[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Turn 19

No notifications to open the turn, which means it’s time to found a city…




Stone to the east, that’s good...nice choppable resource. The city starts a monument. I go back and forth on working cattle or elephants. Cattle-first gets the city to grow 3 turns faster. Elephants completes the monument 3 turns faster. For other yields cattle gets 5 more early while the elephants gets 4 more early and the everything else actually nets out over the first 20 turns. I decide to work the cattle since > this early. Based on the scores we’re the first to found a second city, so that’s a positive.

The slinger that Alhambram has been concerned about has also now been located. If the warrior in the fog is headed for London it’s likely on the jungle NE of the wheat. My experience/recollection is that barbarians will not enter the borders of cities this early in the game unless there is either an improvement to pillage or a unit to attack. I’ll move the slinger in a manner to bait one of the barbarian units into Birmingham’s borders so that I can attack from the city center.

Warrrior moves into the forest, revealing open land to the southeast:




I think I’ll move to the southernmost visible grassland via the rice, then try to decide if it’s worth continuing in this direction or to bring the warrior back to help with barbarian cleanup and then heading back north to find and eliminate the camp that’s up there.

I take a look at the scores and see that Kaiser has his third tech completed. Likewise, Kaiser and Woden have one domestic tourist, so they’ve completed a total of 100 of inspirations and cultural generation. That’s the first time I’ve looked at that screen but will keep an eye on it moving forward.

Hit end turn, Woden’s hit the cash register again.

[Alhambram]

Yeah, let's move warrior two tiles and then make a decision. If there is another city state (probably unlikely but you never know), then warrior keep scouting, otherwise return to deal with barb and then search and destroy barb camp nearby Kilimanjaro.
Warrior in London finish next turn, send him directly west for scouting or directly SW to deal with new barb camp?

[suboptimal]

I don't think there'll be enough room for a second city-state though it would be great if there was one.

I was going to send London's warrior to the barbarian camp first, hopefully before it starts spawning units. There are three barbarian camps in the area (SW, W in the fog and N of Kilimanjaro) and I need to get the pressure off. Killing that SW camp fast is likely the best way to do that. One question is "how close is that western camp"? If it's too close we're going to see horse units coming from that direction and that won't be pleasant.

[suboptimal]

Turn 20

Second turn in a day...nice. Check the scores, no one else is at two cities yet. Also nice. I just had a half bottle of wine with dinner. Even better.

Warrior is complete in London, start the builder; it’ll be done in 5 turns thanks to overflow. I move it SW to the stone, don't see anything of concern. Slinger and warrior both crossed the river in pursuit of my warrior. Eastern warrior moves to the rice, then south.




Wines and horses. Good, although the wines is in a spot where I really can’t use it as it’s third ring to Birmingham. Likewise, the horses are third ring to Armagh. Interestingly the jungle 2SE of the warrior is on fresh water. The tiles SE and SW of the jungle appear to be a lake as its northern shore is just visible in the fog. I think with what I’ve seen here I’m going to cross the river to the SW and then make my way west to find a spot to take these barbarians out. I don’t think I need to go further east at this time.

As for the slinger in Birmingham I move northwest into the jungle. My hope is that the slinger comes back across the river into the city’s territory.

London regrows to 3 population next turn and my pantheon should be in two turns from now.

[suboptimal]

Turn 21

London took the horses this turn and is currently looking at taking the jungle to its northeast in 17 turns. I don’t think this will flip-flop with the other jungle given the adjacency to the bananas, but I’ll find out next turn.

Moving the slinger out of Birmingham worked like a charm, or at least seemed to work like a charm. That uninjured scout from the west has also reappeared. There’s also a new (?) scout two tiles east of my exploring warrior in the east. It’s injured but I didn’t do that damage – wonder if Armagh got to it?

I move London’s warrior down to the rice. Next turn I’ll move onto the jungle SW of the rice. That’ll give me a little glimpse of what’s to the west. This also doesn’t slow me down any since it’s 5MP on a direct route and the barb camp is in the jungle, so I can’t attack on arrival. Depending on what I see I might just travel down through the tree line anyway – that’ll defog a bit more and still keep any scouts from passing right by me.

Over by Birmingham the slinger returns to the city center and attacks. It’ll take two more attacks to kill the barbarian unit. The question now is whether the warrior continues pursuing my warrior or just hangs out where it is. Eastern warrior crosses the river to the southwest. This reveals wheat to the SW of the horses and the NW corner of Greenleaf Lough.

