[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Turn 15

Code of Laws is in. Slot Discipline, Urban Planning and God King after momentarily forgetting I have a wildcard slot. The production increase speeds up the settler by 1 turn. I start Craftsmanship.

The injured barbarian scout has shown up by the camp I’m about to attack while the other one is milling about outside my borders apparently oblivious to my city (no exclamation point above it yet). With Discipline slotted I start my assault on the camp, dealing 33 damage and taking 24 damage. Hopefully the camp doesn’t spawn anything over the next couple of turns.

The other warrior summits the grassland stone hill and reveals a reef just east of the river delta grassland.

I hit end turn and I think I heard the “whoosh” indicating a unit has appeared. I might wind up fortifying in place next turn if that’s the case, though it will guarantee me the Bronze Working eureka.

[suboptimal]

Turn 16

Sure enough there’s now a barbarian warrior in the mix. The good news is that it’s west of the camp, across the river. I could get another shot in at the spearman now while it moves to attack, then fortify and heal as it attacks across the river. The warrior’s initial attack should get me enough XP to promote and heal. I go ahead and attack, dealing 43 and taking 27. My warrior is at 49/50 and the spearman would be dead on the next attack.

The warrior on the east coast crosses the river. It will head up to the jungle hill over the next two turns, then cross the river west and head back towards the capital for settler escort duty. The view north of the capital:




The settler will be heading for the inland location for two reasons. First, it can get there and found the city in 5 turns, rather than 6 turns. Second, it gets a location for a +2 Campus (the plains west of the mountains) and should have reasonable city growth. The first tile that will get picked up should be the stone, unless there’s a resource lurking in the second ring (which I’ll discover next turn).

I hit end turn and hear the sounds of combat. Given how I’ve seen barbarians act since Gathering Storm came out I would not be surprised to open the save next turn to find the spearman dead, my warrior injured and the barbarian warrior in the camp. That’s fine, though I would have preferred to drop the 12 into Foreign Trade.

[suboptimal]

Turn 17

Open the save, see that my expectations about the barbarians have been partially met.




Spear attacked out of the camp and died, giving me 12 towards Craftsmanship. My warrior is at 32 points and would be a bit of a sitting duck, even with the river defense bonus, to the barbarian warrior. The good news here, though, is that I don’t have to stop next to the warrior in order to clear the camp. I go SW-SE, clear the camp, get 50 2 era points, the inspiration for Military Tradition and stay out of harm’s way for the time being.

Out east the warrior tops the jungle hill and




That 22 grassland forest is on another continent. No sign of any city-states yet.

I hit end turn and am confused by hearing the sounds of combat. Then I realize that the scout most likely attacked LinCon. Eh, when it dies that’ll be two barbs towards the eureka.

I have been debating between which city site to settle first. The eastern one has the better growth potential, the western grabs the luxury resource and some extra culture now. Given the barbarian situation, though, I think that the eastern site is going to get the call here, mainly because that barbarian warrior is going to give chase and cause problems.

The choice of location also dictates the tech path I take, at least in the short term. With the eastern location I’d go Pottery→ Writing, buy the tile for the Campus and go Monument → Campus for builds, completing the Campus around T46 or so. With the western location I’d go Pottery → Mining, buy the amber tile and mine it (also gaining the Wheel eureka), then go Monument → military builds.

In either case the capital would go Builder → Warrior → Settler after the builder is out, getting the settler completed EoT43 and founding the third city on either T48 or T49. I could also skip the warrior build, getting the settler out immediately after the builder and completing it EoT39, then building military. There should be enough room to do this and build up military without being threatened (or even found) by an opponent.

[suboptimal]

Turn 18

The barbarian scout attacked the city and is now at less than 30 damage. The barbarian warrior is giving chase to mine. I cross the river to the jungle hill tile. I’ll make my stand there – I get a +6 for the difficult terrain, +5 for the river, +5 for Discipline and -7 for damage. That’s a 29 v 20 and I’d only expect to take 20 damage. I’d then be able to promote-heal and withstand further attack.

The eastern warrior crosses the river to the grassland tile. It will begin returning south for possible settler escort duty. I”m going for the eastern spot because I’ve realized that the forest tile east of the mountain and next to the geothermal fissure is a +4 Campus location - +1 for the mountain, +1 for two rainforests and +2 for the geothermal fissure. Of course, I’d need to finish Mining and Writing to get the district down. I’d also probably lose the forest because I wouldn’t have a builder to chop it.

