[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[CFCJesterFool]

Option 2 is way better. You want to build an aqueduct for the eureka to Military Engineering (leading to gunpowder.) City #3 is the perfect candidate for this. I would put one turn into a monument while the free builder positions then the following turn, use the queue button to add any unit to the build queue, swap to building the unit while discarding the monument from the build queue followed by discarding the unit build. The build queue will now be empty so you can actually chop the aqueduct spot and then when you place the aqueduct, the production from the chop will actually go into the aqueduct. I use this neat micro trick all the time for placing districts on tiles I want to chop first.

[suboptimal]

Turn 79

Engineering and Games & Recreation are complete. We’ve lost an archer at Res Publica, more on that later. We’ve met Kaiser of the Greek Empire up by Hasselback, presumably by ship. The volcano north of Hobart has had a megacolossal eruption and created a bunch of 3 tiles. Builds are complete and a lot of stuff to do. Where to begin…hmmm...Kaiser.







Five cities, Oligarchy, DoF’s all around. We have more per turn (26 vs. his 20) and is comparable (his 37 vs. our 34). He’s now suzerained Valetta. He’s also even with us on the tech and civics trees. While I’m in the trees I start Military Training, four turns to complete. Machinery was in the queue, that’ll be done in 6. I opt for no policy changes and promote Magnus with Provision. At Fondant:




Trailing archer advances and then kills the warrior, earning a promotion. Yukon Gold moves deeper into the jungle, finds no units supporting the city. Red Pontiac shoots the city for 17 points of damage. Horseman advances and does 39. I decide to change plans a little and bring Maris Piper up for a shot for another 17 points of damage and 8XP. The swordsman moves in behind it. The garrison is at 127/200.




Next turn I’ll rotate the western archers, move the horse into the jungle and attack and move up the swordsman. I also bring the promoted warrior south and move the unpromoted one into the city. We’ll be able to upgrade a warrior in 5 turns and sending a second swordsman down here can’t hurt. I also move a citizen from the jungle hills to the bananas. That cuts a turn off the city’s growth while leaving the production time of the horseman unaffected. The city will now grow in two turns. The change will also result in more and next turn when the plantation goes down.

At Res Publica




Yeah, this situation is not ideal. The southern horse promotes in place, taking Caparison. Coursers is more useful but the next promotion in line is Depredation, which will be more useful. I move the northern horseman to the PFH and fortify for the time being. The archer backs up to the pasture and takes the arrow storm promotion. That’ll allow me to kill either of the wounded warriors (or the archer) next turn or do some serious damage to the unwounded one if it crosses the river. The archer is christened Russet. I currently estimate that Pindicator has the three warriors and archer at Res Publica, the warrior at Wealth of Nations and a warrior in the fog between that city and Conquest of Paradise.

Mashed can get a warrior or a chariot out in two turns. I opt for the chariot as it has the better combat strength and it gets the 50% production bonus from having Maneuver slotted.

[suboptimal]

Turn 80

Open the save to a notification of some unit attacks and a drought north of Brussels. Down at Res Publica:




Yeah, that’s a problem. The unpromoted horseman has earned at attack but I need to withdraw those forces. I’ll send the archer up and around the mountains, the southern horseman southeast then east and the other horseman will move one tile west and heal for a bit. Down at Wealth of Nations:




Can’t rotate the archers into position but can kill a few units. That promoted warrior has Tortoise, so that will be a bit of a pain to deal with but not insurmountable (the archer has a higher CS on defense than the warrior does attacking). These two warriors currently have no backups, though, so that’s good. I kill the injured warrior (who formerly garrisoned Wealth of Nations), shoot the promoted one for 35 damage and attack the city with the horseman and archer for another points of damage. That takes the garrison down to 79 and I should be able to take the city next turn if the walls don’t show up.

Up near Fondant the battering ram continues trundling southeast, the builder puts down a plantation and the desert archer moves to the geothermal vent and takes the Arrow Storm promotion. I christen it Dark Red Norland. I also see that despite reporting that I moved the warriors at the city I actually never did, so do so now.

I also notice something else after taking care of movement down here:




There’s a Khmer city in the fog. I think the horsemen will need to investigate that as it could be a bit of a sitting duck and well out of loyalty range from the other cities.

Next turn Fondant grows to 5 population, builds complete in all of the other cities and Magnus establishes in Mashed.

