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

[Dark Savant]

I think it was a mistake to declare. There was a small chance that Charriu gets screwed by 40% culture of the capital. On T50 he gets on the forest hill and on T51 he gets automatically kicked before he realises what happened.

So if he rejects peace which I believe he does, so not hesitate to offer caesic fire after.

The capital's borders actually expand next turn (t49), one turn early, because of the terrace culture.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, new sim; this one starts on t48.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3dey9h4rgzd9t...3.zip?dl=0

I stopped the farm at Casterly Rock, just to make our workers' locations clear, but it should obviously finish the farm before doing anything else.  That worker (Gendry) has time to finish that, the started FP cottage, and just make it over to the sheep in time to start a pasture on that.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 48 (2080) - Part 2 (C&D)

I have Ser Waymar Royce take a look at WilliamLP's third city (though after I did this, I wonder if this comes off as suspect in the metagame).



That's trusting the barbarians quite a bit, not leaving a city garrisoned at all on turn 48.

Oh, and Charriu finally got around to building a second axe.



13000 soldiers appeared this turn.

Score tally:

• Us: +4 points for +1 pop in King's Landing; +3 points for +1 pop in Oldtown (7 pop total).
  
• ipecac: -4 points for a 1-pop whip (5 pop total).
  
• JR4: +4 points for +1 pop in city #1, +3 points for +1 pop in city #2 (7 pop total).
  
• superdeath: +3 points for +pop; -3 points for a 1-pop whip (6 pop total).
  
• wetbandit: +6 points for researching a technology in 3 turns.  That's really fast, and is probably Archery.
  
• WilliamLP: +4 points for +1 pop (6 pop total).
  
• yuris125: +6 points for researching Polytheism; +4 points for +1 pop (8 pop total).
  

Getting one of the early religions is officially not happening ... getting Judaism takes too long this early.  That might happen later, not imminently though.

[OT4E]

Charriu is inspired by your quick death in PB38, but I believe he couldnt know that exactly you are his neighbor. This is mysterius. Also holkan rush is much faster, on mirror maps where everyone has guaranteed cooper in reach, I doubt you can expect to surprise someone with just an axe. Even agg-axe coming whenever you have 3 cities with terraces is not really dangereous.

His another mistake is that he didnt plant towards you. Potentionally he could expect to slow you down and be first to the passage and occupy the best locations.

[Dark Savant]

Charriu is inspired by your quick death in PB38, but I believe he couldnt know that exactly you are his neighbor. This is mysterius. Also holkan rush is much faster, on mirror maps where everyone has guaranteed cooper in reach, I doubt you can expect to surprise someone with just an axe. Even agg-axe coming whenever you have 3 cities with terraces is not really dangereous.

His another mistake is that he didnt plant towards you. Potentionally he could expect to slow you down and be first to the passage and occupy the best locations.

Potentially, but his follow-up is rather far away and can't get here quickly enough -- unless he has a lot more of it, like 6 metal units.  Except he just has 2 at most (well, on t47).

Charriu sent me a PM saying he rejected the peace treaty and counter-offered with a cease fire.  That's pretty much worthless, so I'm inclined to just reject it to retain turn order (or at least make my own counter-offer), though I can't play for at least another hour or so.

[Dark Savant]

I'm busy today partly because of Mother's Day preparations.    The great big cooking prep work is mostly done, though.  (TIL how to scale a fish. )

Turn 49 (2040 BC) - Part 1

I rejected the cease-fire Charriu sent.

He moved his axe due north -- not into what is now my territory, as it happens.  So I offered him a peace treaty again; I explained to him in PM the difference between a cease fire (and why it mechanically accomplishes little here -- no units in each others' territory, and no trade possible now or soon) and a peace treaty.  We'll see if he accepts.

So Always War: Pitboss Edition continues. 

I move back to development this turn.

