[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It looks the relevant question is speed - how essential are those three turns? 

Obviously, if we have the leeway, nearly 400g is far better. That's 7 turns' worth of income, and having more units available will go a long way towards stopping Kaiser, or even letting us think about offensive action somewhere? Obviously, we can't take any cities, but maybe English-style pillaging is on the menu? Probably a pipe dream as well, but having the units alone will be useful.

So, how likely is it that Kaiser attacks in the next 12 turns? And how quickly are you forced to make a commitment one way or the other - is there a point at which we could swap to the "emergency" track and get the Engineer out as rapidly as possible, in order to boost Ballistics and get our Cuirassiers/FC out? 

My own inclination is to gamble that Kaiser won't attack in those three turns, or, if he does, we can preserve our forces and cities long enough to hit the late upgrade. He's been timid for the last, well, while, and just took a big military hit from suboptimal, who is apparently back on the offensive after some reorganizing and regrouping. My gut tells me that Kaiser is not contemplating an immediate offensive now - he'll need to respond and repulse these English invaders first, then regroup to come after us. Canada has kept for 150 turns at this point, a little longer won't hurt. I don't think the danger of Ichabod faith-sniping Adam Smith is too great, either. He hasn't updated his thread since Woden attacked, which signals to me that he's largely checked out and is mostly playing to hurt Phoenicia at this point, rather than engaged in frantic min-maxing to squeeze every last drop.

One final factor is the saved production. I've not got a feel for good gold/hammer ratios with the production penalty in place, so I don't really know how valuable it will be to use gold instead of cogs. If you think the 1/3 of a campus or traders that much sooner are worth the 3 turns and lost military units, then it's a good investment. But my instincts tell me to wait 3 turns for the bigger payoff and accept the risk of Egyptian attack or Brazilian obnoxiousness.

[williams482]

We have to decide now, basically, because that engineer is already in progress and every hammer invested is wasted if we do decide to purchase it. In an emergency situation we can stop building the engineer and just buy one instead if we decide we really, really need Ballistics and are willing to take an efficiency hit to get it, but we also won't get any of the faster trade route or merchant benefits in that case. A big part of the accelerated timetable comes from scoring Smith (and thus boosting Mercantilism and swapping to Professional Army) faster, and that part doesn't come into play with just the engineer purchase. I guess that leaves us with a "last minute change of plans" point at t172, just enough time to crunch out a fifth investments project and get Smith on t179, but that wastes ~150h on an engineer we'll struggle to find other uses for until railroads (unless we want to finish that damned road to Bortus!)

You make good points about the likely impact of the delay. Kaiser, if he has an attack plan, is unlikely to execute it until England is no longer a problem and/or the Bruins encampment falls. Those walls are going to take around 15 turns to knock down anyway, and then he'll have to bring some additional muscle to defeat the encampment itself because he'll be dealing 17 damage per turn while it heals back 20. In other words, our decision here determines if we get industrial units just before or just after those walls fall and the need for a less passive assault becomes obvious. That could be relevant, but more likely than not it won't be, and our upgrades will come soon enough that Bruins itself should be reinforced in time regardless.

I've tried to figure out a way to turn those extra ~100h at Bruins into 390g worth of tangible value, and in the short term at least it's not happening. It's worth noting that money past our first 2,345g (the cost to upgrade every unit in our army, plus two faith purchased swords) will be spent much less efficiently, but burning 390g moves us from right around that mark to meaningfully short of it.

So in conclusion, purchasing the engineer is an inefficient allocation of resources, and the strategic situation does not merit paying that price. We will stick with the hard built engineer plan, targeting mass Merchant project completion on t181 to grab Adam Smith, upgrading units on t182 or t183 depending on urgency and tech/civic overflow considerations.

EDIT: Brief addendum: suboptimal's trader actually finished the Bortus/Kings road for us just a few turns ago. I'm not sure if easier movement across that river will favor us or not in an upcoming modern war, but it will be very relevant if Kaiser does eventually try to attack on that front.

