Suboptimal IV: Indonesian Insanity

[Cornflakes]

Do we have 2 horses to build horsemen? If not then we'll need an encampment first. I have no problem with skipping the Archery eureka. With a horseman plus another warrior or two we should be safe from barbs and have enough to deter aggression unless Macedon is our neighbor. One slinger > Archer or straight-up Archer build for the CS quest should be all the ranged we need until building a few archers just before Crossbows get unlocked.

Another potential source of 1 era point is building a city in tundra. But that would have to be with city #4 which will be tough by T60, and likely a weak location. Suzerain of the CS will be easy and straightforward, just need to pick up Mysticism and build an Archer. Barb camp is a tossup but with tundra to our south we might find another camp there.

[suboptimal]

Ugh, forgot about the "need two copies to build" requirement (glad I've got a dedlurker ). We also wouldn't be able to build an Encampment in that scenario since Bronze Working wouldn't even be started on that tech path. The metals route takes just as long as the Archery -> HBR route provided we get the eurekas for bronze working and iron working. I don't know if three barbarian kills are possible between now and T26.

The initial decision point is T20, when we need to decide between the Bronze Working and Archery paths. Either route has us working the tech path to completion on Turn 38 and finishing Sailing EoT41. A secondary decision point is start of T26 when Bronze Working is at ~48% complete. That's the 1-turn from completion point if it were to be discounted due to era advancement. If we don't have the eureka by then we could forgo that path and hard-research Sailing and Shipbuilding, finishing that path EoT45 with the two early forest chops at City #3.

[Cornflakes]

If you Suzerain + find another barb camp that would be sufficient? If yes then I suggest continuing down Bronze Working for now until you get the Sailing eureka, then swap to the sailing line and hit Shipbuilding ASAP. That gives you the flexibility to see Iron earlier and rush to Ironworking if Macedon is a neighbor and gets frisky.

Here's a thought ... plant City #2 north on the coast. That gets you earlier Sailing eureka. Your first 2 pop can work Sugar + GFH, 3rd pop can work the plains forest for 2. Although it actually feels like a quicker starter than your current City #2 site. Currently you'll have a free on the city center tile, but that will be negated by the total lack of 4-yield tiles until you can give that site some builder love. With 2nd city on the coast you can dump into Bronze Working for a few turns until the city is planted, then gun for Shipbuilding. You would probably need to swap civics research over to Foreign Trade immediately in order to unlock the +100% navy card. Build order could be Builder > Galley (chop) > Galley (chop). Capital's builder can pasture > mine > net Pearl.

[suboptimal]

For the era points we'd need to do two of:

- kill a second barbarian camp
- suzerain a city-state before any neighbors
- build a resource requiring unit before anyone else

We can get away with only one if the second barb camp gets us 3 era points or the second camp gets us 2 points and there's 3 civs on this continent.

You have an interesting idea there. My only concern with it is that I've got the capital working the sugar from T25 onwards in order to grow population rapidly. However the growth at the coast plus the added production at the capital might be enough to offset. I'll get back to you on that one...

[suboptimal]

Turn 17

Over the interturn there were a few developments in foreign lands. Archduke completed a second tech and Code of Laws. Woden also completed Code of Laws.

As discussed with Cornflakes I buy the plains tile east of the pearls for 50. I also swap techs from Sailing to Astrology so that I can place the Holy Site next turn for an estimated 58 cost. After that I’ll complete Mining and Animal Husbandry and then the tech path needs to be chosen. Despite forgetting to mark it in my notes I remember to swap the citizen working the dumb cows over to the plains hill east of the city center – that swap was necessary to make sure the settler gets out on Turn 21 as planned.

Northern warrior summits a hill en route to the barb camp, sees nothing. Southern warrior goes onto the sheep hill and sees more desert to the north and east, some grassland to the south. No signs of city-states or barbarians. I’ll cross the river to the other hill and then get the mountain desert defogged.

[suboptimal]

OK....sharpened my pencils, put on the visor cap and ran some numbers....so...