• King's Landing reaches size 4; axe due in 4 naturally, though I could produce it in 3 naturally (working a 1f2h tile) if needed.
  
• King's Landing also reaches third-ring culture, claiming 13 new land tiles for us.
  
• Oldtown, safe from an axe attack for now, 1-pop-whips a worker.
  
• I continue the second floodplain cottage, with only one worker, as it's not needed for two more turns anyway.
  
• The other worker who built a road last turn moves to the hill between King's Landing and Casterly Rock; we will need more mines soon-ish, and the next best place is one that can be shared.
  
• I also start on a grass riverside cottage between King's Landing and Oldtown, for a similar reason.
  
• We happen to produce exactly 20 commerce this turn, so I can run science at 90% without rounding losses.
  
• Stonesnake is back in our territory -- I'll do any further scouting to the east with a chariot.  I'll have to soon decide whether to strike out west where I am almost 100% sure there is a still uncontacted close neighbor, or northwest to see if that is a peninsula or a land bridge (except I suspect Charriu is going to wander his axe around the latter).
  
• The one axe I have is going to play zone defense for now.
  

I'm starting to get the impression that axe is a slow, tall scout (maybe he fears it getting eaten by a barbarian -- barb axes won't show up for another 25 or so turns though), and he doesn't realize he already can't get past my territory to my west without declaring war, or with Open Borders later.  He can't even get vision on any of my cities without either of those, or a naval unit.  (Or with stuff available much later in the game, like map trades or Great Spies.)

Hmm.  Some lurker may want to pop by his thread and say it's okay to declare war just to get a scout or work boat through.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 49 (Part 2) - C&D

Ser Waymar Royce continues to poke around WilliamLP's territory.



I don't think dtay is advising Charriu.  If he got any serious advice at all, he'd be told to avoid this happening to food production:



3000 soldiers appeared this turn.

Score tally:

• Us: +4 points for +1 pop in King's Landing; -4 points for 1-pop whip in Oldtown (7 pop total).
  
• Charriu: +11 points for 7 land tiles claimed by city #2 for 20 turns.
  
• ipecac: +7 points for +2 pop; -7 points for 2 1-pop whips (5 pop total).  Aggressive/Imperialistic Zulu acting as they should, I imagine.
  
• JR4: -7 points for 2 1-pop whips (5 pop total).
  
• superdeath: +6 points for a technology researched in 6 turns.  This is probably Pottery, which he does have the double-arrow bonus for.  +3 points for +1 pop; -3 points for a 1-pop whip (6 pop total).
  
• wetbandit: +7 points for +2 pop; +3 points for planting city #3 (7 pop total).
  
• WilliamLP: +3 points for planting city #4 (7 pop total).  This, wetbandit's new city, and border expansion somewhere else claimed a total 20 land tiles.
  

WilliamLP is somehow the first to 4 cities, despite also building Stonehenge.  I've seen how he did it: some serious MP farmer's gambit.  He has Archery so he can get up skirkmishers fairly soon (and his scout might be just out of range, screening barbarians), but someone should stop him.  Too bad he and Charriu don't have contact yet.

I also have no compunctions about keeping the scouting war going now; I'd like WilliamLP to spend some resources on defense, so he neither grows out of control nor lets someone else eat him.

Also, PB38 spoiler:

superdeath now understands, by logic that is apparently all his own, that eating a settler of Commodore's PB38 was senseless, since Commodore isn't an immediate neighbor and the resulting worker just got disbanded.  He also understands perfectly well that games like this depend on neighbor luck more than anything else.  I'm not going to count on him at all to not know what he's doing.

[Dark Savant]

It's rather unfortunate I don't have real way of pointing Charriu in WilliamLP's direction ... though even if I did, the map distances are large enough that WilliamLP could easily have skirmishers everywhere before axes could crawl that far.  Ah well.

