[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You give us a lot of detail on the minutiae of your turns, but what I really like is when you explain your reasoning and strategy, like with the World Congress posts. It's been a while, so what's your long-term plan for victory here? How do you see the next 100 turns?

[suboptimal]

You give us a lot of detail on the minutiae of your turns, but what I really like is when you explain your reasoning and strategy, like with the World Congress posts. It's been a while, so what's your long-term plan for victory here? How do you see the next 100 turns?

In some ways your question is a wake up call.  I haven't been working with a plan since the war settled down - I've been in recovery mode and my vacation also took me out of "game thinking".  However, working without a plan is what did me in around Turn 100 - I focused so much on catching up from a bad start that when I momentarily overtook everyone in and it was like the dog finally catching the car it's been chasing.  As bad as those things have worked out here and elsewhere, perhaps I need to "go rogue", get Baldrick back out of hiding and try to come up with something that's a bit...lateral...in thinking. 

The fact of the matter is that right now I don't believe that victory from my current situation is possible.  I'm still puzzling that out, but playing the long game for a Spaceship seems like the only available approach.  A rundown of the victory conditions:

Diplomatic: yeah, right.
Domination: nope, not from my current position and I think once Steel is completed by everyone that's becomes highly unlikely.
Culture: At this point in the game there are only four foreign tourists and they're all Woden's
Religious: This is something I need to watch out for but Woden has shown no sign of trying to spread his religion to our lands.
Spaceship: This is my only route unless I can get a complete lock down on uranium and nuke everyone else to oblivion without the World Congress banning nukes.
Score:

For the time being I need to keep my development up and once coal is out try to get a couple of cities out.  Threefry's eventual factory and power plant will get me a third production center and then I'll see what I can do.   Woden is currently lagging in techs but has the highest tech rate right now.  I don't know where his units are and he'd be vulnerable to pillaging if I could get a group of modern units past his pickets and landed.  However, without building a larger army to do so I'd leave myself open to invasion by Pindicator. 

I'll need to give this some thought -- the good news is that I've got some good road time with long commutes the next couple of days to let my mind wander.  I'll get back to you this over the weekend.

[suboptimal]

Turn 167

The big question while getting the save loaded up is how my counteroffer was taken by Pindicator. A permanent embassy gives higher diplomatic visibility and visibility on the capital. That’s a big ask and if he wants it he needs to be willing to give it. Save loads, hit Start Turn and check the notifications. Nada – still have the option to send him a delegation. Indeed.

Colonialism has finished, putting me into the Industrial Era of culture and gaining me an era point. The blizzard has dissapated and there’s a notification about a barbarian camp. Where is it?




Not my problem. I start Nationalism. It’s 12 turns to completion for the time being. Amani will establish in 3 turns and I’ll get back suzerainty of Antananarivo. My next debate is a policy change. Right now I need Civil Prestige for another four turns in order for Acorn to reach 13 population. After that I can take that and possibly Republican Legacy out for other policies. I’m tempted to take out Triangular Trade for a little while and replace it with Aesthetics – that would trade 16 and 4 per turn for 10 per turn. I could put Rationalism in – that would currently get me 11 with another 9 as universities complete (3, 4 and 6 turns from now). Hmmm...with 73 per turn and two banks on the way I think I can take a bit of a hit to gold income. I pull the trigger, putting in Rationalism. However, that only nets me 6 instead of the 11 I was expecting. Looks like the policy doesn’t count city-state bonuses. I’ll still get another 6 out of the policy over the next few turns and can always put Triangular Trade back in once Nationalism completes.

LFSR has completed the university repair and when I go to the city to select the next build I see that a visitor from a far away land has returned:




That unit won’t get very far – Woden won’t be able to get eyes on Acorn from this direction. LFSR resumes its bank, 13 turns to completion. I was going to lumbermill the jungle just west of the city but no one is working that tile or would be available to work that tile for some time. Harvesting the jungle gets me 3 turns of production and not enough food to gain a population. For the time being I leave the jungle alone and send the builder towards LinCon. I also just noticed I have a pillaged mine there. I don’t know how long that’s been there for. The good news is that the builder en route to the iron can repair it next turn. The mine at Mersenne Twister will also get repaired next turn.

