[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Turn 198

Astronomy is done, Scientific Theory up next. Have a look around, all seems quiet. Sinan is back in Barry. Looks like Woden is going to grab those artifacts up north:




That’s OK...I’ll see if I can grab one and then head for the ones I’ve marked for Truly. I send my pike & shot at La Venta southeast and find the city of Rohan. That’s where the Colosseum was built. Emory moves past the caravel, finds nothing and will disembark next turn. I’ll grab the artifact I’ve marked as Cleggy 2 and then skedaddle – Woden’s unit will beat me to Cleggy 1.

Over at Barry I send Sinan out across the waves towards Gordon Malloy. Wigstan moves for the former location of Alara Kitan – looks like Woden razed it. Wigstan is within sight of Triple-A (who has embarked), but only until the ironclad fleet sends him home. I’ll disembark straight on the artifact site next turn and try to grab both. There’s a third one up in The Grey Havens first ring. Dunno if I want to be that plucky after already grabbing one from Phoenician territory. Barry’s project is at one turn. I start working on the Theater Square. Missionary at Howard heads towards Barry – going to try to convert this city despite strong pressure from The Orville.

Auntie Wainwright’s museum is complete. I star the archaeologist here. I do have enough to buy the ferris wheel but I’m going to hold off on that. Builder at Cleggy heads south. Sunngifu closes in on the Brazilian coast. Montgomery heads through Bruins en route to The Blues. Builder at Compo heads towards Pearl.

Up in the Tethys there’s not much to do. Woden has razed Alara Kitan but I spy something intereting that I missed before...scientific city-state borders:




That is highly interesting. SEAWACS moves over to check for Egyptian units in the area. I find a wounded Egyptian musket, and now it’s dead – noob and armada take it out. SEAWACS moves in a litle closer and finds a bit more heat in the area:




Interesting. I back off the coast and that’s the action up here. I also see that Ed Mercer has an artillery unit in it. I’ll need to keep that in mind as I maneuver off the coast here. I pin SEAWACS’ current location since I can move there to spot the city, shell it from off the coast and then retreat. I’m not sure if I want to do that. I’ll keep them around as once Loefflaed is established (3 turns) I’ll clear Gordon Malloy’s NE quadrant and start pillaging. I do send the Depredation cavalry over. I’ll land near Woden’s territory and navigate through there to discover that city-state. I do have to wonder what the envoy situation there is.

Down in the Nubian Desert the builder has disappeared into the fog. I send a tank NE towards the niter deposit. No Egyptian units in the area. I’ll move in and pillage the niter next turn and position the other tank on the Entertainment Complex for pillaging the turn after.

Gossip shows that Ichabod is running around with at least one tank. Woden did some pillaging and conquered a “lost” city in addition to Alara Kitan. Don’t know what city that might have been. Canada is also allied with Brazil so their conversion to the dark side of the force is complete. Ichabod recruited a great writer last turn, Mary Shelly is on deck at a cost of 420. I’ll have her in three turns.

[suboptimal]

Turn 199

All quiet on the notifications, just some “I need more housing” complaints from cities. Have a quick look around, nothing seems amiss.

Truly’s archaeologist is complete – say hello to Deorwine, everyone! (Hello, Deorwine! ). He heads for the artifact that’s third ring at Truly. I’ll excavate that next turn and figure out where I want to go afterwards. Sunngifu lands at his next target and Emory is ashore west of Cleggy #1. I expect that artifact to be harvested on Woden’s upcoming turn so I’ll work my way south and try to beat him to the one closest to Weathertop. Montgomery is now just east of Kings and has a few more turns to his next target. Wigstan is ashore at his next target as well and I don’t see any Egyptian units in the area. Triple-A is out on the ocean, now he’s back in Ed Mercer.

SEAWACS closes in on the coast to see who’s around, that musket corps is still there. It’s fortified so I assume it’s not going anywhere. Not like it could, anyway. It’s also CS 103 against my battleships while it stays there because it’s Tortoise-promoted. I move the Depredation cavalry up there and it’ll land next turn. Sinan moves back to “the nook” and finds no Egyptian units along the coast. I bring the battleships to the southeast a bit and hang tight. The noob is 5XP from its next promotion so I attack the pike & shot corps with it for the XP. That gets me 5XP and the promotion. I’ll move out and take Line of Battle next turn. The next turn or so will be quiet, after which Loefflaed will be established in Gordon Malloy and I’ll see what mischief I can get into there. I think I might need (or want) to take out the rest of Isaac’s walls before then, though, since having two city attacks in the area will be a problem. I’ll resume the barrage next turn.

