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

[Dark Savant]

I'm in between social events ... let's go deeper into details, because why not?

Our scout won with +50% bonus defense against a strength-1 wolf and showed "0.9" health afterwards, rested 1 turn, then won with +75% bonus defense strength against a strength-2 lion and showed "0.6" health afterwards.

Plugging the numbers into a combat calculator (including the -20% animal combat penalty at Monarch level), the wolf should do 11 damage per hit, the lion 15.  So our scout's hit points were: take 11 damage from wolf, restore 10 hit points in 1 turn of rest, take 30 damage in 2 hits from lion.  That means he now actually has 69 hit points, so 3 turns of rest will bring him up to basically full strength, so I can save the promotion for when I actually need it and choose an appropriate one.  We might even arrange to be resting while Gavagai's t25 border expansion kicks out our scout for a free extra move.  (Question to everyone including lurkers: Any way I can predict where the unit will get kicked?)

Let's look at GNP:



Our GNP is 16: 8 palace commercs, 4 palace espionage, 2 palace culture, 1 city plot commerce, 1 free flask.  The height of that on the graph is ~427 pixels.

Coeurva's GNP graph is ~590 pixels tall.  We know he's working the clam and the oasis (from the food graph if nothing else), so he's got all of the above plus 4 more commerce coming in, so his minimum GNP is 20.

The graph suggests Coeurva's actual GNP is (590/427) * 16 = ~22.  (Question to lurkers as well: Is there some utility that can handle this for you?)

That extra 2 GNP strongly suggests a one-arrow tech bonus (with 14 base flasks, that's 2 extra flasks/turn), so therefore he's researching some tech that isn't first-column.  This wouldn't be anything other than Bronze Working or Masonry; or if his first tech was actually Hunting, then also possible are Sailing, Archery, and Animal Husbandry.

He's very likely researching Bronze Working.  If he happens to show up with Masonry (he might actually do this if he's obsessed with the Great Lighthouse), we should have some sort of plan in place to punish that, but we'll see his next technology arrive before our settler completes.

Actually, let's go further.  Someone somewhere is somehow generating a GNP of 24.  It can't be Financial Ventessel, since he doesn't have 2 pop yet.  The likely candidate is Gavagai, who has 2 pop and gets +2 GNP from free Creative culture.  He's likely to be researching Pottery with the double-arrow bonuses from both Agriculture and Fishing to get that much GNP; I don't see any sensible other explanation for anyone to be generating that.  He doesn't even have Mining and thus can't connect copper for a long time.

And he's our other known neighbor.

... Okay, if we do an axe rush, we have a new target.  In that case, do you think it's best to actually avoid showing our scout near his capital (like a Civ 6 barbarian ), so he gets less advance warning we might be coming?  We do have to worry that he might researching Animal Husbandry next (also with the double-arrow bonus) and hook up horses quick, so any assault force requires at least one spear.  Also, he'll certainly have +40% defense in his capital.  I'm still skeptical this is worth it anyway, but I feel this has a much higher chance of success.

[Dark Savant]

You can tell his southern terrain is similar to but not quite the same as our southern terrain.  I don't want to rest my scout next turn, either; I'd like to move in and get vision on his capital before his borders expand on t25.  I can do that in 2-3 turns.

Just watch out for his warriors. It's possible that he might try to kill the scout.

Oh, I forgot about that; the AI will never do that, after all.  (We do know he doesn't have a warrior yet.)

Together with not tipping off a potential early attack, I think it's now best to avoid hanging out near him, since I can guess pretty much where he is anyway.

[Dark Savant]

Wait ... JR4 also has two pop and can be researching Pottery with the double-arrow bonus, but he can't have finished a work boat yet, so he'd have to be working an unimproved clam and the oasis, and not be working the pastured cow which I read him as having, in order to have a GNP of 24.  This ... doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but it's possible.

[Dark Savant]

And there's another possibility that makes a little more sense.  Other than Gavagai researching Animal Husbandry (which also has a double-arrow bonus), CML could also be on that.  He'd also have to not be working his pastured cow to get his GNP to 24, though.

Still, it's most likely that Gavagai is researching either Pottery or Animal Husbandry.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 20 (3200 BC)

Scout rests (except the lion did 16 damage, not 15, in the combat log, so it has 67 not 69 hit points ... I guess I need to look more into how precise combat calculations work), warriors move, worker starts to chop a second forest ... Nothing else new, so no picture.

C&D: everyone except Krill got 9 points for 7 land tiles occupied for 20 turns.  dtay, Ventessel, and GermanJoey (everyone with 1 pop who is not Krill) gained an additional 3 points for reaching 2 pop in their capital.

