[SPOILERS]Cornflakes Round 2! vs. TheArchduke (Rome vs. Germany)

[Cornflakes]

And so begins round 2: Me as Rome vs. TheArchduke as Germany. Here is the start I rolled 

   

Hmmm ... not exactly the best. I strongly considered re-rolling this, but I'll play the hand dealt and see what happens  If it turns out in a couple turns that this "peninsula" is not connected to the mainland then I'll suggest restarting. No fresh water, only coastal so growth will be stunted early at the capital. I'm Rome, so no temptation for early monument this time  There are 3 good tiles to improved with a builder so this is one of those starts where builder before settler is probably best. I decided to go scout first, partly to guard against an unlucky barb spawn snatching the builder if I went builder first, partly to see early on if land continues to the east.

   

I decided to settle on the Marble. With stunted early growth I'm not going to have enough pop to work that tile, might as well get the free culture and amenity. It does expose me to naval attack, but I'm betting that TheArchduke's Germany won't be prioritizing a navy. I have a good Harbor site if desired.

I'm hoping the cultural expansion picks up the stone so that I can buy the horse tile. Plan is to go Scout > Builder and quarry stone, buy and pasture horse, farm rice. Farm plus pasture will raise housing to 5, allowing me to grow easily to size 4. I'll probably pump a few settlers out at size 4 so this should be fine for early housing. Rome's monument plus the marble provides a rocking cultural start. It's going to be hard to keep up with the eurekas.

[Cornflakes]

Turn 5:

   

Have a decision to make ... barb camp spawned close enough to the horse that I'm 99% sure it will be spawning mounted barbs   But to the west the settler lens shows I'm close to a city. I decided to spend an extra 3 turns or so to meet the (hopefully) city state before returning to take out the barb camp. One side benefit of the high culture start with Rome is that I will already have Discipline policy slotted on turn 6! The barb scout didn't spot me yet, so I'm hoping I'll be able to take out the camp in time.

[Cornflakes]

It's been too quiet around here. I've been taking screenshots but haven't had time to post anything yet, so here we go:

   

NOT A CITY STATE!!! The Archduke is very close, this doesn't look good. 90% chance that I get cut off from the mainland with no chance to expand 

   

Tile picker took a fish, and then the stone as hoped, 2 turns left on the scout and one turn left on Code of Laws. I decided to take God King to go for an early pantheon. Target is God of the Forge for +25% military production. I'm going to have to fight my way out of my peninsula.

   

I go to attack the barb camp after putting the Discipline policy in place. I decided not to make contact with TheArchduke, hoping to get a city on the river before he finds me. Unfortunately it was not to be. He ran into my warrior about 2 turns later. I decided to go Scout into builder to open since there are good tiles to improve at the capital.

   

Scout heads east to see if by some chance I'm on an isthmus rather than peninsula. Unfortunately it looks like a dead end. On the other hand, I have never seen a barb scout or any other units out of this camp so maybe, just maybe, there is hope that this land opens up to a large continent to the east on the other side of that barb camp.

   

ARG! Barb horse pops out, and TheArchduke finds me.

[Cornflakes]

   

Both barbs attack me, leaving the spear redlined. I debated taking out the spear, but unfortunately I don't think I would be able to survive the counterattack from the horse. I fortify in place to get +6 fortify ... by the way, I think that the fortify mechanic is broken. I understood it to grand +2 per turn of fortify, up to max of +6. But instead it is granting +6 immediately. (cross reference with Roman Forts which automatically grand +2 levels of fortification, which seems to imply fortification bonus increases in increments). 

   

NOOOOOO!!!! 2nd barb horse spawns one turn too early  Due to the proximity of TheArchduke I decide to hard research Craftsmanship for early Agoge.

   

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY the 1 extra turn I spent climbing the hill to "meet" the "city state" comes back to bite me in the butt as ANOTHER barb horse spawns 1 turn too soon for me to take out the camp. This is going to be dicy.

   

I brought the scout over as a sacrificial lamb to try preserving the warrior, and the barb took the bait. Lets see if I can extract them both. If it wasn't clear from the last couple of screenshots, due to the proximity of TheArchduke coupled with the cultural advantage of Rome early I decided to hard research through Craftsmanship even though I went builder next after the scout.

   

Here I think I made a mistake with the damaged warrior. I moved onto a hill for more defense, but I should have moved away from the barb not towards it. As you will see later I ultimately end up losing this warrior I think in large part because I moved towards the barb here rather than away. If it would have been a normal horse rather than horse archer this move would have been fine. As-is I was allowing the barb to get in a first-strike ranged attack on me.