Note for the lurkers: if I take Wealth of Nations next turn it will be razed and we’ll send Mashed’s second or third settler down here to resettle the city, preferably once Conquest of Paradise is taken in order to avoid loyalty issues.

[suboptimal]

Turn 81

The save gives us the usual bounty of notifications, many of which don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Military Training is complete. Forgot about the timing with Dauphinoise’s Encampment finishing. Whoops. A city-state has died, that’s likely what Archduke was posting about in the tech thread. Magnus is established in the capital, we’ve earned an envoy in Brussels (from the Encampment, I believe), Mathematics is boosted (from the Encampment) and we got an era point from the Mathematics boost. Oh, our horseman at Wealth of Nations was attacked, but I’ll get to that sticky wicket in a little bit.

First up, city management. Mashed has completed the chariot so the settler is queued up to complete next turn. Chariot moves northeast to check for interlopers and finds none, at least any one hex from the capital. Dauphinoise starts on barracks, that’ll be seven turns to completion. Hasselback’s builder is complete, the city likewise starts an archer. Builder moves out to the salt and will mine that next turn as that’s the largest yield improvement available. Fondant’s new population is in and back to working the jungle hills. Three turns to complete the horseman. I start Defensive Tactics and hold onto the envoy we’ve earned for the time being. I do unload Strategos and put in Equestrian Orders in order to build our horse & iron stocks faster.

At Wealth of Nations:




Walls completed and Pindicator has a horseman in the city, likely from Conquest of Paradise. This is a problem until the battering ram arrives with the swordsman in tow. I move the battering ram across the river into the pass and send the horseman up there to get out of the way. Promoted warrior at Fondant moves to the Encampment site and holds. I’ll be able to upgrade that unit in two turns. Red Pontiac and Maris Piper both shoot the city for 12 points off the walls and 2 points off the garrison. After thinking about it I also shoot with Yukon Gold for another 7 points of wall damage. Next turn I’ll get Dark Red Norland in on the action and see how much wall damage I can do before the ram gets there. It also farms XP so hey, who am I to complain? I just need to be careful about that horseman attacking out with the wall attacks – the western archers are vulnerable to that. Maris Piper not so much as that would leave the horseman outside the city and killable.

At Res Publica:




Based on the mouseover that warrior has a friend. My horseman fortifies in place for the time being. I’ll heal up a bit and if the warrior advances I’ll consider attacking it. The other horseman attacks the barbarian scout for 8XP and a promotion, Russet finishes the scout off and earns 1XP.

Pindicator's milpower is showing as 80, but it's missing the horseman. Should be up around 120 next turn between the horseman and unit healing.

[suboptimal]

Turn 82

Have a notification that one of the archers at Wealth of Nations was attacked. Another city-state has bitten the dust to an unknown civilization. Up at Mashed the settler is complete. It moves out, heading northeast for the tundra volcano, and will found a city in 6 more turns. The chariot scouts ahead and the city starts another settler which will complete in 7 turns (and found the nearby NE location 4 turns after that).

The city also just hit 8 population and is one below its housing cap. The city is working all workable tiles at this point. It’ll be growing to the PFH SE of the Commercial Hub in three turns, at which point I can reassign a citizen to there from the pearls to gain some . At some point I’ll need a builder out here to put fishing boats down on those sea resources for some more housing. At Hasselback I mine the salt for an amenity and a 13 boost to the city’s output. A common theme now is that all of the empire’s cities are 1 point below their housing capacity and in three turns Hasselback will hit its capacity at 5 population.

The horseman at Res Publica moves back to the PFH in the pass and promotes, taking Caparison. The archer jogs onto the pillaged pasture, sees that Res Publica is empty and moves back to the iron. I leave the other horseman fortified for the time being.

At Wealth of Nations:




He’s attacked out. That archer retreats to the northwest, as does the other archer adjacent to the city (it goes to the geothermal vent and fortifies there). Unfortunately if the city can shoot at the redlined archer it will die unless Pindicator gets a bad roll (CS25 vs CS 17 averages 41 damage and the unit has...41 damage left). The battering ram links up with the swordsman just outside the city’s borders. If the horseman advances out of the city, either to attack or retreat, I’ll advance both eastern archers to try to inflict maximum damage to it. Otherwise the swordsman will stay put while I bring the upgraded warrior (next turn) south. Fondant will also complete its horseman in two more turns, adding to the firepower available for the second assault on WoN. I move the injured horseman up to the rice I order to heal in friendly territory. Maris Piper shoots the city for 6 points of wall damage and 3 points of garrison damage. If it gets 28 more XP (122/150 currently) I’ll be able to promote again.

