Suboptimal IV: Indonesian Insanity

[Cornflakes]

that Is cheaper than I expected for the levy. Since your galleys have a delay due to barb Quad and other things to explore in the west I think you will get sufficient return on your investment. And as you say, they start well on the way to new territory while if you built a scout it would have a long slog over rough terrain to get that far. Levy and send both exploring. Eastern one can head east while the closer one can head more north angling past Carthage. Knowing your neighbor(s) and proximity can better guide your decisions.

I don’t think it would take much to make an island plant appealing for the first Monumentality purchased settler. Now that you will have 2 levied warriors in the east I’d go for the north Dye and east coast as 3/4 (could see them in either order). Island city gets the advantage of coastal culture + faith over an inland river plant. Find an island location with good chopables and that’s about sufficient.

[suboptimal]

Operation Rent-a-Dagger will go into effect next turn. I don't even need to have the units return at the end of 30 turns, I could just leave them up there, wherever there is.

Edit: if we find an opponents undefended city with the rentals should we move in to attack and raze?

[suboptimal]

Turn 37

The barbarian quadrireme has disappeared from view. Last turn’s military builds moved us up to second in the Civ 6 milpower ranking at 58, with only Archduke ahead of us.

Over at Punky’s the galley is at 62/65. Switch back to the builder and a higher production configuration by working both the copper and the forested plains. The city shows that it will grab the fish next, but this may move around a bit. I move the capital’s slinger out to genius cows to check the strait, then back to the city center and still don’t see the barbarian ship. Builder positions for next turn’s chop.

I move the galley around the island to the north:




That’s a very large lake (I re-checked on Settlervision). Choppables remain scarce and it’s all plains (the tile SW of the marsh is actually a desert hill).

Up north I move the warrior up the coast towards the stone and find...another coastal stone. Yeah, Masonry is getting slow-researched because I’m not planting a city all the way up here just to get a quarry.

In the east a barbarian scout, complete with exclamation point, has appeared out of the fog to the southwest. I remain fortified. If it belonged to the camp I killed it will suffer more damage in the attack if I remain still and keep the +6 fortification bonus. If it didn’t belong to the camp it should be in recon mode and leave me alone.

Out at Nan Madol the plot thickens. At first I was wondering how a warrior wound up SW of the city in the jungle, then realized they built a new unit on the interturn. The cost to levy increased to 120 gold. I don’t think this changes “the math” any. For the cost of a scout (and currently 8 turns of income) I get three fully functional warriors for the remainder of their useful technological life. I’ll be able to cover quite a bit of ground with them, have the option of using them to inflict first-strike casualties upon an opponent and possibly earn some of the gold back if I find any barbarian camps. I levy the units and I’ll be able to move my Rent-a-Daggers next turn.




Cornflakes, my plan is to move these northwards in a loose pack – the western one along Carthage, the eastern one along the coast and the southern one up the middle. If we come across a player opponent with enough time left on the clock some sort of strike is probably the appropriate action to take with these units.

[Cornflakes]

Are 3 warriors enough to capture a player city? Seems a little weak for an attack. Settler steal may be possible, or just pillage their 2 city states. 2 pasture pillages and you get the levy gold mostly repaid. Find a quarry to pillage and you shave a couple turns off classical government.

You could use the 3 plus your norther scouting warrior to capture Carthage ... except that is an unimpressive city location. On the other hand your capital will soon start building the Holy Site and so won’t be getting the bonus production anymore. Repaired monument will quickly acquire the 2nd ring Banana tile, and perhaps you will get lucky with a cornucopia of resources in the still-fogged 2nd ring tiles

[suboptimal]

An player's ungarrisoned, non-capital city has a defense value of 10. Three warriors could take such a city in two turns, three if the damage rolls are bad and there's no siege. Heck, a capital caught unawares and ungarrisoned (defense value 13) could be taken out in three turns. A city or capital garrisoned with a slinger is still probably a 3-turn kill. There's also Oligarchy to consider, which we'd be able to have for about the last third of the lease. I think that if the opportunity presents itself to inflict damage against an opponent, be that razing an undefended or poorly garrisoned city or killing off a couple of land units it is well worth considering it.

I agree that Carthage isn't in a good spot. No fresh water, no resources, no production, 2 jungles and 1 forest in the 1st & 2nd rings for chops. The bananas are also third ring (see T13 screenshot). It does have a granary under production based on the city graphics. The second ring spot on the other side of the mountains would be a +3 Campus location. The one thing that's going for it is that it's in an ideal spot to seal off the northern land approach to the core. I'll be able to get all four warriors there for an attack in about 10 turns, during which the closer ones can scout out the area north of the city.

As for the Holy Site at the capital, the way the math works out State Workforce would complete EoT46 regardless if we built the district or not as we'd have to put two turns into Military Tradition while we waited for the inspiration. Building the district delays the settler build by 6 turns but starts the GPP generation earlier. However, we'd also get Military Tradition and flanking bonuses just in time for a Carthage assault (T47-ish).

[Cornflakes]

Flanking does not apply to city attacks (found out the hard way in PBEM 11). I think it makes more sense to bypass carthage, and if anything make an attack on a player or one of their city states. I forgot that players have lower starting city garrison strength than city states so that looks doable. If you do pursue was, you could even continue with the northern scouting warrior on the warpath and bring 4 warriors into the fight. Bronze Working will reveal Iron meaning you could settle city #3 for Iron and upgrade your warriors after capturing 1 city in order to press the attack further. In another 10 turns you’ll have enough gold for 3 upgrades. Not something you have to commit to now but interesting possibilities!

