Suboptimal IV: Indonesian Insanity

[suboptimal]

Turn 66

I’ve been using pasteboard.co for screenshot storage but it seems like anything I’ve uploaded since yesterday is not working correctly (I get a “server not responding” error), even though anything prior to Turn 65 works fine. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? I suppose I could go back to my PBEM 3 notes and see how I was sharing from my Google Drive….anyway, on to the turn. I won’t include any screenshots for the time being while this gets sorted out (but I’ll be taking them for later posting). I see that CMF is using imgur….perhaps I’ll sign up there for the time being...

Open the save to no notifications other than Archery completing. Over at Nan Madol Woden has been able to advance next to the city with a hypaspist.




I still can’t get in there because of a blocking warrior and that warrior can’t go anywhere because an archer has moved in from the SW. The shame of it is that if I could move in I’d be able to kill his unit. I also can’t go around because I’m hemmed in by two Macedonian archers, though one is on flat ground and might not be able to see me. I could promote to Tortoise and then go around the hill. The good news here? Nan Madol is building walls and it has 13-14 per turn before any city-state bonuses. That’ll be faster than Woden could possibly take the city with the current logjam of units. (I hope)

He’s also moving on Carthage with a warrior and an archer.




The city is under siege because a barbarian scout is to the SW. This is starting to fall apart here. Up at Pella his warrior has fallen back. Select Horseback Riding as the tech (2 turns to completion) and start working on what to do.

It might be useless or too late now, but I begin moving the missionary towards Nan Madol. My units there will stand by helplessly as the AI blockades me in. If I get lucky the AI will attack Woden’s hypaspist and force some sort of retreat.

Over in Scotland I move the warrior west to expose the coastline between Emon and Nicodranas. Both cities would be susceptible to Jong bombardment, so that’s something to file away for later.

Over on the island I give the barbarian camp another whack, trading 26 for 25 damage. I’ve realized that I can just sit tight now, heal, and let the quadrireme kill the spearman as it goes by. My quarireme moves to the pearls at Punky’s and the settler comes out to meet it. We’ll be at the landing point in four turns. Punky’s chariot moves north and the city starts another. Builder at Sound puts down the Kampung for 4 era points and more food, production and housing.

In other international news, Archduke and Woden have reached Political Philosophy. Archduke is in a Classical Republic while Woden is in Autocracy. I’m actually a bit surprised at the latter choice.

[suboptimal]

Turn 67




Nan Madol has walls up! Woden is in for a surprise. He is also attacking westwards but I think with the walls up he may be forced to back off. If he kills that warrior with his hypaspist he would most certainly lose it. I bring the missionary forward; three more turns and I can start converting the city.

Out west my quadrireme starts escorting the settler to the island. Archduke is making his way along the northern coast as well, but he’s now two tiles ahead of me. I have to think he’s working towards the circumnavigation era points. I bring my warrior at the camp down towards Stockholm. For the time being I’d rather not have Archduke see the warrior and it’ll also give me a read on Stockholm’s force composition. I’ll move back up once he’s by (next turn) and then heal while the quadrireme takes out the camp.

To the north my galley defogs the island and finds incense. It doesn’t look like there’s much else here and the entire island (so far) has no fresh water.




At Boxer the chariot passes through the city. Depending on what happens at Carthage I might send it up there to try to clean up one or two of Woden’s units. His warrior and archer are both -4 to combat strength from injuries.

Up at Pella I see that the Nan Madol levy has expired, as that unit has turned back to city-state control and advanced into Macedonian territory. That effectively means that you only get 29 turns of levied use since the first turn they lose all their movement points and are not usable. That will also give Woden a second Nan Madol related surprise. I do check envoys (just in case) and I’m still the only one with envoys at Nan Madol. I still have the Carthaginian swordsman, though, and move that west. It’ll cross the river next turn and then hopefully head for the pasture.

Galley in the east crosses the sea to start heading along the southern coast, at least until it runs into borders (which, actually, will stop Archduke from circumnavigating at Korea). As expected, the Nan Madol warrior has fortified for lack of any way to get home.

I think the chariot builds at Sound will head for Old Friends and sit there until upgrade time. There’s simply no room at Nan Madol to upgrade them. They’d also be able to cross the river at no penalty and have only one line of hills in the way.

Next turn HBR completes, Sound finishes its first chariot and Punky’s grabs the marsh to its SE. I’ll probably work that tile for a few turns to get the population back to 4.

[suboptimal]

Can anyone see the screenshots embedded in the Turn 67 report? Pasteboard.co seemed to be working again so I used that. If no one can see them I'll switch back to imgur going forward.

[Cornflakes]

I cannot see T67 screenshots

[suboptimal]

OK....I've updated with imgur links and will use that going forward.