Marina’s project is one turn from completion so I start a zoo. Truly moves a citizen from the cow pasture in the south to the Industrial Zone as a specialist. That gets the city to 85, which means that I can get out military engineers at 1 per turn. It’s railroad time! I queue up two and will prebuild its research project after that. More on this in a bit as there’s been a development or two in the GS race. Foggy starts its amphitheater.

Out at the Egypt/Canada frontier I move a tank up to the niter. I don’t know what’s in the city because I can’t see it, so the other tank comes up for a look. It’s a field cannon. I move to the Entertainment complex and pillage the niter. I’ll hit the Entertainment Complex next turn and bug out. He might do some serious damage to one tank but I don’t know that he kills one (or both). That builder that was around is over on the lumbermill next to the Encampment.

My pike & shot moves around Rohan and finds Lake Retba:




I use the remaining movement and cross over into the industrial center, also finding the city of Erebor. Woden has done a really nice job with district adjacencies up here:




They currently have adjacencies of 12, 18, 20 and 14 – he’s got Craftsmanship slotted. This would be spy central if I ever got a master spy with the industrial sabotage promotion!

In the great scientist race Canada has hopped up to 505 points, which puts them even with Kaiser in the turn count. As it stands right now, Ichabod gets Einstein in 12 turns. I’d get whoever is next, then the next two would go England-Egypt. I’ve got two options here…

The first is to complete three projects (Foggy, Marina, Truly) five turns from now for 153 points. That moves me up to getting the next one in 15 turns. I’d need to complete five projects to jump ahead of Ichabod and grab Einstein OR I could complete four projects (Truly, Foggy, Cleggy & Marina) and spend 260 eleven turns from now. That’d grab me Einstein and give me enough time to build points and reload Marina’s project fast enough to have it ready for Leakey.

The second is to see if Canada or Egypt jump the queue to get in front of me, either through projects or an increase in point generation. If Canada runs one project or gains 5 points per turn they move in front of me. Likewise, Kaiser moves in front of me with only two added points of generation. The first Atomic Era scientist will cost 1245 GSP. If I let both of them get in front of me, or one gets in front of me and I pass on the last Modern Era scientist that’ll leave me only 390GSP from recruitment. I’d be close enough to be in position to be able to claim any atomic scientist on two turns’ notice.

I’m going to use option 2 as my plan ‘A’ for now, which is why I’m holding off on increasing my own point rate right now. As Einstein draws closer I’ll finish the library at Marina and the university at Cleggy. The remaining time to produce the university at Smiler won’t have too great an effect on this race. However, if ten turns from now the current race still looks the same I might reach out and snag Einstein. I do need to account for Brazil’s 20% GP refund each time it recruits.

Gossip shows that Woden has completed Mobilization and Combustion, Canada just finished Square Rigging and Woden’s artifact was a mosaic. The deal screen shows it’s from the Classical Age.

[suboptimal]

Turn 200

Made it to Turn 200! Woo-hoo!

Open the save and Kaiser killed both southern tanks and a northern cavalry unit. The Encampment is also rebuilt at Gordon Malloy. Since I’m up here I’ll deal with this first. I bring the noob in close to the coast to see who’s around:




Uh huh, that’d figure. I bring the other cavalry into the safety of Barry’s borders. I bring the armada down and hit Isaac, then move noob off the coast (since it’s in artillery range) and shell the Encampment. The veteran moves into the area as well but remains off the coast. I’ll use the armada to grind down Isaac and get XP for the time being. The loss of the southern tanks hurts but I’ll be able to rebuild those shortly. A bit to the north Wigstan unearths a Classical Age Egyptian Aspis. My cavalry unit lands NW of Wigstan and I see that Woden has put a cuirassier army on my next target. That’s fine. I’ll use Wigstan to defog the city-state and romp into Egyptian territory. That’ll send him back to Howard where I can excavate another artifact and then head for one of the “spares” at Canada. I’ll send the depredation unit back to Barry since I’ll need it to pillage the Dam (if it’s completed). I could make a run at that artifact up by The Gray Havens but it’d take three turns.

