[SPOILERS] Suboptimal's Arabian Adventure

[suboptimal]

Turn 53

Our turn pace has slowed down a bit with Pindicator running England in Ichabod’s absence.  The main culprit seems to be our timing – Pindicator seems to be playing their turn either right at the end of my window or a few hours after it closes.  This should resolve next week once Ichabod is back in the fold (and nothing against Pindicator, this is just explanatory).  

Having said that, oh look, pictures!  



Two things of note:
- I can change policies to speed the settler in Tomatin.
- Ichabod has come calling with a deal.  Let’s check the deal:



3 gpt for dyes.  Hmmmm….no.  I need the GPT right now in order to have my upgrades completed for Turn 60.  I decline but offer 1 gold for 1 gold to indicate no harm, no foul.  Over at Dalwhinnie the barbarian spearman has advanced onto the oasis tile.  I move my units into position for next turn and then shoot at the spearman with the archer and attack with the nearby warrior.  The results:



With that out of the way I start State Workforce and swap out Urban Planning for Colonialization.  At Tomatin I stop the warrior build and start the settler.  The warrior off to the east crosses the river to move next to Rowain’s warrior and finds a second one.  He’s standing on both of the riverside spots where I considered putting the original Glenkinchie.  



I think we’re now in a race to get the area settled.  My settler can get to where I want to go and found by T64.  More on this in a bit (and probably again in the next turn or two as I ponder more)

Back in the south the warrior reveals that Kikyo has two wheat tiles to its west.  I also find the English army:





Save the envoy for later and hit end turn.  All is quiet.

My initial inclination regarding Rowain targeting a settler in the near east is to let it be a foot race.  My thinking on this is as follows:

- I’ve committed most of my forces and have a concrete plan to take Kikyo.  Speeding up the settler in Tomatin gains me two turns and stops that attack cold as I wouldn’t be able to afford the upgrades (I’d either upgrade to have three archers and a sword or, more likely, two archers and a sword in the attack, counting the one already-built archer).
- If I take Kikyo and build a settler, I have five cities.  If I don’t take Kikyo and try to outrace Rowain, I’ve got four.
- Kikyo affords me the opportunity to control two iron resources, providing some flexibility in constructing swordsmen.  The cost, though, is that I’d have to buy two tiles to do so.
- Not taking Kikyo leaves Dalwhinnie vulnerable to attack by Japan as it’s right on top of Kikyo.
- If I get beaten to the spot I could settle either Aberfeldy or the location marked below:



This location would be close enough to Tsingy to control some of its tiles, it’s a valid city spot regardless of which tile Rowain settles and the city could be as a jump point to conquer his new city.  The city would have a 2 2 1 dye tile, 1 3 1 1 deer tile, 1 3 deer tile and 2 1 1 grassland tile and a hill tile.  That's almost better than Glenkinchie (if not outright better). Therefore, unless something in my pondering changes over the next couple of turns, I think I will do the following:

- Attack Kikyo and attempt to eliminate Japan beginning on Turn 61
- Complete the settler on Turn 60 as anticipated (which will overflow to the Encampment to be completed on Turn 67)
- Send the settler to either Glenkinchie or the diamond location (tentatively Strathisla), depending on availability.

The question here is whether or not I attempt to DoF Ichabod after taking Kikyo.  It’d let me move my primary army up towards Rowain while building a secondary one to defend Kikyo (along with infrastructure).  The downside is that he'd most certainly use the turns to build an army to attack me and/or take out a few more city-states.

Two Questions for the Lurkers

1) What happens to an unfinished district if the city it is in is captured?  For example, Kikyo’s Encampment is unfinished.  If I take Kikyo is the Encampment “stuck” there or is it razed?

2) What happens to an unfinished unit that upgrades to a resource-requiring one but there’s only one copy (and no Encampment) available?  Specifically, Tomatin has 33/40 cogs into a warrior and when I get Iron Working it will become an incomplete swordsman.  Will the game allow me to complete the build or am I stuck until I get an Encampment or a second iron resource?

