[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Turn 110

The turn came in right at the end of my window so I figured I’d play it. Also lets me get the anxiety about the deal out of my system. Speaking of which…Woden rejected the deal. That’s fine by me. Makes his life a bit harder than mine.

Theology has completed, time for a policy swap. I take out Maneuver and Inspiration, put in Conscription and Corvee. The latter will take 1 turn off the Oracle build and I’ll take it out once I complete Divine Right...and immediately see that I missed the fact that Civil Service is a prerequisite. I’ll put a few turns into Civil Service then switch to Medieval Faires for two while Acorn gets to 10 population, then switch back and make a run for it. Acorn start The Oracle, 9 turns to go.

Down at LinCon the last chariot it out, it starts a builder. Units at Threefry arrange themselves, 3 turns until I chop the forest. I transfer the trader at Acorn to Threefry. This will be an internal route to LinCon for some added production. Also at LinCon I activate Bhasa’s second charge…




In the near east the chariot and settler pull alongshore their disembarkation point, keeping one wary eye on Sawanqaya. Further east the scout reaches the coast, finds only reef and starts towards Granada. In the Pacific, Triple-A heads for the island’s east coast, finding nothing but a fish resource in the fog.

That leaves me with sending an envoy somewhere, which I decline to do. End Turn flashing I take a flyer and swap the archer and warrior at Mixmax. That might let me potshot the barbarian scout that’s been hanging around.

[suboptimal]

Turn 111

Education completes and I start Castles. I’ll put two turns into that and then decide what to do next. I’ve currently got five techs (Astrology, Irrigation, Celestial Navigation, Buttress and Stirrups) all at one turn from completion. Mass Production is at 4 turns, Cartography, Banking, Gunpowder and Printing are all at 7 turns. I think next turn I’ll buy in the tile at Threefry that will get Acorn’s eventual IZ, get the Acropolis at the new city planted and then finish Stirrups and Banking. I want to hold off finishing Castles in order to get a couple of horsemen out. I may get that done when I put Monarchy in to take advantage of the government’s plethora of miliary policies. That might also be the time to put in Limes and get some walls up.

Xorshift’s Campus is also complete, adding 6 and another Great Scientist point per turn. The city will also grow to 3 population in a few turns. After debating library vs. monument I start a library. Up north the barbarian scout has moved out of archer range. I keep the archer in its position just in case the scout advances.

Down at Threefry the chariots continue converging on the city. I decide to send the builder to Acorn for the chop and mine first as that will take a turn off The Oracle’s build time. The chop will be three turns from now. Once it's complete it'll return to Threefry for the chop & mine, then on to Mixmax. Scout at Auckland moves west, defogs a tile or two and finds nothing of note. I’ll have Granada defogged in a turn or two (except for its coast) and then I’ll send the scout back north for a swim into Incaland.

Down at Sawanqaya the settler and its escort disembark. Settlement in two turns. Trader at Threefry starts the route to LinCon. That’ll be 3 and 2 to the city for the next 28 turns. Triple-A has to move a little bit to the east to defog the Pacific Ocean, finds only fish.

Just noticed I’ll be getting an envoy in two turns as well. That’ll get me back up to four in reserve.

I also just noticed that the mountains west of Bologna have been completely defogged due to a swordsman moving up the coast. This…




is an interesting barbarian spawn.

[williams482]

How is that even possible?

[suboptimal]

How is that even possible?

I have no idea.  Barbarian camps do not exist on Turn 1 and get placed on the barbarian's "turn 1".  You would figure that the camp gets placed first and then the units are spawned, but that still doesn't anwer the question.  The only way to find out when that happened would be to start jailbreaking saves after the game is over to see when the thing showed up.

Speaking of scouts in odd positions, those two scouts that were south of Yerevan -- where'd they come from?  Pindicator and I have been blockading that section of the map for some time now and unless they managed to move through Yerevan's territory they would have had no where to come from.  There haven't been any camp spawns up that way.  Furthermore, I cannot recall ever seeing a barbarian scout enter city-state territory in an SP game.