Pindicator’s pike & shot has embarked so my chariot re-closes the coast line to visitors. Up north, Murasaki moves to the other end of the bay and finds a completed Harbor with a lighthouse and shipyard. Rublev continues along the southern ice – I’ll take him all the way to Tsingy to defog and check that there are no further sea resources along the tundra, particularly near the oil. Chaucer continues eastwards – I’ll send him up to the peninsula west of Yerevan to get that mapped out.

With the turn over I’ll leave you with the latest in Map Defect Technology. Behold, the river that disappears under the glaciers:




Whoops.

[suboptimal]

Turn 168

CMF’s inquiry as to my strategy yesterday, combined with my long commute today (and tomorrow, which is today by the time you’re likely reading this ), has set me down the road of a new plan….or rather, revisiting an old one. The timing will be a couple of turns from now, though I do hope that the era doesn’t turn over at Turn 180. We turned over at T60, T100 and T140 so T180 would be “on schedule”. That does mean I’ll need to act somewhat quickly as I’ll need the benefit of Hic Sunt Dracones. The turn timing for most of the plan initiation will be after Acorn completes its university.

Turn starts, Industrialization completes. No coal in my territory. Map search has 7 results. Where are they?




Good news – I can settle right down on top of it. The others?

- one between the iron and salt at Auckland. I can grab this one with the settler I was going to send out here.
- one under a terrace farm 2SE of Arakaali
- one at Thunderstorm under a Pairidaeza
- one under the IZ at Micro Burst
- one a few tiles north of there
- one a few tiles west of that one

So, once again it’s one for me, one for Pindicator and a pile for Woden. At least I have a chance to grab a second one and Woden doesn’t know about the coal yet. Based on the movement rate of the musket at LinCon it would take 10 turns to get there. I immediately swap over to the settler production and will send the settler to the distant location first for a resource two-fer. I’ll get a second settler out after the spy to settle the nearby resource. I set the tech tree to go for Steel – 23 turns to complete all four techs. I’ll likely pause for Astrology and Celestial Navigation after the “local” settler plant in order to put harbors down.

Builders do their thing. Rublev has a change of plans, turns west and finishes the turn next to a (the) barbarian caravel. He’ll get sent back to LinCon next turn and from there I’ll forward him to Xorshift for redeployment at sea. Chaucer turns back west. I need to locate the Persian galleys in the area around Ha Long Bay and Antananarivo. Murasaki disembarks on the eastern edge of Ryslatha. Mersenne Twister’s trade route to Bandar Brunei is complete so I restart it for 8. The city has repaired the Acropolis and starts repairing the amphitheater.

Now, about that plan….I shift all of my knights and cuirassiers westwards. With the extra movement from Hunt Sic Dracones units embarking at Xorshift can get here:




in eight turns. I’d disembark north of the coal that’s up there. Yup, you guessed it – I believe I have a window of opportunity to still go after Woden. The formative plan looks something like this:

Turn 170
- Offer Pindicator a Dof for him to accept or reject on T171
- Slot Naval Tradition to Complete on T171
- I should recruit Bi Sheng (+1 district in a city). He’ll be held in reserve for later (way later).

Turn 171
- Find out if Pindicator accepts or rejects DoF
- Resume Nationalism.
- Remove Rationalism and Civil Prestige, slot Professional Army and Triangular Trade
- Cuirassiers and Jeanne d’Arc in the water at Xorshift
- Knights move as close to Xorshift as possible and upgrade to cuirassiers
- Three catapults upgrade to bombards.
- Acorn completes its univeristy and grows to 13 population
- Acorn places an Industrial Zone for a +4 adjacency on the tile east of the Aqueduct, overwriting the jungle and lumbermill there and begins construction on that and a workshop.

