[SPOILERS]Cornflakes (Rome) Round 3 Vs TheArchduke (Germany)

[Cornflakes]

Round 3 vs. TheArchduke! Essentially a re-start of Round 2 ...

   

Here's the start I rolled. Seeing the floodplain wheat solidifies my decision to move 1NE onto the plains hill both for the extra cog to city center tile, and the defense bonus.

   

Met Buenos Aires T4. The Suzerian bonus might come in handy given the Roman Baths will grow cities larger, and I expect war weariness to start stacking in later stages of the game. On the other hand, I'm not planning to build early building of any kind (and was kind of expecting to skip the early district for State Workforce eureka which is their quest).

More thoughts later ...

[Cornflakes]

   

I found this barb camp, already assaulted by Nan Madol. I thought "easy 50g's, just wait for Nan Madol to take one or two more shots and mop up" ...   nope, I sat that warrior in place for about 5 turns and Nan Madol never took another shot. I eventually gave up and moved on. I didn't want to attack for fear Nan Madol would do the same to me and snipe it after I red-lined the spear. So I decided to save the damage on my warrior and keep exploring. Fun fact, 30 turns later that barb camp is still alive 

Also seen in this screenshot, I'm following the barb scout which spotted my city. Learn from my mistake ... DON'T FOLLOW THE BARB SCOUT WITH A SCOUT OF YOUR OWN! Turned out to be a horse camp, my scout got trapped in zone of control and died a miserable death about 5 turns later after accomplishing exactly nothing except locating the barb camp. At least if I had been chasing with a warrior I could have fortified on defensive terrain and probably survived as I did in Round 2 (until TheArchduke finished off my warrior)

   

After seeing the barbs in the south and that other camp in the west, I decided I needed to get out another military unit before settler, especially having lost that scout (not quite dead yet, as you can see the dot illuminated in the south on the minimap). From here the slinger moved NW onto the forest-hill-behind-river where it could go toe-to-toe with the horsemen. It killed 1, promo-healed, and killed the 2nd. I decided to forego the Craftsmanship eureka, and hard researched through it to get Agoge slotted in. 

   

Here you can see the slinger after defeating the 1st barb horse, starting on the 2nd. The barb horse just sat here doing noting. I promo-healed on the next turn and then continued to pelt him with stones over the next couple. The horse archer showed up too and received the same fate (I actually paused in pelting the horse to take our the horse archer first when it showed up). The settler continued on it's merry way oblivious to the barb threat. Due to the rough terrain and the fact that barb horses start with only 3 moves, I was safe. If the horse had moved closer this turn I would have had to retreat the settler until I could get the warrior back to escort, but since it stayed in place I was fine.

In a moment of triple   I forgot to switch off archery after taking this screenshot, letting it complete before I got a couple more slingers out. Let's just say I'm trying a new strategy of preserving gold for Legion upgrades by hard building my archers    hey, that actually sounds reasonable

   

After escorting the settler to the city site, I sent the warrior and que-upgraded archer after it completed a couple turns later down to take out the barb horse camp before it could do further mischief. (and also to collect the 50g's for clearing it). The barb for some reason abandoned the camp, giving up fortify bonus on the spear. No complaints here! I gained the Military Tradition eureka here. Ended up leaving Military Tradition a 1 turn left for a future policy swap. Don't need either of the cards now, or the support bonus. I had just side tracked to it since I was waiting for the district to complete for the State Workforce eureka. Yes, I decided to slot in an early district. I met ANOTHER industrial CS which also gave me the same State Workforce quest. I'm planning to take out at least one or both of them with Legions, but in the mean time I used there combined +4 cogs to knock out the district for their extra envoys + eureka.

