[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Turn 67

Open the save, Drama & Poetry is complete. I swap Diplomatic League in for Charismatic Leader and start Mysticism. If I meet that commercial city-state this turn and get the first meet bonus that should give me two envoys. I’ll be getting one next turn from influence points and one in three turns from Mysticism. Depending on what the commercial city-state is I’d consider putting an envoy in Brussels to get some extra infrastructure production in LinCon.

Let’s try to meet some new people. I figure Woden’s got to be near Istanbul since that appears to be Jester’s only city and he’s lost a district to pillaging. I move the scout southeast onto the hill and do meet someone new:




Not who I was expecting. They want me to trigger the inspiration for Recorded History. Jester and Unmet Civilization each have 1 envoy here.

Down in the tundra the warrior moves eastwards. There are forests in the way so that introduction will wait until next turn.

At Acorn I place an Acropolis on the hill directly east of the city center. Likewise LinCon drops one SE of the Government Plaza. Both have a build cost of 53. Speaking of Acorn, the city is now at 5 population. It’s also unhappy given the amenity situation, but with the road in place from the trader I’ll be putting a camp down next turn to fixthat.

I move a couple of units around (builder, warrior) and fortify some others.

Hit end turn, hear the meet city-state cash register.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Pin would have been pretty happy being essentially on his own island - but one that he has free passage out of.

But yeah, it seems Archduke was right to call for a reroll/withdrawal.

[suboptimal]

I had thought that as well, especially with scientific and commercial city-states all to himself. It definitely would have appealed to my inner builder However, I think the lack of any fresh water until aqueducts would have hampered growth & development significantly.

[suboptimal]

Turn 68

Open the save to the notification that we’ve met Bandar Brunei and that they want me to recruit a Great Engineer. Pindicator, not Woden, was the first to meet this city-state. Since I have an envoy available to me from influence point accumulation I place it here for the extra . The warrior moves northeast towards the coast and finds a fur resource. I check the continents map and this is actually a different continent (Europe).

Up at Acorn the warrior is complete. I’m going to send it north to picket the mountain pass while the northern warrior defogs the area southwest of Tukohama Reborn. I start building the Campus, 7 turns to completion. The builder puts a camp down on the ivory, giving me a little more per turn. Interestingly this reduces the city’s time to population 6 from 6 turns to 5 due to the gain in amenities. The builder is going to move back to the city’s northeast to chop the forest in a couple of turns – Engineering will complete the turn after next and I want to get an Aqueduct down for the housing. The will go into one of the districts. I send the fortified warrior west – I want to defog the coast south and west of Bologna.

Down at LinCon the wheat gets farmed using the builder’s last charge. There’s one turn left on the water mill, and 6 turns on the Ancestral Hall. I check out the numbers on food vs. production times – moving the population from the sheep & horse to the wheat now only adds one turn to the build time of the Ancestral Hall and I’ll gain another population the turn after that completes.

I decide to break fortification at LFSR Campus and send the warrior to the east. There’s a river valley on the edge of the fog that I want to fully uncover. If there’s a luxury resource over there I’ll most likely want to get a settler over there.

Over in Jester’s neck of the woods the scout runs into a small mountain chain. However, city borders can be seen on the other side, so I know where I’m headed next.

I think once I get the Ancestral Hall competed I’m going to go into an expansion phase and have all three cities build settlers. LinCon’s will go to the central location just east of Acorn. LFSR’s settler will go to the river valley or into the banana patch directly north. At Acorn I’ve got two options – to the west to obtain one of the marble resources or north to plug the mountain pass. The problem with west is that the only spot to settle and have an Aqueduct available puts the marble in the third ring and thus expensive to purchase.

[suboptimal]

Turn 69

The water mill at LinCon is complete and Construction gets the boost. For some reason yesterday I thought the boost was for Engineering. . Engineering is now at eureka + 1 so I switch to Archery. I’ll finish that, Horseback Riding and then either Engineering or Construction. LFSR will build walls after the library in order to get the eureka.