My thought with holy site at capital was instead of the warrior since you didn’t have Agoge slotted yet (and we’re getting military from the levy). But with a couple turns of production into the warrior already might as well finish.

[suboptimal]

I want to finish the warrior at the capital regardless as I intend on using it to clear that barbarian camp. Once the quarireme is dealt with the warrior is going swimming.

Upgrading the levied troops would be an interesting approach, though that would represent 240 in upgrades that reverts back to the city-state on Turn 68. However, if it means taking a city or two then it's a very intriguing one.

I'm thinking the Holy Site will get built first even though it pushes the east coast city out to the late 60's. Getting religion that much faster would be beneficial, I think.

One other thing - we can purchase a trader with Monumentality as it's a civilian unit.

[Cornflakes]

[...] 240 in upgrades that reverts back to the city-state on Turn 68.  However, if it means taking a city or two then it's a very intriguing one.  

very true. One upgrade could at least be your self-built warrior, but the others ... if it allows us to completely eliminate an opponent, or knock them down to the point that reinforcements from the core can arrive to clean up then it might be worth it.

One other thing - we can purchase a trader with Monumentality as it's a civilian unit.

Good to know. I wonder when that makes sense as compared to builders/settlers? Maybe after the first Settler plus builder? And then build subsequent builders with Colonization while buying builders & trader(s)? I've found routes to city states generally more appealing, especially early on before you have districts build to boost internal routes.

What beliefs are you aiming for with religion (initial as well as later evangelism)?

[suboptimal]

If I can spend 240 to potentially eliminate an opponent it's money well spent. Given the current builds there won't be any reinforcements from the core...that's something to consider when we are getting that iron hooked up -- we'll only have three warriors of our own.

We can only have one trade route until a Lighthouse or Market is built. A trader would cost around 110, so about a builder at that point in the game. However, it's several turns of production that could go into something else, plus we'd have the and from a Nan Madol trade route coming in. I think we buy one at the first opportunity.

If we buy a settler under Monumentality the next one would have a production cost of 200 (and a faith cost of ~280). I think it might be better to slot Ilkum for builders and use chop-faith to get us the 5th settler. Maybe the capital or other high-production location could get one out under Colonization but I think I'd rather have that production going through Maritime Industries for a few quadriremes. Need to have the fleet ready for Jong upgrades and coastal defense. I suppose an interior city (say, the river location midway between coasts) could work on producing a settler but we'd have to see the policy options and needs at that point in time.

For Beliefs I'm currently thinking as follows:

- Choral Music. Jesuit Education, while useful, diverts faith from boat building. We're also going to be building out the Holy Sites for more faith.
- Defender of the Faith.
- 1st evangelized belief: Church Property
- 2nd evangelized belief: Meeting Houses

Right now no one knows what kind of start we got as they can only see we're at the top of the charts and our tech/civic counts in the score are ahead of everyone else. When they see the Classical Age intro after Shipbuilding completes we will have their attention. Once they start meeting us and see the yield numbers we will have their undivided attention. Our best bet at that point is that the other continent is too busy playing their own game of King of the Hill and can't react in a timely fashion.

[suboptimal]

Turn 38

Open the save to the notification that my warrior was attacked by the barbarian scout. It’s at 31/100, which is a bit too close for comfort. I take the Battlecry promotion to heal up and I’ll let the scout attack me again before finishing it off.

This turn’s action is at Punky’s. Swap production back over to the galley and chop a forest for 58 and 29. galley completes, puts 55 into the builder with 16 in it already. The builder will complete next turn with 77 and 19 of that will get dumped into a settler. That gets us




Somewhere my math is off. My count indicates I should have two turns left on Shipbuilding (around 122/144) but the game says I’ve got four turns. Hmmm...I wonder if the game considers eurekas as 40% of the base cost, so that would be 80 instead of 96. Makes sense but then I “should” be at three turns instead of four. Figured it out. The eureka is worth 40% of the base cost, bringing my effective total up to 202/240. I'll be at 214/240 as of the start of T39 and can work the lake for 2 turns the dumb cows for 1 to make up the loss of to keep pop growth on track. That'll complete Shipbuilding EoT 40.

The builder will go to the copper next turn and mine it the turn after that. I send the new galley across the strait towards the island. The other galley spends another turn moving up the coast:




I think I’ll backtrack to take out the quadrireme and then scout this out further. Settlervision indicates that the desert hill partially in the fog south of those jungle tiles is not coastal and there are no cities that have been located.

At Sound the slinger does the quadrireme locating dance and finds nothing. In the north I move into the jungle to cross the river next turn. I find some rice and some mercury, but not much else yet:




Now for the rentals. Western unit moves E-NE towards the mountain pass. The southern unit moves to the jungle W of Nan Madol to follow it through the pass while the northern one moves to the plot east of the horses. It’s just short of the coast so I’ll turn NW and go onto the hill NE of the horses next turn.

Internationally Rowain got his fourth tech, Archduke and Alhazard each gained two empire points (is that a district or two pop under R&F???) and Archduke also picked up 3 era points.

The levied units count for milpower while I have them, I’m now at 116 before the galley was built and in first place on that count as well. The galley and warrior healing should have me over 140 next turn.