[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[suboptimal]

What we can do is push into the first marsh with the warrior next turn. That should give us a view of a little bit of the far coast of that inlet and perhaps a bit more to the west. At the same time the slinger can move to the sheep and see if anything interesting appears. If nothing is interesting in either direction I'll bring the slinger back the way it came. If the slinger finds something then we'll bring the warrior back for escort duty. If we see that the camp is spawning then the slinger will need to be the escort as the warrior won't be able to fight its way through in time.

I also reviewed the effects on micro now that there's horses. We'll be going pasture first with the builder and be able to work the turtles as soon as we hit 4 pop. The horses gets us population a bit faster but on the production side only really speeds up the final warrior build by a turn.

[suboptimal]

Turn 11

Slinger heads east.




Empty, though is appears that the coast continues on its northeastern slant. This briefly makes me wonder if we’re to the northeastern side of the land mass. Warrior heads to the marsh.




Well, I said briefly. We appear to be on some sort of peninsula if that coastline here continues through the fog to the northeast. We may find one city-state north (the “backlines”) and one somewhere south (“frontlines”). There might be enough room to have a coastal city-state NW of the volcano but if one was there that barbarian camp would be cleared (or the spear near death). Next turn the slinger will turn back towards the capital for escort duty and the warrior will head south/southwest over the jungle hills. I think the first unit (warrior) out of the capital will need to head north.

Kaiser and Alhambram gained a few era points (3 for Kaiser, 2 for Alhambram) and Pindicator finally grew to 2 pop.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I agree with those moves. City's a short walk so it should only divert the slinger a little while. Between the desert and the volcano it's not looking like there's much good terrain in the west, unless there's a weird snaky connection to elsewhere - but I think the probability of that is low enough that we can wait and use whatever unit eventually clears the barb camp to scout it out.

speaking of the barb camp, two thoughts:
1)How viable is it, using Nubia's boosted experience gain, to farm XP off the barb camp until you ahve a bunch of 1-promotion archers? Luckily it looks like the camp is JUST out of reach of the horses, so anything it spawns should be easy meat for potatoes.

2)I haven't done the math there, but I had the idea and wanted to float it for viability testing - working the clams brings us in 1 faith per turn. We'd have to buy the tile and give up working another tile to do so, but it'd either let us skip God-King entirely (so worth about 2 hammers/turn) OR let us rush to a pantheon earlier, like if we wanted to lock down Goddess of Festivals.

[suboptimal]

Regarding #1 the XP boosts come faster with slingers as I believe the XP is based partly on the relative strengths of the units in the fight. I'd rather clear the camp with one archer (or the slinger) than attempting to farm it. Every turn the archers are shooting at barbs is a turn they aren't closing in on a city-state to take. They'd get more experience at the city-state since I'd try to take out all of its units while also taking the city.

Regarding #2 I don't think it's worth it. It's completely not worth it if the intent is to run Urban Planning once Code of Laws completes in two turns. The reduced production and food output (remember, we'd be giving up a 23, a 32 or a 4 tile for 111) is way too big of a hit. Working the pearls from pop 4 to pantheon completion (basically EoT27 through EoT32) completes the pantheon 5 turns early (EoT32 instead of the current EoT37). That is a viable option with a bit of finagling to occasionally work the PFH. It doesn't slow the builds but delays the growth of the capital to Pop 5 for a couple of turns. If we switched to pearls after Craftsmanship came in (EoT28) we'd be able to shave another couple of turns off the pantheon (EoT30, I believe) but that might cause some 1 turn delays in unit production and additional delays in city growth. Working the pearls starting T22 (when Mashed regrows to 3 pop) doesn't slow down production much but delays pop growth (and the associated yields) by 6-7 turns.

I'd rather either work the pearls to get the pantheon a few extra turns early and keep the capital's growth rate humming or not bother at all. We can hold the completion of Foreign Trade so that we swap out of God King as soon as we get 25 if the civic research lines up well.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If we got lucky and found a religious city-state, we could combine GK + the pearls + that to pull in 4 faith per turn and maybe even be first. But yeah, on the whole, I doubted the costs would work out. 

As for the barb camp, that was an idle thought if we didn't find any nearby city-states - we could train archers until we find a suitable target, then have one or two promoted fellers to lead the charge. 

I like to share my more off-the-wall ideas, even the suboptimal ones (heh), just in case there's 1 good idea in the 99 bad ones.

[suboptimal]

The good news for us, at least as of our Turn 11, is that only two people have completed Code of Laws and probably had God King running. I should take a look at the scores next turn to see if we can sort out anything regarding faith generation.

