uSuthu!: A Chevalier Story

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

Yes, that was a reference to the old Pitboss #2 game. This was the infamous email that slaze sent my team:

snip

Caps not added, they were in the original email. Ever since then, EXPANSION MODE has been an inside joke around these parts.

Yeah, I go back and read those two Pitboss games every few years. Feels good to recognize a meme out in the wild (inasmuch as the ground zero forum can be the wild). AI survivor is fun this year - I cheered when that impostor Charlemagne was finally wiped out, even if how long it took gave me pause.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

All right! Bronze Working! Now, where's my iron?







Oh...that's problematic. Swords are going to be a tough ask for me. The nearest iron is luckily 4th ring from BOTH Chard and Hitch, and so arranged that I can only get at it from the south. Allen or Dalton could get it third ring. That's expensive and takes a settler. The second source is to the south, at the Nubian expansion, and the other source is north, in Persian territory (third ring to Archduke's second city). 

Super annoying. Hard to get to. Well, Kaiser gave us lots of lakes and deer and horses, so we a horse civ now, I suppose. I queue up HBR. 10 turns until I can actually build horses to end the threat of pitati for good. 

I don't have the gold to afford a tile purchase at Hitch yet, but next turn I plan to buy the marsh tile due south of the city and start the Ikanda there. The walls don't need to be finished yet, but an Ikanda would boost production and trigger a eureka, plus be a start on the district discount. I'd need 3 Ikandas to discount a campus, which is sort of doable. 

A campus is going to be necessary, because right now my science rate won't cut it. I did the math and it's 100 turns to impi at current rates, assuming no population growth at all (which obviously won't happen, but still, it's only .5 science per pop per turn). I'll need a few campi to stay competitive. Build orders...hmm...

In theory, I could place 3 Ikandas, one at each city, which would give me a powerful core of corps (ha) training facilities down the road. It would discount my first campus, as well, likely at Chard. Bromhead could then place a discounted Commercial Hub when the time came. I have about 5 turns between the settlers finishing and horses becoming available. That might be the play. Here's the theater of war:






You can see my 3 warriors (+1 in the north at hte camp, +1 now hiding behind the hills at Kumasi as you suggested) drifting towards Kumasi, as well as now 3 archers (1 is near Kumasi making his way to the camp, more on him, and 2 more are shifting from Bromhead/Hitch). With no sign of the Nubians yet, I plan to locate my army around Hitch. The Nubians are taking Venice next turn, I think, as soon as they get a melee unit htere, and will likely go straight for Kumasi next. I don't know if I can take the city, or, if I do, if I can hold it. If I can't take it first, then I'll have to burn it since the occupation penalty will kick in for whoever gets the city second. It'll be a close race. 

Anyway, that means Hitch is under no immediate threat, so next turn I'll shift it to the more immediately useful Ikanda build. The walls are just a few turns from completion and can come online whenever I need them. The production invested is mostly insurance, but necessary (maybe I'd rather have another archer, but eh). 




Here's my plan at the barb camp. Thrawn cleared another, his second in 2 turns and his third in 10, which is super annoying since he only makes 1gpt otherwise. His entire economy is based on barb camp clears right now. Meanwhile, I only have ONE spawn in visible distance and Archduke is camping it. Whoever attacks first only weakens the camp for the other, so no one is moving, yet. My plan is to bring in the archer to the south, while next turn I cross the river with my full HP warrior. Then on turn 55 the archer shoots and the warrior clears, netting me a bit of culture and gold, paying for the Ikanda tile purchase at Hitch. 

So, plan: 

1)Finish settlers/Ikandas while researching HBR/Writing. 
2)Chard works on Campus, Bromhead and Hitch horses.
3)Bromhead moves on to Commercial Hub. Chard and Hitch more horses? Builders? Monuments?
4)Settler push when I have breathing space for Scheiss, Dalton/Allen, Bourne, Hook. I want to do a massive empire-wide push and that will absically do it for settlers. Note no Ancestral Hall this game - but I'll instead grab the Warlord's Throne and give it a shot. :o

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

Thanks for the pictures, the overview shots are super helpful for my visualization

One campus will add about half-again your science for a ~33% time reduction. I'm hoping there's another planned for W Jones sooner rather than later, because 100 turns is even more dire than I feared. FWIW what's the ETA on Mercenaries?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