Turn 172

Cuirassiers and Jeanne d’Arc head for the landing zone to arrive around T180. Bombards and El Cid disembark a turn or two later and head for the same general location. I could risk a landing at Antananarivo but with the contested suzerainty that would be too risky. I’m also taking the northern route as he seems to not be patrolling the ocean north of Ha Long Bay so I should be able to get by undetected.

The plan here is “straightforward”. The cuirassiers and Jeanne d’Arc will go around the Panthalassic Ocean and ove on Micro Burst (pillaging) and possibly La Nina (to raze if he doesn’t put walls up). I’ll also try to clear the region around Micro Burst of any units that Woden has around. Once the bombards arrive I’ll start the city taking at Drought and proceed south from there. That should help me contain the loyalty issues, particularly if the era rolls over at T180 and I’m in a dark age. Of course, if Woden isnt’ in a dark age I may just pillage and raze everything in sight. Of course I’ll have Raid slotted for the extra pillaging bonuses.

Why not go after Pindicator at this juncture? Well, Woden is the larger threat in terms of the overall game and presently the more vulnerable one because of his current tech lag. He has yet to reach Ballistics in the tech tree and while he may do so while I’m en route he’s still in the weaker position despite his higher milpower. Pindicator might be on his guard for a counter-attack of some sort while Woden may not be expecting an attack. Last I saw (well, that was 10-15 turns ago) his units are spread out a bit. I’ll know more once Hypatia the Sneaky lands in Tornado.

At home it will depend on what Pindicator does. If he takes the DoF I’ll build a few military units and complete the IZ build out at Acorn (factory + coal power plant). That should get me a good number of Great Engineer points going. LinCon will get out a second settler, the spy (for Drought or Micro Burst) and a few units to bolster the home defense. I’ll get Nationalism to one turn, Reformed Church to one turn to get a policy change in my pocket, then finish Nationalism.

If Pindicator doesn’t take the DoF then I’ll complete Nationalism, slot Grande Armée and Acorn will go on a field cannon binge after its workshop is complete. LinCon will join in the fun with some muskets and/or pike & shot depending on resource availability.

I do see in the gossip that Woden accepted a delegation from the Incans. I don’t know if he fully understands the ramifications of that, particularly since the Incans haven’t accepted a similar delegation. Maybe I should try the same tactic after my unit upgrades… It does look like Woden is going on a builder spree as he’s slotted Public Works. Of course, he’s put down a bunch of new cities the past several turns. He’s also being cautious and putting down walls in all of them. The good news is that none of his walls are medieval walls and most of his developed cities are completed chopped out.

Slightly longer term I’ve realized that I have a significant advantage in the Great People department over everyone else, especially once Acorn gets an IZ down. I should be able to use Acorn and my other cities to run projects to strategically grab desirable Great People as they come up in the queue with an eye towards using these to get myself closer to a Science Victory (or nuclear armaggeddon).

[suboptimal]

Turn 169

I realized after passing the save that I forgot to switch Threefry over to building a Factory so that’s the first thing I do this turn. That will take 9 turns to complete. I haven’t placed the IZ at Acorn because I want to secure Bi Sheng first and I won’t be completing any techs or civics until Bi Sheng is in-hand and I’m ready to complete Naval Tradition to make the policy change for upgrades.

Settler at LinCon completes and it moves for the Atlantic Ocean. It’ll pick up warrior escort upon landing on the other side. Drop a settler and a factory into the queue after it. One question here might be “why build a factory when it’s in range for the one in Threefry?” Well, for a power plant. A power plant will provide 3 plus additional production equal to the adjacency bonus of the district. For LinCon that’s 3, for Acorn and Threefry that would be 4. However, if you add the Craftsman policy to the equation that increases the production by 2x the district adjacency – the policy’s adjacency bonus carries through to the power plant’s bonus. I shift a couple of citizens over to the farm tiles to get the city’s growth from 15 turns to 8 turns. That will be two turns after the settler completes but should get the city back to 8 population in short order. I’ll then harvest the northern wheat to get back to nine while the Factory is built.