[suboptimal]

Turn 68

Horseback Riding is complete. Start the slog to Stirrups. Focus goes to Nan Madol:



taken after my moves here as the first one didn’t take

He’s rotated the uninjured hypaspist in and the archer’s been wounded, presumably by the city center’s ranged attack. I bring the non-promoted swordsman forward. I assume I’ll sustain two attacks then I’ll take the Tortoise promotion to deal with the ranged attacker, who will most likely have to back off at some point given the AI’s preference for hitting ranged units. Woden doesn’t have Military Tradition completed so gets no flanking bonuses. The missionary closes in. I also see that Archduke has put an envoy into Nan Madol.

Over at the island I see that Stockholm has an archer that’s emerged from its territory. Its warrior has also moved towards the camp. I send my settler/quadrireme along the coast, see that Archduke is sufficiently past my position and move my warrior back to the camp. If I get lucky the Swede will attack and I’ll finish the camp off. Up north the galley continues around the island. Found another 13 plains forested hill and some wheat, but no fresh water and no nearby sea resources. There is a fish resource two tiles NE but it’s across ocean. Dunno if I’ll be able to reach it from here or not.

Back at the home front the chariots advance, northern one towards Carthage, southern towards Old Friends. Woden’s warrior at Carthage is redlined (under 20 damage left) and the archer is in the 50-60 damage range.




Looking north of Pella the Nan Madol warrior has left Macedonian territory. Woden has a builder with his warrior, I’m assuming for a chop of some sort. I cross the river with “my” swordsman and we’ll see how he reacts.

Over by Scotland Archduke has a settler out of Nicodranas. It wasn’t there last turn but I saw from his scores he had one out somewhere. He’s clearly settling to try to corner Australia and will likely try to claim the whales.

He’s also got swordsmen out somewhere as all his city defenses are up. The galley heads south...hopefully I won’t get cut off by Australia’s borders taking this route. If the southern route is clear I’ll try to bring the quadrireme along this route to get it on the Macedonian front.

Moves complete, Sound starts another chariot. At Punky’s I move a citizen from the unmined hill to the marsh. This doesn’t affect the production time of the current chariot but does bring the time to city growth down to 3 turns.

I take a look around and it looks like Woden spent some gold last turn – he had 75 in hand at +5 per turn and is now down to 34.

Also just noticed the mini-map puts a pulsing green dot on whatever tile the currently selected city/unit is in. If you enlarge the picture it’s visible to the NE of Boxer as my northern chariot is currently selected.

[suboptimal]

Turn 69

No notifications to start the turn. To Nan Madol we go:




Woden is backing off. Good. With room in front of me I advance to occupy the northern first ring tiles. I’m still going to convert the city as planned for that extra bit of insurance. I’m sure that he’ll be back once his Great General is recruited, unless he changes focus to Carthage. Speaking of Carthage:




Yep, he’s going there. I think my heavy chariot will need to hold back here. I’m going to hold it just outside Boxer’s borders until friends arrive.

Up at Pella, Woden has chopped and the Nan Madol warrior is now threatening the builder. The Macedonian warrior has retreated, most likely into the city. I bring the swordsman east onto the hill and find a promoted archer on the pasture. It’s fortified and has a support bonus, so Woden has completed Military Training and has moved the warrior to the SW of the archer. If he shoots I’ll advance to the farm and then either promote in place or attack the archer, depending on how the numbers look. The sword is one combat from a promotion and would only suffer 20hp of damage from the archer’s initial attack.

Down at Sound the chariot continues advancing towards Old Friends. I think that I’ll send Sound’s next chariot north to Boxer to have a group of three up there given the current containment at Nan Madol.

On the island at the start of the turn:




It’s a party! Quadrireme and settler move up to the dismebarkation point and the quad fires on the camp. Warrior finishes the job and I now have enough gold on hand for one knight upgrade (plus two era points). Now I just gotta figure out how to deal with that archer.

In the north the island holds a surprise:




Well hello there, Grenada! +2 more in the capital for units, they want the inspiration for D&P () and we’re the first to meet them. All of the land south of the warrior is coastal, including the tile it is standing on. The river to the NE of the galley is habitable and beyond the range of the city-state’s reach. I don’t think there’s another city-state up here as I’m near the top edge of the map but I’ll keep going around the island anyway. There might be a good hideaway spot up here.

Over by Scotland I head south with the other galley. Nothing new there yet.

Internationally, Woden will have is Great General (Hannibal Barca) in three turns. He also came across 60 over the last turn and has lost a population so has a settler out. The only place that looks good to me would be the river east of Carthage. Australia will have its Great Prophet in three turns as well.

