[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[suboptimal]

No time to get a full report up, that will follow in the morning. The executive summary:

- Alhambram's levied units consist of two warriors and an archer advancing on Fondant. I expect a war dec next turn.
- We're in Oligarchy.
- I've decided to make a tactical retreat from Au Gratin. The northern archers are headed up the river valley while the archers at Au Gratin are moving through the city and exiting northeast.
- I've unslotted Limitanei and the city will revolt after Turn 59. I'll move Magnus out next turn. Pindicator may not be able to take the city before it revolts but he should have an easy time taking it back.
- Current policies are Agoge, Urban Planning, Diplomatic League and Conscription.
- I've found the northern edge of Australia, south of Uluru.

[suboptimal]

Turn 58

Political Philosophy is complete. No other notifications pending. Take a look around and I have two issues to contend with. First, the situation at Fondant:




Alhambram has sent his rentals over to demand a meal. No taters for you! Pindicator has advanced on Au Gratin as well:




His pursuing warrior has discontinued the chase. What to do here? Time for a change in plans. I’m going to remove Limitanei and let Au Gratin revolt in two turns. I switch to Oligarchy, put in Agoge, Conscription and Diplomatic League for policies, keeping Urban Planning, and hit go. I also start Military Tradition to get the support and flanking bonuses.

Up at Fondant the warrior retreats to the city center. The promoted one crosses the river to threaten the southernmost warrior. The one by the sea continues northwest. I bring the archers north to the copper tiles where Alhambram can see both of them. At Au Gratin I move Maris Piper one tile northeast and bring the other archer into the city. Both shoot at the warrior next to the city, doing a total of 87 points of damage. Both archers will retreat out of the city next turn and retreat
north in a flanking action against Alhambram’s levied units. I’ll also move Magnus out next turn and put him in Mashed.

The archers coming down from Dauphinoise will arrive at the river bank NW of Fondant on Turn 60. One of them would be in position to shoot anything adjacent to the city while the other could hold back or enter the city and shoot on Turn 61.

The settler arrives at the Marshed location and the builder arrives at the stone.

In the northern reaches the archer “discovers” Uluru. I move to the western side of the wonder and find the outer reaches of the Australian loyalty on settlervision:




I think if Alhambram declares war this archer might see what it can find to potshot. He’s got ~85 of his milpower tied up near Khmer (65 from the levies plus that warrior that put in an appearance).

In looking at my situation I think I may rearrange the dotmaps a bit, particularly in the northeast. I’m trying to figure out the best way to fit two cities along that river while not putting the iron third ring to both of them:




All those forests at the river mouth could make for a good series of Magnuschops for some districts but food up there is a problem unless I go directly on the sheep (and make the iron third ring). That does give me a reasonable Campus location and a spot for a Harbor. The problem with that location is that I then can’t get the southern city second ring to the iron. In the south I think a good city spot is 2SW of the wine as it makes the forests NE of Mashed available for chops and keeps the good Campus spot. OTOH that’s third ring to the iron as well. Settling north of that row only lets me settle a tundra city and that’s no good. Of course, my options open up a bit if I’m willing to use an Aqueduct in one of the cities, in which case I can settle the southern city directly on the wheat.

[Banzailizard]

So is there an eventual plan to go back in to take out Pin or are you abandoning the aggressive enterprise overall? Both seem realistic. True you have built a lot of military but 1. that is a sunk cost 2. you could use that military on softer targets like city states. Alternatively Pin's cities are better so it might be worth expending more production trying to capture them. I know you mentioned teching xbows but those are still a ways off.

As it stands right now you have mostly used production, and forced Pin to use production, on militaries neither of you really can use right now. Not your fault really, loyalty and difficult terrain slowed your invasion enough to let Pin get that military out. Overall I would say Pin was hurt more than you (you will have 4 cities to his maybe 3 soon, he was denied a city's output for a number of turns), but Alhambram has focused only on butter (rather than guns) and is moving ahead of both of you. (triple your science output and double your culture output)

For the dot map in the north can I see a more zoomed out view that includes mashed? Maybe I can suggest a configuration? On the other hand, if you have a different long term plan in mind (like eating city states) maybe expanding towards them with a city is better than settling 2 cities in the north. What for example would you spend all those magus cops on? Districts? more military?