   

I did a little bit more exploring to the east with the Slinger, before sending him back to guard the builder from that barb camp. Timing worked out just perfectly. Farms aren't really the most exciting improvement when bumped against the housing cap, but combined they'll give me +1 housing. And the Jade mine gave me the eureka for The Wheel just in time. I'm planning to chase the bottom of the tech tree through Legions and Aqueducts before moving up to the top of the tree. Encampment district is almost complete at Rome. Coming into this game I wasn't planning on chasing the GGeneral, but it was the only district available on the bottom part of the tree. I'm kind of hoping that starting the GGeneral counter early will get TheArchduke paranoid so that he focuses on Encampments and projects to slow down his Hansas. I'm not planning to rush TheArchduke, but if he doesn't chase the GG and it lands in my lap 

I'm planning to go wide early for multiple free Monuments, with Legions for protection. My Legions early will have about the same strength as TheArchduke's GG boosted Swords. I'll use my legions to capture the surrounding city states ("free" cities with free monuments!) and protect my border with TheArchduke. I'm going to lay down early Aqueducts at my cities to grow them into hopefully an economic advantage. I'll let TheArchduke steal the first GG from me if he wants, then use the next GG for a Medieval or Renaissance attack hopefully with a little window of opportunity. I'm thinking tentatively bee-line Monarchy for the knight-boosting policy. I think Rome's culture from Monuments can propel me there in the time it will take me to research.

[Cornflakes]

   

I chose Lady of the Reeds and Marshes as my pantheon. I get immediate +1 cog on 2 tiles, plus another at Ostia in a couple turns, plus numerous additional marshes and floodplains in the surrounding area. I'm not planning to chase a religion this game so wan't interested in any of the faith producing pantheons. And my surrounding terrain didn't support any of the cultural boosting pantheons.

   

This is a good overview shot to explain my current short-term plans. First of all, if I understand the empire score correctly it looks like I am +1 population and +1 district compared to TheArchduke. I'm building another settler in my capital. This might seem like and odd decision to go with another settler before a builder at the capital. However I have an abundance of 2/2 tiles at the capital, and now a 4/1 floodplain rice. The 3 tiles a builder would improve are farm the rice for an additional food, pasture the cows for a 3/2 tiles (+1 food compared to the current 2/2 tiles I'm working), and quarry the stone. The stone quarry is really the only tile I want improved immediately. Much of the additional food would be lost anyway in completing a settler at size 5 as opposed to size 4 (~20f difference in regrowth cost for 3>4 vs 4>5). Yes growing earlier gets me some additional production from the extra citizen, but so will getting another city planted. Add to this equation the free monument at the new city and I think the settler outweighs the builder. In the next screenshot I'll show where this city will be planted.

At Ostia, the builder is complete, ready to start improving and meeting up with slinger as indicated in the previous post. Next up is a warrior to take out the barb camp for 50g's. With the 2 floodplain wheat Ostia is growing like a weed and will be perpetually bumping against he happy cap until I get an Aqueduct down. I'll need an Ancient Walls for the Engineering Eureka, but I'm not sure where those will be erected. Possible options are Rome, since it would also benefit the encampment, and would provide extra security to the capital which is game-over if TheArchduke makes a beeline there. On the other hand, due to our increased starting distance it is doubtful that walls at Rome would ever come into play. Another option is the new city, however that will have poor production due to low pop and will take a long time to get the walls out. I also don't know if TheArchduke is located to my east or west. The new city is slated for the east, and if TheArchduke is in the west the walls would be even more useless at the new city than in Rome.

   

Here is the slated new city out east. Long-term this is a relatively food-poor location, but rich in hills for production. Most of the hills are grassland so I should be able to steadily grow her. Short-term there is a nice 3/2 banana tile, with diamonds 2nd ring for another amenity and iron 2nd ring for the IW eureka.

