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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 95 (500 BC) - Part 1

Coeurva is now covering Stygian Terrace with an archer.



That's enough to give our 3-unit attack force somewhat less than 50% odds in succeeding, so I'm calling off that attack for now.  I have the chariot cover the workers on the copper hill, the sword is going back on land, and the axe is heading to Mist.

I think we're going to have to build a real attack force if we want to win territory -- except we don't have the economy to support much more territory or even significant units, really; plunder cash from opportunistic razes will be good but that's about it.

[Dark Savant]

Between going on vacation and my new job that's going to start next week, it's all I can do to keep up with the now-faster turn pace -- I've typically been the turn roll player lately (I just rolled t102 to t103).

Things aren't going terribly, but they aren't going well either -- we're clearly falling behind the pack some.  I think most of the problem is that I took "focus on food/hammers, ignore commerce" a little too much to heart; you still need to reach some sort of economic Classical technology in good time, which we aren't going to.  While RtR-workshops are nice, I think I underbuilt cottages thinking I'd be replacing them anyway -- you have to actually GET to workshops for that to help!  Well, we just got Writing in (the last to do so), and are limping our way towards Alphabet now, to turn some of our production (which is still good, at least for now) into commerce.

Missing the Great Lighthouse by 1t did not help, and I'm not sure we're ever going to have a crack at any other wonder, really.  Gavagai built the Pyramids on t102; three other people already have Metal Casting so we have no shot at the Colossus; Krill has a comfortable lead for the Great Library if he actually wants it (he focused on building the Statue of Zeus and the Heroic Epic instead, both in his absurd capital).

I accepted Open Borders with Coeurva in exchange for 3gpt -- he's playing well enough to defend all his exposed holdings, and we could really use every scrap of gpt we can get our hands on.  At this point I think the veterans are more threatening, and we can eventually send Gems to yuris125 to make sure he isn't an easy target for Coeurva.

Competition for the islands is heating up, and I'm now building a lot of settlers to grab what we can before it's too late.  We just beat JR4 to an island by 1 turn; space to our northwest is already running out.  I need to expand fast to the southeast too; the former Ventessel is leaving something of a void there and GermanJoey is in danger of filling it if I don't compete.

Anyway.  I think I played the first several dozen turns well, and then sort of spun my wheels without committing to any particular plan other than buliding the Great Lighthouse, and that fell short.  I wavered on attacking someone, and it turns out there wasn't any real opening for that other than the couple that I know I missed.

[Dark Savant]

Speaking of wavering, researching Iron Working got us some economic benefit, but not enough -- I didn't actually launch a war with swords as I thought might happen, and that put our economy farther behind.

[Dark Savant]

I'm not ever going to catch up on detailed reporting, heh -- not enough time when I need to focus on actually playing as well as I can.

I just rolled t105 to t106.

GermanJoey offered a fish-for-fish NAP.  I was sorely tempted to turn this down since he's in serious danger of expanding all over the place with the Great Lighthouse, but we're simply not in a position to profitably launch a real attack on him any time soon, so I agreed.

Neither Coeurva nor JR4 is interested in trading for our maps; ah well.

We planted city #12 on t105, on a strong site in GermanJoey's direction.  The settlers for cities #13, #14, and #15 are in transit, and #16 will complete soon; #13 and #14 will both plant on t107 on relatively marginal islands to the west, in Coeurva/JR4's direction ("relatively marginal" meaning "only" two food, so still worthwhile) -- space there is running out.  Yeah, that's going to put us further into an economic hole, but I think we need to take the expansion opportunities before it's too late.  #15 and #16 are going to compete with Gavagai/GermanJoey to the east -- that runs the risk of losing islands to Coeurva, but he seems to be expanding rather slowly to his east.

We're spreading ourselves thin doing this; JR4 in particular may attack us if I don't quickly guard what we're claiming.

We have our first library, finally!  It's in Castle Ironfist, so we can't really run specialists just yet.

Sorpigal, our only real city on the east coast, is having trouble keeping up with demand for galleys and work boats.  I should have seen that coming a while ago; oh well.

t106 led to GermanJoey producing a Great Spy, someone else producing their first Great Scientist, and someone completing the Colossus.  I'll look into who that is later -- GermanJoey whipped a whole lot of forges just a couple turns ago.