Scientific Theory is complete, start Sanitation. My natural envoys have arrived and I’ve now got 12 in my pocket. I realize that I can use the tooltips to see what city-state this is and….it’s Bologna:




Talk about an oddly shaped territory. It does save me the trouble of figuring out whether or not I’d need to split my envoys, though.

Howard’s builder is complete; I start a sea dog and send the builder southeast. It’s got two lumbermills to put down en route to the oil at Nora Batty. Compo’s sea dog is complete, start another one. Engineer at Truly is complete, first railroad segment complete. Truly lost 1 from last turn and I’m not sure where it was lost from. . I shift the citizen working the other cow into the Encampment. That gains me 1, back up to 85. The volcano soil will be mined next turn. Truly’s also got an available trader. I repeat the route to The Blues for the time being.

Builder moves to said soil. Deorwine digs up an Ancient era javelin. I need to figure out where to go next since Emory is headed for the artifacts that I designated for Truly’s unit. I could start pulling the ones I designated for Auntie Wainwright and send that city’s unit into the tundra SW of Canada for the “spares”. To the far east Woden dug up the expected artifact. Two turns to dig up the one I’m targeting unless he’s parked a unit on it. I’ll find out next turn. To the south Sunngifu digs up an Ancient Brazilian scroll. The good news here is that 2/3 artifacts in Compo are Ancient. If the next one is also Ancient and it’s not barbarian or Brazilian I’ll have that museum themed. Montgomery closes in on his next target, I think two turns to dig up.

Battleships at Nora Batty start heading around the coast. However, I think Woden will stay peaceful given that he’s pulled his battleship fleet back to The Gray Havens. The new sea dog heads southwest. I’m going to poke around Canada’s coast for a bit. I also spread out the ironclad pickets again, just to be sure.

Pike & shot wandering out goes east and finds Gondor.

The recent acquisitons at Howard and Compo have taken two loyalty off Wild’s output, dropping it to +8. It’ll take a little while to get Howard filled (I’ll have 2/3 in a couple of turns and then need to wander afar for the third) but Compo should be full in two turns. I’ll also have a writer going into Compo next turn so that’ll be another 3-4 great works affecting Wild in the next 2-3 turns. Wild has a population pressure of only -3. My math says it should be -17.1. Not sure where all that’s coming from.

On the tourism front I’ve now got 10 tourists with the count-to-win at 202 and climbing about two per turn. I’m getting one tourist every 8 turns (well, 7.5 turns) in Phoenicia and Canada and one every twelve in Egypt and Brazil. Nothing has changed in the scientist race yet, though Woden seems to have had a Campus get pillaged as he’s lost a point of generation. For now everything is static there. Truly’s project will be loaded and ready to go in three more turns and I’ll start getting some tanks (or tank corps) out from there while waiting for the turns to go by.

Since it’s Turn 200 I’d figure I’d give some sort of update. Here’s the full score comparison between players:




I’m not presently tracking foreign tourists on the spreadsheet but Ichabod has 14, I have 10, Woden has 4 and Kaiser has 1.

[suboptimal]

Turn 201

Only notifications are Truly is starving (yes, I know, that’s getting fixed) and Mary Shelley is waiting for me to recruit. OK..where to start? City builds and non-explorers first.

Truly’s second engineer is complete. I move a citizen out to the cow pasture and start its research project. Foggy’s amphitheater is done, start the archaeological museum. Builder at Cleggy puts down a volcano mine for Truly. Other builder reaches the jungle and I think I’m still putting down a lumbermill here. Builder at Pearl puts down the oil well. Engineers do the railroad shuffle and I’ll connect Foggy to Truly next turn for some era score. From there one engineer will go to Cleggy and the other will work towards Compo. Once they both reach Compo I’ll run one route to Marina and build roads using charges from Marina’s Theater Square to Smiler’s Theater Square. That’ll speed up the time to get to Smiler. Any remaining charges will put in a road from Smiler to Pearl. Recruit Mary Shelley, she appears in Truly and relocates to Compo. Use the second missionary charge at Barry and this is going to take a while.

