[SPOILERS] Suboptimal's Arabian Adventure

[suboptimal]

Musings on Auchentoshen

In looking at the site in more detail, that’s almost too good to pass up.  Three 2F/2P and a 3F/2P tile in the first ring, possibly another 3-4 2F/2P tiles in the second ring depending on what’s in the fog.  I wouldn’t need any builders down here for quite some time for improvements, unless I wanted to start chopping some jungle for mines (or quarry the stone for Masonry's eureka).  Additionally there are multiple spots for a +6 adjacency Holy Site due to my pantheon. A campus could get +3 adjacency from all the rainforests as well.  

On the down side, it’s guaranteed that this city site won’t have iron or horses.  It’s going to be viewed as a major potential threat by Japan.  It’s also quite a bit away from my other cities, which makes reinforcing it tough, even if I were to get a road through Jerusalem – as soon as I am not suzerain I’d have to go the long way around.  

So, what to do?  Well, Bronze Working completes when I open the save and I’ll know exactly where I stand with iron.  If it’s at one of my other city sites the settler will go there.  If I have no strategic resources available, perhaps I’ll settle here.  It’s block off Kaiser from getting into my backlines but I’d have to get Masonry quickly for the walls.

[suboptimal]

More on City Placement

It's occurred to me that my settling decisions in the west may have been too inflexible, with priority given to being on fresh water rather than what might actually be a better city placement.  Here's a dotmap of the area directly west of Tomatin:



The marked locations of Aberfeldy and Cragganmore is (almost) the only configuration in which two cities, both with fresh water, will fit in the area.  The only alternative positioning is to move Cragganmore 1 tile to the east (interested lurkers can look at the settler lens screenshot I posted in the Turn 11 report). As discussed in The Next 19, Aberfeldy has food and not much production while Cragganmore would be stuck at 2 population until Feudalism comes in.  Is there a better way?  The dotmap shows alternative locations for Cragganmore (Red Dot) and Aberfeldy (Yellow, Blue & Green Dots).  

Moving Cragganmore to the coast achieves a number of improvements over the prior position:

- The diamonds and copper are both first ring
- The fish moves into the first ring
- The wheat becomes available for farming
- The whales are second ring
- There are more workable tiles in the 1st & 2nd rings
- Settling the city gets the eureka for Sailing
- There's lots of gold available
- Good harbor location 1W of the city center

The disadvantages:

- Housing starts at 3 instead of 5, so there's a growth cap until a granary or an aqueduct is built
- The sweet campus location is now 3rd ring and would be an expensive investment.
- This location would still stagnate at 2 population if I wanted good production and gold generation

Moving Cragganmore to Red Dot is almost a no brainer.  But what about Aberfeldy?

There are three freshwater alternatives marked on the map.  Of the three I prefer Green Dot:

- It has a +2 campus location in the 1st ring
- The stone tiles are 1st & 2nd ring
- The dye tile is 2nd ring and would get picked first by the tile chooser

[suboptimal]

Turn 43
A Turn Report With More Screenshots Than Ever Before!

Open the save and this happens:



Now, I assume you’re looking at Bronze Working and going “where is the iron, Suboptimal”?  I’ll get to that in a moment.  Remember several turns ago I said that Ichabod’s military power jumped by quite a bit?  Well, I call your attention to the lower right.  Ichabod has declared war on Kaiser!   Of course, you’re a gen-lurker, so you already knew that.  But I have to stay a little motivated in my reporting by pretending that you occasionally ignore those other threads to get your news here first!

I can’t see what’s going on in the southwest because I haven’t defogged that area and have no units around.  I do see that Ichabod has finished Early Empire.  Ichabod has a 201 military power vs. Kaiser’s….58.  Holy crap, Japan is toast!  In looking at the tech tree I’m on par with everyone’s advancement, with Rowain bringing up the rear.  That means two things.  First, Ichabod’s attack is going to be multiple archers and a few warriors, with maybe a spearman or perhaps a chariot or two tossed in.  Second, Rowain won’t yet know where iron is.  Speaking of which…

Is it near Tomatin?  Nope.  The Deserts of Glenfarclas?  Nope.  Oooh, look, there’s one!  Three tiles northwest of Kikyo!  And another one four tiles east!



And that’s it, at least as far as I’ve uncovered.  Now, what to do about it?  Option 1: Ignore Iron, forget horses and go for a swarm of obsolete units.     Option 2: Well, looky here on Settlervision:



It’s a bit of a crap location, what with desert and all.  However, if I settle on that hill SW of the oasis I have fresh water, 6 food to work, possibly a 2F/2P tile for a city center (LURKERS: will that be the case or no?  If it were grasslands it would be) and iron in my second ring.  There’s also a 1P/3G silver in the 2nd ring, so there’s some good gold there.  An alternative is to go to the plains tile NW of the iron.  That puts it, the silver and the two flood plains in the first ring.  That's a better placement, I think. Kaiser is going to be too preoccupied holding on for dear life to mount a challenge.  Settler #2 has a destination. 

I’m going to bring down two warriors to join the one that’s down here.  I’m also going to bring two slingers (the one that will be built at Glenfarclas and the one that will be completed in Tomatin this turn).   The plan will be to settle Dalwhinnie, upgrade the slingers and go after Kikyo, unless Ichabod beats me there.  Unless he does something to get his military up fast he might not be able to counter.

Speaking of settlers, let’s see if the cost was updated per Woden’s theory that finishing a tech would update the costs to the new patch:



Yup, it did.  We seem to be good to go on that score.  OK, enough blabbing and picture taking.  Time to do stuff.  First, at Tomatin:



Scout, it’s what’s for target practice. Slinger fires, scout dies no promotion.  Next, time for some resource management.  Tomatin’s build changes to the slinger, builder chops forest.  Slinger completes, settler will complete in 6 turns (end of Turn 49).  Transit time to Dalwhinnie is….5 turns walking, 1 turn settling.  Found on Turn 56.  Chopping the forest happened to speed that up a turn.  I’ve got 62 gold so it’s time to get the Holy Site placed.  Nope, the tile now costs 65 gold.   Newly built slinger starts the trek to Dalwhinnie.  Promoted warrior in Tomatin will heal and serve as escort.  Redlined warrior to the east moves to the riverside hill to see what’s going on…Rowain is maintaining guard between Tomatin and Baltimore, but on his side of the river.   

Elsewhere, the warrior by Glenfarclas goes southeast.  I want to get the lay of the land southeast of Dalwhinnie in order to see what else is around.  Another horse, perhaps (besides the one too far to the southwest)?  We shall see.  Fortunately Ichabod doesn’t see my warrior turn southeast.  He also doesn’t know he’s going straight for a barbarian camp.

Over at Stockholm, that builder is still standing guard on the stone.  I wonder if it’s algorithm is stuck because the builder wants to quarry but Stockholm hasn’t researched mining?  No matter, enough is enough, I now have a use for that builder.



I'll run that worker over to Glenfarclas, even if I have to go the long way.  From there it'll head down to Dalwhinnie and mine the iron. The worker by Tomatin will go down to Glenfarclas and chop the forest directly east of it - I'll put the chop into what will then be an archer.  That will also clear the tile for a future campus (+2 adjacency).  If you’re wondering why I didn’t do that, oh, ten turns ago, it’s because I was holding out hope that the RNG would do me a favor and put down a quarry for the pillage, culture and envoy in Kumasi.  I don’t lose any envoys and now have a good use for the builder, so as long as it and the scout get out in one piece I think it’s a win for me. I'll also pick up the envoy when I get te Holy Site completed and the inspiration for State Workforce.

Want to see something patch-related and completely bonkers?



If the scout’s power were actually that high I’d start killing everything in sight!  It also seems to imply that while the difference in unit strength is the supposed calculation for combat you can get the strength high enough to mess things up.  Suffice it to say, though, the attack wasn't ineffective and the builder is mine, provided I keep it safe.

In other international news I decide to offer Rowain peace to see if he accepts. Hopefully his game doesn’t CTD as he described in the organizing thread.

One last choice to make before hitting next turn: my next tech.  I choose Archery.  I’ll follow that up with half of Masonry, half of Wheel and then complete Writing.  Civics-wise the inspiration for Early Empire will arrive in two turns when Tomatin grows to size 5.  That should cut down the time significantly.

[suboptimal]

Plans for War?

