[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[suboptimal]

Based on my experience with the tile picker it will pick in the order salt -> sheep -> 7 yield tile as the resources are weighted heavier than the tile yields. We can wait a turn to confirm. However, the current plan is to purchase a horseman on Turn 65 to send down to Res Publica with 3-4 archers to harass and threaten/take that city. A monument purchase (240) would preclude that.

If we wanted to speed culture instead of military I'd spend 65 for the tile buy at Marshed and put the horsey gold (313 instead of 320) into a builder and the western bananas purchase at Fondant. The plantation on the bananas would get us +1+2 and give the city's second population a 3221 tile to work. The builder could then go up to Marshed, farm that 34 tile and mine the 31 tile to the northeast. I'd also reverse the buy order, getting the builder "now" (like, this coming turn) and the 7-yield tile when the builder gets there.

Maybe I should do that, swap Agoge to Manuever when Military Tradition completes and build a horseman at Dauphinoise and Marshed. We'd then be able to send two horsemen and 3 archers down to Res Publica.

Edited to add: I like this approach. The total builder + tile cost would be 313, Marshed would buy the 7-yield tile on Turn 63 and finish a horseman EoT 69 (with 1/4 of a monument completed as well). Dauphinoise finishes its builder EoT61 and finishes its horseman EoT65 along with a monument EoT69. The timing works so that both horsemen would be moving south together. Marshed would complete its monument EoT73 and start on the Campus. The tile buy also gets Fondant's archer out EoT62, after which I'd start a monument (complete EoT 70).

The builder at Marshed will quarry, remove the quarry and then harvest the stone on T61. That will complete the granary and leave 2 turns on the government plaza. The Ancestral Hall would be 10 turns from then (complete around Turn 72/73) and then I could start with some settlers. I would like to get that library built at some point, though.

[CFCJesterFool]

I would still send a military unit (pitati archer would be best) to prevent horse/iron hook up asap (or pillage if too late already.) I don't think you want to wait until you build the horseman units. I can't stress enough how important an advantage having classical units while fighting ancient era units is.

[suboptimal]

Horses were hooked up sometime over the last couple of turns but Pindicator already had horses hooked up at his capital a while ago (20-30 turns ago). I'm already planning on sending three archers around the sea once Alhambram's rentals are dealt with but I don't know that I want to reveal their presence until the horsemen get there.

[Banzailizard]

I wonder if Alhambra doesn't declare war on you but just leaves those troops there as a threat. You can't attack pin while they are there and if you attack him to get rid of them, he gets the production bonus. Though with the denouncement it seems like he will attack.

[suboptimal]

I've been thinking the same thing, though he probably doesn't realize that I'm in the process of a tactical retreat from Au Gratin. Declaring war on me doesn't get him much of anything -- it could nullify any future production bonus to him if I don't ever take a peace offering, it doesn't get him the Nationalism inspiration and gives me the inspiration for Defensive Tactics.

I'll be curious to see how many units Au Gratin spawns when it goes free during the interturn. It's been quite a while since I've observed one of these in action and I'll be curious to see how frequently it spawns new units or if it works like a city state and has to build them.

[Banzailizard]

Assuming the wiki is up to day, this is what happens:

Free Cities' colors are dark gray and dark red, and just like Barbarians they are always hostile toward (i.e. at war with) other civilizations. This means that they will attack any units that near their territory, and often will invade neighbor cities. For this purpose, Free Cities spawn military units as soon as they declare independence, and continue spawning them non-stop. But apart from this, they don't do anything else. The tech level of units matches the tech era of the last civilization which was in control of this city, not that of its original owner.

So I think it will spawn archers and warriors. It doesn't say produce but spawns so I think they just probably keep getting new ones as old ones die.

[suboptimal]

Yeah, I read that in the wiki as well. I was asking because I'm not sure of the spawning mechanism. From what little else I found online it seems they just spit out units. It doesn't really matter as Pindicator can just sit back and wait four turns while the city flips from free back to Khmer.

[suboptimal]

Turn 59

It was the best of times..and the not so good of times. We’re saying Au Revoir to Au Gratin but founding a city at Marshed. There’s also some spending going on but I need to pay a little attention as I need to do things this turn in sequence (ie quarry LAST to avoid tile cost increases). There are no notifications when opening the save, so let’s have a look around, shall we? First, the Abarath River Valley:




Alhambram has shifted his rentals south, Pindicator has swapped out his redlined warrior for a fresh one. The warrior and archer on the west side of the valley move up along the sea coast. I also shift the level 1 archer west one tile. The promoted warrior fortifies in place. The level 2 archer moves up to the geothermal vents behind the warrior while the archer in Au Gratin moves up to the wheat just outside the city’s borders. In a last move I send Magnus to Mashed. The city is now at 4.8 loyalty and losing 20.7 per turn so will rebel next turn. Pindicator won’t be able to take the city before it rebels, which will make his life a little interesting for a few turns (though free city units do not leave their borders, either).

As a side effect of rebellion my trade route will be discontinued since its destination is Au Gratin. I’m debating whether to send a trade route to Nazca (likely from Marshed as it’s the closest) to cut a path through the jungle for a faster advance on Res Publica or an internal trade route for some extra food/production in a city. The Nazca option is 3 in income right now, the latter is 11 to a city unless the destination is Mashed, in which case it’s 2. My current incliination is Hasselback to Mashed The +2+1 will help that city grow that much faster and it has a lot of high yield tiles to use.