[suboptimal]

Turn 112

This should be a quiet turn. Move a few units, check build statuses, look around the map for anything interesting, toss a pictureless report up to RB and go have a snack. I open the save and my supposition is proven correct.

Civil Service is close enough to inspiration + 1 that I switch over to Medieval Faires. That’ll be three turns, at which point Acorn will grow to Pop 10 and I’ll switch back to finish Civil Service and get Divine Right out of the way. Before switching civics, though, the archer at Mixmax puts the barbarian scout out of its misery and gets 5 into Civil Service. Speaking of Medieval Faires I’ll need to start thinking about governor promotions again as I’ll have three coming up.

Various units move around. Settler is in position for settlement next turn. An Acropolis has a build cost of 87. With the chop the city will get the district done in 5 turns and then set about building walls. The builder will put down a camp on the furs, stay around to put a mine on a second ring iron tile and then take its two remaining actions to LFSR.

In the Great Merchant race I can claim Piero de’Bardi in two turns. Current GMP rates are myself at 104.5/9.2, Pindicator at 70.3/6 and Woden at 12/3. Great Merchants currently cost 120 points. To review, this era we’ve got:

- Piero de’Bardi: +1 envoy, 200:gold
- Marco Polo: +1 trade route, free trader
- Irene of Athens: +1 governor title

Given the current points situation this is a bit like the situation with the Classical era Great Scientists. I can take the first one and then lap Woden to pick up the third (or take Pindicator’s pass). I’d also be the first in to the Renaissance era GM at a cost of 310. I’d expect that Pindicator would try to pick up Marco Polo.

[suboptimal]

Turn 113

I open the save to see that I’m no longer suzerain of Bandar Brunei and Bologna. Looks like Pindicator used his envoys.



OK, we’re tied in envoys in both cities. I have four in reserve and place on in Bologna to get the GP generation back up. Suzerainty at Bandar Brunei wasn’t doing me much of anything so that’s fine as-is.

Look around the map, see that everything is honky-dory. Move the archer back into Mixmax and shuffle units at Acorn and Threefry. Scout near Granada defogs the last land tile there, finds nothing and starts to head north. A bit further south of there…




I get two era score for settling my first city on the continent of Europe. Bonus. I place the Acropolis to the SW of the city center and move the builder to the furs. No one’s got military in the area except for maybe Woden’s horseman so I’m going to chop the forest into the Acropolis instead of walls, finish the district and then slow-build walls.

Back home, Triple-A continues navigating around the island and finds some fish to the SW. I’ll move there next turn and see what lurks in the fog (probably ocean).

LinCon has grown to population 7. The new population was put on a farm in the triangle. I move them to one of the forested plains hills. The city also just expanded to the forested plains to the northeast and will pick up one of the plains floodplains in 6 turns. Unfortunately it’s the wrong one – the city is going to take the one near the iron as that’s closer to a strategic resource than the one I want it to take. Hmmm..put the discounted IZ here or Acorn? I decide LinCon. I’ll be able to build the two hoplites in the queue and complete the IZ with one turn to go before I complete Divine Right. That’ll reduce the build time of the Intelligence Agency to 10 turns, allowing me another handful of turns to get some horsemen or a spy built. I make the tile purchase for 100 and place the IZ.

I switch from Castles to Stirrups and queue up Banking to follow it. Stirrups will finish next turn. I also swap civics back to Civil Service. The jungle chop at Acorn next turn will put the city to 10 population a turn earlier than expected. I also leave the builder build at LFSR as-is. We’ll get to find out next turn if the governor or production happens first. If it’s the governor I’ll have a 6-charge builder at LFSR. I’ll also be shifting that city back to population growth next turn to get it up to 7 pop for an Encampment.

I lost some Great Merchant point generation last turn (only generated 6.9 instead of 9.2). If I get the full 9.2 I should have with Bologna’s suzerainty I’ll have de’Piero next turn. If not I’ll get him in two turns.