About 50 turns, most of which is Feudalism, assuming 0 population growth which of course isn't going to happen. But pop affects culture much less than it does science, and I'm going to be losing Kumasi and probably Antananarivo soon, so that'll be 4 points lost. I skipped the pantheon culture in favor of camps for more food and production, but we've got to compensate for that now. Basically, a pair of builders for feudalism and some monuments might work. A monument in each planned city is 60 production per (about 5 turn's from the original 3, more from the infants), and might be squeezable to speed up the mercenaries ETA.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 55

We'll start with the major news of the turn. As predicted, Venice has fallen and been renamed Desert Rose by the Chiss-led Nubians:




Note that the city's improvements all lie in ruins, which has netted 44 faith and a hefty amount of gold for the admiral's war chest. The Nubian economy runs entirely on pillage, you know - still making only 1 gpt, meaning until Thrawn gets some trade routes up and running he's just about at the limits of the army his economy can support. Thus, he'll basically never be able to throw more units at me than what he has on the field right now. That's the good news.

The bad news is there's at least 4 units at Desert Rose, plus one extra capable of taking potshots at Kumasi. It must be either east or west of that mountain - your suggestion to move my warrior behind the hills as a screen was well-taken, and has probably spared me a shot. That warrior might go down next turn, or he might merely be discovered, depending on how Thrawn moves and his forces available. 




In the north, Kumasi is really fucking annoying and occupies the one tile I needed to step onto to shoot. I go east instead to defog a little bit and next turn I should be able to take the step I need, so we'll shoot and clear on turn 57 instead. Frustrating. I'll declare war next turn and rush the city-center if thrawn over-weakens it. I don't know what I'll do - shall I hold the city, or raze it? Holding it would require all my army's efforts and be a difficult task, but victory would net me a city here and break Nubian power. Razing it is probably more necessary, though, since warriors are little more than cannon fodder against potatos. The narrow terrain limits the amount of shooting he'll do, thankfully. The real time to confront Nubia isn't now, but ~15 turns from now when I have horses on the field. 

As planned, I throw down my first Ikanda:




Given Chard and Bromhead's superior production, I might finish all 3 at once. Then, per my calculations, unlocking a campus will let us build it discounted...wait, shit, fuck, no. Games and Rec unlocks Entertainment Districts, meaning we'll have 4 unlocked, meaning we need 4 built to get a discount. Maddening. Could I delay Games and Rec? Not without also delaying Mercenaries a few turns...Well, maybe I c an drop it at one and swap to Military Training? Best bet. We'll see if we can swing it. 

Overview:




Three warriors adjacent to Kumasi next turn, with 1 more immediately available, and 3 archers and a fifth warrior in distant reserve. That should be enough to keep a tide of archers from sweeping towards Hitch, and enough forwarning to resume the walls if necessary. 

no major developments abroad.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Miscounted pillaged tiles. There must be 5 units at least at Desert Rose. Figure 4 are archers, plus 1 warrior. We know he has at least one archer at Kumasi. So, 6. We saw 2 at the expansion, with 1 warrior. That means 2 warriors and 7 archers are accounted for, totaling 250 of his ~300 available power. That means 2 archers likely unaccounted for, perhaps south of Venice, or pulling garrison duty at the expansion. Thus, we know he's not pushing in force at Hitch or Chard, as suspected, and I'm shifting all but two garrison archers of my own away from the capital and towards Hitch. 2 archer strikes and the city-center guarantee a kill on any single unit per turn.

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

And, of course, if he decides to start fielding swords those are 2gp/turn more than the warriors. Here's hoping Venice doesn't juice his income too much because this is promising economically.

Assuming, of course, we don't faceplant ourselves. Good on you for figuring out a way to catch the district discount - I'd completely forgotten to take it into account (again). Somewhat unfortunate that W Jones has to build an Ikhanda ASAP for the discount rather than one of the more useful Campus or Plaza, but unless you envisioned R Jones taking the pinned Ikhanda tile... idk.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Two unreported turns - PD day at work. :/ 

Discouraging developments. The Nubians showed up to Kumasi the turn after I did and shredded two of my warriors. I pulled the remainder of the army back and am attempting to lure an unwary archer or two into range to pick them off, but the city as I see it is currently out of reach. I can't get my guys in without being shot to death. 

At the same time, Archduke's settler showed up and bypassed the spot I thought he'd take - he's taking the DoF to forward settle me in the vicinity of W. Jones or R. Jones. I have a warrior shadowing, but damn, I wish I hadn't bordered Nubia so I could ahve gotten my settler out in those turns I was building walls instead - then I'd have won this race already. 

