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

[Dark Savant]

Turn 23 (3080 BC) - Part 1

Our scout busts slightly more fog, and is currently next to a lion.



The recent fog-busting brought silks found to nine.  There's still no sign of:

• any other Calendar/Monarchy luxuries
  
• any other player
  
• any religion being founded
  

... which increases the odds that we're all alone on this landmass.

Red dot is the proposed location for the second city and Stonehenge.  I'm going to re-state its drawbacks:

• If someone beats us to Stonehenge, the lack of food in first-ring is going to be seriously awful.
  
• It's far enough away from Windhoek that I'll probably need to bring back the scout to help our planned lone warrior cover the workers and settler against animals.  Barbarians can't appear until turn 40 (recent change in RtR), so that should work well enough at least.  Another reason why people rarely build the second city that far away, though it's now more practical in this RtR iteration.
  

If we do get Stonehenge, though, it is an excellent city in the long run.

I'll need to chop all three forests in first-ring to deliver Stonehenge on turn 44, which at red dot can't come earlier.  The current micro plan saves the latter two forests for the last turn, in case we get beat to Stonehenge.  Turn 44 is late enough that it's no guarantee, but anyone else would have to prize it highly to build it that early.  (It fell on turn 40 in PB39, though that had more capital food and inland starts for everyone, and no one had to worry about Industrious competitors there.)

Blue dots are the other two best-looking nearby locations.  The southern dot is the only location that can both claim new food and share another with Windhoek.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 23 (3080 BC) - Part 2

Here's what I think everyone else is up to:

• Adler (Julius Caesar of Sumeria): by t16 all of Fishing, Hunting, and Mining by t16; t19 size 2; t20 4 land tiles; t23 size 3; currently researching Bronze Working
  
• 2metraninja (Mao Zedong of Ethiopia): t15 Bronze Working, t16 size 2; t20 unknown first-column tech, size 3, 7-8 land tiles
  
• OH/Hitru (Victoria of the Inca): t11 size 2; by t16 all of Fishing, Hunting, and Mining; t20 5-6 land tiles; t23 size 3; currently researching Bronze Working or a religion
  
• GeneralKillCavalry (Darius of the Aztecs): t6 Fishing; t10 Mining; t20 size 2, 4 land tiles; currently researching Bronze Working or a religion (soon to finish whatever it is)
  
• Commodore (Wang Kon of Mongolia): by t23 3 first-column techs (plus some tech that took 7 turns; can't be Bronze Working, probably Pottery); t18 size 2; t20 4 land tiles
  
• BaII (Mehmed II of the Khmer): by t11 2 cheap techs; t17 size 2; t20 5-6 land tiles, and some tech that took 9 turns (either Pottery or Animal Husbandry); t21 size 3
  
• Rusten (Isabella of India): t6 food tech; t16 size 2; t19 size 3; t20 Bronze Working, 5-6 land tiles; t21 whipped 1 pop to size 2
  
• Krill (Hannibal of England): t12 size 2; t14 Bronze Working; t16 whipped 1 pop to size 1; t19 cheap tech; t20 7-8 land tiles; t22 size 2; t23 another cheap tech
  
• TBW (Shaka of Rome): t6 Agriculture or Hunting; t18 Bronze Working; t19 size 2; t20 7-8 land tiles; t23 cheap tech, size 3
  
• Borsche (Suryavaman II of Persia): t6 Mining; t17 size 2; t20 Bronze Working, 7-8 land tiles; t21 size 3; t23 9-10 land tiles (total of 17; only Creative player)
  
• pindicator (Pacal II of Arabia): by t16 3 cheap techs; t16 size 2; t20 4 land tiles; t21 size 3; t23 some tech that took 7 turns (probably Pottery)
  
• superdeath (Boudica of America): t6 Mining; t18 Bronze Working; t20 size 2, 5-6 land tiles; t23 cheap tech
  
• Gavagai (Stalin of Germany): by t10 Agriculture and Fishing; t20 size 2, 5-6 land tiles; t23 Bronze Working, size 3
  
• BeardBeard (Charlemagne of the HRE): t5 Agriculture or Fishing; t10 Mining; t18 size 2; t20 5-6 land tiles; t23 Bronze Working
  
• Elkad (Churchill of Native America): t6 Mining; t20 size 2, 5-6 land tiles; t21 Bronze Working; t23 size 3
  

It looks like one or two others researched early Pottery, maybe without even cheap granaries.    That's only really worth it this early with food/forest-poor starts, although the worst single food tile anyone has is 5 food.