After looking at what I’ve got and where things are, I think I could be in a position to declare war on Japan on Turn 56 and, with the assembled forces, be able to mount a good attack on Kikyo.   It will partially depend on how fast Ichabod takes Shido (I assume that’s his first goal) and whether he marches on Kikyo or stays put at Shido.

Without going into the nitty-gritty micro stuff I could have the following accomplished by Turn 55:

- Found Dalwhinnie.
- Mine the iron and have two builder charges available to mine the silver and farm the floodplain at Dalwhinnie on later turns.
- Upgrade two slingers to archers plus the promoted warrior to swordsman.
- Be in position to declare war on Turn 56 with an attack force of three archers, a swordsman, a warrior and a scout.
- Start a campus in Glenfarclas.
- Start an encampment in Tomatin (yeah, not a Holy Site).

If Ichabod marches on Kikyo I still plan to found Dalwhinnie and perform the unit upgrades in order to get the iron under my control.  In this case we could wind up converging on Kikyo.  That would make for an interesting situation.  

[Mardoc]

That would make for an interesting situation.  

Yay!  

[suboptimal]

Turn 44

First let’s see if Rowain accepted peace:



Yes, he did.  He’s advanced the warrior to be a little nosy.  That’s OK, I can deal with that - the promoted warrior moves up to the encampment marker (which is no longer where it's going) and the redlined one crosses the river to the forest (that's now where the encampment is going).  Out east I start bringing the builder/scout pair east and get eyes on the other Stockholm warrior lurking about.



Now for some discussion on war planning.  My attack force will consist of three archers, two warriors, a swordsman and a scout.  In order to get this pulled off I will be doing the following:

Units
- Both slingers and the unpromoted warrior begin moving south.
- Builder will move to Glenfarclas
- Scout/builder pair will move to just west of Jerusalem, with the builder going around to the north to Tomatin and the scout going south to Kikyo.  Rowain will hopefull stay on the eastern side of Tomatin (or be ejected to the north or east when Early Empire completes) and not get the opportunity to poach it after peace ends on Turn 44 (45?)
- Settler completes after Turn 49.  Promoted warrior and settler move to Dalwhinnie.  Remaining redlined warrior will hold the fort.  Risky, yes, but Rowain can’t declare war until Turn 54 (or is it 55?)

Civics/Techs/Policies
- Archery completes in 2 turns.  After that, Iron Working to 50% or just over 50%, then Writing.
- Inspiration for Early Empire hits next turn.  Early Empire will complete after Turn 46.
- After Early Empire I’ll start Mysticism.  With the overflow from Early Empire that should complete on Turn 52.  The envoy will go to Kumasi for an immediate boost to culture.
- After Early Empire I’ll start State Workforce and research it to completion as that will be quicker than waiting for a district to complete (about 11 turns).
- Agoge & Urban Planning will remain my policies until Political Philosophy completes, even if/when I go after a barb camp for Military Tradition's inspiration.

Builds
- Tomatin will go warrior → archer after the settler completes.
- Glenfarclas’ slinger will upgrade to an archer in the queue.
- When that archer has 1 turn remaining the builder will chop the forest tile 1E of Glenfarclas.
- The overflow from the archer will go into a builder, which will complete the following turn.
- Glenfarclas will then start another archer until Writing comes in, at which point a campus district will be started on the hex cleared by the chop and built to completion.  If Rowain is getting frisky as peace winds down I may complete the archer before building out the campus.  Tomatin, though, will do the heavy lifting for military builds.
- The new builder will go to the iron.
- The builder from Stockholm will chop the forest 2E of Tomatin.  The chop will be timed to get Agoge overflow into an Encampment that will be placed on that same tile.

On Turn 55 there will be a settler, warrior, two slingers and an archer in the area, along with warriors and a scout north and south of Kikyo and about 190 gold in the bank.  Turn 56 will look like this:

- Found Dalwhinnie
- Mine the iron
- Upgrade the warrior to a swordsman (80 gold)
- Upgrade both slingers to archers (50 gold each)

On Turn 57 we give our declaration of….wait a minute.  This happened on Turn 29:

Rowain and Kaiser have both been offered DOFs, we'll see who's a taker next turn.

and on Turn 30:

Japan yes, America no.