Builders do their thing. Knights and cuirassiers are westbound. Pindicator has adopted a defensive posture at Ralakesh and appears to have moved his cavalry units deeper into his territory:




The northern trader will give me visibility of Abberath next turn. Rublev appeared in LinCon as expected and relocates to Xorshift. Murasaki finds a slightly curious sight in the north:




Well, hi there! He’s obsolete so why not scout? I might have retired him for a little extra culture by now, I think. He is traveling alone. Chaucer sees nothing but open ocean on the northern route.

I noticed that Woden spent a good amount of cash a couple of turns ago (T167). I also see that his gold went down between last turn (62) and this turn (41). The purchases were non-military. I’ll be curious to see if the decrease was related to another purchase or if he’s done something to temporarily nerf his economy. I do see that he adopted Grand Armee this past turn and that his milpower has increased by about 200. That appears to be more units rather than more powerful units – none of his city defenses have gone up so his most powerful unit remains musketmen.

I also see he’s increased his envoy count in Antananarivo to 8. I’ve got four in reserve (picked up one in a quest) and Amani will activate next turn. I’ll put two in there to get up to 9 envoys and keep two in reserve. I’ll be getting another two envoys in 12 turns, along with 1 for completing Naval Tradition.

I also have governor promotions coming up from Nationalism and Civil Engineering. One promotion will be used to give Victor the Embrasure promotion (the city he is in can use its ranged attack twice per turn and units trained in the city get a free promotion if they don’t already get one). For the other I might give Liang the Aquaculture promotion and move her to the coal city next to LinCon to get some food tiles going.

[suboptimal]

Turn 170

Open the save to a pile of notifications – I can recruit a Great Person (that would be Bi Sheng), there’s a new barbarian outpost and the volcano up at Pindicator’s northern city has had a Megacolossal eruption. The notification states that 7 tiles were fertilized (with in looking at the map) and that 4 population were killed. I’d laugh harder but I’ll be putting a city in harm’s way in a half dozen turns or so. First, the barbarian camp:




That’s mildly inconvenient. I think the musket at LinCon will need to investigate.

Amani is established at Antananarivo. I add two more envoys to the city-state and retake suzerainty. My is back over 100 per turn. I take a quick look at the city-state and see that Woden’s admiral/galley pair has come to say hello to Chaucer. That’s good to know and something to keep in mind. His milpower is up another 100 as well. Chaucer moves south and find a frigate. I then remember that milpower takes a turn or two to update. I guess Woden’s been upgrading his navy. Good to know. That could make sneaking over a bit more complicated but I’m going to try anyway.

I claim Bi Sheng, he appears in LinCon. The next engineer up is Mimar Sinan for 240 points – once activated building an Industrial Zone in any city causes a culture bomb. That’s a snoozer but I’d expect Pindicator and Woden to both pass on him so that will need to be accounted for. Bi Sheng takes a nap. Knights, cuirassiers and builders all do their thing.

LinCon’s spy is complete. Matthias is sent to Micro Burst and will establish in 7 turns. Hypatia the Sneaky has three more turns to establish in Tornado.

Mersenne Twister has gained a population so I send the builder towards the iron. I’ll get the mine down in three more turns.

With unit movement complete I set Naval Tradition to complete next turn. I open up the diplomatic screen, check gossip and send the DoF request to Pindicator. This should be interesting.

[suboptimal]

Turn 171

Nationalism is complete. Notably this era looks like it has some life left in it yet – I have not received a countdown warning. Then I check the era screen and it shows 10 turns remaining. Odd. Clear out the pop up and check the notifications. I have a diplomatic message waiting for me. Pindicator has accepted! I also see something else:



A special session has been called. It doesn’t say by whom or for what purpose. After a quick googling and a trip to the wiki I check last turn’s screenshots – whoever called it would have to spend 30 Diplomatic Favor to do so. Before I even look at the totals this might have been Pindicator as a result of the eruption. It appears to be so – his DF total was 154 last turn and 136 this turn. This will be very interesting. We shall see shortly.