[Japper007]

Two Questions for the Lurkers

1) What happens to an unfinished district if the city it is in is captured?  For example, Kikyo’s Encampment is unfinished.  If I take Kikyo is the Encampment “stuck” there or is it razed?

2) What happens to an unfinished unit that upgrades to a resource-requiring one but there’s only one copy (and no Encampment) available?  Specifically, Tomatin has 33/40 cogs into a warrior and when I get Iron Working it will become an incomplete swordsman.  Will the game allow me to complete the build or am I stuck until I get an Encampment or a second iron resource?

1)It'll get removed, leaving an empty tile. Kikyo's encampment will dissapear. It's the same as with half-built wonders.
2)The queue finishes the unit as the pre-resource required one, you can also still build warriors until you have the abilty to build swords (last patch changed this). I think if you have one Iron hooked up it'll finish as a sword, but I'm a bit hazy on that front.

[suboptimal]

Two Questions for the Lurkers

1) What happens to an unfinished district if the city it is in is captured?  For example, Kikyo’s Encampment is unfinished.  If I take Kikyo is the Encampment “stuck” there or is it razed?

2) What happens to an unfinished unit that upgrades to a resource-requiring one but there’s only one copy (and no Encampment) available?  Specifically, Tomatin has 33/40 cogs into a warrior and when I get Iron Working it will become an incomplete swordsman.  Will the game allow me to complete the build or am I stuck until I get an Encampment or a second iron resource?

1)It'll get removed, leaving an empty tile. Kikyo's encampment will dissapear. It's the same as with half-built wonders.
2)The queue finishes the unit as the pre-resource required one, you can also still build warriors until you have the abilty to build swords (last patch changed this). I think if you have one Iron hooked up it'll finish as a sword, but I'm a bit hazy on that front.

Thanks for the responses, Japper. #1 is good news as that'll let me move the Encampment to face England.  As for #2 I'm going to have one iron hooked up before Iron Working is finished.  I guess we'll find out in two turns whether or not that unit is "stuck" in the queue or not.

[suboptimal]

2) What happens to an unfinished unit that upgrades to a resource-requiring one but there’s only one copy (and no Encampment) available?  Specifically, Tomatin has 33/40 cogs into a warrior and when I get Iron Working it will become an incomplete swordsman.  Will the game allow me to complete the build or am I stuck until I get an Encampment or a second iron resource?

2)The queue finishes the unit as the pre-resource required one, you can also still build warriors until you have the abilty to build swords (last patch changed this). I think if you have one Iron hooked up it'll finish as a sword, but I'm a bit hazy on that front.

I played a settler-difficulty start tonight specifically to test this out.  Built a warrior to 1 turn to completion, switched to something else, researched iron working and mined one iron resource.  The warrior disappeared from the queue and I was unable to build swords.  Built an encampment and....all of the production put into the warrior was gone.   That means I need to complete the warrior I started in Tomatin before Iron Working completes or I'm out 33 cogs of production.  On the upside that's one less sword to scratch-build.  On the downside that means that the settler will be delayed by one turn since I'll need to get the warrior out sooner rather than later.  

[suboptimal]

Turn 54

So, having tested the in queue warrior → swordsman conversion and finding I'll lose the 33 cogs I put into the warrior, things at Tomatin will change a little bit.  I'll switch back to the warrior, that will finish next turn.  With the overflow and the planned chop the settler actually won't be slowed down.  What could slow me down is whether or not I put the builder on the right tile and if the picker changes its mind right before expansion.  

The new warrior will garrison Tomatin while the one that's there now will take a Swedish vacation and head for Stockholm.   It can put up with a little more abuse than the scout and I should be able to get two pillages in before needing to retreat to heal (or pillage a farm).  Hopefully the Campus & library complete while the warrior gets over there and I can pick up a quick 50 science.  As a bonus, if I need to wait for Stockholm to rebuild & repair the warrior can go defog north of La Venta.