[williams482]

Turn 169:

Printing completes:



We are also 10 turns from the Industrial era, and 9 era score shy of normalcy. We will get one era point each for completing a harbor at Red Wings, a Holy Site at Wild, and an Entertainment Complex at Capitals. Kings can complete it's Industrial Zone in 6 turns with overflow and still complete the investments project on our t181 target, same deal with Blues' encampment. That makes five points. We start research on Military Science, our first industrial tech due in 8 turns, so that's six. If Red Wings expands to the floodplains wheat tile (border pop in 2t, tilepicker currently on that tile) and we throw a farm on it, I believe we'll get one era score for "rebuilding after a disaster." Call that seven. Sadly, the threshold for a "splendid" industrial zone is +4 adjacency or higher, the one we're building at Kings is only +3. Same deal with the Holy Site, it needs +3 but is only +2. No help there. Adam Smith won't get here until the era has turned over, and anything we could do to accelerate his arrival would come at the cost of completing districts.

Instead of chasing Military Science, we could take a 6 turn detour to Buttress (already planned on, to increase project yields) and Cartography (boosted in 4 turns when Red Wings completes it's harbor). That would allow our exploring warrior to enter ocean tiles, and properly positioned should be able to finish circumnavigation without issue:



That is worth +3 era score (unless we are somehow first, in which case it's +5). That is exactly enough for a normal Industrial era, and critically important for preserving loyalty in our cities. I change research to Buttress.

The Egyptian front is back to normal:



No change to the encampment defenses, Kaiser took a turn to promote his bombard (presumably to Crew Weapons). More interestingly, Suboptimal (I assume) has made significant progress attacking Geneva:



That's not good for us at all. Wild is at +5.8 loyalty with no pressure at all from the city state, and shouldn't drop into negatives from that alone, but that's with Normal England and Dark Egypt. if one or both of them manages to land a GA (and I have no idea how to tell if they will at this point) things are going to get very precarious for us there. We can chop some marsh and jungle to get another pop point or so, but that might not be enough, in which case we truly are doomed. Entirely by accident too, if I'm any judge, because as we've been saying for about 100 turns now, Suboptimal could have made our loyalty situation completely untenable by settling Avalanche and simply growing the city, but he has evidently decided that getting bigger is overrated.

Woden, as it turns out, actually did settle a city with a bunch of tundra. He's also just started on St. Basil's Cathedral, the wonder that makes tundra actually good.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

NOT LAST IN EMPIRE SCORE WOOOO

now we only trail Ichabod by 8 technologies, 5 civics, 11 great people, and 5 wonders. And a religion. And lots of era score.

Good call on the loyalty. I wonder if Sub decided Egypt was too tough a nut to crack, or if he's simply pulling back to start at Geneva? He looks to have naval superiority so he SHOULD be able to bombard at least Egypt's capital. I also wonder why he still hasn't settled Avalanche, or ANYWHERE ALONG THAT FERTILE EASTERN COAST JESUS CHRIST

swap our and sub's starting positions in this game and I'm curious how it shakes out.

[williams482]

Turn 170:

Buttress completes. I don't get a screenshot because I dunno. Suboptimal completes Stonehenge?



With all the prophets taken (one by him) that will net him an Apostle, presumably of his own religion. I guess that's one way to accelerate religious spreads.

Kaiser, being a total jerk again, has retaken suzerainty of Bologna, in the process denying us 6 beakers per turn. Our usual shot of the Egyptian front is a double feature today, revealing that Kaiser has resumed firing on the encampment (now 235/300) and backed off one of his musketmen, and Suboptimal has put together a raiding party:



Four cavalry haven't a prayer at taking any cities, but they can probably survive well enough to burn damn near everything around one of them, and haul in some serious cash and faith in the process. Kaiser is short on funds (311g in the bank and only 18 gpt!), and many of the units we've seen on the border are obsolete. He may have trouble dislodging the English raiders at all, and will certainly struggle to chase them off before they pay for themselves. Good move at the tactical level too, stretching Kaiser's troops between two fronts (assuming the coastal assault continues).

Speaking of, Geneva will clearly fall next turn:



As for domestic concerns, Research begins on Cartography, ostensibly due in 8 but should actually complete in 5 because it will be boosted by the Red Wings harbor. Blues completes Grand Master's Chapel, earning a governor promotion (expected) and apparently a policy swap (huh?), and sets to work on it's Encampment. Stars is done with it's monument and sets to work on it's Campus, due in 22. It will expand to the Niter tile next turn. Better than that, the builder at Red Wings puts down a Niter mine right now, boosting Rifling and pulling in +4 niter per turn.