The end of turn situation:




Ichabod has founded his second city and gained a population (or built a building) in his capital. I’ve currently got the largest military at 50 milpower and sit third in science and fourth in culture. Woden is last in both of those measures while CMF is tops in culture and Kaiser is tops in science.

[Alhambram]

Next turn enough faith for Pantheon, do you have plan B in mind since Woden seem certain to pick 1st Pantheon and if he did take God of Open Sky away?
Aside banana tile in London which still needs irrigation tech which we still lack, our 2 cities lack tiles in 1st and 2nd ring for Goddess of Festival.
And Goddess of Hunt do get direct benefit in Birmingham and eventual city at spot A and we can improve elephant with our newly builder already. Then we convert extra production into faster monument and extra food in slightly faster growth for extra culture.

Speaking of builder, which tiles do you intend to improve, for now we can only improve horse in London and cow/elephant in Birmingham right now. Eventual rice tiles needs to be bought (or do tile picker choose it soon?) and stone needs mining tech which we still lack.

Good idea to do bit extra scouting with southern warrior due movement points.

[suboptimal]

My thinking was to take Goddess of Festivals for plantation culture - two of the likely next three city spots ('B' and 'E') would have plantation resources available. However, because of the delayed benefit you site I was starting to consider it a toss-up with Goddess of the Hunt (which I had previously listed third). The way you put it, though, Goddess of the Hunt seems like the better option and is the plan 'B'. If that were the pantheon pick then the next two settlers would go to 'A' and 'E' to get a coastal presence and naval production started. Failing both GotOS and GotH I'd then take GoF as the backup. If you read this before 5pm EDT what are your thoughts on taking the builder pantheon over Goddess of Festivals if GotOS and GotH are both gone? I'd then switch London off the builder and straight to another warrior, completing the builder later on.

The builder is going to improve the horses and stone at London then head to Birmingham to pasture the cattle (T34, GotOS) or the elephants (T36, GotH). I'll be going Early Empire after Foreign Trade so there's enough time for the Craftsmanship inspiration. I need to check the tile picker's preferences at Birmingham (didn't remember to do that), though I suspect that it will flip-flop between the two rice tiles and perhaps the stone tile (all 3-yield bonus resources). There's an outside chance it goes for the jungle hill to the SE because that's 4-yield and adjacent to a luxury resource.

Regarding the tech tree how important is it to get Bronze Working out of the way early? I ask because

- We likely already "know" where the iron is if we assume "typical" RB balanced starts
- England is best suited for getting the top of the tech tree completed to unlock RNDs
- I don't expect needing swords for early defense.

I was originally planning on hard-researching Writing and then going Mining -> Bronze Working. However, I'm wondering if it'd be better to finish Mining and then get Sailing, Astrology and Celestial Navigation finished or close to finished (eureka + 1) before completing Bronze Working. I'd consider a diversion to Archery once there are 3-4 slingers on the map as well.

For context, the "intermediate" plan is to get some military out of London, complete settlers in the late 40's and to follow the setter builds with builders for improvements at the new cities.

[suboptimal]

Turn 22

Pantheon has arrived, which means that Ichabod didn’t get more then 25 on his turn and no one else will get a pantheon this turn. Or did they fix that issue and now more than one player can get a pantheon on the same turn? No matter. I check the list – God of the Open Sky and Fertility Rites have been taken. If the religion rankings are correct, CMF and Woden grabbed the first two. Based on the conversation with Alhambram earlier in the day I take Goddess of the Hunt (+1+1 to camps) and our next settlement sites will be ‘A’ and ‘E’.

The barbarians were a bit active last turn. The slinger moved to the elephants, the warrior took the slinger’s spot on the jungle hill and the other warrior has appeared out of the fog to the north of London. I’d have a screenshot here but for the past two turns I thought I took screenshots but there were none when I looked in the file folder.

My slinger attacks the barbarian slinger for 51 damage, redlining it. I bring my warrior NW to the floodplain. I don’t want to go to the stone as that’d potentially subject it to two attacks. The barbarian slinger is likely to move off next turn (unfortunately likely 2SW to get out of range), but I’ll cross my fingers that it stays put in the city’s borders. If the barbarian warrior crosses the river I’ll move to the jungle hill and operate defensively for a couple of turns to preserve my warrior’s health.