[taotao]

Travelling abroad so will be short, but just wanted to say I mostly agree about your reasoning behind Stonehenge. This land just begs for free culture in several cities with food often in 2nd ring and few forests. Guess it could be chopped in sheep city as well but corn's the best food around..

[Dark Savant]

ETravelling abroad so will be short, but just wanted to say I mostly agree about your reasoning behind Stonehenge. This land just begs for free culture in several cities with food often in 2nd ring and few forests. Guess it could be chopped in sheep city as well but corn's the best food around..

Yeah, ordinarily I wouldn't place such a high priority on Stonehenge (same reason I'm not fond of Creative without double-speed libraries), but this landmass is asking for it pretty strongly.

This doesn't happen all that often on B&S Snaky Continents.  If someone else decides to pursue Stonehenge in their capital very early, they may get it before we even start to build it.  The majority of our rivals have coastal starts, though.

Anyone else paying attention will know we're likely off to a slower-than-usual start because we spent a turn moving off a plains hill, but we still only need to chop three forests.  Anyone non-Industrious would need four or five.  Though by the time anyone notices our late second-city plant, it'll probably be too late to put together a competitive build from scratch.

We don't look to have an abundance of happy resources.  We have enough not to be horribly squeezed early, but not later on, and with nothing apparently to our south, relying on luxury trade may be unreliable.

Some more thoughts on other wonders: As we likely are either alone, or far enough away from a land rival that we don't need to worry much about an attack, we can pursue extra wonders in relative peace.

• Oracle: if we pursue this (it'll happen to be easier if we land Stonehenge), we should consider claiming Monarchy and not Metal Casting, so we can raise the happy cap to our hearts' content.  Also, with first-column techs being so cheap to research with the new RtR tech paradigm, I think hammers may be more limiting than research. The micro probably works out to be hammer-limited for Monarchy and research-limited for Metal Casting.  While we do have gold, I suspect everyone has gold nearby, and my current micro plan can't work it until about t47.  (Getting a boat to the other fish is a higher priority.)
  
• Pyramids: the only way we can really compete for this is generate an early Great Engineer, which with a t44 Stonehenge requires us to build the Oracle for Metal Casting by t58 at the very latest.  The Oracle also cannot be built at red dot for this; it would have to be at northern blue dot.  And then where are we going to 2-pop whip a forge to run an engineer?  The Pyramids also aren't that great without the abundance of food present on many earlier RB maps.
  
• Great Lighthouse: this can be built at northern blue dot with the four forests it has.  It's likely excellent to have, though it's unclear to me which of the Oracle or the Great Lighthouse to pursue.  I'd like to have some idea by the time Mysticism arrives in several more turns.  (Trying for both: not happening.)
  
• Great Wall: I can't believe I'm even remotely consdering this, but if we truly are alone, for 100 hammers it's perfect defense against barbarian invasion.    (Yeah, okay, probably not.)
  
• None of the above: any contact soon with a rival is a strong suggestion to grab land and not wonders.  Even without imminent contact, we're going to be at a low city count for a while pursuing a wonder-heavy strategy.  Too much of that may get us attacked even from other continents.
  

Also, since we don't immediately need Agriculture, I'm going to get Mysticism next, which we need one way or the other.  If there's no sign people are grabbing an early religion by the time it comes in, we can consider a run for Buddhism or Hinduism and still get Agriculture in time.  (That basically rules out the Great Lighthouse, though.)

