[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[Kaiser]

Military Tradition finishes



I am really bad at remembering doing this first each turn but I will post it here to force myself to remember this.
Woden: no changes but last turns civic was his fifth so likely PP
Ichabod: civic #4, 3 era score
CMF: civic #5 (potentiall PP)
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building


 
I seem to have been wrong about Woden's district Settler Timing as there are still no GP points



Time for some action, the easy part was this, netting us ...



The Archery Eureka and a promotion of our Slinger, the follow up over here needed some thinking and discussion with my wife to take place first. I moved on down S first to get a better understanding of the Canada Eskalation.



We are still protected for 3 turns from any attacks by CMF, so I moved my Settler up to get a better understanding of his follow up. Right now it looks like there is none xD



Then I moved my Warrior in a way that gives me the opportunity to threaten his Wine camp for a nice boost if we should pillage it later



Without the extreme urgency of getting our units down, I decided to leave the Warrior in place instead of running down.
We could also have screened our Slinger here but I am confident that he survives with his current 48 hp, 5 Strength + 5 Discipline + 3 Flanking bonus. If the Warrior attacks out, this would have the upside of our Warrior being able to eliminate the camp and the Slinger could just run away.

There is a chance though that our Slinger will not make it as I calculated the max damage to be exactly 48, so let us hope for a below max damage roll here.



The Warrior moved to the tile to block the Scout from advancing in direction of our Improvements and trade route, we are still on track four our Settling of 3rd spot but CMF could block this in which case our Warrior will attack the Scout and should be able to get rid of it in ~3 turns which would delay our settling by exact that amount.

I am quite sure that CMF has not seen our other Settler so we could try to sneak it to Wonder spot on time but this would be a gamble due to potential CMF units being in that direction.

If his Scout:
- moves W we can kill it in a couple turns with the Archer which I let finish in Kelly Grayson
- moves SE we accept the delay an whack it, this will probably also trigger the Wine pillage if we can execute it without endagering our Warrior
- moves E we can claim 3rd spot on time and combine Settler and Warrior to move there safely





Some tile shuffeling allowed to put more into the Slinger, which is interestingly still in the queue.



Even though we finished Archery with the Eureka.
I expect this to change in between turns to become an Archer needing 25 more, due to our tile shuffeling we will, be at 35+ and should be able to get the 25 needed within two turns, especially considering the expected pop growth.

The Archer will come in time to protect our improvements and kill the Scout should it linger to long, this will delay our builder from here and consecutively the GP by 3 turns but I need the unit if I want to settle Wonder city reliably.
Settling the two cities should give us the remaining needed era score (+1 for near a Volcano and +3 for near a natural Wonder) together with the barb camp (+2) for assuring a golden age and hopefully high city pressure onto the lush valley area.

I am surprised but I am actually setting up to use the loyality feature here, ..., potentially

[Kaiser]

I again forgot to start with this in my turn ...

Woden: -
Ichabod: 3rd city, 3 era score, did he settle within 2 of a Natural wonder? He has found enough allthough 2nd after Woden if I remember correctly
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building, tech#5
CMF: Settler from his capital     Maybe our Warrior can threaten to interfere here   

 
That was a lot closer than expected but I remember the worst case scenario would have been a dead Slinger. 



At least we can clear the barb camp and pack up here, never to return to Disaster country (at least not until we have Ancestral Hall )




Kelly Grayson can finish its Archer and then a following Builder for the GP which I want to get up as quickly as possible



CMF is blocking our city spot on purpose as he could have moved onto the Wheat. While I completely understand this move, I will remember this and look for payback. (Turns delayed: 1)

The biggest question is how to proceed with the Wonder city Settler. If his Scout is here, I doubt that his other units are already close by if at all here. If they come, I expect them to focus on the 3rd spot location, but I believe it more likely that he is trying to send his new Settler up to race me for Lush River.

I checked my pictures and spreadsheet and am quite convinced that CMF does not yet know Matterhorn and the Natural Wonder city location. (No +1 era score increase since turn 33, I saw his Scout near Kings on turn 34).
However the Settler from Ed Mercer was obivous due to my score increase and, even though it was close, he should not confuse it with the other Settler which was a turn to quick in his vision.