[Cornflakes]

   

Political Philosophy is completed T43, which means I need to chose a next target for Culture research. In order to get the Games & Recreation boost I'll need to beeline Construction ASAP or I'll run out of civics to research in the mean time. In order to get the Drama and Poetry boost I'll need to build a wonder ASAP. I've been strongly considering the Pyramids. I'm planning to go wide with Rome and will therefore be needing many builders. The cost of Pyramids with the +10% government and +15% policy is 176 base cogs, but grants a builder worth about 45 base cogs factoring the the Ilkum boost to the builder cost. So real cost of around 130 hammers. But all builders from here to the end of the game get 1 additional charge which is a 33% boost now (around 15 base cogs/builder) and 20% boost post-Serfdom (also about 15 cogs/builder due to escalating builder cost and no more Ilkum). If I wait for my currently-in-production builder to quarry the stone for the Masonry eureka it will take me another 11 or so turns to build the wonder, or about 20 turns from now before I could achieve the D&P boost. If I research through G&R & Military Training and Defensive Tactics line I do have enough room in the civics tree to wait 20 turns for the D&P boost

Looking at the G&R boost I only have about 10 turns before my only Civics options are G&R and D&P, so I would need Construction technology within 10 turns. Not a chance in the world this is going to happen, I'll just have to hard-research through G&R. I would need Horseback riding + construction techs which combined are at least 12 turns even if I do get the boosts for them. In fact, I can't remember a single game where I achieved the G&R boost. Construction just isn't a high priority tech. Since G&R boost is not possible, Construction tech is definitely not a high priority, which in turn means I don't need to prioritize a water mill. Now that this is cleared up, let's look at the next builds for my cities. Ostia completed a warrior this turn and Rome completed the builder, nicely timed with the completion of Political Philosophy to give me a clean slate in terms of syncing current builds with the government type and policy cards.

Autocracy: +1 to all capital yields doesn't sound like much, but compared to my current empire output that is 10% of culture, 11% of science, 20% of gold, and 5% of production, +1 faith has essentially no value. In the future these +1 yields will have diminishing value as compared to future empire output but now they are nothing to scoff at. Looking at the policy slots, the Diplomatic policy of the other governments doesn't interest me much. Once I have legions out I'm planning to at minimum conquer Brussels and the cultural CS (might keep Buenos Aires around for the amenities bonus especially since I rolled a relatively easy quest as the Construction eureka). I could slot 2 military and 2 economic policies which sounds appealing because compared to Classical Republic would allow me to run both Agoge AND Conscription whereas I could only slot one of these into the wild card. Plus I'm planning to build the Pyramids so will actually benefit (if ever so slightly) from the +10% wonder ability. Realistically I'll probably benefit less since I'm considering harvesting the 2nd stone at Rome through Agoge to knock out a good portion of Pyramids.

Classical Republic: Policy-wise less appealing at present since I still want to be producing military and also want Conscription to save gold on my military. Also the +1 amenities benefits less now than it would later on since only Rome has a district built. Plus I'm not in desperate need the amenity now. +15% GPP doesn't benefit much either since I'm generating a grand total of 1 GPP/turn now. I'm thinking save this government for a bit later after I have Aqueducts down and have grown my cities a bit.

Oligarchy: Policy-wise inferior to Autocracy after massively-discounting the Diplomatic slot. The Oligarchy abilities are all related to combat which is irrelevant at present. I'll save this at least until I'm in a combat situation.

Therefore Autocracy it is! And now for the policies ... which ties full circle back into my decision for next builds at Rome and Ostia. Definitely want a builder at Rome so one policy will be Ilkum. In Ostia I'm going to defer the Water Mill for later. Top contenders, in no particular order, are (a) settler for the spot west of Rome, (b) builder for ??? not really anything for him to do now, © Scout to try finding TheArchduke, (d) warrior to boost military strength and for later upgrade to Legion, (e) Archer to boost military strength and for more immediate utility on defense vs. TheArchduke. Hmmm ... Do I dare rush another Settler out before some additional military? I am still ahead of TheArchduke in military ranking, but no I don't feel safe pushing out another settler when I still don't know if he is east or west. If that new city was definitely backlines then it would probably be safe, but as-is I'll slot in another warrior or archer first. The question is which?