[Dark Savant]

Turn 26 (2960 BC) - Part 1

Three more turns have elasped.  Windhoek grew to size 3; we finished up researching Bronze Working; I revolted to Slavery and have just finished our first chop.

So where's our copper?



It's in the first ring of red dot.  Red dot is actually going to have trouble feeding that many production tiles. 

Yeah, first city on red dot looks even more attractive now.

There's still no sign of any rival on what is apparently Our Island.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 26 (2960 BC) - Part 2

New known/suspected information about our rivals:

• Adler (Julius Caesar of Sumeria): city has 9 land tiles
  
• 2metraninja (Mao Zedong of Ethiopia): city has 13 or 14 land tiles; t26 one of Agriculture, Fishing, or Mysticism
  
• OH/Hitru (Victoria of the Inca): city has 7 or 8 land tiles
  
• Commodore (Wang Kon of Mongolia): city has 12 land tiles
  
• BaII (Mehmed II of the Khmer): city has 13 or 14 land tiles
  
• Krill (Hannibal of England): city has 15 or 16 land tiles; t26 size 3
  
• TBW (Shaka of Rome): city has 10 or 11 land tiles
  
• pindicator (Pacal II of Arabia): city has 7 or 8 land tiles
  
• Gavagai (Stalin of Germany): city has 10 or 11 land tiles
  
• Elkad (Churchill of Native America): city has 10 or 11 land tiles; t25 Archery, from the speed and soldier count.  That's either overly paranoid, or he's going to archer-choke someone unfortunate.
  

Exactly one player grew from size 2 to size 3 on turn 25.  It'll take a bit longer to work out who it was.

Our moved city has 13 land tiles; it would have had 10 without the settler move.

The only three players with clearly more land tiles than us are Rusten, Krill, and Borsche; I think anyone not mentioned has 11 at most.

So C&D is indeed possible-ish with 15 rivals.  It's also often just not possible to distinguish between Agriculture and Fishing, which now cost exactly the same.  Ah well.

No religions have been claimed.  We don't need Agriculture soon, and are not chasing Pottery or Animal Husbandry or Archery like several others, so it's worth thinking about trying.  It's still rather low-odds, and is a pretty committal move towards the Oracle rather than the Great Lighthouse if we want to chase two out of three early wonders.

[JR4]

That`s certainly not the worst placement of Copper I`ve seen. It even looks like the Copper will be instant-hooked without the need of a road.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 27 (2920 BC)

Our scout discovers more luxuries!



Yeah, it's even more silk, so now we have eleven, which ought to be enough to trade to anyone we care to supply.

C&D update

Commodore just grew to size 4 this turn, so he was the one who grew to size 3 on t25, which I had missed.  Correcting the math, that means this is the number of land tiles for capitals:

• 7-8: OH/Hitru, GeneralKilCavalary, pindicator
  
• 9: Adler, BeardBeard
  
• 10-11: Commodore, TBW, superdeath, Gavagai, Elkad
  
• 12: Rusten
  
• 13-14: us, 2metraninja, BaII
  
• 15-16: Krill
  
• 17: Borsche (who now has 28 land tiles total in third-ring)
  

That's pretty typical for B&S Snaky Continents.  Usually one or two players will have an inland start, but it's probable no one did here.  Some started at narrow choke points, which is also typical.

superdeath and Gavagai finished cheap techs this turn.  And actually, Elkad doesn't necessarliy have Archery, forgot that warriors are common builds around this time for the now-steadily increasing soldier count.

[Dark Savant]

That`s certainly not the worst placement of Copper I`ve seen. It even looks like the Copper will be instant-hooked without the need of a road.

I think the way it works is if you do not have Sailing, the link only works if the river does not go outside cultural borders; a river on the border counts as owned territory for this purpose.  Red dot also isn't on the river.

We're going to need the road hookup anyway, for the trade route if nothing else.  The current micro plan has a few random spare turns to do some scattered road building; I'll see if I can update that to squeeze in another forest chop.

[Dark Savant]

Ah, crap -- I forgot to whip the worker last turn.  

That ... probably won't make any difference in timing of anything critical, but still.