For the governor promotion, I briefly consider Liang's Zoning Commissioner promotion (+20% to districts, would shave a turn off Kings' IZ), but the obvious choice is Magus' Embrasure promotion for double city strikes and a free promotion on the swordsmen we are going to faith buy in there. Our next governor title from Smith will likely be spent on Defense Logistics, but I'll consider other options.



Wild has two turns to spare (will finish HS + project on t179, target completion date t181) so I have Bruins swap off the incense and steal another plains hill. That cuts another turn off the engineer build without the trade route, and hits a breakpoint almost exactly such that sending an internal trade route from Bruins will not accelerate the Engineer any further. Thus, the trader from Blackhawks will go to Red Wings for a foreign route to England, ultimately swapping 2 gold and 1 faith for 16 gold and 1 science, a very reasonable exchange.

It looks like Red Wings is going to claim the fish tile, not the flood-boosted wheat. This is inconvenient because we'll need to buy a tile to get the "improved disaster enriched lands" era point. If we are forced to buy a tile, however, the right one wouldn't be that wheat tile (we don't need more food in Red Wings right now) but the 3f1h tundra hill second ring of Stars, which would be a 3f4h tile when mined. This is a better yield than the adjacent niter tile, and that's a resource we don't have a desperate need for more of now that we're pulling in +4 per turn already. Because we're Canada, that tile will also host half as much to purchase, just 65g. Well worth the price to avoid a dark age. Hooray for tiny, tiny advantages.

Theoretically I'd like to take advantage of this inexplicable free policy swap, but we're running all the cards we want right now anyway. Urban Planning feels inefficient at this point in the game, but it's actually essential to finish timing-dependent builds in multiple cities, and thus it stays. Retainers likewise out performs Veterency, it's only econ-relevant military card competitor, keeping all of our cities content when several core cities would otherwise be unhappy. Blues is also apparently suffering from 3 points of War Weariness, which is unfortunate but unlikely to change any time soon. I hope Kaiser is similarly inconvenienced given his losses.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Finishing government buildings does grant a policy swap. Sorry, I thought It Was Known. One of those little details I sometimes forget about.

With Geneva falling, is Wild doomed at era flip? Assume, best case, we are in a normal age (I know it's dead either way wtih a dark age) and sub is in a golden age. Curtains? Or could we rejigger policies to hold it? I know we can get +4 with governors and units, plus perhaps a bit more with Magnus in Bruins...

[williams482]

Turn 171:

Geneva is no more. Now Barry stands in it's place:



Loyalty pressure on Wild is less affected than I had initially feared, falling from +5.9 to +4.1, but of course age changes and pop growth will make things worse from here.

The Egyptian front:



A pike & shot has withdrawn from the front lines near Burke, leaving only a musket and another P&S guarding the border, some distance apart. Encampment defenses down to 223/300. Suboptimal has spread out his cavalry, likely positioning them to tag team the P&S outside Bortus, or perhaps to make sumultanious runs at tile improvements within the borders. Kaiser is likely unaware of their presence.

Blackhawks completes the trader and starts an investments project, due in 8. I'll have to swap off it for two turns before finishing, but there's nothing useful we can build in two turns so we'll just build this to near completion and decide the next thing then. Penguins completes it's university and starts a Trader, due in 4. Red Wings has in fact claimed the fish over the floodplains wheat, and is slated to take that wheat in 11 turns. Fast, but not fast enough, so we spend 65g at Stars to purchase and mine that tundra hill, granting us a very nice 3f4h tile and a critical +1 era score:



Aww yeah, Canadian bonuses. 

Should we swap off Mercantilism yet? We're slightly under half finished with it, and it shows as having 7 turns left. The tech costs 720 clefs, so half of that is 360, and the boost is worth 288. That means we have roughly 72 clefs worth of unboostable research left to do, meaning one more turn to waste nothing, and another if we decide getting the tech on the same turn we boost it is worth losing ~44 clefs, a decision we can put off for a bit.