Emory closes in on his target and will excavate next turn. No sign or a Phoenician archaeologist. Sunngifu reaches his last target and will excavate and retire next turn. Deorwine heads south – I’m going to excavate local artifacts now as that will let me fill Truly’s museum faster and let me get Compo themed. Montgomery is finally around The Blues and will excavate next turn. Last but not least is Wigstan. I don’t know where Woden sent his army but he’s left the dig site uncovered. Given the battleship’s position in Lake Mariout there must be something big going on over there. No matter, I can move and dig this turn and do so. I can pick an Ancient Kaiser or Barbarian Artifact. I don’t have an Ancient Kaiser yet and Howard now posesses an Egyptian mask from the Ancient Era. I also defog The Black Gate. Since archaeologists don’t get killed if an enemy unit runs them over I’ll move into Egyptian territory next turn to save me the trouble of sailing all the way back to Howard. My depredation cavalry up here embarks and heads for Barry.




Loefflaed is established at Gordon Malloy:




Gotta love mobilization. I don’t see any artillery though there might be some in Ed Mercer. SEAWACS runs over to the observation point and spots a lowly pike & shot in the city. I could kill that musket army in two turns if he doesn’t move it away from the coast. I send Triple-A back to land (again), move up the coast and shoot the musket army. Vet moves in and does likewise. Noob backs up and takes Line of Battle. If the musket army doesn’t move then all three will attack it next turn. I could move Sinan up the coast but I’ll leave him in place so Kaiser doesn’t suspect I’ve moved a spy over here.

Despite Woden’s current positioning I’m still going to bring the southern battleships up around the coast for the time being. I’ll park them east of Truly so they can easily get back to the southern ocean if need be. The picket ironclads also hold their position. Sea dog is now due east of Red Wings and will head for the Southern Passage.

The exploring pike & shot needs to backtrack to avoid a dust storm and turns southwest. That reveals some pillaged improvements, Rivendell’s Water Park but more importantly to me, a road to use, at least for a little bit.

Turns out I didn’t do anything with Loefflaed earlier. I run a Listening Post mission to negate the +3 for opponent’s intel that Kaiser is currently getting against me. Siphon Funds here would grab 354 at a 74% chance but I don’t want to risk the spy here on that type of mission.

Take a look at the Canadian loyalty situation. Wild is at +1.7. That will go down to +0.7 on Canada’s upcoming turn, -2.3 on their next turn and -3.3 on the turn after that as I accumulate artifacts and works. At that point I’d be able to flip the city in 7 turns if I ran projects at Marina and Pearl. What I’ll likely do is resume building Pearl’s Medieval Walls (since I started them I can apparently finish them for a little tourism and city defense) until Marina finishes its zoo, then I’ll consider running the projects and flip the city.

Kaiser is up to 19 envoys in Bologna. The fun will start there in two turns when Aiden establishes. Woden spent a pile of , just over 5000. Ichabod’s been busy pillaging Woden’s scientific buildings – he’s lost what looks like a complete Campus district and the GSP generation shows it. No change in that race, either. Eight turns until I need to decide to poach Einstein. I’m beginning to lean heavily in that direction because of the combination of bonuses. A research lab is +3, +5 when powered. Well, I get an additional +4 yield from any building that requires power and Einstein would give the labs another 4 on top of that. For 440 I’d get a 16 building and I’ve got four cities with power and Campus districts.

[suboptimal]

Turn 202

I open the save to some disturbing news:




The verteran battleship is no more. Ugh. Kaiser also looks like he’s setting up for a push into Barry. Time to shift the forces in that direction. I put the noob three off the coast from the pike & shot army and open fire. The armada falls in behind and also opens fire. I leave the tanks fortified in place, along wth the field cannon. The other battleships are definitely coming around the coast now. I leave SEAWACS and the ironclad fleet where they are for reconnaissance purposes. Not quite sure where that artillery unit came from or how it got there and fired unless it came via railroad from Kelly Grayson or Bortus.

This does represent a bit of a strategic threat – I need to hold the line at Barry until I get some more units out. I should be able to given the city’s walls and the covering fire from the battleships. The artillery will be vulnerable to my armada’s fire and won’t be able to respond in kind. The artillery was able to one-shot the battleship that was killed – the notifications only said it died, there were no “your unit was attacked” notifications as there were with the tanks. The artillery would be attacking the ships at a CS of 107, IIRC, because of the +4 for religious differences and +5 from the military alliance. That is enough to one-shot a battleship defending at 70. Since that’s greater than 30 that’s more than enough to do it. I might put noob in the city for defense. Once the other ships arrive if the arty winds up outside the Encampment I should be able to kill it. I took a closer look over here once I got done with the rest of the turn – he had used the engineer to build a railroad from Isaac to the Encampment. There’s just a stub of rail sticking out from the Entertainment Complex:




There’s no rail between the Commercial Hub and the Dam yet. I’ll need to keep an eye out for that.