- Swap to Foreign Trade next turn and go until completion
- Settler to coastal site, settles on T25
- Finish techs as planned through T20, run Bronze Working until T25 and then go Sailing -> Shipbuilding
- New city uses sugar through to Pop 4 and works higher production tiles with later population
- New city produces builder as first build
- Builder chops both forests and mines the copper (copper tile taken by culture)
- Capital builds remain unaffected for now (Settler -> Builder -> Settler -> Slinger -> Slinger)
- Capital builder pastures genius cows, mines plains hill and boats pearls
- Capital buys 2 tile for 60 the turn after we acquire the sugar

Techs: Sailing EoT26, Shipbuilding completes EoT42 (have to wait for Chop #2), Bronze Working 1 turn from completion, 2 turns of research (21) available for allocation
Civics: Foriegn Trade completes EoT 36.  Craftsmanship completes EoT42

The slight downside is that the capital, without the sugar until start of T40, would drop to 3 when the second settler completes EoT38.  I also looked at giving the capital the sugar back after the coastal city hits Pop 3 but the science & culture outputs were slightly lower while keeping empire population at 7 (and we need to be working the 2 tile anyway).  But wait, there's more!

However, if the coastal city builds a galley as its first build, the capital builds two consecutive builders and we do some rearrangement of tile improvements...

- 2nd builder arrives at coastal city on Turn 35 & chops GFH on Turn 36, completing galley and putting 48.5 overflow into second galley
- On Turn 37 the builder moves to the plains forest.
- On Turn 38 the builder chops the forest.  Chop completes galley, overflow into Monument is ~57roduction.
- Shipbuilding completes EoT38
- Monument completes EoT 39. Builder moves to coast.  If we have killed three barbarians Bronze Working completes.
- Builder Kampungs a coast tile on T40
- Craftsmanship completes EoT 42. 

The initial builder goes pasture -> boats -> farm yosemite plains.

The coastal city could then crank out another builder for fishing boats and a copper mine.  The capital could switch to military builds and get three slingers out as of EoT42 or two slingers and the holy site by EoT 45.  At that point we take out Urban Planning, slot in the +50% settler policy and build a settler for the desert location out of the capital.  We still complete the three slingers by EoT 42 and the capital is firmly at Pop 4 and reachs Pop 5 on EoT44.  

Irony Alert - after the second galley chop we'd have enough to...purchase a galley.  I did look at the totals to see when the faith would be available with one chop, but that won't happen until T45 or 46.

[suboptimal]

Turn 18

Astrology completes, Holy Site goes down at Sound of Silence. Start Mining, that’ll complete next turn. Alhazard picked up a couple of era points and Rowain finished Code of Laws. Warriors continue their movement – southern warrior finds desert and an oasis. Looks like all the tiles up by the mountains are desert. We’re probably going to rely on the galleys to find more city-states.

[Cornflakes]

I like your Coastal city > galley and Capital > double builder plan. Couple of clarifications:

• What is the driving factor of farming the Yosemite plains as opposed to mining the plains hill? I guess it's just the fact that it trades 2 for 1/2/2. No further explanation needed. That's clearly a better tile. Will it be acquired by culture expansion in time?
  
• What turn does Foreign Trade complete? And will you need to start the Galley at coastal city before the policy card is slotted? I guess it doesn't make any difference for the first few turns when you are just working the Sugar and making 1.
  
• What turn do Craftsmanship & Early Empire complete? Are you going straight to EE after Foreign Trade? Or hitting Craftsmanship first? Probably Crafstmanship first since you're planning on getting a couple military units out before slotting Colonization for the 3rd settler?
  
• Consider going Slinger > Warrior > Holy Site after double builders (trade 2nd slinger for a warrior instead)? My luck with slingers is terrible and I always end up losing them to barbs, or else getting whacked and just hiding and healing in a city. 1 slinger for the Archery eureka and then upgrade for CS quest makes sense.
  

Irony Alert - after the second galley chop we'd have enough Icon_Faith to...purchase a galley.  I did look at the totals to see when the faith would be available with one chop, but that won't happen until T45 or 46.

You could chop something other than a 2nd Galley, and use the faith to purchase the galley. E.g. dump the overflow from the first galley into the monument and chop the monument to completion, using the faith to then purchase the galley and overflowing into the builder. The benefit would be speeding up the monument + builder by a few turns in exchange for faith, which won't provide any other form of ROI for a while. Seems reasonable. Except maybe you want the faith in hand when you launch your Golden Age.