I made a minor miscalculation at Capitals, the Entertainment Complex was on track to finish the turn of the Era rollover, but we need the era score from completing it the turn before. Stealing the sheep from Penguins and planning to put down a plains hill mine in two turns will get it done in time. From there we'll have one charge left, either for a lumber mill at Penguins or the Niter mine at Stars. Another wave of builders would definitely be nice, but we're probably going to have to wait for the Public Works card at Civil Engineering for that, likely 20-25 turns out.

Our exploring galley stumbles across the city of Osgiliath, from which we learn some interesting things:



Note the two Casa De Contratación builds (slightly offset from the pins): Kaiser is obviously going to win this race, likely in the next couple of turns, while Woden started relatively recently but has definitely sunk some real production into it, so it's not like he just threw it down for a free road. Woden recruited Filippo Brunelleschi, he of two 315h wonder charges, some time back, but he must have been used by now. Even if not, he'd have to be on top of the wonder right now to give Woden any confidence in making up that gap. Thus, I think we can be pretty confident in assuming that Woden has no idea Kaiser is so far along on this wonder, which means that Woden is either not paying attention to the map (doubtful) or never actually explored up to his current border with Kaiser. I'm not sure what strategic benefit we can glean from this information, but it's certainly interesting.

Finally, I must express my displeasure that "Gondor" has been used as a city name (the rightmost harbor in the Gulf of Gabes belongs to it, as does the Plaza and the mountain 3SW of the Moria pin). Gondor is a country, basically, containing multiple cities including Osgiliath and Minas Tirith. I don't see Minas Tirith or Gondor on the tradeable cities list, which means A) Gondor is the Phoenician capital, and B) the name for the capital of Gondor was ready and waiting. Similarly, "Rohan" was used as a city, while it's capital of Edoras was not. Tisk tisk, Woden.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Osgiliath is a mother-lovin' beautiful city.

[williams482]

Turn 172:

Woden completed Jebel Barkal in Rivendell. Our encampment is down to 213/300. As anticipated, Suboptimal killed the Egyptian Pike & Shot:



In theory it would be nice to try to set up to steal some pillage rewards for ourselves, but in practice Suboptimal will see what we're doing and get to any tiles first, and even if he doesn't our units will be the ones Kaiser will be most able to kill. We need every unit we have alive for upgrades; an extra 115 faith or 230g isn't worth a dead courser.

Having completed it's Holy Site, Wild starts on it's Investments project. Our trader in Red Wings selects Foggy Dewhurst from a list of very profitable destinations and sets off: 



Civics research changes from Mercantilism to The Enlightenment, which barring some rather extraordinary stroke of fortune we will not be able to boost.

Our explorers confirm that Gondor is in fact the Phoenician capital.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 173:

Cartography has been boosted. Our Silk + Wine for Jade + Whales deal with Phoenicia has expired, plunging several of our cities into negative amenities and even pushing Bruins into negative loyalty (-3 loyalty for unhappiness and -4 for starvation pushes it to -2.1 overall). I can only hope that Woden has been similarly harmed, and is willing to extend the deal:



Our encampment is down to 203/300. Suboptimal's troops have pillaged and burned, and either killed or (more likely) chased off Kaiser's musketman. The Aqueduct in John Lamar has also been repaired, just in time for Suboptimal to pillage it again:



And that's not all:



Suboptimal now has double Kaiser's military power, and is bringing more troops forward. I am highly sceptical that he'll be able to make meaningful progress against cities, with the possible exception of the lightly fortified Burke, but he should be able to do some serious pillaging. Suffice it to say we should have little to fear from Kaiser in the immediate future, plenty log enough to get our Industrial upgrades done. Also noteworthy, Ichabod has passed Woden (by a whole two milpower points) and we know all of Ichabod's power will be terrestrial, while Woden has ships. We might see a real shift over there if this trend continues.

Red Wings places a discounted Entertainment Complex (would take 8 turns) but starts a Lighthouse, due in 6. I shift some units around, pulling a knight and a horseman south to get some extra amenities from the Retainers policy while it's active and Kaiser is in no position to attack us. I'd like to get an Entertainment Complex down in both Blackhawks and Bruins for eventual Zoo coverage of the rest of the empire, but that's a long ways down the road.

Scores: