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

[suboptimal]

Two field cannon attacking at 72 can kill any one of those ships on the first turn of my counterattack. It's going to be the ironclad first since that can take the city. Both of those soon-to-be-field cannon are tortoise-promoted - they'd be at 68 (western in the woods or on the hill) and 65 (eastern in the flats) against the battleships with the GG in the area. At those defenses the battleships would not be able to kill either of them in one turn. Better still, if he sticks around to shell the field cannon there's a good chance I could also sink a battleship, especially if I take the former Hong Kong and get its truffles and the +1 CS bonus (which are already improved) before that happens (which is likely).

The other thing that will make his life a bit more difficult is that I'll be upgrading one knight to a tank in two turns, raising city defenses to 70. That slows down the battleships' ability to damage the city.

[shallow_thought]

scrreenshot needs to be screenshot in the opening tag of one of the images of your previous post. 

More importantly, really enjoying your reporting. Not quite forgiving you for killing the guy I was ded-lurking or anything, but almost.

[suboptimal]

scrreenshot needs to be screenshot in the opening tag of one of the images of your previous post. 

More importantly, really enjoying your reporting. Not quite forgiving you for killing the guy I was ded-lurking or anything, but almost.

Thanks for the typo catch and the reporting compliment!   A large portion of the later game reporting got brief between my mental downturn over the failed Geneva assault and not wanting to post essays that boiled down to "I built <something>" but the military action has picked back up to make things interesting.  

As for not quite forgiving me, I'll take what I can get. 

[suboptimal]

Turn 185

Situation at Hairshirt:




He’s moved one battleship off somewhere. I don’t think he could have gone by the city (Zone of Control and all that) but I send Sir Drake out for a look and find nothing. He’s shelled the city, doing another 25 points of damage. His slow pace may be his undoing here.

Colonialism completes, resume Scorched Earth, have three turns left on that. Free Market out, Professional Army in. The wonder in the notifications is rho21 completing The Oracle.

Jeanne d’Arc transfers to Oddfellows. Archers in the area upgrade to field cannon. They’ll position next turn and then I’ll deal with the navy. Given that rho21 has withdrawn one of the battleships I’ll take his battleship out first. I will also note I made an error in my interturn post – these are ranged units and couldn’t possibly have Tortoise as a promotion. As a result they’ll still be vulnerable to battleship fire.

Over at Apollonius:




More units are piling in. For starters, that musketman is in for a world of hurt – it’s in range of my northern battleship and a good damage roll will kill it. A bad damage roll leaves it useless. Likewise the cavalry is in range of the coast. I bring the caravel up to the Greek coast and take the Embolon promotion to heal it up. Northern battleship moves to the NW and shells the musketman, doing 81 points of damage and killing it. One of the other battleships moves into firing range of the cavalry and fires. Because of DotF the cavalry is defending at 75, so only takes 35 points of damage. I bring the other battleship into Lotus itself and attack the cavalry unit from there. That does another 38 damage, so that unit is down to 27. I bring the muskets up to the coast to disembark. One of them can do so now but I’m going to wait until I can land both of them. That cavalry unit can still mess a musket up quite good. The situation after the action here:




All that’s left is to skip action on Ghengis and move a builder. Next turn I position for my counterstrike on rho21’s navy, put troops ashore at Apollonius, spit out three builders and found another city.

[suboptimal]

Turn 186

First, Hairshirt:




Battleship #2 is back and he’s shelled the city twice. I’m going to take out the battleship next to the siege tower first. Units in position:




Meanwhile, over at Apollonius more company, including a field cannon, has shown up. There’s also a unit in the fog next to the horseman (screenshot below) Muskets go ashore and the ships gather around to provide support bonuses for any melee attacks. Both muskets are Tortoise-promoted so should be OK against the field cannon.




Down at Diminished Japper has moved a 3x promoted field cannon corps into firing range of the city. In theory I could kill this unit by attacking with the crossbow corps, city center attack and the cavalry unit. However, there’s a unit in the fog and I don’t know if that’s a knight or another field cannon. I also am not going to shoot for the sake of shooting because of a) War Weariness and b) that accomplishes not much of anything. I also note that the Greek unit is by itself down here.