Turn 50 (2000 BC) - Part 1

Charriu did accept my peace offer this time!  So things are going to calm down, although I won't create a long-term micro plan just yet because I have no idea where horses will pop up shortly.

Charriu's axe is apparently headed northwest, as expected.  I'm not going to mind him poking around until the peace treaty is about to expire.

Also, I still have not made up my mind on where to plant city #4.  It'll probably be at the western tile at the mouth of the river to the northeast of King's Landing (the site that claims corn, clam, crab, fish, and incense; this screenshot is from t24):



That's a reasonable eastern claim site (I've uncovered enough of the fog to its south to know there's unlikely to be as good of a site there), but it's far enough away that I need to start planning logistics for it like right now.  I'll start building a road in that direction next turn.  (It does admittedly make for an awkward dot map later, but claiming the most food resources is still paramount.)  This may be hastily revisited if I happen not to have horses in my territory already.

Core overview:

• King's Landing on schedule to grow to size 6 in 3 more turns, when it can resume the settler.
  
• Oldtown completes its whipped worker #5 (named Septon Chayle), who moves to the hill to its southeast.  I resume the spear there.
  
• Gendry finishes the corn farm at Casterly Rock, due to grow to size 2 in 2.
  
• Harwin starts work on a mine between King's Landing and Casterly Rock.
  
• Lommy finishes the second flood plains cottage at King's Landing.  He'll start building a road to the planned city #4 site next turn.
  
• Science rate to 0%; I'm producing 19 commerce (one fewer at Casterly Rock because the corn farm is not riparian).  I also just this turn remember about the other source of rounding issues: the 20% arrow bonuses.
  

That lion is going to be there until I'm about to get Calendar, isn't it.

Oh, I named my quechuas after minor Night's Watch non-military characters.  Satin, Dareon, and Dolorous Edd.  (Okay, that last doesn't count as minor to some, but he's in my capital and might be there a long time.)  If I'm alive long enough, eventually I'll get around to more important characters.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 50 (2000 BC) - Part 2 (C&D)

I move our Ser Waymar Royce to get vision on WilliamLP's capital.



So his capital is named after the undead player who isn't here.  His entire city name theme, too.  I guess Ser Waymar Royce would fit right in, being undead and all. 

His capital also has Stonehenge and a granary.

I'm not going to give his warrior a chance to whack my scout (though this is less likely now that I know just how light WilliamLP is on military), so I keep him out of range.



This scouting war will continue for a while; I'm going to continue to move east and I need to be sure I'm completely clear of his territory.

14000 soldiers appeared this turn.

Score tally:

• Charriu: +6 points for a technology researched in 8 turns.  I don't have much of a guess on what this is.
  
• ipecac: +12 points for 8 land tiles claimed by city #2 for 20 turns; +4 points for planting city #4 (6 pop total), which claims 9 land tiles.
  
• JR4: +4 points for +1 pop; +3 points for planting city #3 (7 pop total), which claims 9 land tiles.
  
• wetbandit: +4 points for +1 pop; -4 points for a 1-pop whip (7 pop total).
  
• WilliamLP: -3 points for a 1-pop whip which must be in his capital (6 pop total).
  

[Dark Savant]

Turn 51 (1960 BC) - Part 1

Builder mode continues:

• King's Landing reaches size 5, and is now working 5 premium tiles.    Second axe and growth to 6 both due in 2.
  
• Septon Chayle starts a mine at Oldtown.  When it's done, borders will have expanded and I can start the pasture there.
  
• Lommy starts building a road towards the currently planned city #4 site.
  
• Stonesnake heads west.  I'll head towards the closest fog where I might plant a city some day.
  
• Science rate 100% this turn; Animal Husbandry due in 3.
  

I realized after I ended turn that I should move my solitary axe towards Casterly Rock, since that can't defend itself easily and nothing is threatening King's Landing.  I'll do that next turn.

Also, I think I've said this before, but I like writing all this out in detail partly because it helps point out mistakes.