Oh, and I don't think I commented yet about the desert now-3rd-city site being eligible for Pyramids! Even more useful as Indonesia since you will be spending extra builder charges on a unique improvement compared to other civs. No first ring chops or harvest available unfortunately but with dedicated attention to improving the tiles at city #3 you could hard build it. In fact you could potentially consider Pyramids as first build out of that side. As a rough-and-dirty plan ... purchase horses on the turn you found, with a builder in place to pasture. Maybe purchase the Dye for pop 2 so you have a little extra time before you need to get another builder on site to mine the hills. Roughly a 31 turn build time without Urban Planning (UP save 2-3 turns if run the whole time). But you could also send a trade route from there to increase growth rate and production.

[suboptimal]

Regarding the clarifications:

- the driving force is to pick up the 2 from the tile without denting production too much. We could go without it and push back Shipbuilding two turns. It's also only trading 1 instead of 2 since it's a plains tile. We're also working the dumb cows to help with population and the boated pearls for more science. The earlier plan had the capital working the sugar, not the second city, so it changed all the numbers. The 2 from that tile (and the 2 from the pearls) helps to make up for the expenditure. With natural expansion we'd get that tile on T42.

- Foreign Trade now completes EoT36 because of my error last turn. The galley is started when the city is settled at Turn 25. The chops back up a turn, also because of the Foriegn Trade oops. By starting a galley early almost all of the chop (58 point something) goes into Galley #2 and the second chop completes both the galley during T39 and overflows to complete the monument EoT39. Building a builder at the coastal location costs two turns of time.

- Craftsmanship completes EoT42, which times perfectly with a 3x slinger build at the capital. If the completion of Shipbuilding and the era advancement discounts the civics as well then it's out EoT41. Early Empire completes 13 turns after Craftsmanship with no era discount, 11 turns with the era discount. Of course, it will be a little quicker as we'd be gaining some population in the capital and hopefully founding another city.

- Slinger x 3 completes EoT 42. Slinger -> Warrior completes EoT 41 and there isn't anywhere to pick up extra production (we fall 2 short working the plains hill instead of something else for three turns and anything earlier messes up Shipbuilding.

- Regarding the faith totals, I know Magnus multiplies the faith coming out of a chop, but what about policies? If the policy multiplies the second chop isn't necessary. Looking at your approach the second galley is faith bought on Turn 39, right after the chop. Monument is done during T39, new builder is out EoT41. The faith can be made up while we get to the next era - we'd be pulling in 4.2 per turn from being coastal/lakeside and could work 1-2 pearls for a couple more per turn. With the science rate we have it might be worth considering the science dedication as the extra +10% for eurekas, with Yosemite, could go a long way to opening up a tech lead.

- Pyramids....interesting....

[suboptimal]

Turn 19

Having burned out a couple of calculators over the interturn it’s back to the action (if you could call it that). Mining completes, restart Animal Husbandry, that’ll complete next turn and then on to Bronze Working. Everyone else is unchanged in score.

Up north my warrior closes in on the camp. I’ll be next to it next turn and will whittle it down a bit. Once the city is settled I’ll then take out the camp for the era points and gold.

One of the non-number things I pondered was the southern warrior. I’m reasonably confident that the settler can get to the coastal city location unhindered. Besides, that warrior can’t get back anywhere close in time to escort. As a result I’ve decided to push east along the river in an attempt to find either the eastern coast, a city-state or the passage north. I move two tiles east and find something interesting on Settlervision:




There’s a city up in the fog under the compass. I’m hoping it’s a city-state and not an opponent. The probable city-center is exactly 12 tiles from my initial start location, so it’s a tossup. I’ll summit the desert hill next turn for either full visibility or a glimpse of the borders. Also marked in this screenshot is a new pin for a city location. It’s on a desert hill but claims four visible resources including a 3/2/1 furs tile, so not too shabby despite the desert to the north (a good defensive front with the other city, though.

I also see I didn’t switch over to Foreign Trade last turn. That’ll leave a mark but I don’t think it slows anything down (too much).