[suboptimal]

Turn 114

More stuff to do this turn….Stirrups is complete so I can upgrade to knights when I need to (and have the to do so). Pindicator hasn’t removed my suzerainty of Bologna, so my GMP generation is intact. I also have a notification to claim a Great Person, but I’ll get to that later on.

Builders at LFSR and LinCon are complete. At LFSR




governors go before production completes. That builder will put down a lumbermill, head to Threefry for a niter mine and then south to LinCon for a mine before returning to LFSR. Its remaining three actions will be saved for anything that comes up, including a jungle chop for the Encampment. The builder at LinCon will go east, lumbermill all three forests and then put down one farm south of the triangle and another farm east of the 5 wheat. The builders set off for their destinations and I shift citizens around at LFSR to restart city growth. LFSR will grow in 7 turns and starts the University (due in 22 turns for now). LinCon queues up two hoplites and the Industrial Zone.

Builder at Acorn chops the jungle. That puts 34 into the Oracle and 34 into the city, growing it to 10 population and netting me some more and . I also get one era point for getting a 10 pop city and the boost for Civil Service. I swap over the 22 tile at Mixmax. Oracle is down to 4 turns. Getting the freshly chopped tile mined and the furs camped might take another turn off Oracle (it’s that close). Mixmax won’t miss the production for 3 or 4 turns. Inspiration in hand Civil Service has one turn to go – the increase in from 42.6 to 44 per turn was enough to cut a turn off the time. I also didn’t swap back to Civil Service last turn like I said I did, so Medieval Faires has an extra turn in it.

At Threefry I fortify the chariots and the units at Mixmax do likewise. Out at Mersenne Twister the forest gets harvested for 68. The Acropolis there is down to four turns. Scout continues on its northerly trek and Triple-A finds a crapton of fish off the island:




A city on the western tip of that island could get a +5 adjacency Harbor down without difficulty, though it’d take forever to build.

That leaves Bardi de’Piero. I recruit him and he appears in Acorn. I get an era point and the inspiration for Mercantilism. Marco Polo is up next at a cost of 120. Pindicator is at 6 points per turn, Woden is at 4 points per turn. I’m back at 9.2 per turn. Pindicator will get Marco Polo in 7 turns, I’ll be able to pick up Irene of Athens 14 turns from now. Woden is 25 turns out. Looking again at other Great People I should be able to recruit Murasaki Shikibu in 16 turns and Emilie du Chatelet in 21 turns. James of St. George is a long way off, at least until other Industrial Zones and workshops come on line.

Since there’s no sense in holding onto Piero de’Bardi (whose cognomens I reverse last turn ) I move him to the Commercial Hub in Acorn and activate him. The envoy goes into my pocket (back up to 4) and I spend half of the on the tile buy at Threefry. The builder at Acorn will harvest that jungle en route to the chop & mine tile so that Acorn can get its IZ placed. The production cost is currently 185 but that’s “only” 7 turns of build time at Acorn. I leave the tile under Threefry’s control so that I don’t misplace the harvest in four turns.

I take another look around and see something interesting in the north:




Since I just got a pile of gold and still have half of it left I buy the 22 jungle tile and put the citizen to work on it. That gets Mixmax back to full utilization and prevents Pindicator from putting an Encampment only two tiles from my city center. I briefly entertain the notion of buying that third ring tile for 155 as a strict denial play but if he plants there now the city will grow to Pop 2 and immediately stall out. Looks like I got a little more use out of Piero de’Bardi than I expected to!

Personally I don’t know that the donut hole would have been worth it. I’d have sent the settler north to the area around the volcano up there. If he does settle and force my warrior back into my territory I’ll move the rear warrior back to the Campus to keep an eye on things. I also have to wonder if he’s got another settler in the other donut hole north of Threefry. I send one of the chariots up to investigate (and keep watch once it gets there).

[suboptimal]

Turn 115

What did Pindicator do in the north?




Well, at a minimum he’ll be able to chop out those woods for walls with his free builder. Beyond that, unless aluminum shows up in the desert near the city it seems we’ve agreed to make this area a no mans’ land of sorts. I move my displaced warrior back onto my territory next to where Pindicator will be chopping. If I wanted to be “funny” I’d park an Eencampment on the tile that my warrior is presently on, though it’d be a bit isolated.

Civil Service completed. I start Divine Right, it’s got 7 turns to go. It’s also time to change policies around a bit because I’ve got two I don’t need anymore – Serfdom and Corvee (losing Corvee doesn’t slow down Oracle any more). I go with the following:




That’ll get me one amenity all around (except at Xorshift) and one further amenity at Acorn and LFSR. That bumps up my science and culture a bit. Speaking of amenities the builder at Mersenne Twister puts down a camp for some more. At LinCon and LFSR the builders move to the forests. At Acorn the mine goes down and the city’s production tops 35 per turn. LinCon is just under 30 (29.7). Oracle at three turns.

Southwest of the island there is an extension of coast tiles. I expect it to be another dead end but I will investigate it anyway. Some other units moves and my turn ends.

At LinCon I stop the hoplite build and switch over to the Industrial Zone.

It’s occurred to me that with the right policy combination and plenty of iron resources I’d be able to build 7 knights and upgrade two chariots, or build 5 knights, four catapults and upgrade two chariots in the space of 12 turns. To me, that seems like an advantage over the others (real or imagined). I can’t though, figure out how to try to use it, especially given the geographical layout. I’d also break the bank and go negative income without having other builds (like banks) to offset the maintenance costs. Therein lies another disadvantage – my economy is already the smallest of the bunch. Lurkers, if you think I'm crazy or have ideas about how to use this please leave me a note in the lurker thread for later. Gotta learn how to look/think about these things better.

One set of ideas was to try to crack open Ralakesh with catapults, mount an end-run against Pindicator (via Yerevan) or a cross-ocean attack against Woden. I could go east against the latter but I’d have to suzerain Brussles (hello, Amani) to get through undetected. That last one might be a workable option but very time consuming. Another approach that I think I will take is to build the knights slowly over time while strengthening my economy and then either launch an attack or maintain an expensive deterrent force. Of course, that’s a lot of wasted and if I build a bunch of units and don’t use them for anything.

Divine Right will give me time to sort this out, though I think LinCon will go with the original plan of getting the Intelligence Agency up and running before building military. That will give me a bit of time to locate some city centers and go spy-hopping on the cities. I switch techs from Banking to Buttress and then on to Cartography. That’ll take 8 turns during which LinCon will finish its IZ and Workshop and Acorn will finish (hopefully) the Oracle and something else.

[suboptimal]

Turn 116

Buttress completes, Cartography has six turns to go. Walls are up at Mixmax, so that route of entry into my lands is better protected. It also grew a citizen but I need to get back a tile from Acorn so that citizen has somewhere to work. I move the Acorn citizen working the tile SE of the Campus into that city’s Campus for some generation. I fortify the warrior in position to spectate.

I also see what Pindicator is up to at Ararkaali:




Now the question becomes did he just give me a target or is he parking on the wall chop to see what I do here? His income is currently inconsistent but it’s always been at least double mine for the past several turns. This past turn it was 94 . Therein lies my problem. He’s got ready cash for upgrades if I were to attack him. Money solves a lot of problems. Visions of sending a few knights up here dance through my head but I know only pain would result because as soon as knights show up he’d upgrade to a crossbow and bring in his own. I’d also need catapults to crack the city open and that’s not feasible at that location. A better strategist than me might know what to do here, but I’m not that person.