I expect that the warrior at London will likewise stay put outside the borders for the time being. That complicates getting the builder out for improvements, though, since the warrior will enter the city’s borders once the builder leaves the city. I decide to move the warrior to the jungle as planned for a little bit of scouting, then return it to the stone to take care of the barbarian warrior. The builder will improve that first and then the horses while my warrior kills the barbarian. If a scout or other unit comes up from the southern camp I’ll swap over to a warrior build and engage the scout. The warrior moves into the jungle and finds a grassland hill blocking the view west. The end of turn shot:




Internationally Woden has his second city down, likely in a spot that earned him an era point. Kaiser has also settled a city. CMF is the only one without a second city at this point.

[suboptimal]

Turn 22 Postscript

I realized that I forgot once again to look at Birmingham's cultural expansion. I went back and checked the EoT saves from T20 through T22 in order to see if it's a fixed pick or if it's flip-flopping around. On T20 it was on the eastern rice; T21 and T22 it stayed on the northern rice. I'd say that it's the preferable tile to acquire because it makes the 5 tile cheaper but I think my first tile buy in this city will be one of the second ring jungle hills (well, after a trader).

Likewise, I don't think getting PP by Turn 60 will be achievable on the current plan. I'm going to stick with Foreign Trade -> Early Empire rather than stopping at inspiration + 1 and switching to Craftsmanship for a little while in the hopes that there's a continental boundary just west of the edge of the fog.

[suboptimal]

Turn 23

I did spend some time after the last turn looking at...alternative ideas…to try to see what I could do about getting culture up without a culture pantheon. Nothing really, other than getting monuments sooner than later and boosting population. The intermediate objective remains to get settlers out in the mid-to-late 40s and I’m still on track for that. With the pantheon selection I’ll send Birmingham’s settler up to the ‘A’ location west of Kilimanjaro while London’s settler heads for the southern coast location on the River Trent, each settler followed by a builder.

I would like to be able to ignore that barbarian warrior at London and deal with the southern camp and scout west. However, I need to get improvements out to stay on track so the warrior needs to go. If I ignored it and don’t make improvements it should wander back to its camp starting around Turn 32. However, once there the camp would spawn a new round of units (including possibly a battering ram or catapult) and return to London for a city attack. Um, no thank you. As an aside, there’s a relatively recent thread on CivFanatics by user Victoria regarding barbarian AI behavior, which is informing this mini-discussion, if you’re interested in learning some nitty-gritty about barbarian behavior you might not be aware of.

Open the save, no notifications. The warrior at London and the slinger have remained in place, frozen by their raiding party mission. The warrior at Birmingham has crossed the river, however, so I move my warrior onto the jungle hill. That turns a 20 v 22 into a 20 v 28. Slinger kills the barbarian slinger, earning the Archery eureka.

Over at London I’ve realized that I’ve got another turn to kill with regards to the warrior doing some scouting. When the builder completes after next turn I can move it to the jungle on Turn 25. The warrior can move to the adjacent jungle hill this turn, the open tile between the horse and stone next turn and then join the builder on the jungle hill on Turn 25. That’ll effectively box the barbarian in and let me kill it on defense instead of offense. Warrior moves to the adjacent jungle hill and…




Somebody order some culture? The downside is that it’s all not near fresh water so it’s a bit difficult to exploit. Third ring to location ‘E’, which is expensively reachable in terms of tile buys. However, a monument costs 240 to purchase and the tile buys would only be about 150 or so, so on those terms I’m buying some future production, a luxury and an effective monument for a little over half price. It does mean that I’ll need to get this area better explored once that barbarian warrior is dealt with.

Birmingham grows in population next turn. I’ll continue working the cattle for pop growth along with the elephants with the new population. I considered switching over to working the elephants and a jungle hill but that actually works out slightly worse from a ∕/population standpoint. If I’m able to get enough camp gold by the time the city hits 4 population I’ll buy one of the second ring jungle hills to boost production with that citizen. Speaking of tile expansions, the picker is back to the rice to the east.

Internationally, Kaiser has completed his third civic. Looking at the tech + civic + empire score counts I’m right in the middle of the pack – that scoring goes Kaiser (29), Ichabod (25), myself (22), Woden (19) and CMF (16). Woden is the score leader but he’s got 14 era points, which is four more than the rest of us combined. I’ve got 5 era points and that’s good enough for second in that measure. My best guess here is that CMF got a “typically Canadian” start is is being hamstrung early by nearby tundra. I’m sure, however, that he’s not crying in his poutine just yet, particularly with Archduke and Sulla dedlurking him.

Hit end turn and Woden hits the cash register...again.