That does leave the question of what to do with the builder’s remaining charge at Acorn. I could put down another camp but for +1 right now it hardly seems worth it. Without the chop needed immediately I decide to park the builder in the city center. It’ll chop the northeast forest once Aqueducts are available.

LinCon will grow in 5 turns with the added food from the water mill. I resume the Ancestral Hall. North of LFSR an Incan warrior looks to be checking things out:




We’ll have to see where Pindicator decides to move it next turn. I move the warrior NE onto the jungle hill for the time being. He does have a settler out at Tokuhama Reborn – his science & culture went down a bit and the city’s population dropped to 6.

In the far east the scout learns that the mountain chain continues straight into Jerusalem’s territory:




Looks like I have to backtrack and go around Jester to the north.

Mysticism and Archery complete next turn. With Ancestral Hall finishing in 6 turns I think I will set things up to start a settler push in 7 turns. I’ll be able to put 3 turns into Games & Recreation and then finish Military Tradition for the civics swap into Colonization. Acorn’s Campus will be done in 6 turns and LFSR can finish the library (2 turns) and a hoplite (4 turns). That will put all three cities in a position to crank out settlers.

[suboptimal]

Turn 70

Archery completes, Horseback Riding in four turns. Mysticism is also in. I start Military Tradition and hold onto the envoy for the time being. The overflow from Mysticism will leave Military Tradition left with one turn to go as of next turn. I’ll swap over to Recorded History next turn then back to Military Tradition when I need to get Colonization in. I take out Discipline and put in Insipration. I want to ramp up GS points for the time being to get ahead of Jester and to make sure that Pindicator doesn’t lap me for the second GS. In 5 turns I’ll be producing 5 GS points per turn (2 from the policy, two from districts and one from the library). Either of the Classical Age scientists after Euclid will help out quite a bit (Aryabhata – three random Classical/Medieval eurekas; Hypatia – instantly build library and libraries are +1).

In the west a Bolognese warrior has moved in my way, so my warrior there makes minimal progress this turn. Other warriors in this half of the world make their appointed moves and the one north of LFSR fortifies in place.

The warrior by Bandar Brunei moves north and I find this:




The “Atlantic Ocean” is actually an inland sea. The fog to the west of the warrior is all over the ocean. I’ll keep moving east, staying to the north of the city-state.

[suboptimal]

Turn 71

Open the save to the library at LFSR completing and earning me an era point. I start a hoplite in LFSR for an overall city-defense boost and to get some more era points. I also swap out of Military Tradition and start Recorded History. It’s 13 turns to completion for now but the completion of the Campus in Acorn will shave five turns off that.

Up north the warrior moves southeast and finds an interesting mountain formation:




I must say I do love how Gathering Storm lays out mountain ranges.

North of LFSR, Pindicator has brought down a second warrior. Not sure what he’s on about here, though if it’s hostile I’m sure I’ll find out sooner rather than later. I do decide the hoplite can wait and set LFSR to a warrior that will compete in 2 turns. If Pindicator does get aggressive I’ll have something to upgrade into a swordsman to deal with the incursion. To the east the warrior moves onto the jungle hill…




I gotta find out what’s on the other side of that mountain to be sure if I’ll settle here or not, though having two stone to harvest is a bit enticing. You can also see what I was referring to about the Incans. I wonder if he’s sending a setttler down through the pass?

In looking at the planned expansion coming up I’ve realized that LFSR should not attempt to build any settlers. Acorn would be able to build one and LinCon, at +100% to settler builds, would complete two (or even three) in the time that LFSR would get most of one done. Therefore the plan will be to produce one settler at Acorn and two or three at LinCon depending on how the city recovers population and what’s NE of LFSR. The question then becomes where do they all go? My available options:

- Bananaland, SW and E of the bananas north of LFSR.
- Somewhere to the NE of LFSR, provided there’s a luxury near the cattle resource.
- Somewhere west of Acorn with a marble second ring, probably 2SW of the marble (bonus: Sailing eureka)
- The central river valley, SE of the wheat. There’s a spot that could potentially become a +4 Industrial Zone (with an Aqueduct, Commercial Hub and some mines).
- North of Acorn in the pass, provided Pindicator doesn’t settle the other side of the mountains first.
- The north-central river plain near the stone NW of LFSR