Civilian units get busy. Junglemill at Truly which boosts the city’s production yield to 90 and lets me stall the city’s growth for now. The last link in the rail line to Foggy is put down, gaining me two era score and securing a normal age. The other engineer starts the run to Cleggy.

Time for some art works. Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein in Compo. Sunngifu performs his last excavation, getting me a third ancient artifact in Compo. Unfortunately my choices are Brazil or Barbarian, which I already have in the city. I choose Brazil and the stone table appears in the museum’s collection. Further up the coast Emory pulls ancient Phoenician plate mail out of the ground for Cleggy. Deorwine reaches the next site southeast of Truly and pulls out a Medieval English longsword. Montgomery finishes out the excavations for this turn with an ancient Canadian scroll. I’ve got enough variety in the Ancient Age to theme two museums. Wigstan doesn’t have anything to dig up so I send him southwest to see if Bologna has anything to dig up. No, but I find the Casa de Contratacion.




If he’s still there next turn I’ll move into Egyptian territory for the free ride home.

Pike & shot wanders southeast into a small fracas:




Guess I’m turning back north because east is a dead end.

Next turn Truly will shift to tanks, Cleggy will follow suit (tanks with the occasional battleship) once Bolshoi completes. Compo will get out some muskets and field cannon after the current sea dog build. Foggy has three turns on its musem, after which I’ll either get the archaeologist out or start on more units.

My base tourism is now over 100 and sits at 113. Six of that is religious so only 107/turn applies to Brazil and Egypt while I’m getting 160 vs Phoenicia and 163 vs. Canada. My cultural yield is up to 221.8 per turn. Great works are currently providing 49 and 62 tourism per turn and that will continue to go up. I also think that Wild will start to be in negative loyalty starting this Canadian turn as I’ve added three more works to the effective radius.

In the great scientist race Kaiser has moved ahead of me in the queue by a turn (just). He’s also got another Great General coming in a couple of turns so I need to keep an eye out for that as well. My plan remains to snipe Einstein from Ichabod in 8 more turns. That may delay Cleggy’s shift to military units since I’d need three turns to get the project built. Gotta keep an eye on that.

Gossip says that Canada has a settler out (interesting)...wonder where it’s going? Bologna has changed hands and is now with Ichabod at 20 envoys. I don’t see a settler but have to wonder where it’d be going. He can’t be sending it to the donut hole – that city would flip so fast it wouldn’t be funny. However, there are no freshwater locations he could send a settler to.

Lastly, there’s a notification mark on the climate change screen (you can see it in all my screenshots). What could it be?




Hmmm..there was the loss of a polar ice tile and sea levels are rising in 9 turns. Interesting. Why is this happening? Well, here you go:




Feel the (fossil fuel) burn! Oh, wait a second….Does sea level rise affect me? The answer is...a resounding yes.

Stonehenge will be eventually be underwater as it’s on a 1 meter elevation tile. Actually, I’ve got a bigger problem – Compo’s Theater Square is going to flood out in 9 turns. That’s a major problem because I have nowhere to move the great works. What it does mean is that I’ll need to get Truly’s, Marina’s and/or Howard’s museums filled and the unthemeable artifacts into Compo’s museum before the flood hits. I’ll also move the works of writing up to Howard for the time being so they still pressure Wild. The biggest problem, however, is Nora Batty and Compo – they’re both on 1 meter lowlands and will flood in 9 turns. I’m seeing conflicting reports on what happens then. Some say the city is damaged and cannot be repaired (and thus flood barriers can’t be built). Others say it can be repaired, yet others say it should be repairable but there’s a bug that prevents that from occurring. The “good” news is that it appears that the city stays put. This also means that Nora Batty will be one of the cities I use to poach Einstein with since it’ll be losing its Campus.