Off-the-wall ideas are always welcome. One never knows when one of those will be the creative spark for a good idea.

[suboptimal]

Turn 12

The slinger starts heading back towards Mashed to meet up with the settler. The slinger and settler will meet up on the PFH just southeast of the city center and from there it’d be another three turns to the city site.

In the southwest things are getting a little busy as the barbarian camp has spawned a warrior into the marsh W of the camp. I move our warrior to the jungle hills to its southwest. This reveals quite a bit more to the south and west:




Oooh...city-state borders. Religious city-state borders. We should gain visibility next turn and hopefully the first-meet envoy next turn. The city-state also appears to be coastal based upon the shape of the borders, but that likely makes the reef second ring and the whales third ring. No matter. We can use it to get a pantheon and then send our forces this way to take the city. If we get really lucky it’ll complete a Holy Site for us before we do. As far as that barbarian warrior is concerned I think for the time being I’ll evade it/lure it towards the city-state. If the AI units can damage it I’ll go for the kill to start working on the Bronze Working eureka. Looking ahead, the estimated travel time for archers from City #2 to the city-state’s borders is 7 turns. The downside is that I won’t be able to put the city under siege so things will take a bit longer.

In other news, Cornflakes completed his first tech. I did take a look at the rankings in the Religious Victory section of the overview. The current ranking is Kaiser, Cornflakes, Alhambram, The Black Sword, me, Archduke and Pindicator. The top two have completed Code of Laws and are likely running God King.

So, assuming we get the first meet envoy do we slot God King or Urban Planning? God King gets us a pantheon around Turn 22, no God King gets the pantheon around Turn 27. Edit: Running Urban Planning speeds up all post-settler builds by one turn. It also lets us work the turtles a bit more, squeezing out a few more and during the archer builds since we don't need to work the PFH (which gains us nothing in speed and generates a crapton of useless overflow).

General question: what happens if you capture an intact district that you don't have the tech for? Does it become pillaged, get razed off the map or stay put, possibly remaining useless?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I believe it stays put and functional but you can't build any buildings for it. I'm only about 70% confident on that, though - my memory is based on games where I captured Harbors without ever bothering to research Astrology (gotta get those district discounts!).

We'll be able to get a better estimate of the pantheon race in two turns once you meet the CS and the rankings update, but the CS is very good news indeed (and why I keep stressing pushing our scouting out as deeply as we can, even if we have to take risks at home). Personally, I think the drop off in certain pantheons is steep enough that it's worth giving up the hammers from Urban Planning long enough to snag an early pantheon. Think of it like spending ~30 hammers in order to get, say, +1 culture on every plantation (easily +5 culture right there), which is an absurd return on investment. Operation Clam Worship could get us there even earlier, just sayin'. :O (I kid, we don't have to worship the clams - that's probably going overboard).

[suboptimal]

If we take God King in two turns we'd run it for 14 turns, then switch out to Urban Planning. That seems reasonable to me as we'd be able to get out of it at our first civics change. I did look at appeal for consideration of Earth Goddess and there aren't enough tiles that are both Breathtaking and we'd be able to work. We'd also be chopping most of the forests that are providing the extra appeal so Goddess of Festivals works.

The question then becomes the knock-on effects - go Pottery -> Irrigation (we'd have the eureka) and slot in a builder at City #2 before completing Mining -> Bronze Working? My initial inclination is yes as the city could be producing 4 in 20 turns and it would not require a monument. Irrigation would complete EoT33. That gives us three options:

1) Get a builder out first (complete EoT30) and position it to put the first plantation down when Irrigation completes. We then complete three archers around EoT34, EoT38 and EoT41.
2) Go with the original plan and get three archers out first (EoT 29, EoT33, EoT37) and finish the builder EoT42.
3) Start an archer, time the builder to be out the turn before Irrigation, then finish three archers (EoT35, EoT 39, EoT42).

I think Option 1 or 3 is the best return - we'd have four archers EoT34/35 and be building culture right from the competion of Irrigation. I'd plantation both wines first and first ring bananas second.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

4 culture is so, so significant in the early game that I agree. We saw in PBEM15 especially (but in many PBEMs before, including Nan Madol in PBEM7) how strong culture is, and if we can snag Festivals we'll be able to rival Rome for early game culture, which is when it matters most. So I think Option 1 is best - then you can take your army of archers and at least the warrior and go capture that city-state, then we can think about a neighbor. That gives you 3 cities by turn 50, having only built one settler.