[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Turn 37

My existing warrior got some healing done, new warrior at London is out. Resume Campus, 2 turns until completion. The plan here is to finish the granary after the Campus and then get the settler completed after Turn 48. Notably, the barbarian warrior has disappeared. The new warrior moves to the jungle hill, the old one onto the stone. This reveals the barbarian warrior on the rice to the southwest. I would like to be able to attack it at least twice with the wounded warrior in order to bring up its XP. However, I may just move it downriver and have it deal with the encampment. I’ll see what the barbarian does.

Up north the slinger attacked as expected. My warrrior can make the kill but will be severely injured afterwards. The good news is that there are no barbarians in the fog, so the slinger appears to have been a lone wolf. I move my now-fully-healed slinger off its hill and will advance up the coast next turn. The warrior will retreat towards Birmingham. The builder moves into the city and will have the elephants camped the turn after next. This city is also flip-flopping between the grassland stone and the northern rice tile. In 5 turns I’ll know which tile the city expands to. Speaking of city expansion, London is currently taking the plains forest NE of the bananas. I’d prefer it take the jungle NW of the bananas since that’s where my Government Plaza needs to go. Hopefully the city will grab that after the forest.

CMF has completed his third civic; mine remains two turns out. Milpower updates next turn and I’ll see where I stand on that ranking. Kaiser’s 2 empire point gain on Turn 35 was a Campus – he’s generating 1 GS points per turn. Hit end turn, hear the inspiration/eureka sound.

[Alhambram]

If I recall correctly, tile picker has resources as priority which means any resources in 2nd ring shall be picked first and afterwards resourceless tiles that leads to resources at 3rd ring.
Which don't always mean that best yield tiles are picked before for example plain flatland tiles next 1 or 2 3rd ring resources.

For now just build, deal with barbs and expand when settlers are out.

[suboptimal]

The tile picker is behaving as expected - stone & rice at Birmingham, forest at London. At Birmingham I'm hoping a jungle hill will get picked up before the wheat-adjacent jungle. I do need to look at the pinmap again as there are some changes to be made.

That's the current plan. Birmingham's settler will complete EoT45, London EoT48 after the Campus and a granary. I'll be saving my gold (including any barbarian camp gold) for tile purchases at the northern location - the fish and the 61 Kilimanjaro tile.

[suboptimal]

Turn 38

No notifications. Barbarian warrior has advanced on London and is within striking range of both of my warriors. Scout has not reappeared and the north is quiet. Since it’s been a few turns, here’s an overview screenshot:




Builder to the elephants. Northern warrior SE towards Birmingham, slinger NW towards the camp and confirms the camp is currently empty. Barring a spawn on the interturn that camp will be cleared without further issue. Warriors at London attack the barbarian, stronger warrior first. Barbarian is redlined and I’ll likely have to give chase to kill it – I’ll do that with the one closer to promotion while the other heads for the scout’s last known position.

My 53 milpower is good for third place, ahead of Ichabod and Woden. CMF and Kaiser sit 1-2 in that regard. Woden and CMF have their fourth civic, Ichabod his sixth tech (and leading the tech count now). CMF has his second tourist as well. No change in empire scores. I’ll have my Campus and Early Empire next turn.

[suboptimal]

Turn 39

For a change of pace there’s actually quite a bit going on this turn. Early Empire has completed. Switch civics to Craftsmanship (5 turns to complete), pull out Urban Planning and slot Colonization. Appoint Pingala and place him in Birmingham. Campus is complete at London, which gets me three things – the State Workforce inspiration, +2 per turn and +1 per turn in Birmingham due to the trade route. It also cuts Bronze Working to 4 turns. Based on GPP generation and empire scores I’m the second to a district.

London resumes its granary build. It’ll take four turns and while the city doesn’t need housing now, the +1 will let me grow the city to just under 5 population while it works on its settler. That will let the city stay at four population when that unit completes, keeping my yields up and giving me a chance to slide in my two-settler building spree under the score radar (Birmingham will lose a pop for a turn or two).

Over at Birmingham I camp the elephants and the builder goes into retirement. That’s now a 333 yield, London gets happy from the amenity and Birmingham stops grumbling. Income is now 7.2 per turn.

Speaking of gold no barbarians have shown up. Slinger takes the camp, adding 50 to my bank account, earning the Military Tradition inspiration and revealing most of the northern peninsula:




That hill stone is one of two locations up here that could be settled once the initial city goes down up here. However the presence of the hill stone makes me think that the tile still in the fog might be the better spot. Yes, it has volcanic soil tiles first ring. However, that stone hill is better used as a harvest/mine tile rather than a “let me settle on this” type of tile. Warrior continues its trek towards Birmingham. I’ll park it in the city to fully heal and then escort the settler for the first couple of turns.