No new technologies, and 5,000 new soldier points.  The 3 pop gained accounts for 3,000 of that, so someone must have built a 2,000-point warrior.  It can't be Ventessel, who has the highest rival soldier count and only gained 1,000 from the pop gain; and it can't be Krill either since lowest count didn't go up from 4,000.  GermanJoey, Coeurva, and dtay are probably either about to finish work boats or just finished them.  JR4 is likely in the middle of a work boat (if he wanted to build a second warrior that quickly, he'd probably have built it 2 turns ago like us).  So either CML or Gavagai built it.

Maximum rival GNP went back down to 22.  This makes sense: this is how long it takes Gavagai's worker to build one road, the cow pasture, and the rice farm, so now he's working both cow and rice instead of the oasis.

I don't think a full-scale attack on anyone is likely to pay off.  I can change my mind if someone makes strange tech choices, but we can't count on that.  The most I'm likely to do is enough to harass someone; something like 1 axe and 1 spear might be enough to cripple expansion and give us more space in the long run, and wouldn't be nearly as costly as 6 axes/spears.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 21 (3160 BC)

Worker #2 emerges, our second hobbit:



I'm using the "real" Westron name of Samwise Gamgee; I figure the English "translations" are a little too well-known to be interesting.  (The main books actually discuss what Sam and Merry's Westron names are, but not Frodo's.  I'm not sure why.)

I interrupt Maura's chop this turn so it goes into the work boat I can start next turn.  I also produce exactly enough flasks to complete Fishing next turn.  If I can't chop a complete work boat next turn, my way of playing the start doesn't actually work out well.

I decide to move our scout towards Gavagai's capital now, because I'm pretty sure I won't actually launch a serious early attack on him:



His capital is right there, actually -- an early attack force could get there in no more than 14 turns of movement (roads won't save more than 1-2 turns) -- too slow to do much unless he goes all-in on a farmer's gambit.  I'm going to get vision on his capital next turn then recover the rest of its hit points.  If this encourages Gavagai to play more early defense and less farmer's gambit, I won't object.  (And he's got at least twice as many flood plains tiles nearby as we do!)

Our first warrior starts pushing into the southeastern jungle:



We've got ivory, and I presume everyone else also does for sake of game balance.  We definitely won't be able to delay researching Iron Working until the Renaissance, as happens sometimes.  And our likelihood of founding on red dot just went up from 99.99% to 100.00%.

C&D: Gavagai is now putting all his espionage into us; Coeurva still is.  Note to self: don't let graphs on Coeurva disappear in the coming turns.

We have the worst GNP (and did last turn too) of 16; next-to-last is 18, so Krill is either working the oasis or researching a one-arrow technology.  The only other player who even knows that the forest copper exists is Ventessel (whom I read as having recently placed a work boat on the clam -- and he doesn't have Hunting for the cow), so that's not surprising.

At least one other player just started to produce 12 food -- working boated clams plus farmed rice.

No new technologies or population.  Another warrior showed up somewhere.

Turn-playing news: I'll be away from home for the US Memorial Day weekend starting late this Thursday or early Friday.  I anticipate being able to play my turns and collect snapshots, but I might not be able to report until I get back on Monday.  So I shouldn't need a substitute turn player, but I'll alert everyone should one be needed.

(... because even many Americans don't know it: Memorial Day honors those US soldiers who died in combat.  Veterans' Day honors anyone who has served in the US military.)

[Dark Savant]

Turn 22 (3120 BC)

Fishing comes in, The Wheel started, due in 10 but that should drop once I start to work the clam.  Swap Castle Ironfist to work boat and have Frodo finish his chop; work boat due next turn.  Sam does the reverse of his book self and starts chopping trees.

Our scout moves northwest twice, getting vision on Gavagai's capital, and finds this:



So Gavagai has the forest copper in the same place, but the outside terrain within first ring isn't really the same.  His red dot definitely doesn't look that similar to our red dot.  If Gavagai built a warrior, I haven't seen it.

I'll be running sims, if nothing else just to see which direction our scout will be kicked out in.    (Though the real aim will be to take a closer look at what happens after t28.)

Warrior #1 moves into the jungle.  That jungle is a peninsula, not an isthmus:



There's no need to dotmap for a jungle canal city, then.

Warrior #2 checks out the coast north of red dot:



No new seafood, though it's becoming apparent that there are a lot of little islands out there for the claiming.

C&D: CML, Gavagai, and JR4 all grew their capitals to pop 3 -- not surprising since all are Expansive and have all of Agriculture, Fishing, and Hunting by now.  Coeurva researched a tech and 10,000 new soldier points showed up.  So what's that?