Cornflakes, I know we don’t want to spend gold but would a sword upgrade be worthwhile here from a survivability standpoint, given that it’ll let me pillage without too much concern for the unit? Based on income projections we’d have about 350 as of EoT 79 if we upgrade the warrior, 420 if we don’t. We’d have enough for two knight upgrades as of EoT 80 and if we Magnus-chopped the crabs at Boxer post-Stirrups we’d probably have enough for a third upgrade 4-5 turn later, depending on the actual chop value. A sword would also have an easier time taking out another barb camp if one spawns on the island. Personally I’m inclined to take the upgrade because the gold we spend now can be worth 120-160 (or more) later.

One other good thing to come – Sound will claim the forest 2N of the city center in two turns. The next second ring tile it would take is the coastal Yosemite tile (121) though I’m not sure how many turns that would take.

Regarding Woden, his milpower is comparable (250 for us, 231for him) but he’s a bit distributed at the moment – ~45 at Pella, ~81 at Carthage and ~122 retreating from Nan Madol. I’m still trying to get a read on his income (was +5 per turn until the 60+ infusion this past turn) but I think he’s too spread out to mount an offensive somewhere, even with the Great General. He also still has no idea where, exactly, my borders are.

[Cornflakes]

Remind me when will we have Mercenaries for half price Knight upgrades? Sword upgrade on the island should be fine. On defense, 2 knights should be sufficient. Hold the upgrades until Professional Army if at all possible. Did you move your slinger towards the northern front yet to be upgraded to archer if needed?

Around Nan Madol, are you planning to fortify your swords there on the 2 tiles north of NM? They should be able to maintain those tiles easily until the GG arrives, and even then will be difficult to dislodge with terrain + fortify.

Alcázar improvement from Granada might be a useful improvement once Feudalism unlocks 5-charge builders. Each Alcázar provides the equivalent of a monument culture. They can let us turn flatland tiles into culture powerhouses.

With +4 towards units, the capital might want to go on perpetual unit production. Trader? Builders?

[suboptimal]

If we get two more farms down by T80 we'd have Feudalism EoT80 and Mercenaries around EoT89. That calculation included most expected population growth and new sources of culture, including a new shrine at Punky's (completes EoT79).

The slinger is currently garrisoned at Boxer.

At Nan Madol the swords will be fortifying and then hanging tight. With the +6 fortification bonus, +3 difficult terrain and +5 DotF once converted they'll be defending at a CS of 50. Archers would only be able to attack from adjacent tiles or the deer camp in the mountain pass. Between the defensive strength and healing 15 damage per turn they'll be there for quite a while.

I'll upgrade the sword on the island once the city is founded. In looking at Stockholm pillage-farming looks like a good idea. However, if we pillaged it out after it completes the library (total pillage of 160+) and then tried to take the city it'd give us an immediate boost of +7.2 (monument + 2 coastal districts, 4 pop), +2, +5 (+1 Campus, +2 Library, 4 pop) and have 4 and two 13 tiles second ring, along with another iron resource if we needed it. That's too juicy to pass up. I think I'll start attacking the city with the quad as soon as I start pillaging and then finish it off with the swordsman. If anything that'll get the quad a promotion.

Putting down a few alcázars at some point sounds like a good idea. There's one flat tile at Sound (either the plains by the Holy Site or the grassland NW of the city center; one's getting farmed) and there will be a second once I chop out that forest to the north (for a temple with Magnus). The rest are desert and rather useless.

The capital has two more chariots to get out - one is out next turn and then one more three turns after that. The city could scratch-build a builder or a trader in four turns right now. Perhaps instead of chopping out the trader on the island I go trader (EoT73) -> chariot (EoT77) -> builder (EoT 82) -> chariot (EoT88). That would give us six chariots prior to getting Mercenaries and the builder could be completed under Serfdom. Gotta get a couple of plantations and get the fishing boats and kampung going.

For unit positioning I'm thinking to put the bulk of the chariots around Boxer, upgrade and then attack Macedonia via Carthage. I expect that if Carthage is attacked by Woden that the city will try to get walls up but not be able to do so before Woden can conquer it. If he keeps it I'll try to liberate it en route to Alexandria (or perhaps keep it for myself). Amani will be relocated to Lisbon if/when the city appears to be about to fall.

Another issue to figure out -- how many more settlers and where should they go? The small island to the north with the river had two hills and two crabs but not much production. Maybe there will be a good production location up by Grenada. There's the original island location as well as the locations on our own landmass (south of Nan Madol and midway between there and Old Friends). Lastly, there's the unorthodox spot north of Lisbon on the coast. My inclination is for three more settlers - one to capture the remaining Yosemite science/gold on the island, one for the location south of Nan Madol and one for the coast north of Lisbon. That last spot is right on top of Korea but with the plethora of resources (two truffles, two second ring crabs, second ring desert sheep and who knows what on the other side of the river) over there it might be worth doing. The next settler would be 200 or 280

It looks like Pasteboard has shit the bed, so all screenshots prior to Turn 65 seem to be gone for the time being. If you need me to repost any screenshots let me know and I'll get the images up via imgur.