The inspiration for Military Tradition was also my quest for Armagh, so now I have two envoys in the city-state. What’s interesting is how the city-state expanded:




It took the fogged sea tile rather than the wheat tile. This means that the sea tile is likely whales as I believe a land bonus resource “wins” over a sea resource. This is good news since it means if/when I take Armagh the tile to its SW is a +4 adjacency RND for era points and more cash flow.

Over at London the barbarian warrior has retreated into the jungle SW of the horses. I move both warriors due west. My intention is that the warrior retreats deeper west into the jungle, at which point I’ll send one warrior towards each of the visible camps.

Kaiser has his sixth tech. My milpower dropped due to last turn’s damage and I’m back in fourth place there at 45 milpower.

[suboptimal]

Turn 40

All quiet. Barbarian warrior disappeared into the fog, likely due west. That redlined scout, however, is in the open SE of the lake. I delete my pin marking its former position and then use my warrior to delete the scout. I’ll decide next turn if I stop that warrior there to heal or advance on the camp now and heal adjacent to it. Other warrior moves downriver towards the southern camp. All quiet so far, I’ll move adjacent next turn and evaluate my heal or attack options.

Redlined warrior is within Birmingham’s borders and will move to the city center next turn. Way up north I move the slinger east then southeast. That reveals a cattle tile 2NE of Kilimajaro, right where I’d consider putting a city. No new resources at sea though the tile NE of the stone hill is still in the fog for now. I check the tooltips for ocean names. The coast tile NW of that stone hill is the Iapetus, the two visible water tiles next to it are the Tethys. I think I’ll spend the next two turns moving the slinger onto that hill to get the rest of the coast defogged, then position it to prevent barb spawns and be ready to receive the settler.

Looking at the scores and stats, Woden gained an empire point and two era score. He’s now at 18. Wonder if he’s going to make a golden age? My recent inspirations have pushed me up to 2 tourists while Kaiser has gained his fourth and CMF & Woden their third. The culture ranking puts me ahead of Ichabod, so he’s now behind me in total cultural accumulation. I also think that CMF got a couple of inspirations over the last few turns – he gained his third tourist (100) in two turns. I’m also third in science; given that I have the same number of techs as Woden and CMF that likely means I’m ahead of them in science yields. I’m back to last in milpower at 41 for the time being.

Hit end turn, hear the barbarian camp sounder. Guess Woden’s got a new camp in town.

Since it’s a nice round number turn time for a summary of my plans for the next 20 turns. The goal for Turn 60 – have two more cities settled, builders at those cities making improvements and the Government Plaza completed in London. I should be in good position to complete two Royal Navy Dockyards and Political Philosophy in the early 60s. Clearing both currently visible barb camps is also in the cards.

Regarding upcoming policy decisions there will be no changes at Craftsmanship. At State Workforce I’ll be taking out both Discipline and Colonization and putting in Maritime Industries and Ilkum. The southern city is going to start work on a galley as soon as it’s settled, then swap over to the RND once it’s available, so I want that policy in play even if it’s a turn or two early. I’ll likely promote Pingala (+1 promotion) with the completion of State Workforce and then use the promotion from the Government Plaza to place Magnus in that southern city for the crab and jungle harvests. If the timing doesn’t work out right (ie late Govt Plaza build) then I’ll grab Magnus first and promote Pingala second.

Looking a bit further after Turn 60 I’ll be taking Oligarchy for my government. That’ll give a +4 combat bonus to the galleys and should let me take Armagh relatively quickly (two turns, I think) with only two galleys rather than three. That gets me Armagh a little bit faster by not waiting for that third galley, though I’d still build it for scouting and coastal security.

[Alhambram]

Seem solid plan till tun 60!

I would settle upon cattle tile, it gives city extra to work from start and stone hill can be used for valuable .

I generally recommend to give Pingala 3 promotions before going for other governors, Pingala's both +1 and +1 per pop is very powerful.
You are correct to go for culture one first, since it allows us to reach civics faster which unlocks more governors titles faster.

Magnus is greatly nerfed and I often am disappointed by chop/harvest yield of Magnus in ancient/classical age, later he becomes better.
However don't write him off that fast, he can be used for chopping rainforests for gallyes as you probably has planned.

If you are taking Oligrachy Governement, maybe a idea to build Ancrestal Hall when you are running Oligrachy policy card, this allows you get Oligrachic Legacy.
With this you can freely swap to Classical Republic and if you need to battle with melee (naval) units, you can place Oligrachic Legacy in wild card spot.

[suboptimal]

Ordinarily I'd agree with you regarding Pingala. However, my plans have me delay that as I need Magnus + Provision by the late 60's. While the +1 per pop from Pingala is a big bonus the fact of the matter is that I expect to have rapid population growth in the new cities to help grow while I wait for a promotion.