I put Nationalism back into research, 6 turns to go. I’m going to get the “mundane” stuff out of the way before I start with the “Good Stuff”. All of the cuirassiers embark to two tiles off Xorshift. Knights move as close as they can while having at least some movement left. Acorn’s 13th population is working the lake tile. Yeah, no. Builder puts a lumbermill down on a forest (my first and only 1 tile being worked at Acorn) and the citizen automatically moves there. The city’s production is 64 though drops back down to 60 as I put the IZ down. With the overflow from the university I see that it will take two turns to complete. Nice.

Mixmax’s university is also complete and it’s now 7 turns from completing the arena I had queued up. The builder up here puts down its last lumbermill and takes a turn off the arena’s build time. The city is just under 20 per turn and the completion of the IZ at Acorn will let me swap over a 4 tile if I need it. Down at LinCon the builder has reached the iron and will mine it next turn. The settler is at the west coast of the Atlantic and will embark next turn.

Out in the Pacific Woden’s units have moved out of sight of Chaucer and my trader. Chaucer moves east to defog and finds the frigate has headed eastwards. Hopefully this is a defogging mission. Rublev moves northwest towards the frigate’s apparent path. In other news there’s a complication in my intended LZ:




Time to put things in motion. Rationalism and Civil Prestige out, Professional Army and Triangular Trade in. Knights upgrade to cuirassiers at 115 each. Three catapults upgrade to bombards at 165 and 20 niter each. I also get the boost for Siege Tactics and take that down to one turn (how fortuitous, I wasn’t even paying attention to that. ). Jeanne d’Arc transfers to Xorshift, Triple-A moves out of Acorn towards the bombards and El-Cid transfers to Acorn. I also move Bi Sheng to the coast west of LinCon. I’m going to put him in the water to scoot ahead of the land forces to scout the area across the middle of the ocean. With that my turn is effectively over. The forces at Xorshift:




As previously stated my primary objective is to land in Persia with the cuirassiers and try to pillage things while the bombards make their way over. Micro Burst was the initial target because it has good pillage targets and was easy to get to. The presence of a city north of Antananarivo complicates that. However, Woden is likely going northeast of the Panthalassic Ocean since that’s where the good land is in the above screenshot.

I should still be able to land in the desert ENE of the city-state and then take that land bridge across unless Woden leaves his horseman there. By the way, the pike & shot and the knight are the extent of the city-state’s military. One thing I could do is try to take Woden’s city before he gets walls up. That entire stretch of land is outside his loyalty influence so I wouldn’t lose it that way. It would also probably cause him to send units in that direction, allowing me a chance to do some damage (and, if he plants right, a third source of coal). Of course, if it’s close enough the frigate might have something to say about it, but that would mean it’s not chasing my bombards...

Going in through Antananarivo is another option:




I’d have to cross a river with no roads to get anywhere and that mine is a bit of a chokepoint. That might be a good spot to land and maneuver the bombards, though, as I could set two of them up to attack from the north.

I could also try to jam into the coast around Alberta Clipper:




No walls yet, though I think he’s currently working on the Harbor. There’s room to disembark five units the turn I declare and a few things to pillage. Better yet, it’s close to his core where there’s lots of stuff to pillage. I could be there in the same amount of time it would take me to get to the northern desert.

Either way I’ll have to outmaneuver the Persian navy. Woden’s been moving his ships around to monitor his coast and with the DoF (which he won’t know about until the World Congress provided he checks the map while he’s in there) and my upgrades his alert level is going to go up a bit.

I suppose one thing I could try would be to split my forces (collective shouts of “NOOOOO!” from the Lurkerati) for the purposes of not having a massed force of units trundling across the ocean. My thinking there is that if he sees one over here and one over there he might assume I’m only scouting.

