[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[suboptimal]

Turn 42

Open the save to no notifications. I’d say we’re going to Khmer first, but no. I’m going to get the non-interesting stuff out of the way first. You know, keep you all in suspense while I work towards earning that imaginary “Complete Post Read” achievement. Dauphinoise has grown in population and the new citizen works the bananas. The settler there is due out in 8 turns. In the north the barbarian spearman advanced as expected. Wounded archer shoots, does 31 points of damage. Unwounded archer moves to the hilltop and shoots, doing 36 points of damage and earning a promotion. Moving up on a hill also revealed a geothermal vent to the east and a nice +4 Campus location:




That vent is non-freshwater. I expect the spearman to retreat towards camp since it’s been redlined. Next turn the wounded archer will follow and kill, the non-wounded one will cross the river to the east.

Here’s the situation in the south after moving the reserve warrior and the green and yellow archers:




If the gold count in the first screenshot didn’t tip anyone off, there’s the warrior. Now, archers shooting the city would do about net 40 points per turn but leave the lead archer open to attack from a warrior that can take cover in the city. Likewise, I said last turn that I should fortify the warrior in place. However, I have a better option here, I think – retreat to the geothermal vent. Pindicator would still be able to see the warrior but wouldn’t be able to attack it and doesn’t know the green & yellow archers are there. My hope is that he moves the northern slinger to one of the border jungle tiles. In that case I’d be able to kill it with a 1-2 punch from the warrior and yellow archer (warrior attacking first). With that unit dead I could then bring the green archer and warrior into the border tiles to kill off the other slinger, then deal with the city proper. If he doesn’t take the bait then I move the warrior to the marsh, archer to the geothermal vents and then advance everything the following turn. In the meantime the red archer shoots the city for 25 points of damage and 5XP. I’ll continue doing this until either he advances out to attack (I don’t think he knows the blue archer is there) or I earn a promotion and heal. If the warrior attacks the red archer the warrior will die next turn.

Kaiser has joined us at 6 techs complete and Cornflakes has finished civic #5. TBS’s two empire points were for a completed Campus as he’s generating GSP now. I did take a gander at the milpower rankings:

1. Us, 223 (3x warrior, 6x archer)
2. Archduke (no surprise there)
3. The Black Sword
4. Kaiser
5. Cornflakes
6. Pindicator (51 – scout, 2x slinger, 2x warrior)
7. Alhambram

That’s not too informative. One other thing I missed a couple turns back. The desert north of the wheat west of Delicate Arch is seaside as there are cliffs visible.

[suboptimal]

Turn 43

Got some scouting and barb killing to do in the north, player pestering in the south. Archduke’s made his once-per-PBEM turn pace gripe so that’s out of the way. Open the save, only notification is that I’ve earned a promotion. To the north we go. Wounded archer tops the hill and shoots the spearman. It dies. I’ll be able to clear that camp in two turns unless it spawns a unit. Unwounded archer crosses the river:




Everything east of the river is not adjacent to fresh water and there are no cities up here. The archer will move to the marsh next turn and then start heading east and south. At Dauphinoise the third warrior moves SE and the second crosses the river.

At Wealth of Nations Pindicator is standing pat (only the city warrior visible), though his milpower has increased by 20 since last turn. I’ve got two options here.

1) Stay blind, move the warrior to the marsh and the yellow archer to the geothermal vent. I would then advance both units into the jungle next turn with the intent of picking off a slinger or a warrior in the jungle next turn. This works, though if there are two warriors here that becomes a larger problem to deal with.

2) Move one of the eastern archers up next to the city to see what’s going on. It would expose the archer to an attack from the city warrior and possibly create a logjam with that Kabul warrior that’s been hanging around. However, it would be worth knowing if the +20 in milpower is at this city or somewhere else. The archers can always pull back, with one crossing the river, if necessary. Alternatively the advanced archer could stay put, weather the attack plus one more on Turn 44 and then promote-heal on Turn 45.

I advance blue archer since it’s unwounded:




Still two slingers and a warrior. I can do significant damage to the slinger from here, so I shoot the northern slinger for 63 points of damage. The warrior moves into the jungle to the southwest, next to the slinger and away from the warrior, yellow archer goes to the geothermal vent and green archer takes up yellow’s former position. Red archer potshots the city for 23, 20 of which will heal back next turn, leaving the garrison at 178/200. The end of turn position:




Next turn I’ll move yellow archer to the jungle NW of the city and shoot any slingers that remain in the area with blue archer. I expect that blue archer might get attacked by the warrior but I believe that will take down the garrison’s defense value by a couple, which makes my life easier. I don’t think he’ll attack the warrior with the slinger next turn as he’d surely lose the unit in exchange for 20 points of damage. I’m going to try to shoot my way south along the city with the archers while doing as much damage to the city as possible.

