[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Turn 145

Less of a sense of trepidation this load around, given the inevitability of it all. Hopefully unlike the last two PBEMs I was invaded (PBEM 3, PBEM 6) I will be able to do some damage in return. The military engineer at Acorn is done next turn and I should be able to complete Ballistics in 6 turns, maybe 7, with the eureka in hand. This is one case where I’m not gunning for overflow – if the choice is to finish it with the eureka it will be done.

Load the save, no war dec. Diplomatic Service is complete, policy change incoming. First up, the situation:




Western musketman has a +2 support bonus, likely one field cannon behind it. Eastern one has a +4 support bonus, that’s going to be (check T143 screenie) two field cannons. I also realized, looking at the T142 screenshot, that both muskets are upgraded warriors. He may be following with the cuirassiers but I won’t know that until it’s “too late”. If I had kept Hypatia around one more turn I’d know for certain…

Anyway, what to do here? Well, policy change for starters. Chivalry and Equestrian Orders out, Feudal Contract and Bastions in. Don’t need Professional Army or Retinues just yet, that’ll come once Ballistics is done. I resume Exploration for the time being.

Crossbow at LinCon down to three turns. Depending on Ballistics I might be able to build another...and I came back to this paragraph to edit and I shit you not the ‘l’ key on my keyboard just borked itself. As they say in Canada, TABARNAK! Oh wait, now it’s unstuck. I blame the excitement force of my typing. Where was I...oh yeah…LinCon might be able to build another one depending on how long Ballistics takes. Crossbow at Threefry is also at three turns but the next one would take four turns. Too long. Maybe I’ll just switch to muskets after these crossbows are done. Acorn, however, can now get one built and will do so before its own musket build.

On to unit movement. First things first, places it doesn’t matter as much. That means Persia. My scout rounds the tundra southeast of Inversion Clouds. Up by Murasaki a horseman has come out to say hello. I top the hill across the river and….the horse I found last turn is third ring. Maybe next turn. I do note that Woden has a grassland floodplain east of his capital that is unimproved. Down by Bandar Brunei, Chaucer continues his march towards the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Now for the main event. Pindicator’s trader is one tile short of its destination at Acorn. It has no visibility on any knights, though that’s about to change. First, though, I need to get the catapults out of the way. I scatter them off the main road to Threefry – one to the aqueduct, one to the Oracle and one to the mine NW of there. The other one stays in the jungle west of Acorn. The warrior moves up to the lumbermill NW of Threefry to make way for the horseman coming down from Mixmax. Yeah, that won’t be getting upgraded but if I can get a cheap kill with it then best to have it around.

Time for the knights. The one just completed at LinCon moves up to the amber. The embarked one disembarks onto the desert hill west of the niter. This will keep Woden from going further in that direction for the time being. One knight makes it to Acorn’s Campus, the other to the ivory just west of the city. Remaining embarked knights disembark at Xorshift and can be in Acorn next turn.

Now, what about these primitive units I’ve got laying around LFSR? The archer I’ll send over to Mersenne Twister. That keeps it safe and out of the way. The warrior on the Commercial Hub? It moves to the farm SW of the city center. I bring the other one down to the Commercial Hub. The chariot I could preserve by moving out. However, where it is right now neither of the field cannon can target it and it prevents the musketman from getting to the swordsman next turn. It stays fortified and I call it speed bump. The swordsman also fortifies. No one here is benefitting from El Cid so I relocate him to Threefry and put Triple-A back in LFSR. Not that he will matter much as anything I have there will get killed by the field cannon. The catapult to the southwest moves up to the jungle hill. If Pindicator’s western musket takes the roads yeah, the chariot will die but the catapult gets to take a shot. Speaking of which, I back up that chariot one hex. That will put the musket into range at Threefry if Pindicator closes the gap.

I was going to use James of St. George to put walls up at LinCon. I wait as there’s no need to do so if Pindicator isn’t mounting a full-on city assault. The situation at the end of the turn:




Tacks mark the field cannon.

I check citizen assignments and rearrange them at LFSR so that I can work a specialist in the Commercial Hub because . All other cities are already set as best they can be given the situation. In looking further at my builds I may not need to upgrade a warrior at Threefry to get the city defense as LinCon and Acorn can both get muskets out quickly. That’ll let me upgrade three crossbows to field cannon so I might get a field cannon going at LFSR. Xorshift will complete a library the turn after next and will start a Campus project and run a specialist to get more flowing into Ballistics.

