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

[suboptimal]

Turn 12

Open the save to the red “your unit was attacked” notification.  The barbarians are being frisky:



Good news for me, I’ll be able to clear the camp, withstand the warrior’s first attack, promote and kill the thing off.  I attack the spearman, sustaining 11 damage, gaining the inspiration for Military Tradition and pocketing 50 for my troubles.  #0 is down to 44 hit points but Mr. Barbarian will be 20 v 26 on its attack and only be able to deal a maximum of 29 damage (while taking an expected 38).  The extra tiles revealed by moving onto the former camp’s hex shows nothing interesting.  

Back east, #1 moves NW 1 tile, revealing nothing interesting.  Another move NW completely defogs the area between the two Eagle Warriors and turns up nothing interesting.  Both units are currently 6 turns of movement outside Preslav’s borders.  

It looks like CQUI takes an extra turn or two to update statistics – it’s showing my military power at 51 this turn when it in fact hit 56 three turns ago.

Internationally it looks like rho21 may be slow-teching as he should have gotten one by now, unless he’s going for early religion with no eureka.

Regarding the promotion for the Eagle Warriors I’m thinking Tortoise should be the first one.  Battlecry gives the +7 CS vs. melee and ranged, making my unit the same strength as a swordsman in those instances.  However, I’ve found that the increased CS can cause issues when it comes to trying to capture units for builders.  CS 36 at this stage of the game usually winds up 2-shotting targets and leaving me with 0% chance of a capture since the unit is never redlined.  The increase to ranged defense will help when poaching builders from city-states once they start producing archers (indeed, archers are easier capture targets) and archers come well before swordsmen in the tech tree.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, my first thought was, no way.

But the more I think about it, as long as you do not want to go after a human, tortoise first is the smart play for builder farming.

The smart choice with melee is taking battle cry and tortoise anyway, so, take the latter before the former.

Any other promotions are too far down the tree to be worth it.

[suboptimal]

Turn 13

Open the save and as expected the Eagle Warrior was attacked and has a promotion waiting for it.  Also of note is that the scout from the camp has shown up, so it’s a 2-on-1.  That’s OK, I’ve already gotten their gold and the Military Tradition inspiration and now they’re literally handing me Bronze Working.  I take the tortoise promotion, getting up to 73 hit points.  That’ll be more than enough to deal with these two.

In the east #1 stays with open ground, moving NW-NE.  After the second move it looks like I have a potential target:



I might be far enough north where that could be an opponent’s city...let’s see...that city would be 14 tiles center to center.  That could be someone’s capital – in PBEM 6 on a larger map I was 18 tiles from Archduke’s capital. This one is also lined up on the east/west axis with Begin the Begin. 

If that turns out to be a city-state and not an opponent it is most certainly on better ground than Preslav and becomes the immediate target, with Preslav supporting unit builds until I get a couple more Eagle Warriors out for some builder farming and eventual takeover.  Eagle Warrior #2 completes on Turn 17.  It’s five turns of movement to the tile SW of the city’s 3rd ring sheep.  I could have that city under siege on Turn 24 or 25 depending on the terrain around it, with the city being captured by Turn 28.  

Now, if it’s an opponent’s city, that makes it a very interesting scenario.  Typical PBEM builds have been some combination of scout, warrior, settler and builder as the first four builds.  Two of my opponents appear to have gone scout first with rho21 having gone warrior first.  If Japper or RFS-81 is up here I may catch them out with very little military and an exposed capital.  The one major difference between a city-state assault and a player assault in this instance is the fact that a player, if they had a unit in the city, would attack out of it.  This would make conquest of the city with only three Eagle Warriors very difficult, if not impossible.  With four, though, not so much….  

Since it could be an opponent I’d like to approach carefully.  That means not popping up on the hill immediately.  I’ll move to the tile SE of the sheep and see if there’s open ground or borders visible in that direction and then decide my next move.

In the screenshot I’ve marked a city center location.  With current map knowledge I believe this is a good spot, both in terms of location on the map and viability as a city.  There’s good production and food and I could harvest the cattle for a population boost and to clear a site for a Campus.  It would also help start to claim this corner of the map for myself and act as a supply point for whatever capture is to the north.

