Where to will Singaboy steer the Teutonic power?

[Dreylin]

Difficult. Unless you have immediate need of lump sum, gpt would probably be preferable, but if he hasn't got any to speak of then I'm not sure what to suggest.

Is it really the case that you'll be the first to finish a CH? If so, then maybe you're not nearly as far behind as the Scores are indicating - esp. with Hansas on the horizon...

[Singaboy]

T70:

The barb spear attacked my slinger and it lost a lot of health. Luckily there is a way to move without the danger of getting attacked yet again. The spear sitting on the western camp however, disappeared.



I move the chariot closer to those barb units to help out the slinger, the archer and spear move as well. Next turn, the Aachens settler will move out and it needs protection.
The sword in the east eliminates the barb camp and gains 50 gold. However a barb horse archer sits right behind it. I will need to retreat to safety there soonest. The gold that I made, is invested into the tile that will form the Hansa from Frankfurt. Frankfurt switches to a trader that will take 5 turns. Production is boosted 5% due to the additional district amenity.

The big turn will be the next as I will finally gain Apprenticeship and Frankfurt as its biggest benefactor, will get a big boost in production. The trader production should drop by one turn. It will also be the time to show how much a Hansa will cost. Judging from a new CH that I could drop at Seoul, the cost factor is currently 2.5. With a Hansa base cost of a mere 30 hammers, it should be around 75, which both Frankfurt and Aachen should be able to make in around 5 turns.

As for Great People points, so far nobody has Great Merchant points

Oh, I almost forgot, I am offering TheArchduke cotton for 30 turns for 50 gold. Not too sure, whether he needs it, but it is worth a try. The additional gold should give me the chance to upgrade that slinger and still have sufficient gold for a potential warrior -> sword upgrade.

[Dreylin]

Settler is planning to head SW?

A trade route between Seoul and Frankfurt might give you most of what you need for roads because of the shape of the mountain range, and you can check it from Frankfurt before shifting the Trader up to Seoul.

[Singaboy]

T71:
Apprenticeship is done. TheArchduke accepted my trade, but the 50 gold I asked for aren't here. I hope they appear next turn. I could really use those 50 gold to upgrade the third slinger.



The settler in Aachen is done and starts its journey south (takes 6 turns). Seoul finished its granary and resumes the walls, done in 5 turns.

Time to drop the Hansas. Unfortunately, the cost has risen to 81 hammers and it will take both Frankfurt and Aachen 6 turns to complete. I have no clue where to drop a Hansa and CH at Seoul. It's dry there and there are hardly any bonuses to gain from. Seoul is really only good for strategic purposes.

Anyway, the compounding multipliers are awesome and this is what is the result in Aachen for its Hansa:

In Frankfurt, the production is 5 hammers. I wonder whether the CH eventually reflect the added districts. If I am not wrong, Aachen's CH should make 4 gold and Frankfurt's CH 3 gold thanks to districts multipliers. We shall see. In Frankfurt, I stay on course for the trader done in 3 turns.

The situation at the end of the turn. I have plenty of troops in the south to protect the settler and start to work on those barbarians.

I am also leading now for the GMP with 1.1/60. It will take a while before I can gauge whether I can get that Great Merchant. As for the bigger strategy, I am thinking of swapping civics to produce a few builders and chariots/archers/horsemen after the settler in Ulm has been done. I will need a strong army as a deterrent against attacks from the west. I need to improve the land around Aachen, Ulm and Frankfurt as well as the new cities. After that, I could switch back to Colonization to produce another pair of settlers to fill the gaps in the east.

With the envoys, that I will gain soon, I could ensure suzerain status of Preslav for added production in encampments. The suzerain bonus is additional +5 strength for mounted units when fighting on hills. Might come in handy. Another strategy could be to spread my envoys to enjoy those basic goodies such as +4 gpt or +2 culture pt.

For technology, once I have Engineering and machinery, I would aim to get stirrups (knights) and then the techs for musket men.

PS: The gold from TheArchduke is actually there, I forgot that I spent 64 gold for buying that tile in Frankfurt on T70

[Dreylin]

Seoul's Hansa could go on the Rainforest to get the eventual bonus from the Cotton, and then the CH north of both the Campus and the Hansa?

I think where to put Envoys might depend what you think the others are likely to do with their neighbouring CS; will they cultivate or capture? Also, can you get the 2:1 deal on envoys. You will certainly need to secure Preslav at some point to guard against someone else suddenly turning it against you.

[Singaboy]

I checked my production and Aachen could produce a builder in 2 turns following the Hansa. Maybe I should produce 2 builders there, while Frankfurt is buildings its Hansa.
One of the builders could go north to improve some tiles around Ulm (bananas, mine the hill, chop rain forest), the other goes south (mine a hill at Frankfurt, connect the second horse at the new city).

Then, both Aachen and Frankfurt can produce some military to deter my opponents. I will eventually need a battering ram too.

