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

[suboptimal]

March of the Dotmaps

Time for some dot-mapping, if only to start getting some ideas going here.  I’m generally only looking at Encampments, Commercial Hubs and Campus districts right now as that’s what’s going to be most important in the near and intermediate time frames.

Begin the Begin



The encampment is already placed, that was a matter of the tile being desert and otherwise useless.  Putting the Campus between it and the city center gets the +1 immediately.  Putting it to the south takes away a good Commercial Hub spot but does get the +1.  A district at this southern location could provide an adjacency bonus to a city that is placed south of this spot (a Campus would be at +2).  Further out, if I needed an Industrial Zone to go eureka hunting the hills SE of the Encampment would be a good spot - could get a +3 adjacency out of it.


Welcome to the Occupation



I’m glad I went through this exercise now before buying any more tiles.  Originally I was going to place an Encampment in the eastern location and the Aqueduct between it and the city.  However, that means there’s no real good placements for anything else unless I make a third ring investment for a Commercial Hub.  Putting the Encampment to the SE lets me get a +1 Campus up here, which given the map is about as good as I can do at present.  I think that’s the new plan once the barbarian camp falls.

Regarding the short term situation up here I’ll be able to complete the monument and build two slingers here as long as I don’t need the third builder charge for the Craftsmanship inspiration (need the forest chop for the builds to be on time).  Given that I should be able to capture a builder from Preslav by Turn 40 I think I’ll be on schedule here.

Cant Get There From Here



This is where the settler is heading.  I’m settling on the marked location as that’s a plains hill and gives the city an extra “free” right off the bat.  The tile NW would be better location geographically, letting the proposed Campus get a +3 adjacency once the Commercial Hub goes down, but I’d be mowing down a 2/2 grassland forest hill to do it and that tile is better off being chopped and mined.  There may be stronger spots in the west but this has a more strategic purpose for the coming conquest of Egypt.

Oh, and that’s not a typo in the name.

Other Spots



The three city spots marked to the west are where I would send any future settlers as these are quite strong.  Locations #1 and #2 aren’t fully revealed yet, but both will likely need the rainforests if they’re going to get any reasonable Campus adjacencies.  City #3 is a sheer resource grab, getting both the iron and furs in the second ring.  This one plants on a 2/2 tile but to avoid having one of those in the third ring I think it’s worth it.  It’s also a plains hill so would remain a four yield tile.  

If I were to wind up with a massive builder surplus after dealing with Egypt and farming Preslav I would consider making a run at the Colusseum at the noted location.  That spot covers the capital and all of the proposed interior cities, leaving only Welcome to the Occupation, Preslav and any Egyptian conquests out of range.   There are four chops first ring and several more in the second ring to speed things along.  The city might be hard up for production after that, but I’d probably build a Commercial Hub on the river, farm everything and then run Commercial Projects.

An additional location is SW of Begin the Begin down at the river bend by the horses (see screenshot for Turn 24).  However, given my focus on melee units I don’t know if or how necessary it will be to settle there.  Outside of the horses it’s a pretty meh location as I can get incense at Welcome to the Occupation and if I really need horses then tile purchases will probably be the better way to go.  That location does offer the chance to put a Commercial Hub between two completely different rivers which I believe would get it +4 adjacency.  

Likewise I may shift the western locations depending on what else is hidden by the fog.  Gotta get those revealed once I start farming at Preslav.  Speaking of Preslav, when I was setting these dotmaps up I noticed that it has a builder out and has farmed the tiles NE and E of the city center.

[TheArchduke]

Beautiful dotmap, beautiful locations. City 3 is a priority after the settler target, to seal Egypt off.

I dislike the campus site as it mows down the cows, but I am squeamish about harvesting in general as I dislike short term gains over longterm.

Excellent job so far!

[suboptimal]

Good to hear my dotmapping actually makes sense.

I'm hoping that I don't need City 3 to seal off Egypt as by the time I get my next settler out I should, in theory, be in the process of taking them over.

Mowing down the cows provides a population bump and a good Campus site, which I think are long term gains, not short term ones. There is plenty of food around (three other 3 tiles) and I can get the HBR eureka at either Welcome or Begin with a 3rd ring tile purchase if needed.

[suboptimal]

Turn 29

This turn report will start off with a bit of bookkeeping.  The two things I need to keep my eyes on over the next 15 turns are  making sure I complete Archery around Turn 44 and finishing a civic as soon as possible after I get a 25 in order to get into Urban Planning as soon as possible.  Ideally I could do that with Craftsmanship in order to get into Agoge at the same time but I don’t see that happening.  

