[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[Kaiser]

We have a Slinger ready, built lasst turn in the capital, which I am currently sending South to cover for our Settlers. However, I think you are right and I will bring him up here to help fighting the barbs and getting the Eureka. We have to send one of our Warriors down in latest 3 turns to cover for the produced Settlers.

Wonder City is a given, I am mostly hesitating between 3rd and 4th spot for the other Settler

[Ioan76]

This would be great.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's clearly circumstantial but I'd value Archery-Eureka as one of the most important in Early Game.

Wonder City is a given, I am mostly hesitating between 3rd and 4th spot for the other Settler

Maybe 3rd would be a better option now. Even if it may be a little paranoia I'd like to avoid any possible sneak-attack from Canadian' forces which may cripple us.
Let's settle 3rd city by a settler escorted by our veteran units from North and make it a base against devil Canadians...

[Kaiser]

I think you are right that it is important to get Archery Eureka, it is worth 20 and a gatekeeper for Horseback riding which we probably want to get quickly as well.

Friday's report:


Pingala established netting us 15 % increased : and as well as 4



A record flood took place just at the wrong location, did it?

This is the reason I want to go quickly to HBR, we have to talk about the CS and which to keep anyways as we will not be able to keep control of all 4 CS for ourselves. We currently have a head start with an extra envoy at 3 CS and we already have fulfilled 3 CS quests, for 2 this is combined. I believe realistically we can only guarantee Suzerainship of 1 CS, maybe 2 if we focus strongly and keep our cultural lead (meaning we get to extra envoys quicker).

Here is an overview on my quick opinion:
- Bologna - Good Suzerainity and easy to protect due to proximity and mountain range, poor city location, potentially shares tiles for our GP Keep
- Vilnius - Weird Suzerainity, difficult protect but a good forward City Conquer
- Antananrivo - no Headstart as CMF and us are tied in envoys and he still has his quest open. Brazil would hugely benefit from its Suzerainity. It seems to be a good border city with CMF for us with already 2 floods nearby and desert to the South. Conquer
- Geneva - Very good Suzerainity and difficult to protect due to Matterhorn, no memory of the city quality Try to Keep

I will take some screenshots of the CS next turn so we can analyze the visible tiles as well, above was mostly done by memory

We definetly should build some military for deterrence and to conquer some CS, I suggest minimum 2. For that reason I want to try to beeline for HBR which makes the Archery Eureka very important



The Slinger turned around to try for Archery Eureka, due to my indecisivness it will be 2 turns later than possible



City visibility on Kings, his Capital seems to be to the S or he bought a tile (I doubt he had a natural border expansion at Kings yet)



Next turn we will invest in this, a heavy investment, it would have been 4-5 turns of production, but we cannot boost it in any way and we want the yields as early as possible without delaying tech/civics



Battlecry please, hopefully the Warrior sacrifices itself into our promoted Warrior so it can move down to Ed Mercer to replace the Slinger as Settler escort



Woden is somewhere between 9 and 19



CMF got his 3rd civic

[Kaiser]

The Warrior did suicide into our promoted Warrior, yay. I switched tech to Iron working to see Iron locations for our next settling decisions



Geneva/Wonder City got a flood, this bumps Geneva up as a potential Conquer target as its tiles look to be quite good. Also the tile SW of Geneva has weird yields for showing no copper sign. It seems to be a PH with 2 . I did not find any Natural Wonder that would give that so I assume we just do not see the copper symbol?



We are poor again but will build a very important and safe road, so I hope for more to come




We found CMFs capital, I currently consider taking a peak into it or either turn northwards next, what do you think Ioan?



Unit shuffling and healing to the N



Some fighting going on so we jumped back to 2nd position, it really looks like CMFs early game was badly hindered by barbs for him to build so many units this early. We were three times lucky with the barb Scouting direction!



Woden: Civic
CMF: Civic (2nd in a row, he was hiding his culture rate)


I assume everybody is building Settlers right now?

[Kaiser]

BW finished



Unit swap ongoing



Getting our first trade route up for 2 1



And the currency Eureka, I hope we are the first to a classical tech for the era points



Our only visible Iron is here which even further cements the tendecy to go for 3rd city (and Wonder City) with our coming 2 Settlers



We were able to shave off a turn in Kelly Grayson with the Trade route and the 3rd pop




Ed Mercer overview



CMF connected wine



He has no extra buildings in his cap but apparently Gods of the Open Sky as his pantheon (look also at the Horse yields)



No monument here either that means he has
2  Palace + 2  Antanarivo + 1.8   Population + 1  Horse = 6.8 :

He likely is working 2 pastures more to get to his culture rate of ~9 : per turn



Ichabod: tech#6 and 2 era points
CMF: pop

[Kaiser]

For the CS discussion



Geneva actually might be defensible if the mountain range continues to the mountain SW from Geneva as we would be the only ones with access to its W.

The City itself has good production potential but bad food potential, Copper is also coonfirmed



Bologna is even worse than I remembered with only one workable tile in its first ring. It brings a new Amenity and probably good sight due to the Mountains W/NW, if this range is longer than it is amazingly well protected. It has Freshwater



A way better location than Bologna with desert to the South, difficult for us to keep Suzerainship so a clear conquer target to me



no Freshwater but a decent city with an aquaeduct, difficult to utilize the Suzerainship. My current tendecy conquer
Also somebody (likely Woden) already has an envoy in it

I will make an overview screenshot next turn but we should discuss our proceedings and plan how to expand militarily

[Kaiser]

First the turn report


 
Unit shuffle ongoing, our Warrior coming down will be 1 turn late to protect the Settler but he fogbusts  the E approach and we just need to move carefully for the last 2 turns before settling. The only danger currently are barbs as CMF cannot declare surprise wars so should be unable to snipe my settler




Our Warrior moved up and we can now either circle around Antanarivo or scout E of it. My current tendency is to circle around as the Settler protection Warriors follow up occupation could be going to Matterhorn for the Alpine promotion and the the defogging of the coast tiles before turning to the river valley E of Antanarivo.

Interestingly CMF moved his Slinger to cover his horses, I am not sure if:
- he either forgot that I need to denounce him 5 turns (Yay Canada) before I can declare war to plunder the horses
- I am wrong in assuming that I need to be at war with him to plunder his horses
- he did not want to take the risk of me being able to plunder without being able to declare a surprise war



Some minor optimization ongoing to speed up the Settler ETA for Ed Mercer, as its Settler will get more expensive with next turns Settler completion in Kelly Grayson



Woden: 1 pop/building, 2 era score
Suboptimal: 2 pop/building, 2 era score, civic

[Kaiser]

I think there are three main things to discuss:
- Worker Labour and GP timing
- Scouting Movement
- Unit build up to attack Antanarivo and another CS or CMF



After this current round of Settler, both cities will build at least 1 builder (naming scheme for the improvements is: City, Worker number, improvement order by alphabet order), my preliminary planning shows that Ed Mercer should probably build two when we want to get the GP and especially the expensive Ancestral Hall (150 ) down quickly.
While writing this, I am unsure we need to push that hard, but let me come to the plan first.

While placing the sings I was thinking about using the KG Worker to chop into the GP like we did with the Campus. The GP has a lower base value of 30 bs 54 to other districts and should cost us by the time we place it roughly 62 - 65 , the forest chop should net us ~39 so we should be able to finish it within 4 turns after placement.
When it finishes we get another Governor:
- either we further improve Pingala with the science promotion netting us 4-5 per turn
- or we get Magnus into Kelly Grayson, wait for 5 turns (already at least 20 opoortunity cost) prebuilding the Ancestral Hall (should net us roughly 50 to then chop the marked forests and jungle tiles into the Ancestral hall for another 39 + 2* (19 + 19) = 78 + 38 : before Magnus 50% multiplier gets taken into account netting us the Ancestral hall, nearly 2 pop and a good chunk of production into something else