We have to decide how to proceed in 2 turns as then the Settler needs to step on the open space where he cannot outrun the Scout.
That being said, CMF needs to move E in the next two turns to be able to catch it with his Scout at all and in that case we can move our Warrior E and combine the two afterwards to march together to Natural Wonder city.



Here is a means for payback, we have moved our Warrior adjacent to his only luxury Wine. Let us see if this will encourage him into moving his Scout. Even if he does I still consider pillaging at least the Wine if I can due to the delay he forced on my 3rd city.
We already know that he just produced a Settler in his Capital which is likely moving anywhere but W th this source of Iron we see here and probably has an escort.
If he does not have another unit nearby I can threaten to pillage his Wine and potentially his horses as well.
If he has a unit here, I expect it to show up next turn or later to defend his improvements.

We have our options open though as we have the Alpine promotion, which I am hopeful that CMF does not know about yet, so we hopefully can terrorize this region and then escape via a hill.

I already looked at it last turn but forgot to report, let us analyze CMFs situation a bit:
- Scorewise he already lacks behind even though he has a good culture rate and just achieved 15 this turn thanks to Pingala with culture promotion kicking in and his pantheon.
- He has the two cities visible here, Kings location 1 tile away from the river baffled me at first but I believe it has an oasis to its W/SW
- he is at 1 pop less than us but just had build a Settler
- Techs: Irrigation, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, +2 (so likely Mining + either Writing/Archery/Iron Working)
- Civics: CoL, Craftsmanship, Foreign Trade, State Workforce, Early Empire (if my promoted Pingala assumption is correct)
- he has the highest military approximately consisting of 4 Warriors 1/2 Slingers and 1 Scout

I feel confident that we already have established a good position in regard to him especially if we manage to settle our two cities without to much delay.
Getting Horsemen up to attack Antanarivo should trigger him to research/finish Iron Working.
I assume he had a lot of barb troubles early which is the reason for his high military but also means he likely has the Eurekas for Archery and Iron Working already. I believe he has one of these two techs researched and it is likely Iron Working as Iron knowledge is important for third city placement.

A small scale (1 Warrior) raid of opportunity might antagonize him for this game but he seems to become a good target for me anyways and he is not deescalating the situation with his Scout up North. We endanger our Warrior as his units might be nearby, so we have to carefully consider our potential retreat paths in order to avoid running into his units and in order to utilize hills to get away.



Important question:
CMF denounced me on turn 41, I believe he can only declare war on turn 46. However I am not sure if this is counted correctly or if he can already declare on turn 45, does anybody know?

[Kaiser]

Mechanics Interlude:
As this became very crucial when opening todays turn, I decided to to a test game to see the exact behaviour of the denounce mechanic in sequential Hot Seat mode. For that purpose I generated a Pangea Duel map with two random civs and scouted as quickly as I could for the other player.



I found Korea (2nd player) on turn 22 and denounced with Scythia (1st player )on that same turn. This should be the same setup as in our game where CMF plays before me in turn order.



Fast forwarding to turn 26, so 5 turns including turn 22, Scythia cannot yet declare a Formal War on Korea



This becomes available on turn 27, so 5 turns starting to count on 23, the first turn after the denounciation

[Kaiser]

Naturally I forgot to to it again and finished my turn with the score screen



Woden: -
Ichabod: -
Suboptimal: civic#4
CMF: -



Crucial you say, hmmm... well CMF moved his Scout between my two Settlers and I urgently needed to know how many turns my Settlers were still protected against Canada declaring a formal war (as it cannot declare surprise wars)



After checking this quickly and confirming the turn of the denouciation, I determined that my Settlers are safe until T46 where CMF plays first and can declare.



This allows me to move the 3rd dot Settler on location while moving my Warrior already to cover the Wonder City Settler. Doubling down on this I moved Wonder City Settler on tile E to hinder CMF on occupying this tile in order to force further delays. Next turn my Warrior will catch up and escort this Settler to its location, forcing the Scout to go on open terrain if it wants to block.
In any case this move will also delay settling Wonder City by at least a turn as well.

I just hope that my simulation was correct as loosing a Settler here would be excruciating.



