[SPOILERS] Dark Savant leads the noble Inca as half-noble Churchiill

[Dark Savant]

Turn 6 (3760 BC)

Moving the scout northwest reveals more food and more lakes.



All those tiles in the west have fresh water access, so at least some of that water is more lakes (though maybe just one, northwest of that pig).  Our scout waves to a lion across one of those lakes.

I can't tell yet if a rival is off to the west, but that marble may be in a contested border zone if there is (it's quite possibly closer to a neighbor than to us).

I think we'll have a choice as to where to plant city #2; that will end up depending on things like "does this have copper" and "this is a plant in the direction of a rival".  There's a 5-food plant site right there, but it's not nearly as strong early-game as the 3-food plant we've already found.

C&D: Nothing new, but next turn is when a lot of people are going to get Mining, just like us.  (edit: Actually, "a lot" isn't going to be more than three other players, since three rivals started with Mining, and yuris125 is unlikely to get Mining first.)

[Dark Savant]

Okay, here's my first suggestion for how the map is laid out:

The map is known to be 64 by 40.  There might be four of us in a line, west to east, with the other four rivals in a similar line to the north.

If that's the case, then starts are exactly 16 tiles apart on the X axis.  That would put that marble (8 tiles due west of King's Landing) exactly equidistant between starts.

Hmm ... that seems unlikely from a meta perspective.  Not only are those some far-away neighbors, that marble would be a contested-zone choke on a hill.  That rewards whoever claims the hills first.

If that's in any way true, there's going to be a rush to settle those chokes as soon as people work out the lay of the land.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 7 (3720 BC)

Mining comes in.  I start research on Bronze Working, due in 14.

Moving the scout one tile northwest reveals that the land to a west does look like a three-tile choke with a lake in the middle, and that it doesn't just end right there.

I think I need to turn my scout around for now to figure out what's to my north, so I turn northeast.



Oh, and the choke even has plenty of food, including the first seafood we've found.

C&D: The only rival to get a tech this turn in ipecac, which has to be Mining, and that accounts for the 2000 soldiers that showed up.

I don't know if wetbandit (Hunting/The Wheel) and superdeath (Agriculture/The Wheel) are getting the other first-column food tech, or going straight to Animal Husbandry, but I'll know in two turns.

[Dark Savant]

My guess is that from a short-term developmental perspective, I won't find anything better than that site I already found on turn 1 (3 food, 2 in first ring + instant river connection for 2 commerce + doesn't require the settler moving a lot).

That site is now clearly in our back lines -- it won't establish a land claim against any neighbor.  We can easily still have four of those -- one east, one west, one northwest, one northeast.  Like this (we're O, our seven rivals are X):

 X X X X
X X O X

Or maybe it's

X X X X
X X O X

and we have three land neighbors.  The scout should give us at least an educated guess on which within several more turns.

That would give us a choice on best city site vs. actually making a territorial claim.

[Dark Savant]

Things have calmed down enough at work that I feel like resuming the off-topic posts I was making in PB38.  

The recent emergency landing of Southwest Flight 1380 involved the first unnatural death of a passenger on a US passenger airliner in nine years.

The US hasn't had a major incident (50+ passengers and crew dead) since November 2001, actually. Okay ... there have been not one but two incidents with exactly 49 passengers/crew dead:

• Comair Flight 5191, in Lexington, KY in 2006 (fatalities: 47 passengers + 2 crew).  The captain thought he was on the wrong runway.
  
• Colgan Flight 3407, near Buffalo, NY in 2009 (fatalities: 45 passengers + 4 crew + 1 on ground).  The captain did the airplane equivalent of hitting the accelerator instead of the brake, and then not reacting to the speed going in the wrong direction.
  

The November 2001 crash of AA Flight 587 (260 passengers and crew dead) was caused by the airplane equivalent of turning a car's steering wheel hard at highway speed.  2001 was not a good year for US airline safety even if you remove September 11, 2001.

