[Spoilers] Suboptimal - Welcome to the Tlachtli of Blunders!

[suboptimal]

Amphibious is a subpar promotion.

I think Warcry+Tortoise at the same time is much better.

Also Garrison is also not the best imo, the double +7 promotion against land units is much stronger.

I agree with Coursers.

The musketmen getting Amphibious already have Battlecry & Tortoise.  I guess a related question would be whether or not non-promoted melee units should take Battlecry (which doesn't work on defense, IIRC) or Tortoise as their promotion.

If/when I upgrade the bombards would it be worth putting one in the Encampment for the wider field of fire or leave it back one (and move a field cannon into the Encampment in place of the musketman)?

Mechanics question for the lurkers - what happens when an Encampment is reduced to zero damage by ranged attacks?  Does it repair damage the following turn or is it pillaged and any units within destroyed?  Asking for a friend.

[TheArchduke]

I think the encampment must be repaired by project as well.

[suboptimal]

I think the encampment must be repaired by project as well.

I know at a minimum that the walls would need to be repaired (outer defense project).  I'm not sure about the actual garrison health. 

I also think they never fixed the obsolete walls bug.  It used to be that if you had damaged walls of an earlier type and then unlocked the next type you were unable to build the next type or repair the old one.  I suppose if I wanted to take advantage of abuse it I'd try to time an Encampment bombardment for about when I think he's getting Steel - if he finishes the tech before the walls are repaired (which requires having them go unattacked for three turns) the Encampment would be wall-less and unable to perform ranged attacks.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I believe, from SP memory, any unit can waltz into the encampment and pillage it. However, it can't be pillaged and the garrison destroyed from ranged attacks alone. I think they work similar to cities in that regard.

I have not tested this, so y'know, trust, but verify.

[suboptimal]

Turn 153

Industrialization has completed.  Status quo on the military front.  I had zero notifications of coal being connected. So, where’s the coal at?  Here’s two:




Third ring at Underneath, fourth ring at Oddfellows.  Gotta get some settlers out.  Anywhere else?




Gonna need a settler for that one, too.  Anywhere else?  Nope.  None visible in my territory or within what I little can see of Greece and Kongo.  I also checked my incomplete districts even though all of those are on flat land and coal only appears in grassland hills and plains hills.  Now, what to do about that coal?  How will build a settler now for the northern coast location.  Begin will build one for the southeastern location once its builder is completed.  Of course, I’ll probably need another couple of settlers for oil because snow, tundra and desert.  

In other news the builder that had two turns left at Harborcoat as of last turn has shown up complete.  Why?  Because Industrialization’s +1 to mines gets applied before city production. The builder heads off for Green and will farm the rice, complete a farm triangle and mine the hill there.  Industrialization, though, has pushed How’s production to 39.9 per turn.  It’s project is completed so it starts a settler for the northern coal location.  Because How’s project completed this turn I had this happen:






He appears in Cant and is immediately transferred to Green.  Three turns to Siege Tactics and then Darwin will be activated.    The next Great Scientist up?  Dmitri Mendeleev – triggers the eureka for Chemistry and one random tech from the Industrial Era.  Kongo and Greece can fight it out.  I will, however, keep an eye on things and consider a couple of projects if the one after Meneleev is any good.  Interestingly I also noticed that despite just getting the Great Merchant I lead in GMP generation and have the shortest time to completion for Mr. Spilsbury.  

Time for some unit movements.  Knight in the south kills the barbarian scout, takes five points of damage.  It’ll take the knight two shots to clear the barbarian camp.  The force at Begin moves out  – I’ve got three muskets, three crossbows, the knight and Ghengis Khan, with a fourth musket catching up.  There are three horsemen at Horse to Water that I’ll upgrade to cavalry and then catch up to the group.  

At Kenneth I chop the forest into the Industrial Zone and switch back to the builder in progress.  The hill I just chopped will get mined next turn.  Cant’s builder is down to one turn.  I need to switch out to something so I build a monument for a couple extra culture.  That’ll be two turns of construction.  The tile I’d like to put the Encampment on is going to cost 230.  That’s a bit steep.  Gotta ponder that one and come back to it as I’d rather use the cash on upgrades.