Going around the rest of the empire I’ve got three builders just out, plus a university in Near Wild Heaven. I also see that the knight builds in Begin, Cant and How were all canceled because I finished Combustion. What the hell happened to being able to build obsolete units when no resources were available? Seriously, at some point this was fixed, I thought. I’ll also need to sit down and figure out how all this works because it seems like each time I get a new unit available there’s been unexpected behavior. I’ll give myself /5 on this one because I’ve been bitten before but this isn’t how it’s supposed to be working.

Since knights can’t be built I hook up the oil at Boy in the Well, getting the eureka for Plastics in the process. Begin and Cant start tanks since I can only build them where I have Encampments. That’s 15 and 16 turns, respectively. I start a Tlachtli at Maps and resume the one at Welcome, Kenneth starts a Spy and How starts its factory. How and Kenneth will also start tanks once their new builds are completed. Over at Near I have the usual problem – 11.5 per turn and everything’s expensive. I go back to research grants for the time being.

Back in the south the settler moves into position and founds city #20, Driver 8:




The city should grab the coal first and probably will go for the iron second and dyes third. I might be buying the dye tile if I need the amenities. I start an Aqueduct on the tundra tile SE of the city center.

Find’s builder will be heading this way once it completes in two turns, stopping to put in an oil well at Begin. The builder at Maps heads for the citrus resource, as that will be in my territory in three turns. Welcome’s heads towards the copper for a harvest and Kenneth’s is going to go do some chopping. I start Plastics, which will take four turns. Once that’s complete I’ll hook up the oil at Harborcoat and Find using the builders from Welcome and High Speed.

In taking one last look around I spot a barbarian camp in the southern snow:

[suboptimal]

Turn 187

Hairshirt:




Time for a battleship to die. Field cannons advance, southern battleship is sunk. Rho21’s choice here is to pull out or lose the other battleship. Apollonius:




Looks like he’s staying back. Two battleships hit the city, zeroing out its defenses. Spy relocates to Xenocrates, will be there in 6 turns. Apollonius is taken by the northern musketman and razed to the ground. It is the former Yerevan and I briefly consider liberating and then retaking (after 10 turns) but given its religious import as a holy city, it dies.

Down at Diminished, Japper’s started attacking the city walls with his field cannon corps. He’s done 97 points of damage to the walls. Right. Going to take a chance with killing that unit. Crossbow and musket corps trade positions, cavalry corps advances. I reveal another field cannon (not a corps) and his knight corps.




Ok, I can deal with this. I’ll kill the field cannon corps now and then back out next turn. Cavalry attacks for 51, crossbow corps attacks for 49 and the Kongolese field cannon corps dies. Based on his milpower (371 as of last turn) this is most of his remaining military except for a musket or two towards Waffles.

Military done, off to builder actions. Chop a jungle at Boy in the Well. City is now 2 population and 8 turns closer to Petra. Builders at Kenneth, Welcome and Maps move into position.

I swap civics to Naturalism, leaving Scorched Earth at one turn. I’m not sure if I can harvest the copper at Welcome without first removing the mine and I need that gold to perform two tank upgrades at Cant. Oddfellows also has 2-3 turns left on its builder. I’d like to swap out of Professional Army and Public Works at the same time, putting in Free Market and either Town Charters or Craftsmen. The former gets me around 15 per turn, the latter gets me 13 per turn (5 at How, 3 at Kenneth, 3 at Welcome, 2 at Horse). I may actually wind up putting in Retainers until I can get the luxuries at Driver 8 improved.

Annoyingly I’ve set up to plantation the citrus at Maps but the tile picker is flip-flopping between the citrus and the bananas to the SW of the city.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to build Colossus at High Speed - +3 plus a trade route and a free trader is enough to warrant putting in 16 turns to build it at this point. I’m also debating if building the Forbidden City would be worth it (extra wildcard slot). It’d take 24 turns down at Horse to Water or 37 turns at Welcome.

Added:rho21 spent half his gold on upgrades. Based on his city defense values he now has at least one tank. His Alliance with Japper also expired.