Craftsmanship completion timed well to slot in Agoge when the builder completed. I started a warrior intending to escort a settler up to the river to the northwest to give myself the only possible foothold out into the main continent.

[Cornflakes]

   

As you probably have seen in TheArchduke's thread, I managed to barely survive the barb ... until TheArchduke took the opportunity to strike an early blow and take out my redlined warrior. Civic target is Military Science for the support bonuses. Since I'm going to be fighting for my life to gain a foothold on the continent I'm going to need every combat bonus I can get as early as I can get it.

   

Here is a decision I came to regret very quickly. Facing the pressure from TheArchduke I decided to purchase a slinger. This was a very poor decision, essentially costing a full warrior > Legion upgrade which I very much wanted later on, whereas the slinger accomplished virtually nothing 

   

With 4 turns left on my settler, TheArchduke's own settler appears. He apparently opened scout > warrior > settler. Good job there recognizing the importance of locking me out of the continent From here until I capture that city it's all military all the time for me. No other choice about it, there is literally nowhere for my settler to go, so I halt production and switch to a warrior. I'm interested to see if I'll be able to succeed in capturing that city and prolonging the game!

   

After TheArchduke settled the city he offered peace. I won't have the military forces in the next 10 turns to take the city, so I accepted. Part of my motivation was to try and lull TheArchduke into a false sense of security. If he even put a couple of turns into non-military builds that would hopefully buy me enough time to overwhelm him when it came time for war again. I moved my units into his backlines to try clogging up the supply lines with 1 UPT rules and make it difficult to get units to the front.

   

Pantheon lands, and I take God of the Forge as planned. I had timed a civics swap with the landing of the pantheon to get out of God King, but of course I forgot to actually swap civics so I'm stuck in God King for the time being

[Cornflakes]

   

TheArchduke still as of T31 does not have Craftsmanship, Civics score is only 2 indicating he only has Code of Laws. His builder is on the way to improve a farm at the new city for the eureka. Something else I noticed in reviewing the stats is that TheArchduke has not met a cultural or scientific city state. He has pumped out quite a few units in the last couple turns so I suspect that he has met 1-2 militaristic, and he has definitely met a commercial city state based on his GPT.

This is also about the time I realized that borders were not enforced until Early Empire. Therefore I took the opportunity to occupy some of the tiles around the city. Lets see how many TheArchduke will let me occupy. If I'm not mistaken, my units will not get booted when I declare war as long as borders are not yet enforced.

   

TheArchduke has sadly occupied 3 of the tiles around the city. I have been 2-turning warriors since the adoption of the pantheon. After 1-2 more I expect I'll have a 3-turn one to catch up since my modified CPT is not 20 so I'm a little short of actually being able to 2-turn them.

Question: does removing an improvement (quarry) cost a builder charge? The reason I ask, is because if it does not I'm considering building a builder and harvesting the 2 Stone tiles into a couple of units.

   

Two more turns remaining until I can declare war. I'm planning to fortify the warrior W of the city to hopefully absorb a couple of counter attacks from TheArchduke with favorable odds. First move will be the warrior adjacent to the scout for another +2 flanking bonus. My first attacks will be against the scout in order to gain another tile adjacent to the city center. I'll attack in the 1 > 2 > 3 order shown to land another warrior adjacent to the city center. This will also give me another +2 support against the warrior fortified on the Wheat. I'm debating but I think I'll go ahead and take a shot at that warrior. I will have +6 flanking canceling out his +6 fortify. And this is really the only way this backwards warrior can contribute to the fight. On the other hand, his warrior will heal back at least half of the damage that I deal, so maybe I'll wait for a turn, and take out the warrior like I did the scout with attacks from all adjacent units to capture another tile adjacent to the city center. I'll see how things develop.

EDIT: Down at the capital, the borders will pop onto the Iron 2 turns into the war. Iron Working will complete 2 turns later. I'm hoping to capture the city that turn or the turn after and planning to upgrade a Warrior > Legion at the new city to secure my hold there. All promotions will probably to Tortoise to defend against the anticipated archer response from TheArchduke.

Also another tidbit, I noticed in Strategic view that both of his cities have a monument with a hammer visible in the city center. So he spent at least a turn in each city on a Monument.

[Cornflakes]

The moment of truth has arrived! Time to declare war and make a last ditch effort to capture that city and save the game 

   

   

 nope  This is the end folks, this just went from exciting challenge to clutch and crawl out of a hole, to hopeless and impossible. Apparently even when borders are not enforced, units still get booted upon declaration of war. No way I'm taking that city now. I expect TheArchduke to upgrade to archers any turn now.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Not sure you could have done better, with the start you rolled. That was rough.