Internationally rho21 has completed a tech.  rho21 has also temporarily eclipsed me in military power due to my Eagle Warrior being redlined.

[suboptimal]

Turn 14

Nothing unexpected is awaiting me in the save.  The barbarians both attacked my Eagle Warrior, leaving it with 46/100 health.  The warrior is under 10 hit points while the scout is under 50.  Both will die next turn.  I fortify in place in order to heal up some damage and make the damage I take from them next turn a bit more...bearable.

#1 moves NW-NE and runs into a line of hills.  Looks like I’ll be climbing one of those next turn.  The sheep tile up here marks the eastern extent of the city’s 3rd ring.  Dunno if I’ll climb that one or the one just east of it.  

Japper’s power is up another 10 – he may have built a second scout.  I just noticed that Preslav expanded to a tundra tile to the southeast.  I don’t know what’s there because it’s in the fog, but if the city expanded its borders there I have to assume there’s a resource there.  

Code of Laws comes in next turn, Eagle Warrior #2 two turns after that.  The known world as of Turn 14:

[suboptimal]

Turn 15

Open the save, looks like the barbarians are all dead.



#0 is down to 29 health.  Enough to explore with, not enough to withstand sustained attacks.  Code of Laws is also in, but I wait on choosing policies.  Been burned in SP once or twice where I grab God King only to find a religious city-state later in the turn.  

I start with #1 moving to the hill E of the sheep.  I’m hoping that gives me a view of the borders without exposing me to the city yet.  We find...Egypt.



There is also a lake off in the fog 2E of the rice.  This poses a few questions, which I’ll get to in a bit.

I move #0 W-NW to the mountain.  I’m going to summit the hill here and see if there are any city-states tucked over here.

Moves complete I slot Discipline and God King and start researching Foreign Trade.  

Now, what to do here?  I’m going to move into the tile E of the stone next turn.  If that doesn’t get me vision on the capital I’ll just cut through the territory.  After that….

Options

1) Attacking Egypt to take Beta Colony.  It’s probably the highest risk/reward proposition as well.  Three Eagle Warriors would easily take down a flatland capital defended by a slinger or left unguarded – the city defense would be under 15 and fall rapidly.  It would take four Eagle Warriors if the city is defended by a warrior or on a hill.  If I inserted a 4th Eagle Warrior and skipped the scout that would have the 4th Eagle Warrior built on Turn 23, the slinger on Turn 26 and the settler on Turn 33.  A four-EW attack could start in the early 30’s as it would be 7-8 turns to get the 4th Eagle Warrior to Egyptian territory.  A 3-EW attack could start around Turn 26.

2) Attacking Egypt to cripple by pillaging and killing/capturing units is another option.  Not as high risk though it does create quite a bit of tension on this part of the map.  In this case I’d keep my build order the same as planned (Slinger → Scout → Settler).

3) Eagle Warrior #0 scouts out the western area to see if there’s a city-state tucked in there.  I’m a bit curious to know where they are now as I expected to find one between my capital and my northern neighbor and that didn’t happen

4) Just attack Preslav as planned.

One other consideration is to move the settler ahead of the scout in the build order in order to secure the spot to the south.  However, the fact that I haven't met any Egyptian units tells me he hasn't scouted much in this direction yet.

[suboptimal]

Turn 16

Time to meet the Egyptians...I move onto the tile due east of the stone and officially meet. I don’t get a line of sight to the capital as there’s jungle and hills in the way. I’ll move onto the stone next turn and get a view. RFS-81 has a military strength of 24, is getting 3.9 culture per turn (due to population) and science of 4.1 per turn (ditto). He’s also running God King as he’s getting 1 faith per turn. He’s got 121 gold and is pulling in 10 per turn. There’s gotta be a commercial city-state up here somewhere….he’s leading in culture so no one has found a cultural city-state.

Over in the west #0 finds something interesting:




No borders in the fog so I don’t know what type of city-state it is.