Looking at policies so far, I'm slotting in Ilkum for the builder and Agoge for the [warrior or archer] leaving me 1 military and 1 wildcard slot. Military gets Conscription for +1gpt. Wild card can get Urban Planning and then I can go Warrior > Warrior > Archer at Ostia, and then in 10 turns when G&R completes I can swap Ilkum for Colonization and knock out the settler. This will get me all the early military that I need, the 3rd archer for the Machinery eureka along with a total of 5 warriors for later upgrade to Legion. Is it over-kill on the early military? Maybe, but it just works out so well policy-wise. And the large military score that TheArchduke see's when he meets me will hopefully solidify him into   ROME IS RUSHING!!! mode and cause him to get distracted from his Hansa's. In chess terms, I'm hoping to gain a tempo and maintain the initiative, forcing him to react in a manner that is inefficient to the strengths of the civ he is playing. The final policy selection:

   

   

Out west, I'm going to sent my warrior + archer to take out that barb camp for the gold (1/2 a legion upgrade!). The archer has a promo available, but I'll move a couple turns first until I can use the 2nd movement point to upgrade on the tile indicated. Then the next turn he can move forward and bombard the camp, saving 1 turn compared to upgrading ASAP. The warrior will move parallel, and then cross over on the turn the archer bombards. So the archer can get in 2 bombards before the warrior attacks, which should be enough to take out the camp. If not the warrior can wait a turn for another archer bombard. Hey, it's turning out not to be so bad that I accidentally completed archery 

   

Out east the settler + warrior are moving towards the new city site. I know many people don't like the movement rules in Civ6 where you need the full remaining movement points to enter a tile (as opposed to Civ4 where just 1 MP remaining was sufficient to enter any tile), but I actually do like them. In this case with all the rough terrain around I can keep my warrior out in front and as long as I can't currently see any enemy I don't actually have to remain on top of the settler. Even a 3-move scout can't move 2 tiles through hills ... unless of course it was promoted appropriately ... but that river would still cause an insurmountable obstacle to sniping my settler from the east without me having a turn of warning to cover the settler. I think that the movement rules create some more interesting tactical situations as well. For example, ranged units can sit on defensive terrain and have more protection against first-strikes from melee units. And putting it into perspective, archers and warriors in Civ 4 would only have been 1 MP anyway, so travel is not any slower than it was in Civ4. I do miss the ability to build roads, and I wish there was an easier way to build road networks than sending traders. A military engineer available at perhaps Masonry (for cobblestone roads) with the ability to only build roads might do the trick. Give it the ability to road towards an enemy's territory, or create additional parallel routes between cities rather than the default route chosen by the trader. But I'm getting off-topic, back to the game!

[Cornflakes]

Here's an interesting experiment I did:

   

Last turn when Political Philosophy completed, I noticed that a bridge did not appear over the river to the southeast of Ostia. On that turn I gave the warrior orders to move beyond the river. The warrior stopped at the river since it didn't have a bridge to cross. In the screenshot above the warrior still has the standing order to cross the river. The order will not be executed until I hit Next Turn. Also notice that the trader is on the same tile as the warrior, and it is currently en-route towards Rome. Right now without a bridge it would take the full movement points to cross the river since there is no bridge, but the trader also moves across the river at the end of the turn and should create a bridge at that time. My theory was that the trader would move first in turn order (was built earlier) creating the bridge, then the warrior would move and would have 1 MP remaining ...