[suboptimal]

Turn 171 – Special Session of the World Congress

Right. So there’s a special session. Based on the Diplomatic Favor values at the end of last turn the number of votes available is as follows:

Woden: 4 plus a freebie
Pindicator: 4 plus a freebie
Me: 3 plus a freebie

What’s the resolution emergency?




OK. After checking the wiki, here’s how this works:

- The Send Aid project costs 200. Completion of the project nets 50 “points” for the aid request
- Gifting is translated to points at a 1:1 basis. Therefore 50 equals 50 “points”
- The person who winds up in the Gold Tier gets the rewards for Gold and Silver tier.
- The requestor gets the gold if you give it and gets nothing if you do the project.

What I don’t get is how this works with three people in the game. Pindicator can’t earn any points (because he’s the requestor). I think it looks like one of Woden and myself will get the gold reward and the other gets nothing. That’s...interesting.

It would appear that the best way to do this is to vote yes to the request using only my free vote and then slow-roll actually “helping out”. I think what I’ll do here is drip out some gold to Pindicator every couple of turns to earn points. If I keep the contributions low enough they’d get blurred into Pindicator’s normal gold generation and Woden won’t be aware of whether or not I’m contributing. If I get lucky Woden might underestimate my contributions and I can earn the gold tier, which I value more for the Diplomatic Favor than for the Diplomatic Victory points. OTOH, Woden does have 6/20 points and may make a push for another two. I’ll need to keep an eye on Pindicator’s gold totals as this progresses.

I put one vote into yes and send the turn along.

[suboptimal]

Turn 172

Results are in…




It passed, Pindicator spent all of his available votes on it while Woden and I just used our freebies. Clear that screen out, along with the Siege Tactics pop up and this appears:




Alrighty then. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over time. What’s nice is that we can keep track of the scores on that display screen. I don’t think you could do that under Rise & Fall.

Time for the mundane stuff, of which there’s not a lot. Settler embarks into the Atlantic, Mersenne’s repairs are complete and it resumes its art museum. Iron is mined at LinCon and a barbarian skirmisher has emerged from the peninsular area.

Over in the Pacific Chaucer and Rublev look for the Persian frigate and find it midway between them. It is maintaining a line along the northern part of the ocean. The first embarked cuirassier heads due west and finds...another frigate. I send the other two northwest, though not grouped together, and ponder my options here. The biggest problem will be getting Jeanne d’Arc across the ocean. Woden might not mind a few scattered cuirassiers out and about but a Great General going across presents a bit of a problem. The three cuirassiers by Xorshift embark in a group off the city’s coast. The bombards and Triple-A arrange themselves into a coastal battery at the city. The remaining catapult also moves back towards the coast and will upgrade to a bombard in three turns. El Cid also makes his way over towards the city as further backup. If the frigate comes towards the coast I’ll have to decide whether or not to do something about it. Two bombards would be able to take out the frigate without issue.

I think my best bet for an ocean crossing here is to stay scattered and regroup as I close on the coast. That might keep Woden guessing and/or avoid me losing all my units to Persian aggression. I take a look at the intended landing area and don’t see Antananarivo’s pike & shot anywhere. I check the levy cost and it’s dropped to 220 from 470. The unit was killed or more likely disbanded. I don’t know how city-state unit maintenance works but I do know that Antananarivo is generating no gold income from yields.

Here’s the current ocean situation:




With the turn over I take a look around and decide to upgrade a horseman to a courser. That completes the quest for Auckland and makes me suzerain. That makes the two shallow water tiles currently in my empire provide 2. Xorshift moves a citizen from a 21 jungle over to its coast tile. The slows the city’s already ponderous growth rate (from 41 to 61 turns) but gets me an extra and . That city will finish its university next turn and start on a granary. After that I’ll work on getting a little more growth here.

Hit end turn and there’s some sort of combat involving a barbarian unit. Wonder if the skirmisher attacked my musketman?