Eventful turn coming up.  First, the south as there’s lots going on:



Japan has gotten a settler out, unescorted and suddenly with no where to go.  Given the unit’s visibility he now sees the bulk of my forces down here.  The English scout has shown up as well.  Ichabod and Kaiser are now at peace, though Kaiser seems to be keeping a couple of units over there (or hasn’t moved them off that front yet because peace happened on Ichabod’s turn).  Lastly, Ichabod/Pindicator has accepted my 1-for-1 so it looks like we’re on the same page.  

First, found Dalwhinnie as planned.  Dalwhinnie starts out by working the floodplains tile so that I can grow to pop 2 in 5 turns.  The plan here is to build the population to 3 and then stagnate wile working the iron and silver tiles.  It will build a trader which will be used for the Currency eureka and to build a road from Dalwhinnie to Tomatin.  The road will most likely go through Glenfarclas, gaining me two trading posts and hooking up three cities with roads.  I will also be the first to possess iron unless Bacchus has already done so.  

The worker and slinger pair move to the iron, the warrior moves southwest (though out of view of Kaiser’s settler) and I leave the other troops in position for the time being.  (More on this later).  Over in the western part of this zone the warrior moves southwest and reveals a swamp. I bring the scout east to reveal the remaining tile and find that it’s silks.  It’s also unimproved.  I have to wonder if his worker got captured by barbarians because he’s only got one farm. That could explain the slower start.



Up north, Rowain brings down an archer into view.  I’m not sure if this is an act of “don’t try to interfere” or if he’s going to  try to take out some units.  I fortify my warrrior in place for the time being and we’ll see what happens.  The warrior in Tomatin begins its westward journey towards Stockholm and the unfinished warrior is brought back into production.  Glenfarclas starts to work the oasis tile and will do so until it grows in population – a little extra gold but the extra pop means more production (and a bit more science and culture) as well.  Next turn when Writing comes in I’ll place its Campus district to lock in the cost.



Don’t see anything of note internationally, though Stockholm has completed its Campus.  I’m starting to flesh out my war preparations and will put those up in a turn or two.

[suboptimal]

Turn 55

Going to have a number of things going on.  Where to begin, in the north or in the south?  Hmmmm….first off, Writing completes.  I place the Campus district at Glenfarclas, locking in its cost at 107 .  Next I pick Iron Working as the tech.  It shows 9 turns to complete until I mine the iron, gaining the eurekas for both Iron Working and Wheel.  Iron Working is now down to 3 turns.

Up north Rowain has left his archer in place.  I’ll keep my warrior where it is.  The new warrior in Tomatin completed and the city resumes its settler build.  That’s it for the north.   In the south:



Having returned from vacation Ichabod has renamed Kumasi to Desolation Row.  Of further note – Kaiser has pulled his settler back to the city center and appears to be doing the same with his warrior.  The promoted archer has disappeared from view and the other archer has advanced towards Desolation Row.  I bring the scout west to the hilltop next to England’s archer and now have a view of two archers and two wounded warriors.  I move the warrior by Kikyo to the iron hilltop to see what I can see and find nothing new.  I’m guessing I’ve got two archers to the north or north west of Kikyo.  Ichabod’s scout has moved into Japanese territory and in checking the diplomatic screen my statement of last turn was incorrect – Japan and England are still at war.  Not sure what in last turn’s views made me think peace had been made.  Time to start positioning troops for the upgrades on Turn 58.  

Internationally nothing really of note has changed.  Ichabod has completed a monument or earned an envoy in a cultural city-state as his culture generation has gone up by 2.  I’ve taken 2nd place in the scoring at 48 points.  Ichabod’s army has also healed back up and his power is at 178 compared to my 161.  That will change in a few turns, though.

