not sure this is the right conclusion, but I can at least move workers while I think this over.