At present I need 4 turns to complete Foreign Trade.  That will go down in five turns once the monument in Welcome completes and I settle Cant Get There From Here.  I’ve got 14.6 faith, so I have some time here.  I’ll stay in Craftsmanship to get it as close to 50% as possible before I need to swap into Foreign Trade.  I switch to Animal Husbandry and will finish that and Archery next.  Writing can wait as I’m going to try to get two Encampments completed before placing the Campus in order to get a the discount.  If for some reason the second Encampment looks like it’ll be stalled out there’s always builder labor…

Internationally my concern is quickly becoming rho21.  He’s got 5 techs completed.  On the flip side his cultural development is on par with everyone else (he has just one).  Wonder if he met two scientific city-states.  RFS-81 continues to have military issues as his power is down to 18, according to the score panel.  However, it’s 39 according to the CQUI interface. 

At Welcome to the Occupation I swap the locations of the non-promoted and promoted Eagle Warrior to the SW.  The unpromoted one will move on the barbarian camp in order to clear the camp and gain a promotion.  I won’t use the promotion immediately as I’d like to see what RFS-81 has for force composition.  The other Eagle Warrior fortifies in place and will heal up before I consider going to poke around in Egypt.  RFS-81 has no units garrisoned at this time.  This is where DoF remorse comes in -- if it weren't for the DoF I could move on either Egyptian city now and there'd be not much he could do to stop me (except maybe purchase a slinger).

The builder starts its journey back, I’ll be able to farm the wheat tiles on Turn 35.  Down at Begin the Begin the settler and slinger both advance.  The slinger will follow the settler up the river then take the builder’s path to Welcome to the Occupation.  It will arrive inside the borders around Turn 39 and wait for its upgrade.  

Begin the Begin will get back up to 3 population the turn after next.  I thought the math had worked out so that the city would have stayed at 3 population but somewhere the numbers went awry.

[suboptimal]

Turn 30

Looks like we’re in for another quick turnaround Sunday.    rho21 has completed a civic (his second), the Preslavian warrior is back at my borders and everything else is quiet.

I move my units around, nothing else much to report.  The barbarian spearman is at +9 because it’s fortified and on a hill.  I can either wait and heal up a bit before attacking or heal, promote and attack.  I think the camp needs to go sooner rather than later, so I’ll do the latter.  Given RFS-81's present lack of military and the fact that Tortoise will make it easier to set up builder captures I'm heavily leaning in that direction.

[suboptimal]

Turn 31

Begin the Begin expands to size 3.  I start working the plains forested hill tile and will do so for the next two turns.  It is a small adjustment but it gets the Eagle Warrior out a turn earlier, so worth missing out on a little food the next couple of turns.  That Eagle Warrior is due out in two turns.  Preslavian warrior is back in the fog and looks like RFS-81 has done a tile buy or something.  He still has no garrisons.

The Eagle Warrior inside Welcome is fully healed.  I decide to take the opportunity and fogbust a little to the north.  It moves 2 NW and finds….The Pantanal (!).  Also gets me the eureka for Astrology, though I won’t be needing that tech for some time.  It also makes it critical that, at a minimum, I take over Barrayar.  This wonder in either or our hands could be quite powerful and I’d rather it be mine.  The other Eagle Warrior that’s almost fully healed moves NE into the jungle.  That puts the lands between us, right up to Barrayar’s borders, under watch.  At the barbarian camp I make my first attack, taking 22 damage but inflicting at least 40 and gaining the promotion.  I’ll take Tortoise next turn.  



Down in what I’m now calling “The Midlands” the settler moves onto the hill.  This doesn’t reveal much given the hilly terrain to the east but did show an additional grasslands hill off to the east.  I should reveal another tile or two when I settle next turn.  The good news is that there’s nothing around that can poach the settler.  The slinger begins its journey up to Welcome – it’ll be there in 8 turns.  

Realized after I passed the turn I needed to change off Craftsmanship to avoid going over 50%.    Need to leave better interturn notes to myself.

[suboptimal]

Turn 32

Another four-turn Sunday!  :woohoo:

The first thing I do is switch out of Craftsmanship and into Foreign Trade.  Left myself an all-caps note in my report file for that one.  Interface shows three turns to go.  Barrayar has grown to three population on the being provided by the citrus the city is settled on.  

Down at Begin the Begin the warrior is back.  Good.  Slinger continues its progress NW towards Welcome to the Occupation.  Good.  Eagle Warrior takes Tortoise, getting up to 90/100 damage.  It’ll take two more hits to kill the spearman unless I get a really good damage roll next turn.  The jungle Eagle Warrior fortifies in place, I move the remaining one up towards Pantanal.  Look what I found off to the west…



I found Egypt’s source of extra cash.  They’ve given me the inspiration for Political Philosophy, they have a pasture up and they have no garrison in place.  The build currently in the pipeline is a granary, based upon strategic view and the city’s graphics.  Notably it does not appear to have a  monument. There are cliffs on the northern edge of the NW tile (which is a grassland).  The NE tile is marsh.  I unfortify my other Eagle Warrior and bring it over this way, just in case I want to be...aggressive.  Their quest is to get the inspiration for Mysticism, which I’ll have in 7 turns.