Baldrick, don’t forget the fine table linens. Gotta go all out for our guests.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Did you mention why you're not upgrading the outdated units at LSFR? Did pin catch you outside of Mercenaries?

[suboptimal]

My primary reason for not upgrading units at LFSR is survivability. Even upgraded I'd probably lose one unit per turn to combined field cannon and musketman fire. Upgrading the three units that are there would cost about 400 with the upgrade policies slotted. No sense in upgrading to have the unit get killed the following turn. In comparison, upgrading all seven knights to cuirassiers would cost 595 and be more effective in a counter-attack. I'd also upgrade (or build) a field cannon to upgrade the city ranged attacks to a base CS of 60. Granted, the cuirassiers would not be helped by El Cid but I could still turn one of them into a corps. At present his musket cannot attack the sword without being exposed to ranged attacks and the field cannon cannot see the chariot from their current position.

I'm working on the assumption that this will be an anti-unit/anti-district attack as his bombards aren't down here yet. I'm willing to have LFSR get pillaged while I get Ballistics completed. It'll hurt but the ground at Threefry and between LFSR and LinCon is better suited to mounting a counterattack, especially since Pindicator seems to be making my mistake of splitting his forces.

As of his last turn he'd only have seen three of my seven knights. He'll see 1-2 more next turn but is probably unaware of the ones south of the river. If he moves the western pair a little closer to Threefry I'll go after them with the knights, El Cid and ranged support from the city, then upgrade when Ballistics completes and try to chase down the other units. If things go spectacularly in my favor I'd consider taking my remaining gold, upgrading the catapults and going after Ralakesh. What I need to do is have Hypatia return to Ralakesh. That will happen before I'm ready to consider a counterattack.

[suboptimal]

Looks like resource harvest yields got nerfed and are now equivalent to feature yields:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/h...ed.649667/

[suboptimal]

Turn 146




About time. Let’s see what he’s bringing…




Hmmm, no field cannons...I sniff around with combat stats a bit and see that the musket has a +10 support bonus. I also see that I’m getting a +3 CS bonus for having intel on his movements. Maybe he hasn’t completed Printing yet. I move the chariot by Threefry up to the hill and spot one to the NE of the musket. That leaves two unaccounted for. Poking around some more they are still behind the eastern musket. I shall return to the theater of operations after dealing with the rest of the world.

Over by Persia, Hypatia does not get eyes on the center of Polar Vortex. However, she does fully reveal what would have been a good disembarkation point. (No screenshot, forgot to take one). The scout comes up the east side of Inversion Clouds and finds one of Woden’s sources of niter. By Bandar Brunei Mr. Chaucer finds Admiral Duilius on the coast:




Post picture edit: of COURSE I got a tooltip in the way. There’s a knight on the jungle hill tile NE of Threefry’s center and an Incan Cuirassier NW of the musketman.

Acorn’s military engineer is done and moves off to Xorshift. Forts will be done in three more turns.

That taken care of it’s back to the main event. First off the Incan trader has been rehomed. The cuirassier that is in range of Threefry’s ranged attack has a CS of 71. My knights attack at a 58. I can raise that to 62 by getting two knights right next to the unit before attacking. So, after running the numbers if I do the following series of attacks and moves, in order, I might be able to kill the cuirassier if I hit average damage:

1) Shoot with the city (15.2 damage)
2) Move up the knights (+4 flanking bonus)
3) Suicide the chariot (7.7 damage)
4) Move up the horseman
5) Attack with one knight (23.6 damage)
6) Attack with the other knight (25.6 damage)
7) Suicide the horseman (14.6 damage)
8) Shoot the catapult (6.8 damage)
9) Fire the archer (9.4 damage)

The things you need to do to kill superior units. I shoot with the city for 14 damage and then remember one critical fact – I’ve already moved the chariot. I fortify the southern knight, move the northern knight into position at the river, and fire the archer and the catapult for a total of 13 more damage. I bring all the other knights forward towards Threefry, with two back at Acorn. El Cid moves one tile east and Triple-A relocates to Threefry. The picture after movement:




Next turn the archer and the knight west of Threefry will swap places so the knight can attack out of the city. That archer will need to clear out the turn after next as the crossbow completes.