-sigh- We soldier on. Pics when I have time later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Sorry for not reporting Thursday or Friday - grades are due this week. : Anyway, here's a quick one:

Kumasi falls, as expected, and I abandon the effort to lure thrawn's archers in. They're too cautious and I cna't get a shot without committing most of my army to a fight. I'm going to lose one more warrior, but that should be it. If he drives on me, he'll run into walls and encampments everywhere. Archduke, meanwhile, founded on the plains hill south of where I expected him to - this means he can't work that hill, and it's something I try to avoid doing. Personal bias, I guess. It knocks out R. Jones as a site, though, so we'll need to replan. Right now, I ahve a settler at W. Jones for next turn - gonna buy some tiles to deny them to Sietch Tabr - and I'll found Schiess in a few turns as well. 

Haven't been updating my spreadsheet since I am too busy, but I have end of turn saves for the last two turns. I'll get caught up. Everyone should be on four cities by now, except Russia, who just founded hsi third. I have my 5th on the way and I think so does Archduke, given pop numbers. Thrawn might move on to the other city-states as i planned to, or he'll stay focused on me. I sent him a peace offer to free his hadn to do so.

Other notes to mention when I have time:

1)Thrawn's pantheon plus the holy sites he's building
2)Long-term relations with Archduke
3)Long term relations with Nubia.

Overall plan is still the same. Grab corps, conquer Nubia. Losing Kumasi, several warriors, and R. Jones is a setback but not a fatal one.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Still working on grading, still a bit bitter at being just slightly too slow to Kumasi and losing 4 warriors shot up in the bargain, combined with being just slightly too slow to R. Jones (thanks to Nubia) and losing that site in the bargain. Oh, well. We can still make this work. We'll be at 5 cities, not 6, as I planned, and we'll need to adjust our dotmap, but we'll be okay.

Right now, while I am keeping pace with Archduke on expansion, his investment in campuses is showing up. The plan is to finish a 4th Ikanda (at W. Jones) to trigger a discount at Chard, then I'll start two campuses or so around the empire, then two commercial hubs. I shall also want perhaps 3 settlers at some point, maybe 4 (for Hook), but those aren't a priority. Otherwise, I should be set on infrastructure and can use these 4 Ikandas around the empire to crank out a big-ass military. We'll want at least 6 archers to combine into Xbow Corps, but warriors seem like a bad investment given our lack of iron. Instead, horses. A pair of horse corps will make Pitati irrelevant and I  can get taht with just 4 horsemen. Those will be our muscle, plus spears or warriors for backup and city-taking purposes. I think I can put all that together pretty rapidly once the infra is down. Then we should be able to roll over either Kumasi or Atlantis. 




Archduke founds his city and immediately buys a tile to start an encampment next to the wonder. I follow suit and we have neighboring encampments, how cute! I don't want to fight here if I can avoid it. The worrisome part is that Archduke has a habit of taking things personally and this might cause him to abandon any plans he had of attacking Rome and come at me to settle his grudge instead (look at PBEM7 and PBEM12 for examples of this behavior). From my perspective, the mountain chain pretty clearly dilineates "my" side of the territory but he might not see things that way. Maybe I'll send a 1 for 1 gold deal to smooth things over next turn. 




An overview. Hitch is throwing up walls, just in case, but I don't expect a serious Nubian attack. Thrawn is at war with Antananarivo and clearly is bent on conquering the center. He's taken Desert Folklore as a pantheon and thrown down holy sites at both cities...but does he realize that Work Ethic is already taken by Russia? If he's planning on taking Russian religion, he should have waited on the Holy Sites, since now when he gets his own great prophet he'll wipe out any conversion progress by converting all of his cities to whatever religion he takes. It's a weird play, but maybe it'll work for him. 

We'll have 4 Ikandas generating 4 gg points in about 10 turns, which means my first GG is due in about 18 turns. That will boost Classic and Medieval, which will suit my purposes, but we'll have new GGs every handful of turns thereafter if I build Barracks and Stables (I sort of intend to, if I can find the time). 

No spreadsheet update still. Now I have 4 turns of backlog to update. It looks like everyone is on 4 cities. I'll hit 5 in 2 turns. Archduke and Thrawn should both hit 5 at around hte same time. Rome and Russia, no idea.