As my last acts of the turn I found Cant Get There From Here, buy the 3/2 bananas to work and start a slinger.  



Commercial city-states are useful longer-term.  The question is what do I do here?

- Take the city.  With two Eagle Warriors I could do this in 3 turns if no garrison shows up and I could start in 2-3 turns.  If a garrison shows up I’d need the third Eagle Warrior, though I’d probably want that in position anyway.  If I abandon the barbarian camp attack for the time being I could start an assault with all three Eagle Warriors in 4 turns.  This should give me four cities by Turn 40 and still leave me in a position to attack Egypt shortly after the end of the DoF.  The downside would be that I don’t have a gold-generation engine for my later Commercial Hubs and trade routes.  I could also use the farm to pillage-heal during the assault.  Taking the city also cuts off a major source for RFS-81 in the event I royally screw up the invasion.

- Farm a Builder or two.  The city-state most likely has two warriors out and about.  If I could keep both from getting to the city-center I could try to capture them both and then take the city.  Alternatively I could make peace after I capture some builders and keep it around for later.  If I’m not intending to take the city the pasture is definitely getting pillaged for the

- Do nothing.  I’d complete the quest in 7 turns and start getting +4 per turn.

The next two turns I’ll move the northern Eagle Warriors into position for some form of aggression.

Archduke, what do you think about taking the city now vs. farming and leaving it for later?  I’m not inclined to just let it sit peacefully as either the conquer or capture approach reaps better rewards in both the short-term and the long-term.

Edited to Add: The more I think about this I think my Plan A is to do the following:

- Take out the barbarian camp in order to fund the Encampment tile purchase, then head north.
- The other two Eagle Warriors will skirt Lisbon's territory around to the north side, looking for the warriors. 
- Once I locate one or both of them I'll declare war and attempt to capture.  Easier with the Tortoise-promoted one over the Battlecry promoted one.
- If I can kill both warriors I will attack the city once the granary completes.  If one of them gets back to the city first I'll need to see what the situation is.

Oh, and the cows at Cant Get There From Here get to live on. There's a +2 adjacency spot E-NE of the city center that showed up when the mountain revealed itself.

[TheArchduke]

Take the city. You are strong right now, CS are always an envoy race which you can easily loose and the opportunity is really good.

Also it enables both cities to support each other, prevents +4 from flowing to Rho 21 and what is the worst that can happen?

That you got 4 cities soon?

I disagree with plan A. I think you made the REALLY right call to tell me to speed up in the other game. So I say it here, let the barb camp be boosted by a newly built warrior or the way back imo.

I think speed is of the essence here, you do not want that CS to get an archer, or to "waste" time to catch one warrior, they will come to you anyway if you dow.

So I would suggest to let all three descend on Lisbon ASAP.

Let someone else take the camp, maybe your slinger and a new EW?

[suboptimal]

Yeah, you're right. Four cities is just too strong to ignore at Turn 40 and my military is more than capable. That city is also larger than any of my own at this point. I'll position for the attack and declare when I'm in ready. If a capture attempt presents itself without unduly delayin the conquest I'll take it. Hopefully the granary completes in that timeframe. FWIW I've never seen city-state archers on Prince before Turn 45 or so and I think the tech rate of CS are partly related to the tech rate of the major civs in the game.

You may wind up making the attack for me -- I'll be civless from late morning Thursday and the entirety of Friday. I'll post in the tech thread and give my opponents the option of pausing oor having you play the turns.

[suboptimal]

Turn 33

Welcome to the Occupation and Begin the Begin complete their builds.  Both start slingers.  Up at Welcome I begin moving Eagle Warriors around, revealing the rest of Lisbon’s territory.  There seems to be a spit of land to the west but my path through the territory is blocked unless that builder moves.  I’d really like it to return to the city so I can move to the marsh without going the long way around.  It also means maneuvering will be tight but the city, once mine, will be easily defended.  Lisbon also has iron, so taking the city just got that much better.



Whether or not I declare war next turn will depend on whether or not the builder moves out of the way.  Ideally, it'd go NE and let me move to the marsh -- I wouldn't mind a 1-charge builder capture.  Taking Lisbon, though, will require all three Eagle Warriors attacking, so the actual assault is still three turns out.  

The slinger and builder continue their moves, the builder will start farming the turn after next.  Down at Begin the Begin I move the Eagle Warrior west one tile and find the Preslavian warrior.  Good.  I move adjacent to it and the trumpets of war ring out in Azteca once more.  I’ll let it attack me over the next two interturns then finish it off on Turn 35, hopefully netting me a builder in the process.



Animal Husbandry and Foreign Trade both complete next turn.