By the way, if I get the Great Engineer, it would give free classical and medieval walls + pay for its maintenance. This would be awesome for a city that sits right with the enemy in a potential war, such as oledavy's capital or so
The Great Merchant gives three charges of 60gold + a free tile connected. Would be very neat to connect some 3rd ring tiles for free. This great Merchant is in fact worth (60 + 100)*3 gold. Quite awesome

[Singaboy]

T72:
A rather quiet turn waiting for builds to finish and barbarians to be killed

My retreating sword doesn't get attacked by the horse archer and further moves onto the mined hill. A spear moves there to support and take out that horse archer soon.
In the south, the wounded slinger moves into Aachen's territory and I promote it netting the Eureka for machinery. I have a healthy archer and chariot there to take out those barbarians before finding the camp that has to be hidden in the SE somewhere. I want those 50 gold, too.
The settler moves towards its destination covered by a warrior. It will found the new city in 4 turns.




Looking at the scores, TheArchduke's military strength went up a notch while oledavy's declined. Wounded units will reduce your strength in score, hence I assume that Archduke might have hit oledavy during the last turn (he also needed a long time thinking about his moves). I am haply as long as none of the two gets the upper hand. Once I have finished my settler and infrastructure phase, one of them will be my target for expansion. Ideally, by then I have x-bows and quite some cavalry (horses and chariots/knights paired with swords).

For my traders, I am thinking of taking up Dreylin's great idea of having a Seoul - Frankfurt trade route. I am pondering to change the Ulm - Aachen route to assign it to the new city to get it to grow faster (first build should be a monument to get its borders to expand faster). By then Aachen has a Hansa + Encampment resulting in 1f3p for the route. By the way, I am not sure, whether the trade posts created by the Ulm - Aachen route will will add 2 gold to the Seoul - Frankfurt route. If not, I might go for Seoul - Aachen only as the second route should pass Frankfurt too.

As for the timing of civics swap, it gets a little tricky. I will get a new civic in 3 turns, but ideally switch policies in 4 turns once the settler is out of Ulm. I might have to swap to another civic for 1 turn to delay this.
I would want to change to Ilkum from Colonization and maybe get the policy to produce cavalry with 50% bonus.

In the GP 'race' I now have 2.2/60 points for the Great Merchant with no competition so far. I have noted for a long time, that oledavy's Great Scientist is stuck at 53/60 ever since I pillaged the campus
At least some reward there.

[Singaboy]

T73:
After all the war drama, this is what I am seeing when opening the save. Now, I do hope that none of them will turn against me but rather, turn their attention toward Woden, who now has 5 cities (all of us have 4 cities) and keeps on running away.

The other news is that I get an envoy but I am not going to use it just yet. I rather wait for another envoy to secure the next level bonus from Preslav. Since, both my neighbors are now not fighting each other, I am confirmed in my view to build up a deterrent force after the districts and settlers have been done.


None of the barbarians attacked me. They merely shifted about. Even better. At Frankfurt, I shift the sword south onto the forest and the spear onto the horse tile expecting the barbarian horse archer to climb the hill. I do hope that a double attack will be enough to take out the horse archer.
In the south, it is time to take care of those barbarians, one by one.

I move the wounded archer, so that it can be protected, yet shoot at the spear. 

I then move the other archer NE to be able to attack the spear and protect the wounded archer from a warrior attack at the same time. This leaves the spear seriously wounded for the chariot to mop up the unit. Not only do I get an easy victory, it also gains the chariot enough exp to get a promotion next turn

The barbarian warrior can now attack either my healthy archer or the chariot. In the end, it won't stand a chance anyway. I do hope the warrior busies himself with the archers so that my chariot can move and promote and then take care of the barbarian camp that is still hidden.

I also start to move a sword out of Seoul to head east in preparation of the Ulm settler to be escorted NE. A quick calculation tells me that the settler will need 5 turns to reach its spot. If all goes well, I will have 2 more cities in 9 turns.

Let's have a look at the Great People this turn: There is stiff competition for the second Great General, but all of us are still far off the 120 points. Fpr my next campaign, I would love to have this GG.

As for the Great Merchant, nobody makes any points yet but me. I hope to keep the early lead. Once, I have produced more military units and builders in Aachen, I am going to start on the CH there. Markets are of course, also very attractive. I do hope, I will be in good position for the Great Engineer too due to the Hansas.

[Dreylin]

Looking good.

Which spot is Ulm's Settler aiming for?

[Singaboy]

I was planning to plug the hole between Seoul and Hattusa, hence the settler will move NE to settle there. The remaining two settlers for the east can wait until I have a better military to fend off any attacks from the west.
I might also aim for Hattusa eventually, even though oledavy would hate it. If TheArchduke stays friendly with me, I would want to go after oledavy after the expansion phase.
Maybe he instead goes after me

I also realized that I can shorten the Hansa in Aachen by 1 turn if I do work the stone instead of the wheat. I will swap next turn, so that the settler in Ulm is done the same turn as Aachen's Hansa. I can then switch policy cards to Ilkum and to Maneuver to produce builders and horsemen.

With Maneuver (+100% for cavalry), three envoys in Preslav, the Hansa done, Aachen can produce horsemen (80 hammers) in 2 turns. The only limiting component here is unit maintenance, as each horseman will effectively cost me 1 gpt. Maybe I can produce 3 horsemen and 3 more chariots (they won't cost any maintenance with the right policy). 6 such units should give me a lot more mobility and safety.