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

[Dark Savant]

It`s nice to see that the early Stonehenge play paid off. Let`s hope that Gavagai is busy building Colossus and doesn`t bother trying for TGL. Someone (non-Ind civs) will certainly try, though but they have to sacrifice some growth in order to have any chance of getting it before us. I wonder if the game actually will go all the way to Space with this amount of land available. 200 land tiles per player is a lot. Did I mention that TGL is awesome on this kind of map?

Btw, is circumnavigation on?

Gavagai doesn't yet have a third city.  I'm not sure he'd be willing to sacrifice so much to build a quick Great Lighthouse.  Maybe he's isolated like us and willing to do so, which you know with Snaky Continents and 200 tiles/player, isn't all that unlikely.

I'm wondering if superdeath actually is going to axe rush someone on two cities.  He still doesn't have a third city either, and has done three one-pop whips in five turns.  I didn't think he'd have anyone close enough to profitably rush.  (Though since a mutual neighbor is unlikely, it'd also claim more land.)

Yes, circumnavigation is on (~68% water; 3208 land tiles on a 128 by 80 map).  Everyone can get it (RtR rules change), though it'll take serious effort to achieve on such a large map.

Speaking of third cities, I don't think anyone has a fourth city yet.  I suppose no one has the food/forests to drive that sort of fast expansion.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 52 (1920 BC)

Our scout continues to explore land that's inhabited by no one.  Well, aside from lions. 



Animals became eligible to disappear on turn 40, but that lion's still lingering and I still haven't seen any barbarian warriors.

Sailing came in, and Nairobi swaps to a regular lighthouse.  That won't be a waste, at least!



Masonry is up next.

After another worker and settler, it's probably about time to build work boats just to scout.

The copper mine is now online and being worked.  Demos now look like this:



High in GNP (inflated by Stonehenge), high in land area (ditto).  Still only okay in food and lagging in production (better than dead last!)

I'm not certain how to dotmap the north, but the scout will uncover enough soon for a new version of a dotmap.

superdeath and Gavagai now really are the only players on two cities; TBW was the latest to plant this turn.  (I moved off a plains hill and blew 80 hammers on Stonehenge, TBW is Expansive and ought to be faster than that no?)  I'd bet that superdeath really is axe rushing someone unfortunate, someone has to be that 43000 soldiers.

Adler's sub rolled the turn and then promptly logged out.  Probably just the sub not wanting to play too much and not actually a turn split.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 53 (1880 BC)

Our scout reveals enough about our island (it's ours absent any evidence to the contrary ) to think about a new dotmap.



We almost certainly want a city at the closer 3-food site, the forested grass hill NW of the nearby crab.  That should probably be our 4th city.  There's also a more distant 4-food site, which we still need to scout out.

Our temporarily-scouting work boat finds another landmass to our east.



Closer to home, I complete the sheep pasture and start working it at Porto-Novo.  It'll still take several more turns before I can start working the fish at Nairobi, and even then I'm planning to mostly work the copper mine at size 1 just to squeeze out the Great Lighthouse. The fish will just let me whip the lighthouse and overflow into the Great one.

OH/Hitru planted their 4th city last turn, after I played.

Highest soldier count remained level, even the turn after superdeath 1-pop-whipped.  He might not be axe rushing after all.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 55 (1800 BC)

Still not much to report, what with the absence of contact.

The land to our north has got to come to an end sometime, right?



I guess not, there's still quite a bit more!

Over to the east, there's more seafood.



It's going to be a long time before any new city we plant fails to claim at least 2 new food resources, or 1 new food plus 1 luxury.  This map is not exactly anti-lush. 

Not much is going on at home.



I'm only on a settler to catch overflow.  I'll let Windhoek regrow to size 4 to work the just-completed gold mine before I resume the settler.

In addition to having low production, we're also now noticeably lagging in power.



That suggests our lack of contact is unusual, which is expected.  I'm not in a terrible rush to build units, though having an axe is on the planning horizon, because getting embarrassed by barb warriors is sub-optimal. 

I'm still wondering who has 44000 power, and why.

[Miguelito]

Heretical question, was moving to gold justified when you didn't work it before t55?
Or is it all about the long term strength of the capital?