   

Turns out this is indeed the case! After hitting end turn, I was taken to the screen showing that it was still Cornflakes's turn. I hit Start Game, bringing me back into the current turn where I still had 1 MP on the warrior. This only worked because I gave the warrior the standing order last turn, which remained un-executed this turn. This highlights a flaw in the trader's behavior ... I really do not like the fact that traders move at the end of the turn. In addition to this above-discovered fact that the bridge is only usable on it's first turn of creation when given a standing order the previous turn, it is very difficult for me to keep track of traders and cover them properly when threaded to be pillaged. If I place a unit on top of a trader on my turn, then at the end of turn the trader will move 1 tile in either direction. If I'm not paying close attention from turn-to-turn there is no way that I can see of identifying which city it is going to move towards. How am I supposed to adequately cover the trader if I don't know whether it is going to move right or left? If traders moved at the BEGINNING of the turn then both of these issues would be eliminated. Once a trader is en-route there are no orders that it can be given anyway, so there would be no downside to having them move first at the beginning of the turn ... except of course additional programming.

[Cornflakes]

WAR!

   

Nan Madol had a 3-charge builder ripe for sniping, and I couldn't resist the temptation. Upon further consideration I realized that there wasn't anything better for my current military builds to do than bring these quasi-barbarians into fold of civilization. I'll lose the +2 culture per turn, but gain that right back from the free monument as soon as I capture! This is by no means an awesome city site, but it will certainly pay for the effort.

I upgraded the slinger > archer at Ostia. The current warrior and next completed warrior will head up along with the upgraded archer. While waiting, the warrior + archer pair in the west will proceed to take out the barb camp before returning to participate in the city capture.

   

I noticed the TheArchduke's empire score shot up. I didn't see a notification for a defeated city state, and none of the great person counters have increased, so I can only assume TheArchduke settled a couple of cities.

Since we haven't met I can't do a comparison of our current science/culture/etc. rates. From score TheArchduke has 4 civics ... I'm assuming CoL, FT, EE, and Craftsmanship. I have 2 additional civics in SW and PP. TheArchduke has 4 techs. If I had to take a guess I'd go with Pottery, AH, Mining, and Bronze Working (with writing + archery left at 1T remaining). I have HA, archery, Mining, BW, Wheel

[Cornflakes]

Start the turn by quarrying the stone for the Masonry eureka. I'd just barely researched past 50% so this completes Masonry 

   

   

Out west, I raided the barb camp with the warrior while the archer healed in place. The other archer located an enemy warrior in the ice and bombarded it while the warriors advanced. Might have been better to hide the archer behind the hill this turn so that next turn I could have advanced with the warrior in front to prevent the enemy warrior from counter attacking against the archer. We'll see I guess.

Out east I settled the new city of Arretium as planned. It looks like the land west closes off to coast while it is opening up to the east, so I started walls here. The walls are primarily for the Engineering eureka at this point but will come in handy if it turns out that TheArchduke is indeed close to the east. Actually on settler view there is a RED tile to the east indicating presence of another city. I'd give 75% odds that's a city of TheArchduke, 25% odds of the final CS.

   

Settler view hasn't updated since founding of Arrentium. Those tiles shown as fresh water are actually invalidated by Arrentium, which means there may not been room for another city between us on fresh water. If that city is directly to the east as apposed to slightly north then there may be one valid tile 1NW of that RED hill.

T50:

   

Movements around Nan Madol. I have none to few military units in the area. I took out their warrior with my warrior and took a pot shot at their archer. Their archer + warrior could take out my archer this turn at the cost of their archer. How will the AI choose it's targeting? Also shown in the screenshot is the harvest value of the Deer. I could improve it with a Camp for +1 gpt, +0.5 housing, and +1 amenity through Buenos Aires ... or clear it for -1 cpt and 49 cogs immediately. I skipped the builders turn to think about it more. If I clear it I'll do it in 2 turns when the archer is nearly complete, and pour the overflow into something that can't be policy-boosted ... probably the water mill. Something to think about.

   

At Rome I harvested the Stone for 49 * 1.5 = 73 cogs putting the overflow into the Pyramids (30% of their cost) taking it to an 8 turn build. I'll leave the final charge on my current builders until the wonder completes, because I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that all builders with at least 1 charge remaining get the +1 charge retroactively. This additional 2 charges would essentially make the payback period immediate based on the previous cog analysis (current builder cost is about 75 cogs).