In reading up on things the first level of flooding will only damage things, not completely wreck them. I can reverse/mitigate the damage by building Flood Barriers, which are available at Computers. I’d need to complete Flight, Radio and Electricity before getting to Computers so that’s still a ways off. The issue here is that once flooding starts it continues at a pace of +0.5 meters per turn until the flooding is at +3.5 meters, at which point all coastal lowlands are submerged. That means in 27 turns the two city centers will be underwater. I might be able to save them if I can get to Computers and get enough engineers to finish flood barriers in time. However, they can be quite expensive to build as they have a variable cost based upon the number of tiles they need to cover and whether those tiles are flooded or not.

Coastal lowlands are searchable with that term so I did a map search to check out everyone else. Canada will have issues at Penguins (it’s on lowlands, as is its Holy Site). Brazil, Phoenicia and Egypt have no affected cities or districts, at least at this round of flooding. I’m going to get hit first and the hardest, as from what I’m reading sea level change will happen at a half meter every 9 turns once it starts. That means I’ve got 27 turns to get cities protected or lose them. That’s not happening!

[suboptimal]

Turn 203

OK...Kaiser has sunk the noob battleship and launched an invasion against Barry:




The artillery is likely on the rice farm next to the dam. I start running numbers calculations here. Right now the biggest threat to my units is the pike & shot since that’s anti-cavalry. There’s also a great general in the area. This is going to be touch and go here for a bit. The city is attacking at a CS of 87, so there’s that. I’ve got a policy change available so I take Conscription out and put in Wars of Religion – hey, if I can get a +4CS why not use it? The field cannon armies will fall pretty quickly. I move the armada into Barry, put Ching Shih off the coast to the NE. Battleship opens fire for 43 damage, field cannon does another 47. City attack finishes the job (I don’t want to break fortification on the tanks). The damaged tank takes the barding promotion to heal. I bring the depredation cavalry in to the shore and form a corp with the one that’s on land (free disembarkation). If the field cannon advance I can take out one per turn. I have a feeling that one of my tanks will eat it but that’ll still slow things down a bit. SEAWACS takes care of Triple-A and confirms the position of the artillery unit. There’s also another field cannon army behind it. I back out from the coast. Batteleships come around the end of the cape at Cleggy. They’ll be at Barry in three more turns. The “good” news is that if the artillery moves into range the armada can kill it. Right….

I start Mobilization, 5 turns to go. I’ll use the promotion for Victor if I still have the city. I start moving the field cannon corps at Smiler north. Dunno if it’ll arrive in time. However, if Mobilization completes soonish I’ll purchase a field cannon into Barry and form an army there for defense. I also change my railroad plans. The route to Cleggy is still being done but the other fork is going to Howard first. That’ll help me run resupply routes faster. Truly starts a tank. Bolshoi has three turns to go. Pearl resumes its walls and buys an apostle. I start field cannon builds at Foggy and Compo. I also upgrade the archer (!) at Foggy to a field cannon. It’s got a promotion available and will take Garrison next turn. I also move Truly’s musket towards Howard and the pike & shot at Compo to Marina, where it forms a corps in the city.

Engineers build their rail segments. Loefflaed starts the Fabricate Scandal mission in Bologna. Agent Merciful Death starts another Counterspy operation in Truly’s IZ. Mary Shelley creates the Last Man; it goes into Compo for the time being. Wigstan moves into Egyptian territory and I find another artillery/balloon combination, though it’s not an army. Hopefully Kaiser kicks me out. Other archaeologists move on their way. Montgomery will fill Marina’s museum next turn. Wild is now losing loyalty at -1.2 per turn but has a way to go yet.

Well, this got interesting in a hurry! As long as I can hold at Barry I should be OK.

[mackoti]

What rails do here? Like in other civs moving faster?

[suboptimal]

Railroads have a movement cost of 0.25 movement points, so a regular unit can cover 8 hexes in a turn regardless of the terrain or rivers. Something like a tank, with a base movement of 5, can cover 20 railroad hexes in a turn. It's how Kaiser has been moving forces all over the place.

[suboptimal]

Turn 204

The big question I have when I open the save is “did Kaiser figure out how to take Barry on his last turn?” Fortunately the answer for this turn is no.




He’s actually pulled back without killing any units. That’s the good news. I’ll check back here with SEAWACS in a bit. Actually, I check in now because it’s going to affect what I do in the rest of this turn.