Down at the capital a Preslavian warrior has shown up just outside my borders in its wanderings. Eagle Warrior #2 is due next turn. The plot thickens.

So, RFS-81 has a scout and his initial warrior for military and has found a commercial city-state. There is a relatively flat route between our capitals but I don’t think he’s scouted that out (probably headed east). I think, for the time being, I’ll leave him alone (unless a redlined unit shows up). My plan is now to do the following:

- Converge all three Eagle Warriors at the newly found city-state and begin the attack around Turn 26
- The scout build is now a slinger. The second slinger and the settler will go to the previously marked location and settle there.
- I’ll build an Eagle Warrior after the settler to start farming builders out of Preslav.

I’m thinking that by opening up two fronts on RFS-81 early it limits his settling options and, if this is the commercial city-state, wounds his nascent economy a bit. I’ll also have military superiority in the area for the time being, which makes his ability to counter with force almost non-existent. Likewise his settling options will be limited since he can’t go in my direction without risking his city. I'll have to consider the feasibility of a rush in the mid-40's once I get a better lay of the land.

Of course, if he has an unguarded builder or settler in the area I will have to poach that as a matter of course….

[TheArchduke]

Going after the northern CS and farming Preslav is good. You could annoy/plunder/choke with 1EW right now, but you are probably better off DoFing him and then disembowel him.

An ancient war slugfest is a very difficult beast and those EWs do not obsolete too quickly if you add Oligarchy.

[suboptimal]

I was originally going to respond and say I wanted nothing to do with a DoF at this juncture.  However, I decided to play the turn first and see what's what....

Turn 17

Let’s see if Turn 17 brings any surprises…



Archduke was prescient as RFS-81 has come offering a DoF.  Now, that seems like a nice thing to have this early in the game.  However, I don’t know that I want one.  Before I clear the notification, though, I would like a look at Egyptian lands and complete the rest of my turn.  I move onto the stone hill tile and reveal Beta Colony.  It’s currently ungarrisoned and would require three units to siege.  



Down at Begin the Begin, #2 has completed and begins its trek northwest.  I start the first of two slingers.  In the northwest #0 moves to the cattle to cross the river and reveals Vilnius:



This is where RFS-81 is getting his high per turn from.  It’s landlocked with plains and some desert, which is not ideal, but it’s also producing a monument which should be complete by the time I get there.  The two northern tiles are 2/1 but the tooltip isn’t showing any resources.  I’ve seen this before and I’m guessing there’s wheat there.  The landlocked state also means it’d be possible to siege and take the city with only two Eagle Warriors but I’ll use three to have forces in place on Egypt’s western flank.   I'll probably start the attack once #0 is healed up in order to try to farm a builder off one of the city-state's warriors.  #2 will arrive on Turn 26 but depending on what happens I may start the city assault earlier.  One thing I need to be careful of is RFS-81 potentially poaching the city off me if he shows up in the middle of the attack....

With a slightly better idea of what’s going on, I accept RFS-81’s DoF to prevent him from interfering with Vilnius.  The plan is to take Vilnius, settle at the marked location and gear up for a possible Eagle Warrior rush in the late 40’s/early 50’s.  #0 will scout out Vilnius and heal up while #2 makes its way up.  #1 will cut through Egyptian lands, turn north to see if there’s a city-state up there, then converge on Vilnius.  

I think I’ll also change my build order to Slinger → Settler → Eagle Warrior → Slinger in order to settle and Builder farm a little earlier.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 47 for massive EW rush towards Egypt, sounds doable and fun.

Do not forget slinger support, 3 at the least.

[suboptimal]

Turn 47 for massive EW rush towards Egypt, sounds doable and fun.

Do not forget slinger support, 3 at the least.

If I can get 5 or 6 Eagle Warriors at his borders for Turn 47 I don't know that I'd need slinger support...there wouldn't be anywhere to put them and they'd be the weak link in the attack.  Archers, on the other hand.  The other issue is if I include slingers I have little to no military anywhere else.  I'll need to look at build potential once I get the other cities online.