Given the troop movements and the fact he hasn’t posted in his thread since Turn 45 it appears that Kaiser has mentally checked out.  I can’t say that I blame him – losing Shido was an almost-mortal wound and I poured the salt into it last turn by settling Dalwhinnie where I did.  His start location was good in terms of food/production balance but at the same time it is a geographically challenging location – Kumasi that close to his west, tundra to the south, no fresh water to the north and desert 4-5 tiles east had him boxed in from the start.  Until after my involvement in this game ends (for better or for worse) and I can read his thread I won’t have a full understanding of what happened (unless it’s the geography).  This “analysis” should not be taken as criticism of Kaiser's play or of Sulla’s map selection.

Now that I (think I) know what Kaiser’s intentions are regarding the next several turns I’ll flesh out my invasion plans shortly….

[suboptimal]

Turn 56

The next few turns should be quiet. First off Rowain has made peace with Hattusa and Ichabod has made peace with Stockholm.  Ichabod seems to be in active combat with someone somewhere as his military power score has dropped by 30 points or so. I’m guessing he may have a city-state he’s at war with, though that would mean at least six city-states are west of Tomatin, which has its own ramifications for my position on the map.  Kaiser’s warrior has reached Kikyo and its garrison strength is only 22.  Don’t know if that’s because the warrior is wounded or if something else is up.  One thing that’s also occurred to me during the interturn break is that there may be a barbarian camp somewhere to the south of Dalwhinnie and Kikyo.  My first warrior down there did meet up with a horseman, which means there’s a camp within 5 tiles of that horse.  I wonder if there’s a two-charge builder waiting for rescue down there….

Not much movement to be had – I’m going to send the existing archer southwards a little bit to see what’s down there (and get it positioned for later).  The scout begins moving west along the tundra and the warrior continues its march towards Stockholm.

Tomatin and Glenfarclas will both grow next turn.  Tomatin continues to flip back and forth between the two forested grassland tiles.  Glenfarclas, in a pleasant change of pace, has decided that instead of one of the silver tiles it’s going to include the cattle tile to the north in the mix.  That’ll be good as I can pasture that for a little bit of production.  I’d prefer that it grab the tile next to it, which is next to Tsingy and is 2/1/1/1, but since the picker seems to prefer resources first, oh well.  Down at Dalwhinnie the picker is being sensible and going for the grasslands hill tile SE of the iron.

War Plans

The plan is to invade on Turn 61 when the DoF expires.  Kaiser has apparently sent his archers off to the north or northwest and he’s bringing his warrior back to the capital for defense.  The city defense looks like it'll be 22.  He’s also keeping the settler on the city because of Ichabod's scout, so unless he disbands that unit or escorts it out with the warrior I’ll have some extra war spoils.  

Order of Battle

Most unit upgrades will occur on Turn 58, which is when Iron Working will be completed.  The forces going in:

- Two swordsmen upgraded from warriors on Turn 58.
- Two archers upgraded from slingers, one each on Turn 58 and 59 (it’s a gold issue)
- The archer already at Dalwhinnie
- The warrior to the west

My original plan (before the settler spoiled the setup) was to upgrade units out of sight and then move into visible position on Turn 60.  However, at this point the only two people who don’t know there’s an invasion coming would be Rowain, who can’t see what’s going on, and Bacchus, who hasn’t met any of the civs involved and won’t know there’s even a war going on.  That movement plan holds because it’s also the most efficient (imho) to get the upgrades completed and units into position.  Speaking of position, here’s the planned position at Turn 60 and the initial movements on Turn 61:



This does not put the city under siege; this is intentional as it makes both swordsmen attack at their full strength of 36.  With all units attacking the “expected” damage would be about 180 HP.  The city should fall on Turn 62, even with garrison healing between turns.  If the warrior escorts out the settler leaving the city strength at 15 the city could very well fall in one turn.  The question that remains is then whether I can take Kikyo before he settles another city.

[suboptimal]

Turn 57

Open the save.  In the south the warrior (and presumably the settler) have left Kikyo to the southeast.  An archer is also making its way back to the city, presumably for defense.  A brand new builder has also shown up on the scene as well:



I’ve moved the warrior back to keep an eye on things.  The archer moves southwest, both to position for the attack and to keep tabs on the settler’s movements.  Kaiser is also down a unit as his domination score has dropped to 39.  The warrior and archer in the screenshot are the sum total of his forces.