[suboptimal]

Turn 173

Open the save to gaining three era points for the completion of the 4 adjacency Industrial Zone at Acorn. There’s a notification that Waynaputina is now active and can erupt at any time. That’s over here:




I think that 44 tile might be seeing some more improvements in the near future. Of course, with the iron getting mined this turn I won’t have a builder to conduct repairs. The last notification is confirming my musketman was indeed attacked by the barbarian skirmisher.

Iron mine goes down at Mersenne Twister, Acorn starts its workshop. Xorshift’s university is complete and the granary build begins. Musket kills skirmisher, gaining a promotion and putting 10 into Nationalism. Bi Sheng moves to the south of the island off the coast in the Pacific while Murasaki starts to head east. Speaking of east, Hypatia the Sneaky is active in Tornado. What is there to see?




Woden seems to like frigates. Those forces are about a quarter of his milpower (280 of 1686). Hypatia starts a listening post mission since I intend on keeping an eye on this front for the time being.

Minor unit rearrangements complete it’s now off to the Great Cuirassier Migration. Woden has brought his frigates a little further east:




He can see one cuirassier and Rublev. I send Chaucer south to see if he has a unit plugging the gap between the two and find nothing. The middle cuirassier heads shoots the gap, as does the one next to the southern frigate though in a slightly SW direction so they don’t clump up yet. Rublev jogs two tiles north then returns to his original location in order to give a quick peek for another frigate. I send the northern cuirassier straight northwest. Jeanne d’Arc heads to a spot 2SE of Rublev. That is out of sight of both Frigates. Keeping her out of sight will be key. My figuring here is that cuirassiers spread out over the ocean will cause him to be wary but not too concerned but having a Great General also on the water is going to ring the alarm bells.

The next question is what to do with the second wave of cuirassiers currently at Xorshift? The westernmost one can reach the tile NE of the southern frigate. That might let me take advantage of the “snapshot” effect of the turn and make it appear that nothing has moved. I send the other two along the coast.

At Xorshift I fortify Triple-A and the bombards while moving the catapult into shore battery position for upgrading in two turns (once I have enough niter). El Cid is now in the area as well and sitting back from the coast but keeping the bombards within his area of effect. As much as I’d like to get the bombards across the ocean I think that would really be pushing it right now. I also figure that if I do successfully get across and start pillaging he might use his frigates to attack Xorshift. With the bombards on the coast that would actually be ideal – two bombard shots would kill a frigate (no malus for attacking ships) and they would then have an easier time crossing. Of course, it’d be slower since Hic Sunt Dracones would have elapsed by then.

I’ve realized something about the emergency – going last in the turn order is actually an advantage in this case. I’ll be able to see the scores on the final turn the emergency is active and, if it’s within my capability, do the bare minimum necessary to outscore Woden.

In other news, my envoy in Auckland turned out to be a mixed bag – the envoy allowed the city-state to expand to the coal tile. The good news is that they have a builder about to mine it and I’ll get the coal sooner. Since I’ve lost the coal I’ve moved the city and changed the dotmap a bit:




I’ll buy the salt tile on founding and the free builder will mine the salt, the hill to the NE of the city center and farm the 3 wheat to the SE. The city will start with 4 population thanks to Hic Sunt Dracones and the citizens will work the two mines and the first-ring wheat. I’ll also move Victor over here as a just in case (since he’s not needed at Threefry for the time being). That should allow the city to complete ancient walls in 8-10 turns. The additional improvements are for later builders (currently 114 apiece). I also need to decide what district will be going down in the marked location. A Commercial Hub is the most likely, if expensive, option.

I also have a change of heart regarding techs. As much as I’d like to continue working straight towards Steel I am going to divert to Steam Power after Military Science completes. That tech will give me +2 movement to embarked units which will let me maintain my sea mobility when the era rolls over in 7 turns.

In other news I’ll be claiming another Great Writer next turn. That will be my 18th Great Person this game.