The good news here is that if the bombard closes on Threefry the city should be able to kill it before the bombard takes down the walls. I will also be recruiting Aethelflaed next turn which gives me the option of making a knight corps out of the knight in Threefry.

Down at LFSR the crossbow and swordsman exchange positions and I take a shot at the musketman, doing 13 damage. I also bite the bullet and upgrade that swordsman for 310 gold and 20 niter. That doesn’t do anything for the city defense at Threefry (54) but LFSR is at 73 and Acorn is up to 68.

I stop Xorshift’s university build and start a Campus project for some extra science. This doesn’t speed up anything but makes me feel better. Mixmax will finish its library next turn and put a specialist into it as well as starting a Campus project.

Crossbows at LinCon and Threefry in 2 and Acorn in 3. Hopefully I’ll have a field cannon upgrade in 4 turns, along with some cuirassiers of my own, depending on how many knights survive within that time.

I’ve also come up with a slightly evil plan. I might be able to get a settler out of LinCon onto the island in the Pacific and put it where its borders would not be visible from land. In the event I do get run over it would prolong the misery. Woden’s galley over there could be an issue.

[suboptimal]

Turn 147

Open the save, take a quick look around to see how bad things have gotten and, well, I’ll get to that in a bit. Persia first. Hypatia has established in Ground Blizzard:




The question is what to do with her now? I send her back to Acorn to set up for counterspying, just in case Pindicator gets creative.

The landing zone to the east is visible and that could have been a straight shot to the capital. Woden does not appear to have many units in the area, most likely he’s protecting his exposed front in the former Ottoman lands. Had I been able to land a force of knights and bombards here I might have been able to have a bit of a romp. Not being able to see anything else up here the scout and writer continue making their way north and eventually northwest. Back towads home Chaucer moves to the coast and will embark next turn.

Back to the invasion.




First things first, I need to move Victor to Threefry. Should have done that last turn but overlooked it. He’ll establish in three turns and hopefully it won’t be too late to be of use. Amani, who is displaced out of Threefry, goes to LFSR. Now, if there was only a way to quickly get a governor promotion for Victor to get a second ranged city attack...

It can also be seen that I have a Great Person waiting for me. I thought it would be Aethelflaed but Woden completed a project and grabbed him first. Jeanne d’Arc is up next but in 12 turns….if my Encampment lasts that long. Woden also grabbed Jakob Fuggar and Isaac Newton, also with projects. Pindicator got Galileo Galilee through normal point generation. Who’s waiting for me? Raja Todar Mal – Trade routes to my own cities gain 0.5 per specialty district at the destination. Gain 1 envoy. Holy Yawn Batman. I take him, he shows up in Acorn and I activate him. Losing the Great General has the effect of not letting me make a corps out of knights. I’ll still do that once I upgrade to cuirassiers, though. Speaking of which I’ll get my first fort down next turn.

Ok, what to do here? There’s one cuirassier across the river. I shift the knight NE of Threefry to that spot and fortify and a rear knight moves up to take that knight’s spot. Knights at Acorn advance, they are all at Threefry now. The redlined catapult does what little it can do and bombards the field cannon that’s been shooting at it, 6 points of damage. Crossbow at LFSR does another 12 to the musketman over there. Archer in Threefry moves out to the Encampment and the knight directly to the west moves into the city. The question now is what, if anything, to do with Threefry’s city center attack? The answer is not the injured cuirassier – that’d be the fourth attack on that unit and it would likely get a promotion (and heal). I target the musketman and do 22 points of damage. I’d prefer to shoot the cuirassier to the northeast but I don’t have visibility due to the intervening jungle hill.

Since LFSR does not appear to be the thrust of the attack I’m going to take a bit of a risk and attempt to move the musketman out of the city and around the southern edge of the battlefield in order to get it to Acorn.

I have seven envoys in reserve. Yerevan could be levied for only 340. No, I’m not thinking of levying them – that’s an indication of their military strength and they don’t have much of one. However, levying them would knock out a trade route…

I was also in error a couple of turns ago. I had stated that one of the eurekas from Emilie du Chatelet was useless and it was implied to be Military Science. That’s because in my ineptness at the time I confused it with Military Tactics, which would have indeed been useless. The Military Science boost is quite useful, provided I last the 18 or so turns that it would take for me to complete Ballistics, Castles, Siege Warfare and Military Science.

