[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Turn 181

The world has entered the Industrial Era. I’ll get to that in a bit. First off, over near Auckland my gamble has not paid off and his cavalry have taken my builder. Oh well, there goes the neighborhood. Murasaki has been returned to Xoroshiro as well. I move Victor to Mersenne Twister to prepare for defense there.

Sawanqaya has erupted, pillaging Mersenne Twister’s mine. The tile now yields 51 natively. It’s also added a to the tile SW of the volcano. That might turn into a good settler spot, provided this war with Woden ends. However, I’ve now got a destination for that builder at Philox so it sets off. It will mine and get out.

City-states have provided new quests:

- Bologna: trigger the eureka for Sanitation
- Antananarivo: send trade route
- Bandar Brunei: recruit Great Writer
- Auckland: recruit Great Artist
- Granada: construct a Commercial Hub

John Spilsbury has become availableHe’s available early because he’s an Industrial Era Great Merchant, those now cost 420 points instead of 545 points and I had 500 points. Woden was in a similar boat and grabbed John Jacob Astor earlier in this turn (500 + 1 envoy). I recruit Spilsbury and he appears at Acorn. Next up is Adam Smith – 500 plus a governor title. In checking the Great People I’ve just noticed that I’ve now fallen behind Woden and Pindicator in GAP and GMP generation – they have 7, I have 6. I’ll need to rectify that at some point.

Dedication time. Everyone is in a dark age. OK, that’s reasonable. In looking at the dedications it’s either Reform the Coinage or Heartbeat of Steam. My trade routes will complete once during this era but I’ll likely build more Industrial Era buildings, so I take Heartbeat of Steam.

Acorn’s builder is complete, it heads for Xorshift. John Spilsbury goes to the Commercial Hub there and retires. I get toys (in the attic!) and Acorn is up to content status. It starts its field cannon run. LinCon’s factory is also complete and it starts a cuirassier (6 turns to complete). Builder at Philox puts down a mine. I considered using this tile for a farm to get a triangle going in the south but a mine here boosts the IZ at LinCon by +1. Philox will grow in 5 turns and be working tiles for 15 , at which point it will put up walls and then build the Harbor. Musketman takes the barbarian camp, netting me 50 and 27.

Hypatia the Sneaky has finished her Listening Post mission. What to do next ? The Foment Unrest and Neutralize Governor missions aren’t worth attempting here, even after a Gain Sources mission. None of the available missions at his other cities (that I can reach) seem to be worth the effort. One also can’t run the Gain Sources mission in a city-state or I’d put her in Antananarivo. After some further thought I decide that Micro Burst will get double-teamed. I relocate her to MicroBurst (that’ll take 7 turns). Matthias stops the Listening Post mission and starts the Gain Sources mission. That will complete the turn after Hypatia the Sneaky arrives. The Siphon Gold mission would only be worth 144, which is the city’s gold yield for 8 turns. I’ll move Matthias to La Nina and start the same process there.

At Antananarivo Woden looks like he’s attempted to move on the city:




He’s done 15 points of damage to the walls and 2 points to the garrison. The city-state, however, did over 70 points to his field cannon, which retreated to Micro Burst. The city-state has also built a field cannon so let’s see what it does with it. Woden has combined his bombards into a corps. I don’t know if that’s the right move or not as the units fighting separately would be able to do more damage.

South of Persia I’ve been continuing to move Bi Sheng west. I’ll need to disembark south of Derecho but I may try to make a dash for Bomb Cyclone. Now that we’re at war I can penetrate his borders. The issue will be whatever pickets Woden has down here. It would take me two turns of movement to reveal the city center after disembarking.

Apparently I also get a policy change this turn as they’ve unlocked. Oh yeah, that’s right – they unlock any time new policies become available and there are now four available:




If I were building privateers in more than one city I’d consider Letters of Marquee. However, if I left Triangular Trade in and also slotted Press Gangs then Xorshift could get out a privateer every 6 turns. That doesn’t let me go with my original plan, though. Craftsmen, Grande Armee and Chivalry go in. Gold income drops to 56 per turn from 90. Acorn is at 69.4 production with a field cannon being built every three turns. Threefry has 5 turns left on its power plant and LinCon can now get out a cuirassier every four turns. I’ll run this policy group for the net 15 turns or so (complete Urbanization and Scorched Earth is currently 16 turns) and then consider some changes.