[Dark Savant]

t107:

dtay is the one who built the Colossus.

Judaism was finally founded, by JR4.

I traded Gems to yuris125 for his World Map, and he has almost everyone's maps already -- that's why no one wanted our own map, I tried to trade it too late.  Oh well.

I planted two cities this turn, then realized afterwards I should wait until completing Alphabet to actually plant them.    Oops.  We should still have Alphabet by t110 or so.  Coeurva is still the only rival who has it.

[Dark Savant]

I'm still not doomed to irrelevance, of course, but at this point I pretty much know I'm not going to win.  Well, I knew that the moment I joined the game, anyway.  

Aside from not emphasizing economy enough and wavering too much on military (including not attacking either of my neighbors in the narrow windows I had), I was probably behind from the start because our second city just isn't as strong as other relevant players' second cities:

• Us: plains hill plant, grass pig, grass cow, plains cow, grass horse (I still don't see a better site)
  
• Coeurva: rivered grass corn, grass hill cow, plains cow, plains hill sheep
  
• dtay: rivered grass cow, rivered plains cow, whale, grass copper, rivered grass hill silver, rivered plains silver
  
• Gavagai: grass pig, grass corn, fish, 3 flood plains
  
• GermanJoey: grass pig, grass corn, crab, whale, grass copper, rivered desert hill iron, grass silver
  
• JR4: rivered grass corn, rivered plains cow, grass sheep, fish, whale, grass iron, grass silver
  
• Krill: original capital site
  

It didn't help that our 3rd city turned out to be planted right on iron, and then Gavagai planted in its face.  If we'd successfully attacked Gavagai in that narrow window (all we had to do is to raze the border city and keep ours secure), we could claim the copper tile and some forests there, and that would have been enough to have beaten GermanJoey to the Great Lighthouse.

Hindsight is 20/20, and all that.  

[Dark Savant]

t110: Alphabet is in, city #15 planted, city #16 due to plant next turn.

I offered OB-for-OB with yuris125, which I presume he'll accept.  GermanJoey offered the same to me, except I'll get like +2gpt from the start and he'll get far more than that, and neither of us has Currency so I can ask for GPT, so I turned that down.

I offered OB/WM-for-OB/WM-plus-15-gpt to Krill.  He'll benefit a lot more than me since he doesn't currently have OB with anyone, though I don't know if 15gpt is the right amount to ask.

If Krill actually accepts right away, I'm not going to cancel OB with Coeurva right away; I'd like to get several units clear of his borders first.

Research on Currency begins.  Most cities that haven't been recently planted are now building libraries or Research.

[Dark Savant]

t111:

yuris125 accepted Open Borders.

Krill hasn't so much as logged in since I made my offer, so I have no idea what his response to my offer is.

GermanJoey offered straight-up OB again ... twice.  We'll get maybe +1gpt from that right now.  I might re-offer if he could trade gpt or if we cancel OB with Coeurva.

We're going to complete three libraries in the next two turns.  I'll start to actually run scientists in a couple turns.

I'd love to build a library in Sorpigal, but it's still desperately building work boats for all the island cities we're planting.

[Dark Savant]

t112: Krill ignored my offer; 15gpt was probably too much to ask for anyway.  I re-offered OB at 10gpt.

I really don't have much idea how you're supposed to negotiate this sort of thing in AI-diplo.  I don't think even 5gpt may be worth it to him, since we'll be getting Currency not that long from now.

Without either Currency or more cities that can benefit from a trade route with other rivals, it doesn't really pay to offer anyone else straight-up OB at the moment.

We're still producing few units right now, but on the other hand, I'll finally hire scientists starting next turn.  (Yeah, I know, n00btastically late.)

[Dark Savant]

t113:

We just hired our first scientists.  (dtay just spawned a Great one and started a Golden Age, in comparison.)

We'll reach Currency in ~6 turns even remaining at 0% science; we'll actually get it sooner than that.

Krill still isn't showing any interest in OB.  I just offer it straight up, since we can actually profit from it soon.  I hope he isn't insulted, and I'm wondering if there's some other diplomatic reason he isn't either accepting or making a counter-offer -- that latter is why I made high offers to begin with, since I thought he'd make a counter-offer.

I make the same offer to CH/DZ/Ventessel.

Even though I feel we're stretching on military, our power rating is still good.