[Cornflakes]

Interesting developments in the last couple of turns:

   

T51 TheArchduke and I finally meet in the east.

   

TAD completed an encampment and is now chasing me towards the first GGeneral.

   

Nan Madol is knocked down to about 40% HP. I decided to bring all my force to bear. I will likely lose the archer next turn, but will then be able to finish off the city. I debated on whether to bring in the archer or not, but decided it was worth it to guarantee getting the city next turn. And I was likely going to lose the warrior to the combined counter attack of archer + warrior anyway. I also debated whether to target the warrior first before targeting the city. But ultimately each turn I delay is another shot I'm taking from the archer inside the city, so I went for fastest kill.

   

Barb scout appears in the center. I dispatch the archer to deal with the pestilence. I slot in Colonization and start another settler, probably for the spot in the south. I'm contemplating jamming this settler down in the eastern buffer between me and TAD. It would be a dry city next to a mountain for a future Aqueduct. Planted on a hill for the city defense. The reason I'm contemplating doing it now is because my power is currently vastly superior to TAD, on the order of about 150 to 60. I don't know if TAD has a couple units currently damaged or what, but he only had 39 military points when I met him 2 turns ago. I will have Iron Working complete by the time the settler pops out, so my thought is to upgrade a Legion and force the buffer city. On the other hand, I don't think that TheArchduke is going to plant a dry or coastal buffer city so it might be best to go for the much more productive location marked in the screenshot above.

I'm 90% certain I'll go for that location marked above rather than the buffer city. The plan would be to farm the wheat tile and the two tiles adjacent to the natural wonder to complete the Feudalism eureka which I'll need to procure very soon. This would give the new city plenty of growth as it builds its Aqueduct. This would also provide about a 25% boost in science and gold through working the natural wonder tiles.

   

Here's the latest out east. The RED settler-radar-tile identified last update turned out in fact be the last city state. Yeveran is looking like a pretty prize at the moment, and I'm thinking my first legion encounter should occur there, whether it be against the CS directly or lift it off of TheArchduke after he captures it. I imagine that TAD will be gunning to take out that city state very soon given it has completed its holy site now and is looking ripe for the picking, plus the German bonus vs. city states.

As noted, the German borders can be seen peeking out of the fog when I go into standard view rather than strategic. The buffer city location for reference would be on the desert hill if I did go for that plant, which I probably won't.

[Cornflakes]

   

Nan Madol decided to swap the archer and warrior rather than attacking with either. Therefore I was able to capture Nan Madol without losing a single unit  I had one extra warrior that wasn't needed in the capture, so I would have been fine even if NM had taken one of my units out as expected. I used the two yellow-lined warriors in the north to capture, and then moved the green warrior back towards Ostia to act as part of the settler escort along with the archer already in the area. Don't want to take any chances since that barb scout was poking around. After settling the city I'll send the archer + warrior to locate and eliminate the barb camp.

I don't have a post-capture screenshot unfortunately. The city has a monument and granary, each needing 3 turns of repair. I thought that the Rome ability would give me a monument intact. Oh well, I set the city to repair the monument first. I'll then probably repair the granary for the +1 food since it only takes 3 turns.

Pyramids down to 3 turns remaining.

I think I'll set the next target after Engineering to get Commercial hubs. The natural wonder will support my science for a while, and gold will be necessary for Legion upgrades & support now, and future Knight & Crossbow upgrades. I'm still thinking skirmish with TheArchduke in the Legion era, force TheArchduke to respond with classical military build-up and chase the early GG. I'll focus on infrastructure, laying down another city or two in my backlines, and capturing the city states.