[suboptimal]

Turn 188

Rho21 has tanks, by my estimation he’s upgraded three knights based upon his gold expenditure (and if he’s running Professional Army). Hopefully he doesn’t decide to use them immediately, but having lost two cities and a battleship in the past ten turns or so he might be gunning for a fight. I can upgrade one knight this turn, two if I can harvest copper without removing a mine first. Open the save and...no tanks visible and I’m 2 short of upgrading two knights. Greece and Kongo did kill off the cavalry corps at Diminished and one of the field cannon at Hairshirt was damaged during rho21’s retreat. The alliance also has yet to be renewed and they are not declared friends, either.

Diminished:




The Greek cavalry is dead. City and crossbow finish it off. Over at Hairshirt:




I suppose I could move the field cannon up and shoot at the ironclad. However, if this were me I’d put the battleship and great engineer in one of the water tiles three up from land and out of range, hoping to score a kill next turn. Sir Drake moves out and confirms that the western water tile three from the coast is where they are lurking. I pull my units back from the coast and into hiding. If he makes another attack I’ll move up and hit him again. If there are no attacks in two more turns I’ll switch over to the repair city defenses project.

Having received no notifications on the east coast of the land mass I take a look and see that rho21 has mounted no counterattack.




I send the caravel and one battleship to Lotus, one rifleman embarks and the other moves to the coast. Two battleships stay behind to provide cover. One more battleship will head for Lotus to assault Nasischijf in two turns, the other will escort the riflemen back to my west coast.

I have to remove the mines from the copper before harvesting, so the builder at Welcome does that now. A trader has come available at Welcome, I keep it there and run it to Kenneth. Over at Boy in the Well I swap some tiles and harvest a forest. The cuts 15 turns off Petra. Another two jungles will get chopped over the next three turns and Petra will be almost completed.

Down at Maps the city will expand in one turn and is currently pointing at the citrus. I have a feeling that I’ll open next turn’s save and find the bananas are what was expanded to. That might actually work out a bit better as that’s an extra for the city. Find’s builder is complete and heads for the offshore oil resource. I’ll be able to put down an oil well the turn after next. The city starts a stock exchange. High Speed’s builder moves to the Campus. I’ll put two charges into it and then decide if I’ll harvest the copper now or later. Each charge will take three turns off the build so two will be sufficient for my needs.

Up at Cant I go ahead and upgrade the knight in the Encampment now. The northern one here will get upgraded next turn and I’ll use the copper harvest to have operating cash. I go ahead and put Scorched Earth back in as I’ll do the second upgrade and then switch out of Professional Army for a few turns while I pull in the cash. Oddfellows’ builder also completes next turn so I don’t need Public Works.

Greece snagged Einstein from me this past turn. Given how far behind he was that was most likely a faith-based purchase or he had completed several projects at once. Alan Turing is up next, I’ll get him in 5 turns. That’ll be good for the eurekas for Computers and one random boost from the Modern era. Not as good as Einstein’s +4 to all universities but since I have no boosts for the remaining Modern Era techs he will still be useful. Given how much it would have cost me to do that and the fact that he needed about 170 GS points that was a huge investment. Well-played, sir.

[suboptimal]

Turn 189

I was going to put up some ponderings a day or so ago but a sinus infection took that off the table. Instead I’ll put up my musings about my policy decision and the Kongo-Greece situation.

A major decision that looms during Turn 189 is a policy swap. Professional Army is definitely out and replaced with Free Market so I can start generating cash. However, what to do with Public Works? I could keep it and get out a couple more builders for later use, replace it with Town Charters or Natural Philosophy for an added economic boost, Press Gangs to get out a quick three privateers for the Electricity boost (and future submarine force) or put in Retainers for some added amenities.. Of course, would having privateers and eventually subs help with the situation in the northern sea?

In terms of my opponents my main curiosity is the state of diplomatic affairs between Kongo and Greece. In the past a DoF or alliance has not been allowed to lapse more than one turn before renewal and it’s been two turns (possibly three) here. I have to wonder if that’s just a matter of Japper checking out or if rho21 is planning to invade Kongo to pick up a few cities.