Up at Fondant the archers from Dauphinoise advance. Next turn I’ll move one into the city and pull the warrior out to the NW. As previously discussed I purchase the western bananas for 65 and a builder for 245. That speeds up the archer build to 5 turns as the city gains 2 from the bananas. It will grow next turn and I’ll work one of the jungle hill tiles until the archer completes, then switch over to the marsh to speed along city growth. In three turns I’ll have a plantation on the bananas and the builder will continue northwest to Marshed.

Speaking of Marshed, that location is no longer Marshed but…




I set the citizen to working the 31 volcanic soil hill to the northeast and start a monument build. On Turn 63 I’ll buy the 7-yield tile and switch over to that. I also place the Campus on the plains tile, locking in its cost at 97. I do the same at Fondant on the plains hill SW of the city center. It’s exposed but I don’t like the idea of plowing over the jungle hill to the west of the city (which is also a +3 adjacency).

Tile purchase and district placement complete I quarry the stone at Mashed for the Masonry eureka, completing that tech and placing 2 envoys in Valletta. I also took a second look at the city state and it appears to be on an island. The entire western half of the city’s borders are cliffs.

That leaves the archer at the Australian frontier. I decide to move SE onto a desert hill for a view and find a bunch of forest to the southeast. There appears to be a fresh water lake to the east and loyalty is generally stronger towards the SSE. I move to the floodplain next to some iron and will top that hill next turn. Interestingly that iron is in a spot that was (or should be) prohibited by the map generation scripts – iron is not usually located next to fresh water.




In a somewhat happy coincidence Mashed, Dauphinoise and Fondant will all grow in population next turn. Dauphinoise is also gaining a city tile next turn and will take the plains forest E-NE of the city center. After that I expect the tile picker to go full random as its next choice is between three 11 plains tiles and two 2 desert floodplains. It might take the plains tile to the SE-E first if it counts luxury-adjacency in the formula (it definitely counts strategic resource adjacency).

One other note – unless I’m having the same GUI issue I had with Jester in PBEM 15 (some cities invisible in the diplomatc deal screen) Alhambram currently has three cities (capital + 2 others).

[suboptimal]

Turn 60

Au Gratin will be a free state when I open this save. I had this happen (finally) in an SP game I was playing last night, though I was an third party observer. What was interesting was that the city immediately spawned two modern melee units upon flipping. Open the save to the expected rebellion notification but it occurred in a slightly interesting way – the city didn’t rebel during the interturn, it rebelled at the start of my turn. The city has spawned two warriors, both in the northern part of the territory.




I checked the loyalty view. The city has full loyalty (100) and is only losing 9 per turn. It will be 12 turns before it revolts to Pindicator. I expect that he’ll try to take the city earlier than that. However, the added delay is a bit of a bonus.

Alhambram has consolidated his units in the center of the river valley and Pindicator’s promoted warrior has moved up from the southeast. I don’t have enough archer strength to move into position to kill it now, so continue bringing units northwest up the sea coast. The eastern units move off, I’ll try to move them around the mountain to bring them back to Fondant. I expect that Alhambram may try a blocking maneuver here. At a minimum, though, my archers should be able to move through. The builder heads west and I keep the northern archers out of view from Alhambram, leaving them just outside Fondant’s northern borders. They’ll start over to the western shore of the sea.

The trader has returned to Dauphinoise with the rebellion of Au Gratin. I relocate it to Hasselback and it will start a route to Mashed next turn. Up at Mashed the builder removes the quarry and I’ll chop that into the granary next turn. Three production will go into the granary to finish it, 35 will go into the district and it’ll need 24 more to complete (two turns). The other good news about the trader is that since they move after player-directed movement the trader reached Fondant, completing the road there from Dauphinoise.

Over at the Australian frontier I decide to move SE into the GFH rather than the iron, figuring I’d see more. I find an active volcano and some tobacco:




With the city growth this turn I rearrange my citizens a bit. The one at Marshed was put on the quarried stone, so it moves over to the iron. Dauphinoise has an amenity and a housing issue, so I need to get a granary built after the horseman. The new citizen is working the PFH to the SE of the city center. I’ll leave it there for the time being. I think the builder is going to go Nubian Pyramid → diamond mine → banana plantation. I’ll likely move the citizen from the PFH to the mined diamonds once the mine is in to take advantage of the extra income. At Fondant the new citizen was assigned to the jungle hill and I leave that one there. The archer will be complete in three turns.

Looking at Alhambram’s blocking manuevers I decide to start Mysticism. This does three things for me. First, with Military Tradition at one turn it will let me get the Government Plaza placed at Mashed without a cost increase. Second, I can complete Military Tradition simultaneously with Horseback Riding to slot Maneuver for the horseman builds, giving me a little extra time in Agoge (for Fondant’s build) and Maneuver (for the horsies). Thirds, the envoy from Mysticism will let me break suzerainty and the levy, letting me get through an consolidate my units at Fondant. That will happen on Turn 64. Once those two civics are in I need to start heading for Recorded History. I don’t have two Campus districts up yet but I should be able to get the inspiration by the time I need it.

In tile picking news, Hasselback is going for the sheep first (19 turns), not the salt. Not quite sure why unless is deprioritized as a yield or luxuries and bonus resources count the say (need to dig out the PBEM 6 theorizing to check). Fondant is going to grab the marsh rice (14 turns), Dauphinoise the plains tile next to the wheat and pearls (15 turns) and Marshed is going for the PFH 2E of the Campus (11 turns).

[Banzailizard]

Not objecting to the envoy to de-levy troops idea, but which troops did he rent and what will you get as suzerain?