[SPOILER] Dark Savant graduates from blatant n00b to plain n00b

[Mardoc]

Well, it depends on how you define 'better'.  If you had built a warrior instead of the barracks, you would have been still alive even if DZ won the fight, which probably would deter him from taking the shot.  Then, next turn you could have still gone for archers.

But...that would have put you in a weaker position long term, with a warrior in place of an archer (or barracks XP) in your army going forward.  Trusting your warrior to win a 63% fight was a better reward, for more risk.  So it's all about priorities, how much definite slowdown you're willing to accept to remove risk.

Without the barracks, you'd have a lot harder time attacking out, so you'd probably be setting yourself up to lose by attrition anyway.

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I think if I were to change one thing about your gameplan, it would be to leave a scout on DZ's borders after the war.  If you had more warning, you'd definitely have been able to switch to archery sooner. But when your first indication of Holkans is a Holkan stepping up to your border, you were guaranteed to be in a bad spot from then on. Ancient war always seems to come down to a couple of dice rolls.

[ipecac]

It made sense. Tempt DZ to attack, and if he loses you should be able to settle Copper safely. Unfortunately the dice roll didn't go your way.

[Dark Savant]

Well, it depends on how you define 'better'.  If you had built a warrior instead of the barracks, you would have been still alive even if DZ won the fight, which probably would deter him from taking the shot.  Then, next turn you could have still gone for archers.

But...that would have put you in a weaker position long term, with a warrior in place of an archer (or barracks XP) in your army going forward.  Trusting your warrior to win a 63% fight was a better reward, for more risk.  So it's all about priorities, how much definite slowdown you're willing to accept to remove risk.

Without the barracks, you'd have a lot harder time attacking out, so you'd probably be setting yourself up to lose by attrition anyway.

The other problem is by the time that I realized he could attack a turn sooner than I was planning on, I already had a lot of hammers in the barracks with nothing in a warrior.  I'd have had to whip the warrior at the empty-box penalty.  Yeah, that's just asking for long-term death by attrition -- there is nothing stopping DZ from throwing additional holkans at me; he'd be able to soon whip one from the city he'd already captured.

I think if I were to change one thing about your gameplan, it would be to leave a scout on DZ's borders after the war.  If you had more warning, you'd definitely have been able to switch to archery sooner.  But when your first indication of Holkans is a Holkan stepping up to your border, you were guaranteed to be in a bad spot from then on.  Ancient war always seems to come down to a couple of dice rolls.

If I remembered DZ's UU, I'd never have provoked him in the first place, and I may have even avoided making contact.

It made sense. Tempt DZ to attack, and if he loses you should be able to settle Copper safely. Unfortunately the dice roll didn't go your way.

Well, even if he moved towards my copper, three archers would have much better odds at forcing it off than I did at surviving the immediate roll.

I don't believe DZ could know I had things lined up to produce three archers in three turns, but he had to know I had at least one archer coming out immediately, so it makes sense he took the shot.

[ipecac]

You could have sacrificed a worker so that he can't attack your capital at all this turn.

[Dark Savant]

You could have sacrificed a worker so that he can't attack your capital at all this turn.

Oh, right -- I even considered sacrificing workers to prevent him from camping my copper, and forgot here.

I still probably would have made the risky play, though -- I need to roll the dice somewhere to fight back.

[scooter]

I thought about the worker sacrifice, but on that particular turn I would have done the same thing as you did. You were already in a tough spot for the rest of the game, and playing it out down another key resource sounds miserable, so might as well let him take the risk. So I like your play on that last turn honestly.

The combination of holy city, poking your neighbor with an early resourceless UU, and then not keeping an eye on him was pretty rough though. Any one of those choices might have been fine on their own, but put it all together, and you made it way too tempting I think. Your win condition or at least prerequisite in the early game isn't "survive an attack" really, it's "don't get attacked at all."

[Mardoc]

If I remembered DZ's UU, I'd never have provoked him in the first place, and I may have even avoided making contact.

Only one of those was under your control. Besides, he says the attack wasn't revenge, just opportunity - and you were an opportunity once you went for Buddhism. Maybe he could have hit you harder/sooner if you didn't mess with his micro early.

I still probably would have made the risky play, though -- I need to roll the dice somewhere to fight back.

Yeah, if not this turn, then later on when you're throwing sacrificial archers to try to clear him away from your copper or re-improve your food. And it being ancient era war, you're still talking about literally 2-3 dice rolls there too. 30% chance to lose now, or, well, you didn't calculate out full odds for the 3 archers v 1 holkan fight, but you probably had a 20-30% chance to lose that fight too. I can't imagine you're any happier then.

Once you're on the wrong side of a strength deficit, usually the best case scenario is a bloody stalemate.

I dunno, maybe you were doomed the moment you rolled Donovan as an Mayan neighbor. As scooter says, the only winning move was not to play, and he might not have been deterrable at any reasonable cost.