However, I do notice something else...the city’s loyalty is only 9.1. I send Liang up and we’ll see what effect that has. She won’t be enough to do it but it will fulfill my curiousity and she’s not doing much at LFSR right now. A city in the donut hole north of Threefry with a governor, though, might cause some issues but the city wouldn’t do me much else so it’s not worth the settler. I also want to save that next one for a coal grab if I need it. Mixmax starts a Monument, due in 7 turns. The builder at Acorn heads for the jungle tile that Threefry bought in. I’ll chop the jungle into the workshop, swap the tile over and put down Acorn’s IZ. After that it’s up to Mixmax for a lumbermill and perhaps a mine on the tile that the city expands to. That would consume the builder, which saves me the trouble of bringing it back to the center.

I’m warily watching the Encampment at Ralakesh going up and thinking about doing the same, but for the time being LFSR needs to grow and I’d like to get that University built. I do have the temptation to put the Encampment in the pass but that’s a third ring purchase. Maybe Land Surveyors will get put in during the Mercenaries policy swap and I’ll make the purchase then. While I’m here the builder puts in a lumbermill. I do take the time to count out how long it would take a knight to get to the borders of the former Istanbul – 7 turns from the position of the swordsman in the pass.

Back in the middle of things the chariot I sent to check the donut hole north of Threefry has reached it and settles in as a sentry. My current unit positioning also has the entirety of “my” side of the mountain chain defogged, except for the coast southwest of Acorn.

Over at LinCon the builder puts down the first of three lumbermills. At sea I was going to move de’Bardi southwest. I ponder my options – do that and find not much of anything, head back to Xorshift to cross the sea westwards or head for Acorn to transfer to Mersenne Twister to find Woden in that direction? After plotting out the paths (6 turns to either city) I decide to go back towards Xorshift.

[suboptimal]

Turn 117

Pindicator held the save and seems to have asked a question of the lurkers given the traffic on his thread. I’ll need to pay close attention over the next few turns to see if anything is up. I’ve also been pondering the game situation and think some changes are in order. However, I’ve already spent enough reporting time spilling electrons about my quandary, I think, so you’ll just have to come along for the ride.

I open the save to a drought notification at El Nino. Again. That’s three droughts there in less than 50 turns. This time, though, it’d had an effect – Woden’s cotton plantation has been pillaged destroyed by the event. Pindicator has spent his gold haul as he’s down to 79. He’s got a crossbow in Arakaali and upgraded at least one chariot to a knight. He’s down 18 iron and his city defenses are up to 38. That’s 480. I expect that he upgraded a third unit as well, probably crossbowman for the Metal Casting eureka. I have to assume that these are defensive upgrades. The Encampment at Ralakesh is also complete. These changes aren’t reflected in his milpower score yet so I’ll be curious to see what the jump is (chariot → knight and slinger → crossbow should be 45). The builder at Arakaali has also disappeared into the fog. He’s also advanced to the Renaissance Era, at least on the tech tree.

Up at Mixmax I bring the rear guard warrior back to the city’s Campus. I did some reading about Mountain Tunnels and found out that they can be attacked through. The warrior, at a minimum, would be a speed bump. Acorn grew another tile, this time taking the featureless hill to the northwest. It will next claim the lake tile (8 turns) then start working on the third ring. I swap the tile over to Mixmax and put down an Entertainment Complex. Two reasons for this. First, it’s a good location to generate amenites as the eventual Zoo here will cover four cities. Second, it gives me the option of running Bread & Circuses at Mixmax. That might be enough to cause Arakaali some loyalty problems and tie up a governor. It’s currently a 12 turn build time and I’ll finish the monument first, which gives Amani time to establish.

I move the builders towards their next tasks. I also move the warrior by Ralakesh’s Encampment south onto the jungle hill. I do this more to reconfirm my understanding of line of sight (I can see over the hill from there) more than anything else. That is good to know for later, just in case I need it. Scout attempts to move northeast, gets blocked by a Belgian unit and heads east instead. Triple-A continues his northwards movement towards Xorshift. I reassign Threefry’s new citizen from a jungle to a plains hill.

Next turn the Acropolis at Mersenne Twister completes. Unless someone has a surprise in store for me the Oracle will also complete.