[suboptimal]

Turn 148

I’ll deal with other things in the world before getting to the main event. Ya know, suspense and all that.

In Persia both of my units are heading up the coast. I’ll leave the writer at sea and disembark the scout when I find a hole in the borders. In the eastern Pacific Chaucer heads to the area between Jerusalem and Sun Dogs. I doubt there will be a border hole here but I’m looking for units at this point. Archer near Mersenne Twister disembarks and now we go to the battle front.

Let’s see what the battle front looks like this turn:




I was expecting more damage. Two mines, a dead catapult and an injured knight. That cuirassier across the river could be problematic down the line but for now I need to worry about the main battle group. His dithering is actually helping me out here. If I can get to Ballistics and upgrade the knights and the crossbow in Threefry he probably won’t be able to take the city. With medieval walls he’d need to do 200 points of damage to bring the walls down. A field cannon and the city defense (with Bastions) could two-shot a bombard. No bombard and the walls stay up. Victor has two turns to establish, at which point all units in the city’s territory gets another +5 to defense on top of the general and fortification bonuses.

I also just found a major hole in my plan. I can’t put forts down because I haven’t researched Siege Tactics. Hey, look who’s shown up:




I have five turns to go on Ballistics but maybe I can shave a turn off that once Acorn’s crossbow is completed. Actually, I leave it at one turn and start the Campus Project now. The only way I could speed that up further would be completely whackadoo and somewhat desperate – find a Campus district in Persia that’s “unsupervised” and pillage it with the scout before any units showed up.

Back at Threefry I fortify the northern knights in place. The I shuffle the horseman by El Cid and the warrior back a tile so the knight in Threefry can move out. That gives the crossbow room to shoot the musketman. I shoot for 21 (slightly below average) and then use the city’s ranged attack for another 23. That musket is down to 34 damage but I can’t kill it without losing both the injured knight and the chariot. I stand pat with my remaining units at Threefry.

At LFSR I swap the positions of the crossbow and warrior given Pindciator’s force rotation there. I already moved the musket west but I’ll try to get it back to the city for defense. Shoulda left that one there.

Down at LinCon I’ve got a new crossbow. I move the slinger out and fortify the crossbow. LinCon starts a Pike and Shot. Given the horse situation that might be useful. Likewise, Threefry starts one. Those will complete in five and six turns, respectively. LFSR stops the Commercial Hub project and starts a Campus project.

I don’t want to get too optimistic because I’m still in a verybad spot here but Pindicator might be a little stuck. Yes, he can wipe out quite a bit of improvements but I don’t think he expected the number of forces that I have on-hand. He’s also got a problem in that if his bombard gets close enough to a city to start taking down the walls I’d probably be able to kill it before it accomplished its job, at least at Threefry, Acorn and probably LinCon. Without a bombard he’s not taking any of my cities.

I think my key here is to NOT do what I did in PBEM 6 when I had what the lurkers thought to be a good defensive position and retreat or go on the offensive. For instance, the injured fortified knight has a current CS of 54 on defense, even injured against the field cannon. Against land units it’s 62 and with Victor it’d be 67 and against anything attacking across the river it’d be 72. The field cannon is the problem so I might be forced to abandon that tile. It also has the same problem as the bombard – once it’s close enough to attack units not in front of the city it’s vulnerable to city attacks.

Another interesting tidbit – the hoplite at LinCon cannot be upgraded to Pike & Shot. Wonder why that is since they’re both anti-cavalry.

[shallow_thought]

I thought it would be Aethelflaed but Woden completed a project and grabbed him first.

Aethelflaed is a "her": daughter of king Alfred the Great, Lady of Mercia. Part of the long fight (cultural as well as military) that rolled the pagan Danes back across the land that was about to become England.

The Civ VI developers like to do their bit for gender equality.

Good luck with your fight to roll back the invaders!

[suboptimal]

I thought it would be Aethelflaed but Woden completed a project and grabbed him first.

Aethelflaed is a "her": daughter of king Alfred the Great, Lady of Mercia. Part of the long fight (cultural as well as military) that rolled the pagan Danes back across the land that was about to become England.