Hit end turn and there’s a new barbarian camp in town.

[suboptimal]

Turn 182

Civil Engineering has completed, no policy changes since I did that last time around. I start Opera and Ballet – I’ll take that to one turn then start Scorched Earth. I’ve gained two envoys and a governor title. What to do with them? Well, Woden’s taken suzerainty of Bologna from me (by one envoy) and he’s put Amani in there to boot. I put both envoys there, retake suzerainty and kick his Amani out. As for the governor title nothing really grabs my fancy at this juncture so I hold onto it.

Xoroshiro is not quite dead yet but I expect it will be next turn:




Victor will be established at Mersenne Twister in two more turns and I should have sufficient gold for an expensive archer to field cannon upgrade there as well. I send Jeanne d’Arc there in anticipation of the upgrade. A ranged strike at 70 and two ranged strikes at 60 should be enough to take out a musketman. Up at Antananarivo Woden is making a big push now. The city-state, though, has not shot at anything since last turn:




The mustket was previously damaged, as was the cuirassier. He’s done another 21 points of damage to the walls with the bombard corps.

Where is the new barbarian camp? Way up in the frozen tundra:




In short, not my problem.

In other news, Pindicator has completed Flight. He has not completed Steel and has not placed any Aerodromes. I’m going to complete Steel and then work towards Flight as well. He also recruited Mendeleev this past turn. Darwin is up next (500 per each adjacent natural wonder tile). I have a Campus project completing in two turns. That’ll give me 44 GSP. My natural generation rate is 19 per turn though it’s actually a bit higher than that with Bologna in the fold. I’d have it in three turns without the project. Getting him to Pammukale (up by Brussels) or Ha Long Bay would be tough so I’ll likely use him at Kilimanjaro. I’ll use him for Flight (or Electricity when the time comes).

Here’s the other problem in looking down the tree. Pindicator and I will not be able to upgrade that many units into the Atomic Age. Battleships, submarines and tanks all consume resources on a per turn basis in addition to requiring one resource to build. With each of us having only one oil and one coal that means we’d be able to support no more than 3-4 such units. Woden would be able to upgrade most of his frigates to battleships (not very important long-term as there’s only one city he could get to with them...Xorshift) but he’d also be able to run a number of tanks. The question, though, is how he’d build them with his low production rate (the immediate answer is: slowly).

I am curious to see how this plays out between Pindicator and Woden. I may or may not survive long enough to see. However, lurkers, I will say this. If Pindicator starts to wave the concession flag, please stop by to let me know. I think once one of the “big boys” in this game is waving the flag it’s time to pack it in and consider PBEM 17.

[suboptimal]

That's a wrap. I'll get a quick retrospective up either tonight or Wednesday, depending on my schedule.

[suboptimal]

Post Mortem

Woden’s put up a “what went right, what went wrong post” so I figure it’s about time I did the same, though my list is going to be a bit shorter in both regards.

What Went Right

For starters, Acorn:




This city was my the engine of my modest empire, leading the way in , and , even topping El Nino in terms of raw science output. It was a close second in to Threefry’s 36.8 yield. The presence of Pingala with four promotions, the Oracle and suzerainty of Bologna meant that a base district was pumping out six Great Person Points of the corresponding type with tier 1 and 2 buildings adding another four to that total. As an aside, I do have to wonder what Tokuhama Reborn was churning out for with its +10 Campus and high population.

That leads me to Great Person generation. It wasn’t originally a goal of mine but somewhere along the line when I saw the Oracle was still available it clicked. The end result was the recruitment of 20 out of 38 great people (11 for Woden, 7 for Pindicator): 5 Great Scientists, 5 Great Writers, 1 Great Artist, 4 Great Merchants, 2 Great Engineers and 3 Great Generals.

My recover from a poor first 50 turns went well enough, though as I stated in one of my reports that left me being the dog that caught the car. I pulled off the economic recovery only to have no plan with what to do next.

The last thing I’ll put on this list is defending against the Incan invasion. In prior PBEMs where I’ve been invaded I’ve generally collapsed (see PBEM 3 and PBEM 6). I’m now a little more confident in my military abilities, if only on defense. Future PBEMs will tell.

What Went Wrong

My start position was a bit challenging. I haven’t gone through the map-making part of the lurker thread but I had the only start position without a 3 tile within a couple of tiles. There were only two 3 tiles on “my”side of the mountains, not counting Kilimajaro. I don’t know if the multitude of wheat or the presence of the wonder was considered enough of a balance or not. I’ll have to see how the balance discussion played out.