However we are not urgently building new Settlers but will instead probably increase our Military first



I also plan to get some improvements done here with the first Builder from Ed Mercer to headstart the Wonder city with the Marsh Harvest and to get the Wheel Eureka for our Maryannus on the copper which doubles as an amazing tile to work early.
Wonder city can probably skip building an early Monument and instead invest in a Slinger



Here is the Overview, we need to Scout further but I think it is safe to assume that we should bring at least 2 Warrior, 2 Horseman, 1-2Archer to Conquer Antanarivo and stake our claim. Best case we bring further 1-2 Maryannus or other additional units to keep the current military power leader CMF on his toes.
We anyway should denounce him 5 turns before attacking Antanarivo to avoid any issues with his now Surprise war feat and our house rule of having to declare to the Suzerain as well. (He should be able to get 3 envoys as he already has 1 for first to meet, 1 open quest and has the inspiration for Mysticism which gives another envoy)

Vilnius might be the best next CS just due to its location close by so we can use our forces quickly for conquering it as well. This would also allow us to reconsider 4th dot as Vilnius can claim the Campus location and we could check SE near Antanarivo for better options

I see us building 1 Slinger in Kelly Grayson to prepare for the GP Chop and another building in Wonder city.
The chopping cycle at Kelly Grayson can also be used to get our Horsemen quickly while delaying the Ancestral Hall.



To really decide we need to get more information about this region, the current plan is using the Warrior down here to get a better understanding of the region between Antanarivo and Vilnius to see how quickly we can reposition our troops in that direction.

The Settler protector can circle around the Matterhorn (if possible) and the check the region E of Antanarivo to see the best approaches for our troops and to see if we find a good spot for a forward city there.

My main questions currently are:
- Is it worth to slow our curve for Magnus meaning we also have to get the 2nd Builder out of Ed Mercer for the chops?
- should we prioritze the Ancestral Hall or more Units?
- Do you agree on the rough unit composition?
- Do we build the very expensive Maryannus or not, they are amazing at a land war but are bad when attacking cities
- How do we get the money to be able to buy all the tiles we need (GP location (65 ), Forest NE (95 ), Jungle E (65 ) and Banana tile (65 )near 3rd city) getting more expensive by the tech/civic

What do you think Ioan?

[Kaiser]

PP turn 40 because we forgot to switch to EE on time 



Floods, we want Floods



The Slinger is in position to Whack either Warrior or Spearman should they attack



The Settler is up to 140 but the increase of 30 can be done in two turns. This turns pop growth in Ed Mercer hides our Settler in Kelly Grayson



Which is already on its way to 3rd dot, the Warrior will follow in order for us to be able to react to any issues we might encounter.
The Volcano is still inactive so I hope it cannot explode as we have to pass two turns neighboring it. It presents a risk for 3rd dot to loose improvements and population but I am willing to risk it, especially as the yields are typically good enough to get the population back quickly. However we do want to Harvest/Chop the Sheep/two jungles before the Volcano erupts if we can spare 1 Builder.



Suboptimal finished a Campus last turn but got only 2 era score last turn, so not a Splendid Campus (less than 3 adjacency at the moment)



Ichabod finished a unit or healed his existing units above our Military rating



Woden: 1 pop/building
Suboptimal: gained last turn only 2 empire score but finished a Campus which should be 3 points, I assume he has his 3rd Settler out
CMF: tech#5




Our Warrior has some time to Scout this area before prepping up near Antanarivo



We are beefing up our score by taking the first 4 card government, the decision between Autocracy and Republic was quite a long discussion between my wife and me as the Government bonus of Autocracy is better but the slots for policies are better for Republic. In the end the Autocracy bonus should be stronger until we have multiple cities with districts and close to the next happiness level.



I decided to put in Agoge as the 2nd military card to already prepare a Slinger for the inevitable GP Chop planned at Kelly Grayson
For the Wildcard slot we decided on Charismatic leader as it reduces our time to the next Envoy from 21 to 13 turns which is well within the probable end of this era.