The builder farms the floodplains….I think I’m going to keep the remaining charge in reserve for the time being as I could use it at Kikyo to jump start the recovery there.  The scout continues to the west – there is a large amount of tundra south of the English.  This could come in handy later on.  Up ahead I spy the blue dotted borders of a scientific city-state poking out of the fog.  



Interesting.  If there’s anything good over there I may have to do some pillaging.  I wouldn’t mind some gold, science or culture for my...troubles.

Up north the warrior continues its march towards Stockholm.  Internationally Ichabod continues to lead in cultural and scientific development.  He has completed one of the first classical techs and is with Kaiser in the classical civics.  England is running Oligarchy right now, though this appears to predate the conquest of Kumasi.  Notably, he has no strategic resources connected so he’s using archers, warriors and maybe chariots (if he has Wheel completed).  

Hit next turn, hear the meet city-state cash register sound.  Don’t know if that means if they’ve met me or not.

With Kasier’s settler the ideal situation would be to capture it before it founds a city and then settle it where I want (like, say, the plains hill tile two north of the iron by Kikyo).  However, I have a feeling that I’ll wind up taking Kikyo and then have to chase down the remaining city with a sword and a couple of archers.  It’s still an additional city, even if it’s not where I want it.  I would also like to capture the builder but there’s a good chance it uses up its charges while improving the land.  Again, not a bad situation but not ideal.

It looks like Kaiser is going to be doing some land improvement with his builder, probably starting with a farm where it is now and then (hopefully) doing another farm on the wheat.  It’d be great if he mined that plains hill tile while he was at it.  However, he’s only going to have time for two improvements before war breaks out.

Next turn I’ll be the only player (except, perhaps, Bacchus) with iron connected and Iron Working researched.  That gives me a significant advantage against Ichabod and Rowain, though I’m a bit out of position to use it well.  The question is whether or not I’d have the time to get some swords built and positioned for an attack before either of them can get walls built.  Ichabod, in particular, has a very sizable army (4-5 each of archers and warriors) and because he seems to be battling city-states in his back lines I might be able to take a couple of his front line cities and put the cork back into the bottle.  However, I’ll give that a full evaluation (along with other competing priorities) after I get Japan buttoned up.

[suboptimal]

Turn 58

Big turn coming up….



“Leave your bronze for iron and rule with horse and sword” he says while I wait for the game to load.  Well, two out of three ain’t bad.  The city-state to the west is Geneva and they’d like me to train a spearman.  Jerusalem would like me to get the Eureka for Currency and Zanzibar would like me to construct a Theater Square.  Hmmm...two of those three quests will be completed in the near future.  Let’s look at Geneva:



Four mines (one on silver), a campus with a library and a farm.  I also can’t get closer to England’s capital without going through or around it.  However, this is an absolutely juicy pillaging target.  For now, though, I need to get the scout up to and around it to scout out England’s lands.  On the way back, however, I think a mine or two might get pillaged.  The scout advances.  Looks like Ichabod’s Classical era tech is Masonry as he’s got walls up in Desolation Row.  



Over at Dalwhinnie & Kikyo the Japanese builder has moved north into the woods.  I sense a chop coming on.  The settler has also moved eastwards with its escort.  In looking at the timing and movement I won’t be able to kill the warrior and capture the settler before Kikyo falls – either the settler will evaporate with the Japanese empire or Kaiser will settle it just before I take Kikyo.  The latter option is preferable to me as that’ll be another city to take, though with a smaller force.  He’s got a ways to go for fresh water but Settlervision shows that the tile 1 SE of the horses is coastline, not landlocked tundra.