The Civ VI developers like to do their bit for gender equality.

Good luck with your fight to roll back the invaders!

Thank you for the correction.  I hadn't looked her up in any of the usual references and defaulted to masculine pronouns.  Next time a GP shows up that I'm not familiar with I'll make sure to check first.

Thanks for the well wishes against the invaders!

[suboptimal]

Turn 149

Another save to load, another turn staring into the abyss. I expect to be down at least a knight, maybe even a horseman and probably a chariot. On the upside, if either the bombard or field cannon have moved into range that might give me a target I can attack effectively.

Open the save to a bunch of notifications. Lost a warrior and have a badly injured chariot at LFSR. The musket, however, has moved into range of the crossbowman and the city center attack. I have three peace notifications – Woden discovered Yerevan last turn and dropped three envoys into the city-state, nullifying Pindicator’s suzerainty. Lastly, Methana blew its top. Where’s that? East-Southeast of LinCon on the western shore of the Atlantic...Inland Sea. If you’ve been following along the past few turns, you know where I’m going to start my turn report.

There should be a city state somewhere on this part of the map. The former Ottoman empire ran along the inland mountain chain and Woden is suzerain of one more city-state. I move Murasaki up the coast and…




Well, at least the lurkers didn’t need to listen to MJW going on about Nan Madol in the lurker thread (I jest, you know...or do I? ). Their quest is to get the inspiration for Exploration. Not going to happen. However, what is going to happen is an envoy drop. A 2% bonus to culture for every Great Person you’ve earned, plus 2 in the capital and another 2 per Amphitheater? I’ve earned 12 Great People and will be getting three more in two turns for the max 30% bonus? All for the low cost of 4 envoys? Yes, please. Of course, they’ll declare war and meet Pindicator but eh, them’s the breaks. My culture skyrockets from 58 to 75.8. Mmmm...24% culture bonus. Delicious. I still have three envoys in reserve (plus Amani) if Woden takes suzerainty back and the new writer will go to Mersenne Twister to fill its amphitheater, which also completes in two turns. That’ll be good for another 5 once the great works are on display.

With the coast cleared (literally) the scout heads due north past Ha Long Bay. The suzerainty also reveals what Antananarivo has seen of the map:




No troops at La Nina and no walls. I wonder if the scout would be able to get some pillaging in there before getting ripped to shreds.

On the other coast Chaucer gets into the bay between Sun Dogs and Jerusalem. Not much interesting there. Archer reaches Mersenne Twister. Looks like everything else is covered. To the front!




Looks like there’s a mounted attack heading for LinCon and Pindicator may be stalling out his attack on Threefry. Shields Up! James of St George puts up walls and, charges exhausted, retreats into history. I bring the musketman southwest onto the lumbermill. Moving up to LFSR my only valid target for ranged attacks is the musketman. City center at 50 attacks first for 23 damage, crossbowman follows up for another 16.

At Threefry I’ve now got some decisions to make. I can rotate three, maybe four, knights down to LinCon but they’d lose the benefit of the general. However, they’d get down there just after Pindicator’s forces and they could do some damage. I could also move El Cid into Threefry and transfer him down to LinCon for a counterattack if Pindicator focuses things there. Would that be effective, though? Might be. The two southern ones can get close to the city this turn. Likewise the one to the northwest of El Cid’s position would be three tiles out. However, I inadvertantly move a horseman I had highlighted instead. That’s OK. I’ll move the knight I intended to move down to the spot SE of El Cid’s position to provide flanking bonuses, then move it down next turn. I check a screenshot from last turn and see that the musketman is now promoted. Good. More attacks on it before it can promote again. The city center and crossbow take their turns for 30 points of damage despite the musket’s Tortoise promotion.

Ballistics has four turns to go. With the massive increase in culture Exploration is now done in one turn. I don’t need the policy change and the increase in output would be...3 per turn next turn and another 1.5 in two turns once Amani establishes. Not worth taking, so I’ll hold it for a potential double policy swap. I start Humanism, currently at 8 turns but I’ll get the inspiration with the Artist in two turns.

Hit end turn and a barbarian camp has popped up somewhere. Five says it’s somewhere south of LinCon and will have a pikeman and a couple of coursers.