[Dark Savant]

Heretical question, was moving to gold justified when you didn't work it before t55?
Or is it all about the long term strength of the capital?

Yeah, I'm still unclear on whether this is actually having positive payoff, I'm working the gold mine far later than I originally planned.  Though I didn't know when I moved that I'd be sinking so many early worker-turns into Stonehenge (which I was originally inclined not to build).

I only feel that my relative position is okay because I just don't have contact with anyone -- which would have been the case no matter what I did once I committed to a non-aggressive combination.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 57 (1720 BC)

This land to our north has to end somewhere, right?



Not any time soon, apparently.  And it's still all empty, though this is so extensive that I wonder if there's someone out there on this landmass after all and neither of us has gotten a scout through.

Judaism was claimed on turn 54, which I forgot to mention.  superdeath and Gavagai both recently planted their third cities.  Other people are now planting fourth cities; it's high time we caught up with that soon-ish.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 60 (1600 BC)

I rolled the turn from 59 to 60.

I saw this:



 I somehow have contact with superdeath now!      He really has a decidedly un-neighborly leader and civ combination this game.

This is probably actually a land contact; we didn't make contact until turn 59?  Even with snaky continents, that's an incredibly long time.  But I don't actually know where he made contact -- I couldn't actually find a unit of his, which is concerning.  It could have been with our advance scout, our just-returning work boat, or actually somehow near our borders.  I haven't actually seen him anywhere other than as a contact.

The next technologies definitely have to be finishing up Animal Husbandry, then Archery.  I'm still going to try to build the Great Lighthouse, and superdeath is probably very far away even for 2-move axes to attack imminently, but still.

[JR4]

Wow, I guess that there is at least one other player on this landmass after all. Superdeath can build highly promoted units right out of the gate and I agree that he`s not the best neighbour as he`s rather.. unpredictable. He`s definitely improving and it goes without saying that keeping an eye on the border lands will be important. Fwiw, I think that Superdeath is way more likely to focus on land military than a large-scale naval invasion.

The city site between the fish and the Sheep near the big fresh water lake is just screaming out for Moai (though on such a water-heavy map Moai could be built basically anywhere). I guess that there`s an argument for building on hills whenever possible instead if this land is contested.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 63 (1480 BC)

Okay, so superdeath is on our landmass.



That's a warrior, from last turn.  And in fact, he's got two warriors in our direction, behaving as screeners/sentries.  That's vaguely suggestive that I'm the only other contact on this landmass he has; at the very least, the warriors didn't squirm past someone else's territory.  Skirmishers absolutely aren't a waste on this map then.  

The scout now isn't going to scout out territory for cities, it's going to get some idea just where superdeath's territory is.  (If superdeath doesn't kill it; the scout ended up next to one of those warriors.  I promoted it to Combat II just in case, but it'll still probaly die if attacked.)

Here's all the land I know of between us:



Even if superdeath's territory is just out of sight, it'll still be a while before we actually border each other.

Also, with Animal Husbandry we now know where horses are.  They're awkwardly placed; that area just doesn't have much food, though I don't have plans to connect horses imminently.

At home, a whip of a lighthouse just overflowed into the Great one, and it's due in five turns.



We now have two settlers in production.  I may send the one from the capital to the ivory, since it's closer and we're already starting to become happy-constrained.  Writing is the next chosen tech because there's not anything else compelling.

Here's what the demographics look like:



Yeah, they're not terribly inspiring, what with so much being poured into two early wonders.

We actually have decent power, though, even with a whole one real military unit.    So no one, including superdeath, can actually have all that much military.

superdeath is still only on three cities.  Boudica is a slow starter, but he and she still ought to be out to four by now if they're not building a lot of military.

I'm actually wondering if superdeath is concerned I might skirmisher-choke him; he's been on the wrong end of that before.  I'm not willing to do that if I don't even know where his territory is though.    (Snaky continents, so it's very possible units heading into the fog will wander into a dead end.)

Elsewhere in the world, Borsche is once again involved in early military action.



This time, he's on the giving end, not the receiving end.  At least that wasn't 2metraninja's capital, but it does look like his second city (that score loss looks like it's partly loss of territory controlled for 20 turns).