[suboptimal]

I'm currently working on a plan and am going to use the free time I have tonight (because I was in a rush and forgot to pass the save) to work on a new overall plan. Regarding Pindicator I think I may still go through with the archers + horse plan to try to take Res Publica. However, I would likely raze the city rather than go through another situation where the loyalty mechanic gives me a city I can't use. My thinking here is that right now:

- Pin and I are both at a disadvantage against Alhambram
- I'd prefer to have a severely crippled opponent "close by" while I try to catch up to the landmass's current giant (Alhambram).

The focus over the next 40 turns is going to be to expand and play catch up as best I can. Kind of like what I did in PBEM 15 where I spent the Classical working on a build-out. Unlike that game, though, I'd like to do that as part of a cohesive strategy of some sort rather than get there and go "now what?".

I'll get a zoomed out view of the northeast that includes Mashed and the northern extent of Dauphinoise's borders, along with a shot of the area NE of Dauphinoise. If you'd like to suggest a configuration I'm all ears -- that's what dedlurkers are for, after all, no? I'll get those up tonight along with my initial thinking of alignments.

Regarding city-states I don't know that eating them is viable, except for perhaps Nazca (which I might do returning from Res Publica). Brussles is all desert and food-starved and along with Kumasi might be too close to Australia to hold effectively (Alhambram can reinforce better than I would be able to). Ditto Kabul. Nazca would be a catch if only to unlock my sea routes though it appears I can get to Valletta by sea so that's a moot point. My formative plan is to expand with an eye to securing my southern borders, crippling Pindicator and working on establishing a reasonable sea presence. I'll be pondering all this and more later tonight.

[suboptimal]

Banzailizard, here are the screenshots of the areas northeast and south of the core.

Northeast




Just to get your bearings here, you can see the western edge of Kumasi in the upper right corner. Brussels is 2SE of the mountain that's in graphical contact with the "Next Turn" screen decoration. Valetta is off-screen to the left by about four or five hexes at the latitude of the tech/civic display.

South




You can see Au Gratin's borders in the lower right. Res Publica's city center is 3SE-2SW of the bottom tile in the Lakshadweep sea. In terms of available settling space there isn't much down here. Once Marshed settles next turn there will be no valid settling locations north of the Fondant-Nazca line except for the tile directly NE of the trader (that's the Dauph Coast location) and the area north of Marshed on the peninsula. The northernmost site south of Nazca that could be settled are the two tiles between the tea and the salt to the west of the sea's fish resource. Those are also both just outside of the loyalty radius of Res Publica.

[Banzailizard]

Suggested dot map for the north is below.

C marks a campus location.  If there are two x's next to one another its because I am not sure which location is perfected.   Honestly north of Mashed I would actually say only go with one city, but if you want 2 this is the best configuration I could find.  Settling on the sheep puts 2 wheat in the second ring for the northernmost city but moves iron to third ring.  If you are just settling that more for chops and iron the ROI can be a bit lower and the growth a bit slower.   If you want it to be a useful city the sheep tile might be better.

The dark blue city needs to be scouted more.  The south west site does give a nice +3 campus location inn the second ring, though you may need to buy the title. 

Light blue city should go on your side of the river.  This is maybe not the best for the city tiles but it is more defensible should Australia attack. If you were going to aggressively settle west then maybe you could settle the lest defensive location, but if not, then take the defensive one because this city will block egress to your soft cities.   Big problem though is its low production, not sure what to do about that.

The yellow city is a late settle dry city that will need an aqueduct.  On the other hand it has a +3 campus location (either you put the other campus down giving this +2 +1 from adjacency or you put the yellow campus where the dark blue one is).  It also takes up one of the two tiles on a direct line to your  capital.  If not a campus then an encampment could complete the defensive line.  Once it is settled there are literally only 2 tiles to access your two best cities by land without going the long way around north.  

Feel free to try alternative configurations but there is my suggestion anyways.