At the northern location I'll be buying the 61 and reef fish tiles upon founding. That city will build a granary and the builder being sent from Birmingham will camp the elephants, boat the fish and then chop a forest. The forest chop will complete the RND (T62). The city will build two galleys (EoT 66 & 69). At Turn 70 the city will have a +3 RND, a granary and be at 5 population. After that it'll likely get out a monument and then maybe a settler for those cattle (or some land units).

At the southern location the city will start with a galley build (as mentioned before) and I'll be improving the crabs for the Celestial Navigation eureka while Magnus establishes in the city. I'd then remove the boats, harvest the crabs for 100-110 and then the jungle NE of the crabs for ~28 and 28. That chop should get the city to 3 pop and enough food to hit 4 pop four turns later. The production will go into the RND (complete EoT64). I also expect to have the trader relocated to this city be running a 32 trade route to London by Turn 65. At Turn 70 it should be at 4 pop, have a +3 RND, one galley complete (EoT 66) and be one turn from completing a second galley. This city will build a third galley and then likely start walls or a monument.

Now, about that Provision promotion. London completes the Government Plaza around Turn 55 or so and if I don't need it to build military it'll immediately build the Ancestral Hall, completing it in ten turns or so. That gives me enough time to get Magnus from South Coast back into London. My plan is to then buy a builder for about 250. Why? A Magnuschopped forest fed into a settler with Colonization and Ancestral Hall should be worth 120-125 at that point in the game. That chop should leave 3-4 turns on a settler build. Do that twice and I've got two settlers in about ten turns and would have effectively converted into at a near 1:1 rate. Do that three times and the conversion rate is something like 0.67:1 and I've got three settlers built between T65 and T80ish. That has me at 8 cities by Turn 90, maybe nine if North Coast hard builds a settler of its own for that northern cattle. I'd want at least one more settler after that for the area NE of Birmingham, maybe yet another one for the river valley to the east.

You make a good point about the Oligarchic Legacy policy. However, I think I'd want to stay in Oligarchy until after Armagh is captured - under Classical Republic I wouldn't be able to run Conscription/Agoge and the Oligarchic Legacy card simultaneously. I'd like to keep Maritime Industries until the southern city finishes its third galley (Turn 75 or so). At PP/Oligarchy I'd be running Maritime Industries, Urban Planning, Diplomatic League and Agoge.

The civics plan after PP is to run through the top of the tree for Military Training, Games & Recreation and Military Training. I'd build Birmingham's (discounted) Encampment for the MT inspiration and then run Veterancy to build lighthouses and barracks (and RNDs at any new coastal cities). I'd swap into Colonization with the completion of Military Tradition around T66 and then take out Maritime Industries (for Conscription) when Games & Rec completes. I'd swap over to Classical Republic once Armagh is captured and I've got enough land units (archers + and a couple more warriors) to feel safe and get the Mercenaries inspiration.

[suboptimal]

One other comment - I'm thinking about having the north coast location (after it gets that 33 tile) build the Temple of Artemis in the open plains directly south of the elephants. In that location it'd provide 5 amenties and there'd be room to build four Theater Squares around it. Likewise, I've decided that this city will be the location for my shot at the Masoleum at Halicarnassus - it has good production and will have high population vs. the canal city where I was originally thinking of building it.

[suboptimal]

Turn 41

No notifications. All’s quiet. No visible barbarians. Redlined warrior to Birmingham. Slinger NW to top the stone hill next turn. In the west the northern warrior moves to the cows. The southern warrior advances one hex to reveal the barbarian camp. I check the combat UI and will need to spend a turn or two healing before attacking, promotion notwithstanding. If I attack next turn and the spear attacks out there’s a small chance I lose the unit. I do move adjacent to the camp to see what I can see to the south. I just uncover a reef one hex off the coast, SE of the southern crabs. I’ll have to consider whether I move into the jungle next turn and heal there. It’d let me see a bit more as well.




Kaiser has completed his sixth civic and earned five era points. He’s likely completed Political Philosophy and earned the era points as the first to a Tier 1 government.

In other news I’ve realized I’ve miscounted turns at Birmingham. I was expecting to settler the north coast location on Turn 50. However, that’ll happen on Turn 49 unless I want to hide the settler from being visible in the score. In that case it would found on Turn 50 while I work the rice rather than a flatland jungle with next turn’s new citizen. I’d rather have speed over subterfuge, though. That’ll come with London’s settler a few turns later.

Alhambram, I’m going to try get a alightly updated pinmap up tomorrow (Saturday) to lay out my settlement plans and Classical Age district placements.