It occurred to me that if I let TheArchduke take the 1st GGeneral I need to be careful to stay out of the Medieval era, otherwise the next GG will be Renaissance/Industrial which I do not want. On the other hand if I'm going to be entering the Medieval era soon then it could actually be very advantageous to lock down the early GG and force TheArchduke to wait until Renaissance ... especially since I'm thinking late Medieval to time my attack. I'm thinking late medieval primarily because I want to get out in front of the Hansas before TheArchduke has time to completely develop them and get his production edge. On the other hand, If I'm able to establish and maintain a solid and favorable front then it may be in my best interest to backfill and build up the area south and west of Rome, take the Renaissance/Industrial GG and make the military push around the Cavalry era. Something to think about in the coming turns. We are so close to knights already that this may be the better way to go. I'll most likely enter the Medieval era via Feudalism in the next 10-15 turns since my culture is teching pretty fast. Also in 3 turns I'll increase culture 30-40% through Pyramids + NM monument repair, and another 10% when I settle my next city about 5 turns later.

[Cornflakes]

   

I decided to harvest the Deer resource on the current tile where the builder is, as mentioned previously. The options for this tile are build a camp for +1 gpt, or harvest deer + + forest + build mine. The mine will have the +1c boost from Apprenticeship in 20 turns max returning it to it's current 2f/3c yield. I therefore harvested the deer into the archer for +50% > overflow to 1-turn the Watermill. Given the Pyramids +1 builder charge, chops & harvests only cost 1/4 of a builder now rather than 1/3 thus increasing the value of chops. Pyramids completion was this turn, as indicated by the icon to the right, and due to the 2 free builders from Nan Madol the immediate extra charge on my then 3 builders made the Pyramids payback time virtually immediate 

As shown in the screenshot above I then cleared the forest for +50% into the settler, and overflowed into a Granary. I decided to do a Granary even as Rome for a couple of reason. First of all, I'm currently at the happy cap and it will still be 10-15 turns before I have Engineering complete (still waiting for the walls to build for the boost). 2nd of all, this city with 2 floodplain wheat and a soon-to-be farming triangle will have plenty of food to grow even considering the Bath extra housing. 3rd, current housing is 6, +4 for bath is 10 which will grow me to 9 without penalty, but the +2 from the granary will allow me to get to 10 pop easily for the Civil Service boost.

   

T58 I see that TheArchduke has declared war on Yerevan and put it under siege but not yet attacked. I'm Suzerain of Buenos Aires who has multiple units in the vicinity. I therefore decide to declare war on TheArchduke so that B-A's units can hopefully cause some havoc and maybe kill a unit or two. Over the next 2-3 turns I dumped 2 more envoys in to solidify my envoy lead at 5 vs 2 from TAD and prevent him from easily turning the tables on me. Shown in the bottom of the screenshot I have a worker on the Iron tile, but without enough gold to upgrade yet I hold off on improving so that I can chop into one final warrior to overflow into a Commercial Hub once Currency completes.

   

Germany made short work of Yerevan    With my walls completing soon and B-A's units running around to occupy TAD for a few turns I'm not to worried about border security, but none the less I'm going to beef up my border patrol with a couple more units just to be safe. My border patrol will also serve the purpose of protecting Buenos Aires from capture/raze by Germany as well if TAD pushes forward.

   

Here is where I chopped into one final warrior before mining the Iron. Warrior was chopped into a Commercial Hub on the tile indicated, a 5-turn build. The forest will be replaced by a mine which will get the Apprenticeship boost in about 15 turns. By the time Apprenticeship completes I'll have about 8 mines being worked empire-wide so it will be a definite boost in production capacity.

   

And here's the situation around Yerevan ... Buenos Aires didn't make much of an impact. They haven't even been able to kill the lone Slinger in the north or a single warrior in the east. I guess the +7 boost for Germany vs city states is just that powerful. This highlights my need to provide military support if TheArchduke pushes ahead to try and take out B-A. I have the three warriors shown in the screenshot, plus another warrior + archer pair incoming which should be more than sufficient. If needed I can upgrade a warrior > Legion, but I will have Mercenaries for 1/2 price Professional Army upgrades in 15 turns so I'd like to hold out for that unless TAD forces my hand.