So, let’s see what I’m in for here…open the save and I’ve got an available city attack at Diminished:




I can take out the 3x promoted field cannon by attacking with the musket corps followed by a ranged attack. I decide to use the city ranged attack and have the crossbow attack the field cannon corps. Those attacks complete I look to the north and Hairshirt:




I get the feeling I might be getting baited into something here. I send Sir Drake out for a look. Yep, the battleship is still hiding up in the corner. I will sit tight and wait. Down at Lotus I reposition the navy. Embarked musket goes to Lotus and then disembarks through the city to the hex west of the city center. Battleship comes down and sits at 3 tiles from Nasischijf. I had another battleship and the caravel down here and can actually take the city this turn – two battleship attacks and a caravel and the city is mine.




I keep the city for myself, rename it Undertow and now have truffles hooked up (along with a Neighborhood and a Harbor). Also of note are the two Greek tanks. I check the diplomatic situation and see that the alliance is back on. Those tanks will be a problem in very short order once he gets them down to Diminished. I move my tank at Cant’s Encampment down to Begin and will start to move it towards Diminished. The just-upgraded one will follow shortly.

I have several units stay put. Builder at Welcome harvests the copper for 347. New builder at Oddfellows begins moving down to Kenneth. Put in a mine at Kenneth, pushing that city’s production to 51. Other builder moves into the jungle between How and Boy. Plantation the citrus at Maps and charge the Campus at High Speed. Oddfellows starts a trader to fill the new trade route slot.

Civics-wise I resume Natural History. Plastics will complete next turn which will allow me to build tanks in all cities. Might not be soon enough but we’ll see. I do swap around some citizens and can shave off a turn at Begin by taking the 2/4 lumbermilled forest from Find. That increases the build time on the Stock Exchange.

For policies I take out Professional Army and Public Works. In go Free Market and Natural Philosophy.

Looking around, rho21’s science rate shot up so he’s activated Einstein. I’ll have Alan Turing in four turns.

[suboptimal]

Turn 190

Open the save. First priority is to see if the Greek tanks are continuing towards Diminished or if taking Nasischijf/Hong Kong has detoured them.




Three possibilities here. First, that’s a third tank. Second, he’s turned around. Third, he’s split the forces. I could bombard it with a battleship, which would do about 25 points of damage, but that would be a bit pointless. I’m going to keep two battleships down here one turn to see if that tank moves then head the navy northeast for Harborcoat. The third heads for home now.

Up at Hairshirt Sir Drake has once again been banished to the city. I move him out and find…




Good to know. The good news here is that the privateer can be one-shot with a field cannon. The bad news is there may be more around, along with the battleship, putting the field cannon at risk. Despite that, the privateer represents a threat, especially as a potential submarine upgrade. I move up the eastern field cannon and kill the privateer. With the privateer dead I move up Sir Drake and find the battleship has moved to the crabs. Since Hairshirt has not been attacked in three turns the Repair Outer Defenses project is available. It’ll take 16 turns but I start the project anyway. The builder at Oddfellows that was headed for Kenneth, turns around. I’ll do a forest chop to get the walls back to full strength.

Down at Diminished, all is quiet. I continue bringing one tank down from Cant. The other tank moves south as well – I’m going to hold it at Begin’s Encampment until Turn 193 – at that point my spy will be in Xenocrates and I can see what’s going on there. Speaking of spies, Kenneth’s will be done in two turns and I’m going to send that one to Pythagoras.

Down at Boy in the Well I chop a jungle...into the wrong city. It was supposed to go to Boy but How was in control of the tile. Oh well. 70 and 70 to How. Factory there is down to three turns and the city has gained a population. The other builder moves to the jungle next to the oil. This tile is in Boy’s control and will get chopped next turn. That chop will bring Petra down to six turns (would have been two if I chopped correctly…)

My horseman at Horse has made an interesting find….the barbarians are restless…




I send over the musket corps to deal with this threat.

Up at Welcome the Tlachtli is complete and I start a military academy. Builder mines the hill here and another one places an oil well at Find. Charge the Campus at High Speed and the turn is complete.

Rho21 has done some upgrades...his milpower is the same as mine now at 1791.

[shallow_thought]

It looks like a long, hard slog out there. And a rifleman barb? I don't think I've ever seen that before.