In the N our Slinger continues to run away and should be safe while our Warrior cleaned up the offending Warrior after it was attacked itself. It looks like there is one stray barb up here which our Warrior should be able to handle. He should be close to a promotion.



In the South I decided to move here, still having the option/threatening the pillaging. But also having the option of returning home quickly.

While I really would like to pay CMF back for the at least 2 turns delay already, I get worried that he has some units moving North to threaten my holdings. This also would fit with the Settler he produced last turn, as it could be that we are in a settling race here and CMF is racing his military and Settler up North.

It will be difficult to decide but we have to see how CMF will position himself next turn with units at his Capital and the so annoying Scout.

[Ioan76]

It already becames tense!! Cool - I like this!

[Kaiser]

It is exciting and I was a little on my toes today in fear of yesterdays test for the denounciation mechanic would be off.
Great that you are still with me, as the game grows more complex by the turn, I probably could use your and my wife's support more and more in the coming turns. I already feel that I am starting to jump between my plans.

Currently I feel I am planning to much at the same time with:
1. GP -> Ancestral Hall in Kelly Grayson (that should take roughly 15 turns total where it cannot contribute otherwise)
2. Building at least 2 Horsemen and an Archer for the Antanarivo attack
3. Getting a Library up in EM for benefitting from Bologna and Geneva when suzeraining them next Era
4. Playing with the idea of getting a Holy site down on the marsh tile at Wonder City as there are no Holy sites yet and a religion would be a nice boost, especially as we should be able to get it relatively quickly when suzeraining Bologna and building a temple on top
5. The barb invasion from the N we learn about in the next picture



The good news first, my sim was correct and CMF could not attack us, this is a great relief.



I also finally remembered to take this shot at the beginning of the turn.
Woden: 1pop/building, tech#5, 1 era score
Ichabod: 3 pop/building, 3 era score = +3 Campus? no GP points yet visible though, is there a delay of more than 1 turn for GP points?
Suboptimal: Settler
CMF: 1 building as his cities did not grow



I completly forgot that settling on another continent gives 2 era score as well. This is also an alternative explanation for Ichabods recent settlement.



We are 2nd to 3 cities and hopefully will be 1st to 4.
I Immediately bought the Banana tile, this city is a decent city sadly with low . I currently plan to send our 2nd Worker from EM here to chop the two jungles near the volcano and to mine the iron. If the Volcano should erupt these two jungles would be destroyed anyways and this way we benefit of the and

I will probably get a commercial district and later a industrial district here but it also has the potential for a +4 Campus on the tile W of Banana, ... hmmm



More barbs in the N show up, I hope this is just the remainder of the cleared barb camp, however there were quite a lot of barbs. We position our Warrior to be able to attack and promote him boosting his power to 32 -damage against the barb warriors here.



Our Slinger retreats some more to be safe for this turn and healpromotes to defend against this invasion.



Weirdly we exceeded 25 this turn but were not able to pick our pantheon, it looks like Ichabod achieved this feat at the same time and has 1st pick due to turn order. Sadly this means we are dead last to pick our pantheon.
Mostly guessing this:
- Woden probably 1st pick, Fertility rites
- Suboptimal probably 2nd pick, Goddess of Festivals as GotOS was still open for CMF
- CMF probably 3rd pick, God of the Open Sky
- Ichabod 4th pick, the other pantheons pale in comparison if you do not have a nice combo in play. For BRazil I think most likely in descending order: Divine Spark, Sacred path or City Patron Goddess as they combine with either the GP generation buff or the assumed rain forest starting bias (which I am not even sure is a thin here as the map was made by hand)

So I think we might have the following interesting options potentially open:
- City Patron Goddess => combines with our bonus production near rivers for the 1st district => short term bonus
- Divine Spark => combines nicely with Bologna and our plan to suzerain early next era as we need the 1st tier buildings anyway => mid to long term bonus
- Fertility Rites => would probably be the best for us to compensate for our low food situation and to snowball with the builder => highly likely already gone
- God of Craftsman => would give us 1 each in EM, GM and Wonder City => short term, low bonus
- God of the Forge => would let us leverage further our current tech edge over CMF => short to mid term, would help getting units out to conquer at least two city states and threaten CMF => revenge!
- Goddess of Festivals => would bring nearly immediately 2 but not many more plantations available nearby => short term, probably already gone
- Goddess of the Hunt => we already settled on truffles, there is at least 1 Deer and a Furs near Disaster City and 1 Ivory near Jungle Campus => short term, looks like we lack the tiles to realy benefit and we do not yet have the cities yet either
- Lady of the Reeds and marshes => strong bonus but tiles are sparse, I currently remember one marsh near Wonder city which we already plan to chop => short term, I need to check this next turn but unlikely pick
- River Goddess => strong bonus, combines with Egypts production bonus for districts near rivers => very long term, I tend to emphasize HS to much when picking it