[suboptimal]

Your layout is interesting, though the yellow location is invalid as it's only three tiles away from the black location. I had three different layouts in the north:

I like this one the least and it was the first one I came up with. It's also the worst of the bunch and here just for discussion.

This one relies a bit heavily on Aqueducts. The northern coastal city was shifted over because that wheat tile is a +4 adjacency for a Campus due to the reefs. Likewise, that city to the NW would be a filler for that +5 Campus location, though it puts the city right next to an active volcano. The center location gets a +4 Campus and I'd get two Encampments at the river for defense. I had tinkered with moving the eastern location onto the stone at the river bend (and the central location onto the sheep) as that would be defensible - requires river crossing in the north and two Encampments southeast.

This one I came up with after looking at your dotmap. It keeps everything on the west side of the river. Note the double Campus in the north. Sheep city has the first ring Campu (+2, +3 with adjacencies) and the wheat Campus (+4) goes to the river city. This works without a tile buy since the river city would grab the salt first, coastal will grab both wheats first and can then just hand off the coastal wheat to river city. I'd settle the two cities along the western river first, followed by the eastern river location (after scouting) with the non-fresh-water sites last.

The coastal location at the eastern river mouth is a very mixed bag. There's an available spot for a +4 Campus (SE of the geothermal fissure) and +4 Harbor (among the sea resources) but those would both be second ring if the city is riverside. There's also no real production to speak of so I wonder if this site is even worth settling.

None of these are really ideal as they all put the northern iron out of reach. The only thing I can come up with as a solution here is to build Jebel Bakar at Dauphinoise on the tile currently marked for the Commercial Hub. A builder at Dauphinoise would have 2-4 forests to chop out (SE, 2NE + forests on one or both wines).

While we're dotmapping I've updated the southern end:

The Dauph Coast location is unchanged and would get established once the first two northern river locations are settled. At Fondant I've moved the Campus back to the west (+4 with the Encampment) and moved the Encampment around to the south. I figure this is a good spot as I could line up ranged units along the eastern bank of the river if Pindicator comes calling. The Harbor would go in last. The "big" change is at Marshed. Originally I had the Harbor to the west and the Campus to the SW on the jungle hill. However, given that the jungle hill is a 4-yield tile I never liked this configuration. Then it occurred to me to shift everything east. The Harbor is still a +2 adjacency because there were no nearby sea resources on the coast, ships can still get to the ocean since it's a canal city and the Campus goes on an empty plains tile while remaining +1 adjacency (+2 with the Harbor). It has the side effect of protecting the Harbor from a pillage in the event of a sea attack as well.

The Campus locations at Fondant and Marshed will get locked in next turn.

[Banzailizard]

For the south I would actually put the encampment where the southern most Australian warrior is standing. Very hard to attack that, forces Pin to attack across the river and up a hill, or if he ignores the encampment he can't safely stand on the east side of the river to prevent the city from healing. If the encampment is on the west side it is unsupported and will be lost.

It would be interesting to hear other lurkers views on the northern dot maps.

[suboptimal]

Good points about the Encampment. Pindicator can't siege the city unless he (or Alhambram) put a ship in the water NE of the city.

With the shift of the Encampment east should the Campus stay put or do I hold off on that and put it on the tile where the archer is standing? That's the +4 location (reef, fissure) and away from Pindicator being able to threaten it easily. Both locations would involve tile purchases, though.

With the overall planning I'd try to place but not build Harbors until I had several down, then swap into Veterancy to get them built all at once (50% discount to boot for the districts).

I'll be buying that 7-yield tile at Marshed on the next turn (65) and will have the gold for the horseman around Turn 64/65 depending on whether I put Dauphinoise's next citizen on diamonds or floodplains. That city's builder is going to put down a plantation, a mine and the Nubian pyramid. I don't feel I'm in a safe/stable enough spot to make a run at the Pyramids right now as those hammers are better invested in infrastructure or units.

[Banzailizard]

Before you purchase that tile for Marshed, look at the tile picker. If that tile is likely to be selected anyways, maybe a better purchase is a monument, that will generate culture for the whole game and not just the one tile. It is more expensive of course and there will be a few turns where you won't get the yields.