[SPOILER] Dark Savant's thread: Competition for limited resources remains a constant

[Dark Savant]

Turn 136 (AD 520)

Elkad is now at peace with both Rusten and me.  I also signed Open Borders with Rusten, so now I have Open Borders with all known contacts other than superdeath, although the additional Open Borders with Elkad don't seem to help much.  Also, I'm now trading Fur-for-Silk with AT.

I'm confused about where borders are now.



These look like islands, not a continuous landmass.  But I've only got 3 trade routes with Rusten, one of which is with the known large known island city Sungrape.  If Rusten really were on a different island, it should be much more than that, no?

I don't know.

AT's territory looks like this:




I have two spies in superdeath's territory now, with a third arriving soon.

They haven't turned up much so far.  This is all the extra land units I've so far found:



That's two whole archers.  Where are the catapults and horse archers?

superdeath is, however, advancing a whole bunch of triremes down the eastern coast; he'll soon have me outnumbered 5 to 2, so I'm scrambling to produce some more there.  But if he's producing that, he has fewer land units to oppose me.

Boy, are there a lot of turn splits.  BeardBeard is dying hard to Gavagai, and OH's target turns out to be TBW, who just lost a 16-point city.

The slooow unit creep continues.  (Man, I wish I had knights or galleons.)  I'll probably advance in another turn or two.

Code of Laws is in, and courthouses are underway in a few distant cities farther away from the front.  I'll save gold for a bit (I'm not actually going to 1-turn Monotheism).

[Dark Savant]

At a conference in New Orleans; turn windows are currently unpredictable, but I should still be able to play once per day.

Anyway.

Turn 138 (AD 560)

I think my war purchase is a bust.



This territory of 2metraninja's is petering out, I don't think he's actually going to attack superdeath, so it's all up to me.

That's pindicator I met there; I offered Open Borders even though it does me little good, just for friendship (he accepted) and Silk for war with superdeath (refused, didn't think he'd care).

superdeath is building many triremes; he's killed my small 2-stack on the east coast, and he has more moving in.  He'll pillage one coastal seafood soon, but it'll take a long while before he can even reach a second.  I'm now researching Compass en route to Optics.  I'd love Astronomy next but it's just colossally expensive.

My three spies have found very little defending superdeath's territory.  Where are his units?

So I moved my modest stack of doom in.



I don't know how much that can take, or whether to split it up to attack Wally Wexler (still garrisoned by 2 archers) and Bart Trinke (still garrisoned by the same four units as before).  That coastal city up in the northwest only has one spear.  The three spies' current locations should be visible.

I haven't found a stack of catapults or horse archers yet.  

I'm still very skeptical this can possibly work well at all, but I'd rather take a long shot to remain vaguely relevant than to last as long as I can.

Rusten (who has Banking by now, damn!) is whipping fairly hard right now (seven times this turn).  He's going to have a hard time attacking me without Astronomy, so I'm not going to worry too much about that; if he launches a serious assault it's game over anyway.

[Dark Savant]

It'll take another turn just to enter superdeath's territory, but he'll see that stack now.  (There's more coming up behind it.)

I'm not sure where to move the three spies just yet, to try to find any stacks.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 139 (AD 580)

superdeath made 2 peace treaty offers, the second one asking me to cancel everything with Rusten.  I still think my best chance at opposing Rusten is to take over a significant amount of superdeath's territory, so no.

The advance work boat did find that 2metraninja and superdeath border each other by water.



Still not much idea what's going on over there.  2metraninja's military does continue to grow.

I don't have to split the modest attack stack just yet.



superdeath captured and disbanded the worker I had placing half of a road, and disbanded his unit too.  Not really a problem, another worker finished that road for the attack stack to reach the hill it's on (the one that says "road 1t").

The only new unit I see is an archer in Bart Trinke (now garrisoned with 3 archers, 1 spear, 1 axe).  The spies haven't seen any new units.  Next turn I need to decide whether and how to split my attack stacks.

[JR4]

Very exciting stuff. I`d focus on the eastern city as it`s really a thorn in the side but capturing both would obviously be better.