You'll notice these are all "the pilots screwed up" errors (the recent SW 1380 incident probably wasn't the pilots' fault at all).  All the way up to about the mid-1990s, "we simply do not know how to build and maintain a plane" crashes were common.

Those just don't happen any longer; it's primarily pilot error or malfeasance now, with some negligent maintenance thrown in.

It's commonly argued that this long streak of no major incidents is a lucky streak, but I think it's now been ongoing enough that it's not just luck.

This has been a Dark Savant Blog/postcount++ Post.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 8 (3680 BC)

The scout waves goodbye to the lion still wandering on the other side of the lake, and scouts along the northwestern sea.



That tile he's standing on isn't the worst site for a city, though it's more distant than I'd like and wastes a forest.

C&D: No one discovered a tech this turn; that shouldn't happen on turn 8 with these settings anyway.  No soldiers showed up, so no one produced a warrior in 8 turns growing on a 3-food tile. 

A bunch of rivals should show up with Agriculture or Hunting next turn -- at least two, probably more.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 9 (3640 BC)

The lion doesn't return to sight.  I move the scout 1 E, 1 NE, and find ...



... some northern wolves.  I'll have to plant Winterfell in this general direction sometime, I suppose.  

That wolf has about a 1-in-300 chance of winning if it attacks the scout.  Yeah, sounds about right to me.

C&D: 6000 soldiers appeared this turn.

Charriu, superdeath, wetbandit, WilliamLP, and yuris125 all gained techs this turn, which are all probably Agriculture or Hunting, maybe The Wheel (all cost 89), even lower chance of something cheaper.

Lowest rival soldier count was and is 2000, which is JR4, almost certainly researching Bronze Working.

Highest rival soldier count just increased from 6000 to 8000.  That's probably WilliamLP researching Hunting.

I'll mark down Charriu and wetbandit (who both already had Hunting) with Agriculture (0 soldiers), and superdeath, WilliamLP, and yuris125 with Hunting (2000 soldiers).

(The only other real possibility is Charriu instead getting The Wheel and WilliamLP and yuris125 both getting Agriculture; that's the only other remotely reasonable way someone can have increased to 8000 soldiers, with the total count increasing by 6000.)

Charriu and WilliamLP are Expansive, so they're probably working a hammer tile to produce a worker in 10 turns, and would be producing 10 flasks/turn, so they'd have 1 flask overflow.  The others would be producing 11 flasks/turn working a 3f1c tile, so they'd have 10 flasks overflow (and would have finished a tech last turn with an oasis, so they don't).

[Dark Savant]

Turn 10 (3600 BC)

The scout wins on defense, but is down to 35% health, so even a wolf will easily beat it now.  No promotion possible, either -- I can retreat to my territory to heal, so I'll do that.  It'll be rested early enough to scout plenty more territory before a settler completes.

C&D: No new soldier points or technologies.  Crop yield and manufacturing numbers show that both our Expansive rivals have moved from hammer tiles to 3f1c tiles.  The other six of us are still finishing our workers.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 11 (3560 BC)

Good thing I retreated the scout; that lion would have attacked next move.



It's faster to recover hit points here, anyway.  It's not faster to take another turn to move into King's Landing; I recover 15 HP/turn here and 20 HP/turn there, and either gets me to 95 HP in 4 turns.

At that time, I actually have to think about whether it's worth it to recover all the way to 100%.  95% to 100% health actually makes a noticeable difference in defending against a lion or panther on flat land -- ~53% vs. ~68% survival odds respectively.

... what?  It's not like I have anything else to consider for the next few turns.    I'll start preparing the sim this weekend.

C&D: No changes (the usual for turn 11).

[Dark Savant]

Turn 12 (3520 BC)

The worker emerges and starts the corn farm.

The scout starts recovering hit points; both lions have moved out of sight.

C&D: Someone else is now producing 4 hammers/turn.  I can't produce two quechuas before a worker/settler myself without slowing it down.

The sim is mostly done; I'll post it and start playing with it this evening.