If there are no amenities available by the cattle NE of LFSR The marble west of Acorn is a must, but I think I’d just grab the marble, stagnate the city and slow-build a Campus so as to not consume any amenities immediately. The other two would be at Bananaland and the central river valley. Bananaland would have good growth and the central location could prioritize an Entertainment Complex and make a run at the Colosseum. If the cattle does have an amenity I think I crank three settlers out of LinCon and settle four cities. Either way I think that would be the extent of empire building unless I can locate an accessible coastal luxury (if any exist).

[suboptimal]

Turn 72

First thing to check is what’s going on north of LFSR?




If he’s dropping a settler here it’ll be on the forested hill NW of that warrior – it’s got fresh water and is the closest he can put it to the city. It would also invalidate my planned spot at Bananaland (or any other city site north of LFSR). However, it’s only been three turns since Tukohama Reborn dropped in population so there wouldn’t be one over here unless he built two. We shall see. In the meantime the warrior checking out the eastern river valley learns that the NW stone sits within a mountainous dead end. It’d be a nice +5 Campus location once the stone was mined, so perhaps if Bananaland does get taken off the settlement queue I go there. Gotta see what’s north of the cattle, though.

I have a drought notification, but it’s affecting the western part of Jester’s lands. No biggie for me. I move the scout straight into it. Elsewhere around the map I reposition a bunch of warriors, finding nothing of interest to report other than the coast SW of Bologna probably dead-ending in a mountain.

Warrior and Horseback Riding complete next turn. Construction will start unless I feel like being threatening and do Iron Working first. Looking at Great People it looks like Pindicator will recruit Euclid in four turns – he’s at 51.6/60 making 2.3 per turn. I’m at 27.7/60 and making 4.6 points per turn. That will have me at 60 in 7 or 8 turns depending on rounding (7.02 turns using one decimal place), though that time will come down after Acorn completes its Campus in three turns. The city is also growing in population next turn and will acquire one of the 22 jungles in 5 turns.

One last note – it looks like Jester is down to an archer. He lost two units (dropped from 86 to 50) on T71 and dropped to 25 on T72. He hasn’t lost any cities but his time is up, methinks.

[suboptimal]

Turn 73

Horseback Riding is in, get an era point for it. After looking around for a bit and seeing nothing alarming I allow Construction to start (it was pre-selected). Pindicator is sending his warrior southwards towards LFSR. I move the just-completed warrior onto the Campus and fortify. Since he’s being pushy with his warrior I send my northern warrior east along the mountains towards Incan territory. He’s also increased his milpower to just under mine (187 vs 184). If I see another increase I’ll finish Iron Working and do some upgrades. Nearby the exploring warrior moves east, nothing interesting. I’ll have to move two more turns, one to the cows and one to the forest NW of there, to fully see if the area is worth settling. I put walls into production so that I can get the eureka for Engineering. They’ll take 9 turns to complete, though if I stalled the city’s growth I could finish them in 6. No rush right now.

In the west I fortify a warrior in the mountain passes north of Acorn. The warrior on the coast is blocked from going in the direction I want to go (west) so I go northwest instead. Next turn I should be able to defog enough to confirm the dead end on the coast. The city has picked up a new population and all available workable tiles are being used. For the time being growth rate is slowed by 50% as the city is one below the housing cap. The Campus there will complete in two turns.

Scout & warrior in the east find nothing to report.

In looking at the tech tree I could complete Stirrups in 18 turns. If I were feeling violent I could, in theory, spit out a couple of chariots, upgrade to knights with my cash reserves and go pillage Incaland. Of course, that’s in theory. I do need to keep in mind the possibility that Pindicator, with his superior tech rate, might try the same thing though he’s a bit more cash limited right now (5 per turn vs my almost 15 per turn).