2MN is probably just happy about taking the money (and not attacking Superdeath) as surely Rusten is going to go north with a huge Knight-based army. It`s way easier to attack over land than over sea and it sure looks to me like Rusten has prioritized Guilds over Astronomy. He can`t have both techs by now, right?

[Dark Savant]

Very exciting stuff. I`d focus on the eastern city as it`s really a thorn in the side but capturing both would obviously be better.

Yeah, eastern is the higher priority; I'm not sure it's wise to split forces and attack both at the same time.  It's kind of asking to get slammed into by catapults/horse archers, and/or defeated in detail.

I'm just surprised I can't find anything.  superdeath is apparently whipping archers now -- he's got nothing better than that and triremes?  Doesn't he have the Great Lighthouse?  Why doesn't he have longbows or crossbows or caravels yet?  Or even catapults or horse archers?

He's got to have something somewhere -- his power rating is not that low, and I expected to find local force at least equal to what he had leftover from his earlier attack, but even that's not around.  (If I'd known he'd abandoned this front so thoroughly, I would have advanced much earlier.)  There's no sign of him losing or gaining ground elsewhere, and no dips on the power graph.  Where are his units?

I mean I've never moved RBmod spies around like this before against a human player, but they've found almost nothing, and they can now see what's in nine squares per turn.

2MN is probably just happy about taking the money (and not attacking Superdeath) as surely Rusten is going to go north with a huge Knight-based army. It`s way easier to attack over land than over sea and it sure looks to me like Rusten has prioritized Guilds over Astronomy. He can`t have both techs by now, right?

Yeah, Rusten has Banking and Philosophy, he can't be so far ahead as to have Astronomy too.

[Dark Savant]

superdeath must have one other land border; otherwise, I'd very likely have seen far more units by now.

[Dark Savant]

Playing the turn now.


I hope the game remembers the 1 turn of the road on that tile my stack was on last turn.  And that I actually did build half of a road there.

[Dark Savant]

Yeah, blood is incoming.

Turn 140 (AD 600)

I found superdeath's incoming stack, and my spies gathered the best reports they could.



That's 17 units incoming.  And yes, he's got catapults, and also a solitary horse archer.  Known troop disposition this turn is labeled.  (The screenshot doesn't show all signs; there's 1 horse archer and 1 warrior in Zagor.  And that warrior 2 north of Bart Trinke is alone.)

I advanced my own stack, since it has about twice as many units (also labeled).



superdeath can do three things I can think of:

• Attack my 33-stack with his 17-stack immediately.
  
• Move all the units into Bart Trinke.  I think the best thing to do in that case is to bombard for one turn, then launch the big frenzy next turn.  Though that will depend on whether he can get enough workers in the area to build a road towards Accra.
  
• Move west of the mountain to the tile SE of Wally Wexler, to try to flank me.  In that case, I must take Bart Trinke immediately.  I can then have the single worker finish the road on the marked tile, which will let me hit his stack on flatland as well.  (I hope I can finish that road in 1 turn!)  Lagos will also expand to 3rd-ring culture the very next turn, which will also help prevent any flanking shenanigans.
  

In less exciting news:

Krill just showed up in diplomacy.  I don't see any units or territory of his.  I didn't make any offers.

AT just whipped 11 times this turn.  That's knights, I presume?  AT has only water to his north, west, and south; work boats are still scouting his territory.

Elkad's power is getting rather high.

I really hope I didn't make a dumb mistake here ...

[JR4]

Well, if AT decides to pile on there isn`t that much to do anyway. I really hope he`s attacking someone else.

The attack force near Bart Trunke should be enough to take the city. Superdeath might even evacuate the city as he`s outnumbered. This war could lead to a bizarre city swap if you`re happy to sign peace and not press on (after BT falls). One thing I`ve noted is the low population count of Superdeath in the latest report - that`s cities at size 2,2,3,3,3,4 and 5 which is not too impressive at this stage. Surely, Superdeath has major problems too. I like the fact that Optics will let Caravels break that blockade on the eastern sea.