Coeurva got a tech with 2,000 soldier points on t14, and got another tech worth who-currently-knows how much on t22.

Best-case research for him looks like 10 base flasks the first 9 turns, 12 the next turn, and 14 for the next 12.  (He's still working the clam and oasis -- and the earliest he could have produced a worker is t19, so the earliest he could have built a pasture on the cow is just now.)

Let's say he researched Hunting on t14 (no arrow bonus).  That's 56 flasks the last 4 turns, 12 the previous turn, and 30 the previous 3 turns, which brings in Hunting with 2 flasks overflow.

Let's say he was researching Bronze Working the rest of the time, which with these numbers gives a flat +2 research bonus.  That's 72 flasks from turns 1-6 and 128 the most recent 8, which will bring in Bronze Working (cost 192) on this turn with ~10 flasks of overflow.  That would make Coeurva's soldier score 13,000, which in fact is the new highest rival soldier score.  That would account for 8,000 of the 10,000 new soldier points, so someone else (who isn't Krill) conditionally produced a warrior.

So those are the techs he most likely has; the most likely story I can come up with is that he switched to Hunting midway through Bronze Working when he changed worker micro plans.  I should confirm this on the graphs next turn.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, new simming findings:

The scout gets expelled southwest from the tile it's currently on.  

By catching from the t28 settler overflow in another settler instead of a warrior, I can produce the settler for city #4 on turn 46 and plant on blue dot on t50.  This sim falls just 1 hammer short of being able to whip the settler for orange dot on t37; it'll instead complete without whipping on t40 as before, and I can plant on t41 if I hurry road building to orange dot.  (If I could whip it, the northern roads wouldn't help it plant any faster.)  I do produce the settler for blue dot 1 turn faster ... but I can see we'll be desperately short on worker labor if we plant blue dot that early.  It's probably better to produce a worker instead of blue-dot-settler instead, which Castle Ironfist would be able to do in 3 turns from scratch (we'll momentarily have 5 workers for 3 cities once orange dot can whip/chop/finish a worker).  I also concluded that spending worker labor building roads towards blue dot early on is a waste of worker turns.

So that little micro trick won't really help me, and I should just go by the original plan (produce 2 warriors in 4 turns growing to size 3 after the red dot settler).  And yeah, those warriors can help cover that territory.

I still need to decide if Agriculture or Pottery is the best tech after The Wheel, but I don't need to sim that for 10 more turns.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 23 (3080 BC)

Our work boat comes in; it goes to work on the clams, and we are no longer dead last in crop production.     Frodo is now going to spend a couple turns heading south to chop the last remaining forest.

Our scout fortifies on the forested hill just outside Gavagai's borders.  After a couple more turns I'll start to work its way over the apparent land bridge to its northwest, aiming to meet any neighbor we may have to Castle Ironfist's northwest.

I haven't seen Gavagai's scout at all since the turn we met -- it could have reached Castle Ironfist by now.

Our warriors on scout duty don't find anything cool, though there's an island not far away from blue dot:



Any expansion in Gavagai's direction beyond orange dot is likely going to be interpreted as aggressive, and it'll be hard to control any further cities against him being Creative.  And orange dot does make for a reasonably defensible location, it's a decently narrow choke although it's on flat land.  (If you think defense in such a location is paramount, we can plant 1 south of orange dot instead, though that loses both the silver and copper and puts the corn in second-ring, which I think is too much to give up.)  Orange dot's first produced settler is therefore probably actually going to go somewhere in purple oval.

C&D: Coeurva just put his espionage on someone else.  Coeurva also definitely has Bronze Working now, so now he's marked as having Bronze Working and Hunting (he can't have anything else).

Someone out there was in anarchy ... Coeurva still hasn't changed civics, so it must be Ventessel.  I don't think it's a good idea to revolt to Slavery before producing a settler unless you're Imperialistic, so I was expecting Coeurva to have revolted.

Coeurva gained a population point, joining the other Expansive rivals at 3 pop.  Krill gained 9 points for his starting 9 tiles; he still has only 1 pop, so he doesn't have an easy 5/6-food tile in those 9 tiles.     (He just improved a 5f tile last turn based on demographics.  If you see me log in repeatedly, it's mostly to grab extra demographics screenshots.  So Krill should get 2 pop imminently.)   Gavagai gained 16 points for 12 2nd-ring land tiles.

Any 3-pop rival working boated clams, farmed rice, and pastured cow can put 14 hammers/turn into a settler.  Coeurva can do 16 hammers/turn and unlike the other 3-pop rivals also knows about the forested copper.