While I do think that we will manage to achieve a Golden Age without needing to become Suzerain, we want to get as much of a headstart with envoys as possible and want to Suzerain Bologna and Geneva immediatly in the next era for the era points and the Suzerain bonus. This also means we want to get a Library and a Maryannu by then to fully benefit from this plan.
This conflicts with our attack and Worker planning but should be the first things to build afterwards.

This will also mean that we can Scout the light Blue path differently as we plan on Suzeraining Geneva and will get vision on that area anyways later.



Here is an overview shot of our current empire, I removed the signs for the chopping plan as I realized that we never, even with discounted tile buys, could get the gold in time for last posts plan.

That means we are going to improve Pingala and only buy GP and Banana tile. We can also reconsider the 2nd Builder from Ed Mercer as the chops into the Ancestral Hall would be less efficient. We can still build it to chop the Horsemen or the Library though, so we really need to consider this.

For the Moment Kelly Grayson is pre-building a Slinger and will switch to a Worker the turn after the next. Next turn we will research Military tradition to finish it together with the Settler in order to slot Ilkum for our minimum two Builders.

[Kaiser]

We are the first to a classical tech



which is Currency, we do not yet want to place the commercial districts but will want to do so in our new two cities and needed some time to get more Eurekas



CMF/Archduke decided to denounce me, so they can declare war in 5 turns from now. This was expected to happen and I would have done it in time before moving on Antanarivo to get around Canadas special ability.
It comes earlier than expected though, so these are the either/and reasons I currently see:
A. they want to have their options open
B. they want to discourage/delay me from settling lush valley
C. they have actually moved their military up to support this
D. Archduke is still a bit grumpy about last game where I decided to survive by being militaristic and follows suit here
E. they plan on attacking Vilnius/Antanarivo themselves and do not want to get stuck at the Suzerain rule we have in play



My best guess at the moment is definetively A and B, probably D. C is our biggest worry as they could effectively delay/threaten our settling if they executed C. The have ~30 military power more than us, so two Warriors or more likely 1 Warrior and 2 of Scout/Slinger. Our Problem is we have half our Military to the N and one scouting far S so are currently paperthin here.
D is maybe true, but also probably not the worst play considering that I am currently ahead in the snowball doubling their and tripling their , E is also a possibilitiy but we can worry about this if it is the case as we have counterplays (liberating the CS and take it later, liberate it and keep the Suzerain for the moment, conquer it an eliminate CMF (well that is a longer term))

We have a prebuilt Slinger in Kelly Grayson but wanted to have at least another 5-6 turns for our Workers, this is now in question and we need to see next turns developments to decide if we ramp up our unit production right now or can go Workers first.

Worst case would probably be him blocking 3rd spot with his Scout and having a Warrior backing the tile so we can not dislodge the Scout with our Warrior.
We have one advantage as we were denounced we can declare on him already this turn and can attack the Scout in case it should not be supported by a Warrior. In any case he would still delay our settling by one or two turns at least and we would have to gamble that there are no units near Wonder city when moving our Settler there.



Somebody got an envoy in Bologna, I assume this is Woden as we already believe him to having met Antanarivo due the culture rate. It might be somebody else though which is N of Woden. That would likely be Ichabod then as I remember that Woden found a couple Natural Wonders first and Ichabod found some second.



Did somebody stop working a tile or was this already last turn the case? It looks like the others met only one religious CS, which means there are likely 3 + 4 we know so 3 unknown CS




Woden: 2 pop/building, potentially also a Settler timed with a district though I do not see any GP points yet
CMF: 1 pop in his capital, 2 era score



I want to wrap this up as quickly as possible to get my units down, hopefully the Spearman suicides into the Slinger so it can already return and the Warrior can take the camp.

I switched to Archery in hope that this works out. We are anyway already strained for cash and will have to build two archers the hard way then but we can have Horseback riding in 6 turns if we get the Archery Eureka.