The Freakout Strikes Back! Sean Bean’s comma-less “Shikken of Japan HOJO TOKIMUNE” shall mock me each time I load the save until this DoF ends!  I can’t declare war until Turn 60 (or is it 61? )   I also have to hope that Kaiser doesn’t have a settler that he springs out to the east until after Turn 56.  Given his predicament in the west that is not likely.  That will give me some time to make improvements around Dalwhinnie, at least.  

Lurkers (PBEM 2ers in particular): how does this timing work out?  Kaiser accepted the DoF on Turn 30 and is ahead of me in the turn order.  Does the DoF end on my Turn 60 or does it expire at the start of Turn 61?

[Japper007]

Sean Bean’s comma-less “Shikken of Japan HOJO TOKIMUNE” 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's bothered by Hojo's intro screen, I especially detest how he pronounces it "Hojo TokiMOON" when even the in-game Hojo correctly pronounces it as "Tokimuhnhe" . It's like Sean did his recordings in an afternoon between two sigaret breaks and no-one checked afterwards.

[Singaboy]

I think it is save to assume that you count 30+1 turns on your watch. The mechanism is obscure and irritating. Best to be avoided

By the way, slinger upgrades after the patch are 45 gold a piece

[suboptimal]

I think it is save to assume that you count 30+1 turns on your watch. The mechanism is obscure and irritating. Best to be avoided

By the way, slinger upgrades after the patch are 45 gold a piece

Both of those are good to know, thanks!  That means war on Turn 61, then. 

I actually haven't played any SP games since the patch hit....I suppose I should do that at some point soon to avoid any surprises.   I had calculated the upgrades at 50 based upon the available formulas.

[suboptimal]

Turn 45

The only thing that should be going on this turn is a little bit of scouting in the south, unit positioning in the north (and maybe dancing around with Rowain’s warrior) and getting the scout/builder pair out of trouble in the west.  I forgot to mention that when I hit next turn I heard the “unit is built” sound and the drums announcing the appearance of a barbarian camp.  I’ll need to see where that wound up.



Tomatin hit population 5 so the inspiration for Early Empire is in.   Get the dialog out of the way and take a look at the situation.  The new citizen is working the dye tile, bringing my income up to 12 per turn and my amenity situation in Tomatin back to “Content”.  When the settler is done I’ll work the sheep, deer, dye and western rainforest tile to keep the gold income at 12.  The reduction back to 4 citizens will make that 13.2 per turn after Turn 48.  After Turn 59 I’ll have ~275 gold instead of the ~190 that I was originally figuring.  With 90 being spent to upgrade two slingers (thanks, Singaboy, for the cost update) I’ll have enough to upgrade two warriors to swordsmen instead of just one.  That should make things a bit easier! Hopefully one of the upgrades doesn't have to be at Tomatin.

Time to start moving units.  In the south the warrior moves to the hill to the SE and



Both units are strength 16, but I think the warrior may stay put and let the horseman come to it.  It also probably means there’s a barbarian camp somewhere within five tiles of that horse just outside of Kikyo’s territory.  I also have to wonder what injured it and how long ago that happened.  Stockholm built a unit...a new builder.     If I didn’t want the scout and the builder elsewhere I’d consider sticking around to see where it goes.  At any rate, that means that quarry might actually get built (along with a mine on the hill next to it).  Once I get Kikyo out of the way (success or failure) I might go back to Stockholm for some pillaging.

Speaking of Kikyo, I might not get the chance to attack it if the Ichabod steamroller continues.  I didn’t check last turn but



Kaiser has an empire score of 12 – he’s got one city (5) with a district (2) and 5 population in it.  His military score, however, has gone UP from last turn (from 58 to 69) which means he’s built a unit and made no apparent attempt to defend Shido.  If Kaiser comes knocking it’ll be in the next 4-6 turns, maybe a bit longer if he heals his forces.  

In other international news I see that Rowain has upgraded something(s) to an Archer as his military power has increased over mine (105 v 99).  Ichabod takes the top place with 168 though.  I am curious to know how he got that many units out unless he just went flat out military after two settlers and a builder (doable with three cities, I suppose).

I don’t spot the barb camp that the drums announced.  I wonder if it was the appearance of the horse that did that or if it’s elsewhere on the landmass….hit next turn, sounds like my warrior got attacked by the horseman.