OK...the field cannon have dispersed to the west, but considering how far they got this turn I think I’ll not be doing any more...pestering...for now. . I’ll continue to monitor the situation here. He did pillage the oil well in Pearl; I’ll need to fix that at some point but it’s not an immediate need.

Sanitation is complete, start Flight. While Sanitation isn’t on the tech path to Flight and Computers I’ll want to build some sewers for the boost for Suffrage. It has also increased the output of my plantations, for better or for worse.

All the military units at Barry fortify and I move the armada out to the sea. Wigstan is also back “home”, but in Barry. I send him over towards Howard to finish off his expedition. He’ll get there in 2 turns and that museum will be full. Deorwine also reaches his last target and will excavate next turn. If I get lucky it’ll be something ancient from Armagh. Emory continues working his way south to reach the coast at Weathertop. I’ll embark, head south and get the two artifacts down there. Interestingly the artifact next to the barbarian camp is not highlighted while he’s selected. Wonder if there’s a barbarian standing on that tile? My sea dog presently going along Canada’s southern coast can be there in 8 turns to clear the camp, so while I’m on the topic I move the ship. Lastly, Montgomery reaches the outskirts of Capitals and digs up an ancient barbarian mummy. I went with the barbarians since that’s only my second barbarian artifact.

With full museums at Marina and Compo I can do a little bit of swapping. I swap Marina’s renaissance Genevan astrolabe for Compo’s Brazilian ancient stone tablet. That themes the museum at Marina, giving me the boost for Cultural Heritage and doubling the and tourism output at Marina. I think one of these hasn’t been taken before, so here’s a picture of a great works screen in action:




Not shown are the three art works at Smiler. The muumy & scroll at Compo are Ancient era, as is the shield at Howard and the javelin at Truly. I’m hoping my next couple of digs continue to be Ancient era artifacts though a Medieval era one lets me theme the plate mail at Cleggy and the longsword at Truly. What is important to note is that the great works are providing roughly 25% of my total cultural output right now and that number will continue to go up.

Railroad builds continue apace. Cleggy is now connected to the rail network so that engineer will move to Foggy and head south. Over at Pearl I’ve got an apostle hanging around. Time to evangelize. I’ve got five cities with wonders and Sacred Places is available. I take it and get +10. I could get another apostle and evangelize the religion to completion. I’ll do that if the era winds down and I’m short on points for a golden age. The net result of the religious belief and getting a museum themed is that my yield finishes the turn at 245.8. Next turn it should go up a minimum of 6 (two more artifacts), more if I can get an additional museum or two themed.

The seeming reduction in threat from Kaiser makes me consider whether or not I should go back to my intended builds at Foggy (museum) and Compo (sea dog). Nope...I’m going to complete the field cannon in both cities, continue building tanks in Truly and bulk things up a little bit on the military side. I would like to get a field cannon army in Pearl and a backup in Marina. The one in Smiler, which was headed north, returns to Smiler en route to Pearl. The battleships round the northern cape – one will continue to Barry as backup, the other will remain at Cleggy. Compo and Foggy will be building new ones for the southern fleet.

My pike & shot in Phonecian territory is finding a number of interior pillages:




The districts at Osgilath and Gondor are surprising. I also see that Woden has flight as he’s got an observation balloon one turn from completion in his capital. The pike & shot is going to head northeast to defog and then embark somewhere between Mount Doom and The Gray Havens.

Canada completed Industrialization. Kaiser’s recruited Rani Lakshamibai; up next is Jose de san Martin (grants +4 loyalty to a city upon retirement). I remain in second place for Einstein. I’ll need to drop the project bomb in four turns and hold my faith until then.

Bolshoi will complete the turn after next. Holding my breath as that will get me the eureka for flight, four era score, 8 from adjacencies & policies and most importantly two free civics.

[suboptimal]

Turn 205

Notifications are busy. I’ve got likely peace deals from Kaiser and Ichabod. Woden and Ichabod are at peace. The volcanic eruption is on the Brazil/Egypt border. Right...Ichabod first:




I’ll take it. That also puts Bologna at peace with me. Kaiser offers white peace and I accept. I have to wonder if both of them, having been at war for so long, got crushed by war weariness. Ichabod’s offer of a luxury resource would lend itself to that explanation.