On to the turn at hand.  First, research.  Wheel is four turns with overflow from Iron Working, so I’ll start that next.  Up north a La Venta warrior blocks my warrior’s path forward.  Jerusalem’s borders are still open so I go into that territory to go around.  I also see that Jerusalem has walls up.  At Dalwhinnie I bring the builder into the city.  I bring the archer two tiles southwest to check out the coastline.  There’s some fish down here.  On to the main event...upgrades.  

Three upgrades later and I’ve got two swords and another archer.  My original plan was to bring three archers, two swords and a warrior to Kikyo.  However, if I do not upgrade the slinger currently in Dalwhinnie and instead work the silver there and the oasis at Glenfarclas it'll bring my income back up to 10 per turn.  That will give me sufficient gold to upgrade a warrior to a swordsman around Turn 64.  That could prove useful when I get a settler over to Tsingy.

Internationally, Bacchus has jumped up in score quite a bit.  Based on his empire score he’s settled a city and built a district (total increase of 9).   Rowain built a monument and Ichabod did something to increase his science rate by two.  I also don’t see any indication of Rowain having built a settler but won’t discount the possibility that he’s disguised it with population growth.  I do know that he won’t be able to see my settler moving for Glenkinchie until I settle.  

Domestically, Glenfarclas will expand next turn.  The tile picker has moved back to the SW silver tile.  I guess I won’t know what tile it’s grabbed until I open the save for Turn 59.   Tomatin will grow in two turns and has gone back to the southern forest.  Looks like it’ll be a crap shoot there, too.  I’m going to be optimistic and move the builder towards the tile I want.  I also bring the warrior out just in case Rowain get any ideas with his archer.

[suboptimal]

Turn 59

In thinking about the situation overnight I’ve decided to make the attack on Kikyo with one less archer than planned.  I’ll be able to work the silver tile at Glenfarclas for a few turns and that will get me back up to 80 by Turn 64.  I set the citizens accordingly and take a look around.  Looks like there will be a party at Kikyo!  In addition to Kaiser advancing with two archers and a warrior Kaiser has chopped out a warrior to escort his builder and grown Kikyo back to 4 population.  His settler has moved off to the east and it looks like Ichabod is shadowing him with the scout.   Time to join in the fun:



Now for some numbers:

- Ichabod’s available forces can do 52 – 80 points of damage against Kikyo if he chooses to attack the city with all three.  Of the units he has only one of them can actually take the city.
- If I were to do a first strike on Turn 61 with the warrior, swordsman and one archer I could do 83 – 126 damage to the city.
- My forces, in a full attack, do 142 – 216 damage.

Numerically I’m reasonably confident that I can take Kikyo even with Ichabod engaged in a fight for the city.  I won’t say “it’s mine” until I’ve got a unit standing in it and Ichabod doesn’t declare war on me out of spite.  What I do have is the flexibility to do as much, or as little, damage to the city as I need to depending on the circumstance and it’s going to be how I can use that to my advantage that will dictate the results of this battle.

Ichabod knows that I’ve got two archers, a sword and a slinger in the area as his scout saw the first archer and was in position last turn to see the upgrades of the warrior and slinger.  He couldn’t see the second swordsman as it was three hexes away.  He would have known, however, that with the money I spent I upgraded a second warrior somewhere.  He’ll find out next turn that the second upgrade was down here as he can’t see it with his archer.  I wonder if that will give him pause.  Guess I’ll have to keep an eye on PYDT and then start checking RB frequently when he gets it to see if he and Pindicator go on a posting spree.  Good thing work is slow (yum, metagaming...nom nom nom).

Questions that Turn 60 will answer:

- Will Kaiser maneuver in a manner that suggests he’s expecting war from me?
- Where does Kaiser move the builder?  For me, best case is back to the city center.
- Will Ichabod move into position to attack the city or is he just harassing?

Up north, Tomatin’s tile picker has moved back to the preferred tile.  Heh.  I’ll stay where I am and move next turn.  If that tile gets picked I’ve got a settler out on Turn 61 and an Encampment following it.  If not things get delayed a turn while I reposition.  In the southwest the scout continues its way around Geneva.