Everyone but me has completed their second tech this turn. Animal Husbandry will be done with the end of the turn s I’m not too worried. Pindicator has also lost a population, so he’s the first to get a settler out.

Hit end turn, scout dies.

[suboptimal]

Turn 19

Pottery is in, scout is dead. Linear Congruential has grown to Pop 3 and will work a wheat this turn and next. Settler is done end of next turn. Eastern warrior moves SW towards the capital, western one fortifies in place and hangs on for next turn. Also looks like I didn’t get the 5 for the scout. Oh well.

Hit end turn. Hear the barbarian warrior attack. Hear the promotion earned drumroll sounder. That’s followed by the barbarian spawn sounder. Hmmmm…..

We’re now on hold to Sunday. Coming tomorrow – a look at the first map.

[suboptimal]

Turn 20

The weekend conspired against me and I didn’t get the “report” on the first map up. Eh, we’re off this weekend as well and my schedule looks more open. In the meantime, back to the game at hand….

Animal Husbandry completes, start Mining. Craftsmanship is right below the inspiration threshold (I have it at 23-ish out of 24). I need to leave it there for when the barbarian attacks during the interturn. It should die and get me 10. I promote the warrior to heal and ensure its survival.

Eastern warrior moves down for settler escort; settler is out next turn.

Hit end turn, hear the barbarian attack. I think it died. I here the click-click-click of a notificaiton message, followed by the city-state cash-register and the “Woden is up” screen.

The patch will be dropping tomorrow. I have no idea if the patch will fix the current situation in which the floodplains actually flood. We’ll know for certain when we open the save post-patch – if the rivers have names displayed on the map we’ll know that they’ll potentially flood. No names, no floods. Otherwise, I’ll be curious to see what the patch has in store for us.

[suboptimal]

I went through the patch notes, doubt I'll be on flooding terrain when I get the save back. Did see a couple of things not previously mentioned that got my attention:

- Update Battering Rams and Siege Towers to only work with Melee and Anti-Cavalry units.

In addition to the previously mentioned (if not here, elsewhere) obsolescence of rams & towers as walls get better it's now much, much harder to take cities as the "typical" cavalry rush can now be slowed down quite a bit. Cossacks might also no longer be a game-over situation as they'd get chewed up attacking a walled city. I wonder if this will increase the use of catapults, bombards and the like?

- [ALL RULESETS ON PC] Barbarians: Fix bug stopping raids from starting.

That explains what I've been seeing with barbarian raids. It also means I should see an uptick in culture acquisition. It also means I really need another warrior to go fog busting in the tundra.

[suboptimal]

Turn 21

Open the save to:




Nice! Also got the 10 for Craftsmanship. I’ll continue researching that one to completion and take Agoge, which will slot two turns before the builder completes and I start building some military. Set the capital to start a builder. Despite having Craftsmanship pretty much in-hand I'm still going to get a builder out. Getting an extra and at the capital is good, the two eurekas are better and I think the timing works out where the builder can chop the forest SE of the geothermal vents into an empty build queue and place a Campus on the cleared tile.

Patch is out, settler is out. Looks like floodplains are just….tiles with a -2 combat penalty to anything defending in them. City-state cash register must have been for Woden. Where’s the new barbarian camp? Not anywhere near me.

I send the settler NE to the sheep, it will continue towards the river and found my 2nd city on Turn 25. The warrior closest to the capital heal-fortifies and will wait for the settler to arrive, then escort it to the city site before fog-busting to the northeast. The other warrior moves to the desert hill. I’ll cross the river to the NW next turn and then head up the river valley to resume fog-busting.

The current state of my world:

[suboptimal]

Turn 22

Not much to see this turn….cross the river and the settler and the settler moves up to the warrior.

Food for thought, I’ve seen some reports on CivFanatics that since the patch has dropped the barbarians are not only raiding but they’ve kicked it up a notch (one poster said they encountered a barbarian battering ram in their game). That’s something to keep an eye on, especially since I’ve got at least one camp in the fog to my south.

Internationally, Pindicator is the first to their second city.

No interesting sound effects when I hit end turn.

[suboptimal]

Turn 23

I happened to look for a turn a bit after the end of my window and found one waiting for me. A bit unexpected as these things have usually turned up around 6:30am, well before I’m awake and had my morning coffee.

Northwestern warrior advances, reveals a jungle hill near the mountain that was NW of the barbarian camp. I may get to start seeing new tiles next turn. Settler moves to open grassland and is joined by the warrior. Two turns until founding.