That leaves the question of what to do about the spy mission in Bologna? Part of me wants to cancel it, though that risks getting a promotion in the same way that Agent Merciful Death did. That, in turn, might be exploitative. Of course, they might not like the outcome, either. My long term inclination is to let it run anyway as I don’t think anyone has yet to perform an offensive spy mission in one of these games and taking down some envoys there might be beneficial if war breaks out again. Regardless, I do put three envoys in there to boost my universities and I’ll revisit this in a turn or two. That gets my up to 205.4. Ahhh...peace.

With peace across the world again I debate my current builds – complete the field cannon in Compo and Foggy or resume my intended builds? Neither. I start battleships in both cities. That’ll get me two completed ships around the time the alliance with Woden ends. I don’t expect problems from him but I need to get some more ships out. I’ll finish off the museum and sea dog after that, then get the field cannon out. Truly, however, will finish its tank before completing the university.

I move the builder and put down some new rail links. Wigstan disembarks and excavates an Ancient English javelin. I swap the Classical era Egyptian aspis into Compo, moving an Ancient barbarian mummy back to Howard. That themes a second museum. Deorwine digs up a Renaissance era English doubloon. That gives me two Renaissance, two Medieval, one Ancient and one Classical artifacts that need to get themed. There are two archaeologists yet to be built (Auntie Wainwright in four turns, Foggy TBD) and one with two sites to go. Cultural yield is up to 261.3 per turn. Emory reaches the coast at Weathertop and will embark next turn for points south.

Nothing really to do with the navy now that peace is here. I park a battleship at Howard so it’s midway between Cleggy and Barry. Sinan’s been ejected from Egyptian territory so I’ll...misclick and put him ashore next to The Black Gate’s Encampment. I’ll move back out to sea next turn and figure out where he’s going. Pike & shot finds the city of Moria and two tank armies. Woden is still at war with Kaiser so this could be interesting. I’m going to get out of the way and park in the lake until those units move east (if that’s where they’re going). I move SEAWACS north and find a Phoenician ironclad picketing the northern passage. I’ll back off so that I’m just outside visual range for now.

Up at Cleggy the Bolshoi has one turn to complete. However, Mobilization has two turns to complete. I’m going to take the chance and pause the wonder so that I don’t risk having Mobilization be one of the free civics. I’ll drop two turns into the research project prebuild then complete the wonder. Mobilization’s completion also provides the off-chance that the random choice will be Mass Media → Ideology. That civic would let me ditch both Craftsmen and Natural Philosophy.

Peace does provide another opportunity – I’ll be able to send a trade route to Egypt at some point. There’s some good yields to be had from Gordon Malloy and it’ll give me a +25% tourism boost. Speaking of tourism I’m now up to 144 per turn base, 138 of which is not religious. That’s 2 tourists every 8 turns from Ichabod and Kaiser, two every five turns from Woden and CMF. I’m actually gaining three tourists next turn and one the turn after that, with the last one putting me in the lead for foreign tourists.

Speaking of CMF it looks like he chopped a jungle (or two) at Wild to get the population up to 11. He’s also built a workshop there. So, what’s loyalty looking like?




He’s got mitigating effects here, otherwise that -7 for “Other” would actually be -18 (). Marina, Smiler and Compo each have 5 great works and Howard has another 3. That -7 may update to -8 on Canada’s turn as well. The math works out to -5.2 population pressure so I don’t know where he’s got positive pressure to get the number to only -1.8 is coming from. It’s as if he has an extra 4.8 population in the city. Regardless, Bread & Circuses at all three project-capable cities in range would currently flip the city in 14 turns (-5.3 per turn). I’ll wait and see if Canada is willing to renew the DoF and alliance on Turn 215 then decide if I’ll try to flip the city.

Gossip is light because peace has largely returned to the world. Brazil did settle a new city. It’s in the fog but I think it’s down by the artifacts I’m going after.

Great Scientists race is relatively unchanged. Kaiser is going to lap me for Aalto. The downside is that he might pass and force me to take it. That is actually not a bad thing – I could use Aalto in the putative city east of Nora Batty to boost tourism for some seaside resorts. Of course, I could have Cleggy bust out a three turn project. That would let me pass Aalto to Kaiser….yes...that sounds like a plan. I’ll put two turns into it, finish Bolshoi and then finish the project. That’ll let me pass on Aalto, immediately force Kaiser to take him and then Woden and I can race to the others.