If he moves both slingers south out of archer range then I’ll leave the warrior where it is until the city is ready to be taken (or warrior shows up from the south). With three archers attacking the city I should be able to wear down its defenses even with the warrior garrisoning it. It’ll be a slog (20-30 points next turn, about 50 the turn after that) but ultimately doable.

Kaiser has finished a district (or gained two pop) and founded a city. Archduke and Cornflakes also have their third cities down.

Mashed will gain a pop in 2 turns, complete its Campus in three and Dauphinoise’s settler is out in 5 (I think) as we’ll be slotting Colonization next turn. In looking at the micro at Mashed I shift the citizen from the PFH to the grassland stone. That will get me the population next turn and then I can shift things around and still complete the Campus EoT45.

[suboptimal]

Turn 44

I have a notification than an archer and a warrior were attacked. Both were at Wealth of Nations so I’ll get to those in a bit. Mashed has grown in population. The new citizen is on the PFH and I move the stone citizen to the plains hill. Early Empire is in, start State Workforce. First governor promotion is in – I select Pingala and send him to Dauphinoise. While Mashed is running 6 and 2 it’s the that’s more important right now and Dauphinoise is running 2 and 4.2. Besides, I’ll have a Campus in 2 more turns for the boost. Swap policies as well – Colonization in, Urban Planning out.

Up north the northern archer moves one tile closer to the barbarian camp and finds a volcano located to its northeast. Since no further movement is possible the archer takes its promotion (Volley) and heals. I make a movement error with the other archer and go east into the forest instead of southeast, so no further eastwards movement this turn. I do reveal a grassland floodplain just east of the marsh and I’ll be able to reach it next turn. I’ll screenshot that area next turn after movement is complete.

In the south the backup warriors continue their movement. Wealth of Nations at the start of the turn:




The warrior has 70 damage left, the unpromoted archer is at 72 and the promoted archer is 75. Interestingly the GUI differs in the colors of the damage bars. The units themselves have yellow bars, the info box is still green. The damage to the Khmer warrior has also dropped the city’s defense rating to 17, though it’s actually 16 due to damage. Pindicator won’t be able to kill the city-side archer next turn, as expected, and it will earn a promotion when I shoot this turn. Blue archers kills the slinger, earning 5XP and a promotion. Red archer shoots the city for 21 damage (net 1 after healing). Yellow archer advances into the jungle and the green archer moves to the geothermal fissure. The end of turn position:




Next turn I’ll swap red and blue archer and shoot the slinger with the red archer. Yellow archer will attack the city. I’ll swap green archer and the warrior next turn so that I’ll have two archers to shoot with if something turns up from the south. Killing the slinger and promote-healing the red/blue archers over consecutive turns would let us take the city on Turn 48. I could completely ignore the slinger, not promote-heal and probably take the city on Turn 47...but is ignoring the slinger until after the city is taken a good idea? I'm not inclined to think so.

Archduke has completed his fifth tech. No other major movements in score. Archduke and Kaiser both completed Campus districts last turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'd kill the units, yeah. The city's not going anywhere and removing units makes capturing other cities easier. A one-turn delay doesn't hurt too badly since it's more time for the reinforcements to come up.

[suboptimal]

Pinmap Interlude

Since I haven’t gotten the turn yet (TBS played very late in his window and I’m waiting on Kaiser), I’ve been thinking about city positioning. I haven’t put more thought into the northern half of the empire yet as that will be more dependent upon the location of any iron that pops up after Turn 45. I will note, however, that the only valid iron locations north of the West Nubian Lake are located just east of Mashed or in the area northeast where we killed Pindicator’s scout. There are no valid iron locations south of Mashed as iron requires an open hill that is not adjacent to fresh water and there are none in that direction.

To the south the current plan is to settle Dauphinoise’s settler on the hill on the inside of the Abarath River mouth (A-1 in the below screenshot). However, I have reservations about this spot now that I’ve seen what’s north of Wealth of Nations – namely, the two copper resources. It’s also not too early to talk about mapping out city placement down here since there are no valid iron tiles in this part of the map (iron requires a hill that has no features and is not near the water).




Those two copper resources are third ring to WoN and would be fourth ring to the “original” city location (marked Option A-1). That’s a good waste of two tiles that with a mine would each be yielding 224. I don’t like that prospect. In looking at things I came up with three options.

Option A (current plan)

Found the city at the river mouth on Turn 56 as intended and plant a second city (A-2) on the coast of the Lakshadweep Sea later on to "capture" the copper. The A-1 location has an unimproved 20 turn yield of 92 23 and 13.8. It would grow to 4 population EoT 76.