JR4 just researched a tech, and there are also 10,000 new soldier points.  (No other new techs.)

Let's work out exactly what JR4 is doing:

• t0: plant on start, produce worker using cow + Expansive, research rate for first-column techs is 10 flasks/turn
  
• t7: Fishing complete with 6 overflow
  
• t10: worker complete, starts putting pasture on cow; now producing warrior and working oasis for base 12 flasks/turn (current tech has 3 turns, 36 base flasks)
  
• t13: pasture complete, starts working pastured cow (current tech has 6 turns, 72 base flasks)
  
• t14: worker moves into capital
  
• t15: warrior complete with 1 overflow, work boat begins (current tech has 8 turns, 92 base flasks); worker moves southeast, builds a road for 1 turn, then is awakened
  
• t16: Agriculture complete with 6 overflow; work boat 8/30; worker moves to rice and starts to build farm
  
• t17: new tech 1t + 16 base flasks; work boat 14/30
  
• t18: capital size 2, 2/24 food; new tech 2t + 26 base flasks; work boat 20/30; new citizen works oasis so base flask production is now 12/turn
  
• t19: capital 6/24 food; new tech 3t + 38 base flasks; work boat 26/30
  
• t20: capital 10/24 food; new tech 4t + 50 base flasks; work boat complete, 2 overflow, loses 1 from RtR-Expansive hammer division; work boat goes on clam; farm complete; capital now works both
  
• t21: capital 18/24 food; new tech 5t + 62 base flasks; warrior 3/15
  
• t22: capital size 3, 2/26 food; new tech 6t + 74 base flasks; warrior 5/15, production swapped to settler; new citizen works cow
  
• t23: new tech 7t + 86 base flasks; settler 14/100 (due on t30 -- awkward since this falls 2 production short of a settler on t29, so he might be doing something else)
  

Okay, so he has 86 flasks into a first-column tech, 100 into a one-arrow tech, or 114 into a two-arrow tech.  That means this tech must be Mining or Mysticism (both cost 79) -- Archery is too cheap, and the next cheapest tech costs 128.

I can't tell which this is -- JR4 has more reason than other players to pursue an early religion since he's Spiritual.  So either JR4 researched Mining and 4 players built warriors, or he researched Mysticism and 5 players built warriors.  He can't have produced one himself; he's likely producing a settler now, and even if he continues to grow to size 4 he can't be more than 10/15 into a warrior by my read.

One of these warriors must be Coeurva's since highest soldier count increased to 15,000, and there were no other possible reasonable sources of soldier increases (unless someone produced a barracks this early  ).  Krill still cannot have produced a quechua since lowest is still 4,000.

[Dark Savant]

Okay, now let's see Coeurva's micro plan:

• t0: plant on start, produce work boat starting with cow, start researching Bronze Working at 12 flasks/turn
  
• t5: borders expand, swap cow to forested grassland hill to push out work boat 1t faster (I can see him doing this on the production graphs)
  
• t6: Bronze Working at 72/192; research changed to Hunting, 10 flasks/turn
  
• t8: move citizen back to cow
  
• t9: work boat produced, goes on clam; start warrior; Hunting 30/96, research rate now 12 flasks/turn
  
• t10: warrior 2/15
  
• t11: capital size 2, 3/24 food; warrior 4/15, production swapped to worker (8 hammers/turn); new citizen works oasis, research rate now 14 flasks/turn; Hunting 54/96
  
• t14: Hunting complete exactly, Bronze Working research resumed, 16 flasks/turn
  
• t19: worker complete with 4 overflow, starts parture on cow; capital resumes warrior; Bronze Working 152/192
  
• t20: capital 9/24 food; warrior 10/15
  
• t21: capital 15/24 food; warrior 12/15
  
• t22: Bronze Working complete with 8 overflow; capital 21/24 food; warrior 14/15; worker completes pasture, citizen likely moved from oasis to cow
  
• t23: capital size 3, 3/26 food; warrior complete, new item (probably settler) started with 4 overflow; capital working boated clam, pastured cow, and unimproved grassland forest for 16 production/turn normally (6 food + 7 hammers + 3 Imperialistic bonus), this schedule is possible: t24 22/100, worker moves to grassland forest; t25 38/100, worker starts chop; t26 54/100; t27 70/100, worker completes chop for 30 hammers, 15 production/turn; t28 settler completes with 15 overflow that gets divided back into 10 hammers for the next item
  

So Coeurva can complete his first settler on t28, same as us.  It's entirely possible he'll want a second worker first, though, if his planned dotmap is stretched out like ours.