The Ancestral Hall is due in 2 turns. Next turn I’ll switch back to Military Tradition to finish that EoT74. I’ll make the switch into Colonization and get Acorn and LinCon started on settlers to get the expansion going. In working on some dot-mapping this is what I’ve come up with:




The current five-city plan:

- Out west that city will found, buy the marble and then I’ll quarry, put down a Campus, and chop a jungle or two in for some population and to speed up the Campus. This city’s growth will be stalled at 2 or 3 due to housing and I don’t know that I’ll let it get bigger due to amenities. This will be Acorn’s first settler. Actually I'll settle the city on the jungle hill and put the Campus SW of the geothermal vent (+3 adjacency )

- North of Acorn a city founded on that tile can only be attacked from the tile directly north as the jungle blocks line of sight. A Campus and a fortified unit will protect any eastern approaches via tunnel. There’s also the possibility of putting an Encampment SE of the marked Campus for the same purpose. This city will take its time growing and have a Campus as its first build. This would be either LinCon’s third settler or Acorn’s second (quite possibly the latter).

- Out at Bananaland the city will be placed as marked. The builder will plantation both bananas and then chop the jungle where the Campus is marked. If I get the timing right the chop will go into the Aqueduct. This will be LinCon’s first settler.

- The central city is still subject to planning changes but that’s what I’ve got. The stone will be harvested to go into the Industrial Zone. I also have an Entertainment District and the Colosseum marked. This would be LinCon’s second settler.

- Not shown is a potential fifth city NW of Bandar Brunei. I could settle on the ocean coast 2W of the furs, buy that tile in and then build a Campus between the furs and the city center. That would be a third builder out of LinCon.

Hit end turn and a barbarian camp has appeared judging by the sounder. Might be some culture in my future (or my expansion plans might be put on hold).

[suboptimal]

Turn 74

I find the barbarian camp spotted notification waiting for me. Where is it? Why, within 5 tiles of horses:




That’s annoying. I’ll need to figure out what I’m going to do about it. LinCon could spit out a warrior in two turns (maybe one turn with the overflow from the Ancestral Hall) so I may do that and then complete Iron Working before building a settler there. I’ve also got two slingers to upgrade into archers in the event I need further defense. The city has also grown a population which the city put onto the sheep tile.

At Acorn of course the Bolognese warrior moved to the tile that I wanted to move to. Oh well. That lets me move the warrior to the coastal hill to look around. I confirm the dead end, so that’s good. I reposition the map tacks here to account for the NW shift of the planned city. Up north the warrior moves closer to Incaland and I locate Pindicator’s source of mercury. The tile is controlled by Abberath.

Pindicator has also shown up with a settler north of LFSR:




I move the warrior into the clearing to block further southern movement. That will invalidate Bananaland as a settlement site if he settles in place. The warrior out east moves to the cattle and finds bananas to the northwest. I’ll start bringing the warrior back to LFSR next turn.

Over east of Bandar Brunei it seems the city-state has its hands full with something…




Dunno what that might be.

Up in the north it looks like my scouting has come to a dead end. I move north and see that there’s a potential route around the mountains, only to also learn that the tile has cliffs along its eastern edge.




I’ll have to send the scout somewhere else. I think I’ll go south of Brussels and then head for the eastern side of Incaland.

I swap civics back to Military Tradition. That will complete and Acorn will start its first of two settlers while LinCon builds a warrior to deal with the barbarians. Provided Pindicator settles in place I’ll lose Bananaland as a city site. I could put a settler over at that +5 Campus location site. I’ll see how the game develops after LinCon’s first settler is out. The central location will stay put – I’ll need that for one to keep the Industrial Zone within 6 tiles of my major cities. Shifting it one to the west is tempting – that’ll put the deer tile first ring for harvesting into a district. I also think that I’m not going to go through with the Colosseum idea – not enough production for it.

In other news, Jester has lost a city – his empire score dropped by quite a bit and Woden’s increased by a bit. Unwelcome but not unexpected.