Option B

This location could be founded on Turn 58. Its unimproved 20-turn yield basis is the best of the three at 109 23 13.8 8. It would reach 4 population EoT 79. Settling here would make the Dauph Settler location a priority when a second round of settlers gets produced sometime in the 70’s so that we have naval coverage of that sea.

Option C

This could be founded on Turn 59. Over the first 20 turns it would have an unimproved yield of 79 19 11.4 34, which is the worst of the three locations except for its sheer gold output. It would reach its fourth population EoT 87. The one advantage over B is that is leaves room to move the A-1 site northwest one tile (though eliminating the Dauph Settler location).

Assuming everything goes well at Wealth of Nations and we take the city my inclination is to settle the Option B site and backfill the “Dauph Settler” site during the settler “wave” in the 60’s or 70’s. We will know how the city conquest is going by the time the settler finishes.

[CFCJesterFool]

Still like A-1 better. Note that reef gives +2 adjacency so the grass hill 2E of the marker is a +4 campus spot. I would settle on the copper next to the A-2 marker (2/1/2 center tile yield) and put an aqueduct on the option C marker (pasture the sheep for food/production) with a commercial hub NE of that (boosting the campus to +5 and giving the extra +1 to the commercial hub.)  I don't think condensing two really great campus spots into a single city is the way to go. The map screams mass settler spam. I'd look to maximize city count (as long as district potential is there.)

[suboptimal]

I didn't even consider settling on either of the copper (though the eastern one is a volcano) That spot gets immediate copper and a 3 tile to work. At A-1 I saw the +4 Campus location but given that it'd be a tile purchase and we're saving the money for a battering ram I think I'd still put A-1's Campus at the +3 spot as marked to keep the cost down. If we waiting for the tile picker it'd be 5th or 6th in line as there are four second ring resources the picker would get first.

[suboptimal]

Turn 45

The only notification is that an archer (the blue archer) qualified for a promotion. Interesting. Quick look at Wealth of Nations and Pindicator has fortified his warrrior in the city and retreated his slinger. He’s probably realized that attacking out will speed up the conquest since it reduces the garrison’s strength. Red, blue and yellow archers attack the city for a total of 68 damage and the green archer and warrior swap positions.

Next turn all three archers will shoot the city again and on Turn 47 two archers will shoot and the warrior will move into position. I might move green archer southeast next turn to get a third archer to shoot at the city while the warrior positions and to also take a peek south. Backup warriors continue southwards and this part of the world is taken care of.




Up north nothing has shown up at camp so the archer moves in and clears it, getting 50, the Military Tradition inspiration and an era point. The other archer moves east into the woods and then east again:




I’ve taken a wider shot of the area for positional context as it relates to Mashed and Dauphinoise. There is a river name starting with “Se” in the fog to the SE but I can’t make out enough to get a full name. Maybe next turn. The water to the north is not fresh water. This spot also looks good for a settler, either on the stone or the forest (remember, bonus resources and features all chop out the same now) and then getting Magnus in here for some action. The archer will head down the western side of the river as it can cover more ground that way. The other archer will defog a little bit of tundra before coming south.

Speaking of governors I’d like to solicit opinions on promoting Pingala (with the +1 promotion) or recruiting Magnus. I don’t know that we’d be chopping much yet at either the current cities or the next two settler targets. Speaking of which we’ll see the iron next turn (and be the first to seven techs).

Something interesting in the military power rankings. Pindicator, at 51, is not in last place. Both Cornflakes and Alhambram are below him. The Black Sword has moved into second place above Archduke, leaving Kaiser in the middle. I’ve also discovered that Khmer has declared a DoF with Unmet Player. Dunno that it will help him any, but we’ll see. Hopefully TBS is not Unmet Player.

[CFCJesterFool]

The question becomes how many settlers are needed. Also, which cities can build settlers in a reasonable time frame (less than ten turns.) Using the first two governor titles on Magnus (to spam cities without losing population) works best when the needed settler count is high and only very early settlers can be built quickly in a non-capital city. Personally, I normally get Pingala after Magnus but you still want both in most games so the order not really critical. In this situation, promoting Pingala to +1   would be fine. I think you want to build a government plaza with Ancestral Hall asap anyway so you could reserve those two governor titles for Magnus.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I agree with Jester. Particularly early in the game, more culture is better. We're not in position to take advantage of magnus now anyway, but waiting til we get the AH to double promote him and then chop out a bunch of settlers is still a strong move to fill in this land. That's how I got an early lead in PBEM8.