Over in the east the archer moves southwest and discovers Auckland:




Alhambram is their suzerain at 3 envoys, they’d like me to trigger the eureka for Construction (build a water mill….nope). Of course, with Australia being coastal their suzerain bonus just makes things that much bleaker with respect to Australia (+1 to all shallow water tiles).

Judging by his resource consumption Pindicator is building horsemen, and nothing else, out of Conquest of Paradise. I decide to send the previously fortified horseman southwest to that new city to check for any pastures that may be there. The city has wines within its borders and I’ll get vision on the city center next turn.

I think when Defensive Tactics is complete I’ll swap out Maneuver and put Colonization in to get the third and fourth settlers out of Mashed. Alternatively I can put Agoge in to really pump out some archers (and warriors while iron is lacking).

[CFCJesterFool]

I wouldn't finish Machinery (leave at 1 turn remaining.) Slotting in Agoge to build at least two more pitati archers (replacing losses) is smart.

[suboptimal]

Turn 83

Open the save and still have all our archers. Take a look around, don’t see anything odd. Take care of some unit movement in the north (settler, chariot, Hasselback builder) and upgrade the warrior to a swordsman at Fondant. In the far south a Khmer warrior has come out of the fog, presumably to look for my horseman. I move west to the wines and reveal Art of War. No builders (Pindicator doesn’t have Ancestral Hall built at his Government Plaza). The city is not really attackable by a lone horseman but I move adjacent to it (open plains to the NE) in order to reveal the full territory:




The city is building a unit as there’s no hammer visible on strategic view. I end the horse’s turn there. Archer at Res Publica jogs to view the city center; there’s now a promoted warrior garrisoning it. The horseman near the city stays put to heal its one damage.

At Wealth of Nations:




He’s taken a shot at Maris Piper with the city attack and done 35 damage. The archer gained 2 XP. Staying put doesn’t do me any good as he could kill the unit by bringing the horseman out next turn. I swap Maris Piper and Dark Red Norland, who takes a shot at the walls for 6 points of wall damage, 3 points of garrison damage and 8 XP. It’ll likely get attacked next turn and I’ll back that unit off as well to heal up. I’ll need to shoot at the walls once every three turns to prevent Pindicator from attempting repairs (they’re currently at 69/100) as every bit of damage helps the swords out. Even though it wasn’t shot at I do back Yukon Gold out of the territory to speed healing. The Red Pontiac fortifies in place to heal.

Fondant’s horseman is out next turn; that’ll be a welcome reinforcement. The trick is getting the swordsmen into position to take down the walls. It’ll be four turns until the just-upgraded swordsman will be next to Wealth of Nations. The new horseman will come down the pass – I expect to lose one swordsman in the process of getting the walls down, though perhaps with archer support that won’t happen. Hasselback’s archer is done in 2 turns but I’m going to send that one towards Res Publica

Next turn I’ll switch out from Machinery and start getting a bunch of techs (Apprenticeship, Mathematics, Construction) to one turn from completion. Astrology and Sailing are already at that point.

[suboptimal]

Turn 84

Dad and dad have been fighting in the tech thread again. I think they need to play a duel to defend their honor….in Civ V….restricted to the Ancient Era. It’d provide some sort of entertainment during this whole social isolation thing we have going on here.

I have notifications of two unit attacks and a unit death. Pindicator brought his horseman out of the city and killed Dark Red Norland.




There’s a bit of a sticky wicket here now. Maris Piper and the swordsman cannot do enough damage to kill the horseman and horse + city attack might be enough to kill the sword in return. There’s also a unit in the city (not a horseman, based on garrison strength) because the horseman has a +2 support bonus. I need to damage that horse, though. Running the numbers I can move the swordsman NE onto the hill, bring the wounded horseman down and give Maris Piper a +4 support bonus. Shooting the horseman should do about 37 damage. That plus the support bonus would let the archer survive until next turn. The only wrinkle here is that if the garrison unit is an archer and not a warrior he could, in theory, bring it out of the city for a kill and I don’t know that I want to take that risk. I move Maris Piper to the hill and bring down the wounded horseman to support the swordsman, who fortifies. He’ll now be attacking a CS 43 sword (and losing that horseman) if he wants to press the issue. The other swordsman and the new horseman also start making their way south. Fondant, its horseman build complete, starts an archer for moar units.