[Cornflakes]

The capital has two more chariots to get out - one is out next turn and then one more three turns after that. The city could scratch-build a builder or a trader in four turns right now. Perhaps instead of chopping out the trader on the island I go trader (EoT73) -> chariot (EoT77) -> builder (EoT 82) -> chariot (EoT88). That would give us six chariots prior to getting Mercenaries and the builder could be completed under Serfdom. Gotta get a couple of plantations and get the fishing boats and kampung going.

I like this. Do you have harbors unlocked to take the island chop instead of the trader (coastal district for culture)? Downside is loss of Carthage vision. Upside is reducing science yield to Macedon as well as another needle in their backlines that can cause a distraction for some of their military.

Amani will be relocated to Lisbon if/when the city appears to be about to fall.

Would it make sense to shuffle Amani to Hattusa in order to cause it to declare war on Macedon?

For unit positioning I'm thinking to put the bulk of the chariots around Boxer, upgrade and then attack Macedonia via Carthage. I expect that if Carthage is attacked by Woden that the city will try to get walls up but not be able to do so before Woden can conquer it. If he keeps it I'll try to liberate it en route to Alexandria (or perhaps keep it for myself).

Will knights be enough of an advantage to win an offensive war vs. Macedonia? They will still be in their "golden age" so to speak of military might with GG-boosted UU. Their GG-boosed horsemen will be about equal in strength to our knights and short of overwhelming numbers I don't think we would fare well. I think your previous analysis to stay defensive is the right course of action, using our economic advantages to eventually outpace Macedon. The question then is this: What is the next big break-point in terms of military that would allow us to overwhelm Macedon?

As Indonesia we have a unique advantage through our Frigate UU, namely that we can ignore the expensive naval techs of Cartography + Square Rigging. Looking towards the middle and bottom of the tree there are Muskets and Cavalry. Strength-wise muskets aren't that much of an improvement over Knights, but the biggest problem with Muskets is that they are slow. There is no maneuverability with Muskets. Can't fork cities, and also can't bring as much force to bear simply because you don't have the movement to surround enemy units. Cavalry aren't much of a strength improvement over Muskets (which Macedon may be able to acquire about the time we can make our attack) but have the maneuverability which Muskets lack.

Just spit-balling here... what would a straight beeline to Cavalry look like after Stirrups? (side note, probably hit Celestial Navigation first if not already acquired). Engineering [walls at Boxer, ] + Machinery [have to build 2 more archers + upgrade slinger] + Printing [skip eureka, but the visibility grants +3 CS immediately] + Construction [maybe skip eureka?] + Castles [Monarchy should be unlocked] + Siege Tactics [skip eureka] + Military Science [make sure you kill something with a knight]. Skip Currency + Mathematics + Apprenticeship + Cartography + Square Rigging. Disadvantage of deep beeline in R&F is the penalty for researching techs ahead of the game era. It is likely that everything from Machinery onward would get a 20% penalty, and Military Science may even get 40% penalty:
- Engineering 200 base, 140 with eureka after 20% penalty
- Machinery 275 base, 200 with eureka after 20% penalty
- Printing 490 base, 588 without eureka after 20% penalty
- Construction 200 base, 240 without eureka after 20% penalty
- Castles 390 base, 273 with eureka after 20% penalty
- Siege Tactics 660 base, 792 with eureka after 20% penalty
- Military Science 845 base, 761 with eureka after 40% penalty

Total of just under 3000 . At our current rate of science that would be 150 turns. But based on your calculations for science pillaging we can make up a decent portion there. Science rate will be increasing as well but this is probably not feasible. Muskets would be only 3 techs away after Stirrups:
- Construction 200 base, 240 without eureka after 20% penalty
- Military Engineering 390 base, 468 without eureka after 20% penalty
- Gunpowder 490 base, 686 without eureka after 40% penalty

Total of 1394 since none of those eurekas could be achieved on a direct beeline (maybe Armory could be chopped out with dedicated effort??). Picking up Engineering and Machinery first for a combined arms approach may save as many beakers as it costs due to allowing the world era to advance and dedicating some production to an Aqueduct and Armory.

Maybe knights attack is best? Or maybe no attack at all (or for a very long time?). Can we out-build Scotland and Korea and ignore the expense of capturing un-developed Macedonian territory? I'm out of time for analysis now and may not have more time for a while. Hope this gets some creative juices flowing.