[Dark Savant]

If I remembered DZ's UU, I'd never have provoked him in the first place, and I may have even avoided making contact.

Only one of those was under your control.  Besides, he says the attack wasn't revenge, just opportunity - and you were an opportunity once you went for Buddhism.  Maybe he could have
hit you harder/sooner if you didn't mess with his micro early.

I knew going for a religion was a gamble going in, but I don't think there's any reasonable way I could have planned for DZ being that close -- he moved towards me to begin with, and everyone was packed in closer to begin with than I'd planned on.  I was expecting a little more distance between start sites.

I'm not sure not making contact would be something I would have come up with -- the idea would be that he wouldn't scout to track me down if he doesn't know I'm there.  We'd certainly make contact sometime, but he'd be delayed enough that I should be much closer to coming up with actual defense.

As it was, even with the map and the mistakes I made, his attack worked because he hit me one turn before I could mount a better defense, and even then he needed to take and then succeed at a 36% roll.

Of course, other players aren't going to know that ...

Yeah, if not this turn, then later on when you're throwing sacrificial archers to try to clear him away from your copper or re-improve your food.  And it being ancient era war, you're still talking about literally 2-3 dice rolls there too.  30% chance to lose now, or, well, you didn't calculate out full odds for the 3 archers v 1 holkan fight, but you probably had a 20-30% chance to lose that fight too.  I can't imagine you're any happier then.

Specifically camping my copper, I'd have ~90% odds to win if I attacked him straight away.

I dunno, maybe you were doomed the moment you rolled Donovan as an Mayan neighbor.  As scooter says, the only winning move was not to play, and he might not have been deterrable at any reasonable cost.

Maybe so, but I'm not sure that makes me feel better.

[Mardoc]

I knew going for a religion was a gamble going in, but I don't think there's any reasonable way I could have planned for DZ being that close -- he moved towards me to begin with, and everyone was packed in closer to begin with than I'd planned on. I was expecting a little more distance between start sites.

I'm not sure not making contact would be something I would have come up with -- the idea would be that he wouldn't scout to track me down if he doesn't know I'm there.

I understand - but, well, he did have scouts of his own out, three of them. Maybe he'd have found a different target first, but he was looking for targets.

As it was, even with the map and the mistakes I made, his attack worked because he hit me one turn before I could mount a better defense, and even then he needed to take and then succeed at a 36% roll.

That's why he might have profited from the war, why he's arguably recovered from his earlier mistakes.  If he didn't win that fight, you could have dragged him down with you.  But to come out in decent shape, you needed to stop him before he captured your first city.  You were more than one turn behind there. Ideally you'd have gotten an archer + warrior to your front city by the time he arrived, so that he could look at the odds and think a bit and peace out.

If you killed his first Holkan you might have gotten a window to grab copper, but if it just stayed nearby pillaging and preventing you from working good tiles, you wouldn't be able to do anything until you got an axe out.  That would require either building and protecting a road to your capital, or getting a new city built on the copper to size 2, without improved tiles to grow on.  It'd be a heck of a delay.

Specifically camping my copper, I'd have ~90% odds to win if I attacked him straight away.

I suspect he wouldn't have camped on your copper - he'd have camped in a forest or hill to prevent you from getting to the copper in the first place, or at minimum to prevent you from connecting it to your capital.  Or even more likely - camped somewhere that he could hit your important tiles using forest movement, but you couldn't hit him.  Like when he was on your cow, you literally couldn't attack out at him, something like that. When he has three cities and you have one choked city, his options grow every turn.

[Dark Savant]

I knew going for a religion was a gamble going in, but I don't think there's any reasonable way I could have planned for DZ being that close -- he moved towards me to begin with, and everyone was packed in closer to begin with than I'd planned on.  I was expecting a little more distance between start sites.

I'm not sure not making contact would be something I would have come up with -- the idea would be that he wouldn't scout to track me down if he doesn't know I'm there.

I understand - but, well, he did have scouts of his own out, three of them.  Maybe he'd have found a different target first, but he was looking for targets.

Oh, he had that many scouts?  I thought he had two.  Yeah, if he has three he's going to find me early no matter what, we're too close.

If you killed his first Holkan you might have gotten a window to grab copper, but if it just stayed nearby pillaging and preventing you from working good tiles, you wouldn't be able to do anything until you got an axe out.  That would require either building and protecting a road to your capital, or getting a new city built on the copper to size 2, without improved tiles to grow on.  It'd be a heck of a delay.

I never got a chance to sim this to be sure, but isn't all I need one road?  If I build a road and mine on the copper with an archer sitting on top of it, and plant a city on the riverside tile to its south, the river should supply copper to my capital, right?

Or I could plant directly on the copper, and build and guard one road to the river -- I'm less sure trade routes work that way (I'd have simmed it to be sure).