My lack of long-term planning during my recovery was also an issue as I got focused on getting the journey right without considering my ultimate destination. Likewise, I stopped tracking ALL of my micro (yield/build tracking and player score tracking) to the point where I was oblivious as to Woden’s ridiculous faith generation. If I had noticed that I might have tried a bit of a deeper dive to see what was going on in Persian. I would have been left stymied, though, as his Government Plaza was still hidden in the fog so I would have had no idea what buildings he had there. Would I have figured it out? Maybe, but probably not. I can be dense like that some times….

I do prefer to keep this type of retrospective to my own actions, but as I stated in Woden’s own thread it was Jester’s early and rapid collapse that set the stage for what was to come, so I’ll put that in things that went wrong.

General Impressions

I think Gathering Storm, as a whole, is a marked improvement on the game. I do like the somewhat random nature of disasters and the bit of intrigue provided by the World Congress. The maps are also quite interesting, at least to me. I also get the sense that the mechanics introduced in both Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm have opened up options a bit in terms of how to start and proceed through the game. Some of the civs still have balance issues, either too strong (e.g. Rome, Scythia), too weak (Spain, Mali, MJW might add France) or too bonkers (Maori) for an MP game and the AI is still trash.

I do like that we played with the house rule of no declaring war on city-states. I felt that their continued presence in the game added a layer of interest and complexity that is lacking when they become late-Ancient/early-Classical cannon fodder for military expansion. This rule is something I’d advocate for in future games.

I’ll be curious to see how future PBEMs play out with Gathering Storm, particularly if they start using some of the new map types.

[suboptimal]

In general, sub, it feels like you tend to lose focus on the big picture when you're making decisions. You'll focus intensely on one area and obssessively analyze it for a bit (often with amusing results - compare your analysis of Woden's luxury trade and your response with Woden's treatment of the same in his thread), and usually you'll come up with a more or less solid plan (apart from the time you launched your entire army at a city state instead of the neighbor bent on conquering you, or when you split your army in half in front of the Archduke's Macedon). But you don't integrate your analysis as a whole. In one area, you'll be dismissing military adventures as impossible due to lack of gold, while in another you'll build wonders or districts that may be useful in isolation, but don't solve your gold problem. You can sort of see this style reflected in your reports - lots of really intense detail on small areas that are treated in total isolation from one another.

Guilty as charged, and this remains a continued weakness of my game, both in MP and SP. I don't know if ignoring the big picture in these games is a matter of psychological makeup, the fact that I've generally been a casual gamer throughout my "career" so never learned to think in this manner, some combination of the two or something else altogether. It's something that needs a LOT of work, though. At some point I'll hopefully improve, but I think this may remain a "project" for some time.

How does suboptimal have so many more envoys than Woden? Woden's got 2 up his sleeve, but the Greeks are sitting on fully six. He does that while maintaining suzerainty over Bologna. Is he not having to compete with pindicator for most of the city-states? Woden spread his out among all the contacts while sub mostly sits on Bologna?

Early on in the game I was completing quests that gave me early envoy counts so had a base to build on. Pindicator didn't seem to be placing envoys or challenging for suzerainty. I only built three Acropolis districts and was actively hoarding envoys for defending suzerainties at Bologna and Antananaviro.

[Sullla]

Suboptimal, beautifully reported game and definitely better played than some of your earlier efforts. You are completely correct that Woden's conquest of Jester is what decided the game, and the odds were that you didn't have a realistic plan for winning once that took place. However, there was one huge issue that you didn't address in your retrospective post: you just didn't expand! I think perhaps both you and pindicator were caught up in exploring the new features of Gathering Storm, but both of you failed to pursue the old Civ4 wonder of "workers and settlers":




Here on Turn 75 you have all of three cities. Three! It doesn't matter how awesome they might be, having that few cities is a recipe for losing against other human players.




By Turn 110 you were up to all of six cities. And it's not like there was no room to expand, the land to the east of Grenada was completely open and left unsettled for virtually the whole game. This was the single biggest issue that I spotted in the lurker thread, a puzzling lack of expansion from both your civ and pindicator. No, you probably weren't winning the game after Jester was taken out, but things would have been much closer if each of you had 15 cities against 20 for Woden. Food for thought for your next game.