Chariot, settler and builder all move. Assuming the volcano doesn’t blow its top during the interturn I’m going to pasture the sheep first. That way if it blows its top in one of the turns after that I only lose one builder charge instead of two. Russet does the city center check jog at Res Publica, finds




Shooting is sorely tempting but without a good roll I don’t kill that archer and if I don’t kill that archer my own will die (the city and garrison attacks alone might be sufficient to kill the unit. I back up to the iron. I could try to send the horseman around but that’s five turns until it’s in position to attack. That’s no good. Horseman at Art of War moves to the iron and I see that I’ve got more company coming down:




Hmmm...I’d love to take one or both of those out but not in the horseman’s current condition. That is a tortoise-promoted warrior, though. While I’m on that hill the warriors would be hard-pressed to kill the horseman (they’d do about 16 points of damage but take about 54). That’s also 40 points of milpower not near his cities, so keeping them down here is prudent. Speaking of milpower, he’s got 169 listed. There’s 40 at Art of War, 50 visible at Res Publica and another 50-60 at Wealth of Nations. That leaves maybe one unit unaccounted for at present. I’ll need to check support bonuses at Res Publica on the next city center check.

Hasselback finishes its archer next turn. I’m going to bring that one down the river valley and then decide whether it will head for Wealth of Nations or Res Publica (via the Sheep Tea Pass) as things develop. The city will start a horseman next turn.

I switch techs from Machinery to Apprenticeship. It’ll be able to get out a horseman in 4 turns, 5 if I take out Maneuver when Defensive Tactics completes. I think I’ll put one turn into Theology before completing Defensive Tactics in order to get the horse out a turn earlier. I’ll then complete Defensive Tactics, do a policy swap into Agoge and build out some warriors/swords. Our current gold income and an iron mine at the new city will allow a warrior → sword upgrade every five turns without Equestrian Orders.

Another problem:




If we’re going to maintain our civics pace here we need some inspirations. For Feudalism we could use the free builders at the new cities to put down two farms each (on the volcanic soil in the far north and the wheat and plains in the near north) plus a builder for two farms, likely at Dauphinoise (I want to keep the volcanic soil tiles north of Hasselback open for mines). The Civil Service inspiration would be doable at Mashed if we could solve both the housing and amenities situation there.

What do the lurkers think about Temple or Artemis at Mashed? The city’s settler completes in 4 turns and will take 4 turns to found the nearby city in the northeast. The free builder could chop the forest NE of Mashed’s deer on the third turn after founding. That would give Mashed six turns to put production into something else – we could complete a third settler (with Colonization slotted) or build out the Commercial Hub or library in that time. The Magnuschop plus 5 turns of production completes the Temple of Artemis. That gives the city +4, 3 housing and two amenities, all of which should allow the city to reach 10 population by the time we need to complete Civil Service. That free builder would then put down two farms (wheat and the grassland SE of there) to help with the Feudalism inspiration.

The Guilds inspiration is also doable if both Mashed and Dauphinoise build out their Commercial Hubs and markets. That would get us to 3 of 4 trade routes for the Medieval Faires. The fourth could come from a Harbor + Lighthouse at Hasselback built using Veterancy.

For reference, the inspirations for these four civics total 576, which is 20 turns of at our current yields.

On the tech side we’re also stalling out for boosts, with the available boosts not being worth much (a turn here, two turns there). The Education column is where the boosts matter but the only ones that might be available to us is to build an Aqueduct and get the Feudalism civic.

The way the builds and civics line up I could, in theory, do the following:

- Delay Defensive Tactics to do a policy swap in 5 turns
- At the Policy Swap exchange Maneuver for Agoge and Equestrian Orders for Strategos
- Build out additional units at Hasselback and Fondant
- Civics: Feudalism and Civil Service to inspiration – 1 turn.
- Do the Temple of Artemis build at Mashed
- Use the next policy swap to get Veterancy in to build the Encampment (Fondant) and Harbor (Hasselback)
- Time the completion of Celestial Navigation to complete for the next policy swap

[CFCJesterFool]

Mashed should build settlers, settlers BUT  a ~5 turn delay building Temple of Artemis before more settlers (Civil Service inspiration) is fine.

[suboptimal]

We can get a third settler out between the current build and the Temple -- just need to put Colonization in at the next policy swap to get it done in 6 turns.