[TheArchduke]

I would pull 2-3 siege weapons south as well. Defensively the field cannons can do a much better job of defending anyway.

Darwin is good news, you should be able to pull ahead a bit with him.

[suboptimal]

I can do that but they'd take 7-8 turns just to get to Begin. Is that worth the time involved? Begin could have a battering ram out and on the way before they got down there.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, point taken.

[suboptimal]

Turn 154

Civil Engineering completes. Natural Philosophy, Professional Army and Machiavellianism are out, Public Works, Press Gangs and Merchant Confederation are in and I start The Enlightenment. When that completes I’ll consider putting Professional Army back in. Civil Engineering puts me one column ahead of rho21 on the civics tree. That won’t hold for long.

Up north a Greek settler has shown up at the front line:




I don’t know where he’s going with this. There is room to settle in the gap between the cities but he’d have to move through two rows of Kongolese troops first. If he gets too close to the front line I’d be tempted to sacrifice a knight for the sole purpose of capturing and deleting the settler (since I’d never be able to maintain possession of it).

In the south I get greeted by a Kongolese knight:




Dunno if he’s got any buddies down here or not. My force continues its advance. Given the Great General and the positions I can kill the knight if I were to declare war. Do I, do I not? I decide to wait. He may just consider this to be my front line rather than some sort of invasion force and I’d rather get a little closer to Kapsalon before declaring. This may be a mistake, but I’m sure I’ll find out (from either Japper or Archduke).

Next turn: Terracotta Army completes and I hold a promotion party.

[suboptimal]

Turn 155

Open the turn to a bunch of notifications.  The two big ones are rho21 getting another two envoys into Geneva (probably got the two), so my science is back down to 115.1 (from 133.8).  Next time I throw envoys at Geneva I’ll wait until I have enough to suzerain them...that’ll disrupt his trade network.  Rho21 also founded Diocles southeast of Xenocrates.  When I review the scores I also see Japper’s founded a new city and the minimap shows it’s just southwest of Apollonous. However, the bigger news is towards the bottom:




Terracotta Army is complete.  Time for promotions:

- All of the horsemen take Coursers.
- The spearman in the donut hole takes Thrust (+10 vs melee units)
- Ranged units take Volley or Arrow Storm, depending on their current promotion level.
- Knights take Barding or Rout, depending on current promotion level.
- Caravel takes Embolon
- Bombards take Grape Shot
- Land melee units take Tortoise, Battlecry if they don’t have Tortoise and Commando (+1 movement, scale cliffs) if they have both.

The exceptions to this?  A crossbow in the south that shoots and kills a previously damaged barbarian crossbow.  The other exceptions?  I have two crossbows (one in Underneath, one in Horses) and two knights (in the chokepoint east of Cant) that despite having full XP and the little “+” icon from CQUI, give me no promotion button:





Weirdly, I try moving one and the promotion button magically appears.  I move the knights and galley around, button appears.  Seems to be a bug with CQUI for some units...CQUI highlights the promotion button but it got hidden behind another button, then moving redraws it.  

Cant and Begin have finished their builders.  Find, Maps, Oddfellows and Kenneth are all in a race to finish builders next turn.  At Begin the builder moves to the Campus and spends a charge, adding 70 production to the Campus.  That’s an interesting result since the Campus’ locked cost is 301 and districts currently cost 305.  After the charge Begin resumes working on a musketman I have 7 turns left on.  Up at Cant I hold my nose and spend 230 gold for the Encampment tile.  The builder will take three turns to get there so I’ll have Cant put 90 into the district.  The builder will put in 3-4 charges and the city can finish the rest while the builder makes improvements.  Welcome starts its own builder.  

My spy in Xenocrates does the listening post mission again.  I miss the promotion so I cancel the mission and will promote next turn.  

Next turn I finish Siege Tactics and will activate Darwin.