This was a difficult decision to take, CMFs power dropped significantly from 86 to 70 , is he already fighting somewhere and loosing units or is this just damage?

My wife recommended me to return our southern Warrior as the nothern Warrior has to Escort the Settler and I worry about CMFs units being already on their way to establish some pressure. It can double up to scout the covered territory near Antanarivo and CMF gets away with his Scout blocking for the moment.




While thinking about this, I checked every bit of information I could get my hands on and found this, that means his 5th tech is Writing and he has no Iron Working yet. This also means he does not yet know the iron locations nor can he build Spearmen  



I optimized my build time here to finish together with Drama and Poetry so we can either quicker go into the GP -> Ancestral Hall or Horsemen production  
We will need to see if we get another Worker out of EM afterwards or if we focus differently.

Ioan, please have a look at the points at the beginning of this post and give me your feedback.
I feel like we want to get units out anyways but we are conflicting on how many units vs. Workers vs. Libraries vs. GP/Ancestral Halls and other districts (HS at Wonder City, Commercial district at GM)

[Kaiser]

Quick overview shots



There is a promoted Warrior coming in from the W, likely there was a barb camp cleared



CMF stayed with his Scout on the tile, he probably moved E and returned W
The barb invasion in the N decided to cross the river full speed on EM, the Sphinx will probably be plundered next turn.



Woden: -
Ichabod: civic#5, tech#6, pop/building => he took over Woden for 2nd place
Suboptimal: -
CMF:2 era score (barb camp? => that would mean that at least one of his Warriors is currently occupied with something else than our assumed Settling race



It looks like there is:
- either no delay in turns for empire score
- or a delay of 1 turn for the GP score to be tracked.

I believe it is the first, interestingly he built a HS instead of a Campus indicating a run for 1st religion and probably a plan to leverage Monumentality next Golden Ange for expansion. I guess he was given a rainforest heavy start and took Sacred path to boost his income



First we moved to settle as early as possible, CMFs intervention delayed Nekhen/Gordon Malloy (did I not rename it already?) by 1 turn and we already have a 1 turn delay for Wonder city as well. He can still delay us here by moving on the GHorse



Up here I decided to go into attack mode to reduce pillaging as best as possible. This risks our Warrior but I was confident that he should survive without knowing of the Slinger. Well we have to hope he still does.


Our Warrior is at 92/100 HP and has a Combat Strength of 20 -1 for damage +5 Discipline +7 Battlecry -2 for unfavourable terrain (flood plains) = 29 CS
The barbs are at (counterclockwise):
- Slinger 100 HP = 15 CS ranged attack

- Warrior1 ~55 HP, 20 -4 for damage = 16 CS
- Warrior2 ~35 HP, 20 -6 for damage = 14 CS
- Warrior3 ~25 HP, 20 -7 for damage = 13 CS

If they attack optimally on my Warrior then they start with the Slinger and attack also in a counterclockwise fashion.
- Slinger 15 shots our Warrior 29 for 14-20 damage (another -1 due to further damage)
- Warrior1 16 attacks our Warrior 28 for 15-22 damage (another -2 with a slightly high roll)
- Warrior2 14 attacks our Warrior 26 +5 river bonus =31 for 12- 18 damage (another -1 due to further damage)
- Warrior3 13 attacks our Warrior 25 +5 river bonus =30 for 12- 18 damage (another -1 due to further damage)

Maximum expected damage should be 78 meaning our Warrior will survive

I actually expect only the Slinger and Warrior1 to attack our Warrior.
I believe Warrior2 will either pillage or attack our Slinger (53 HP) having 5 Melee CS +5 Discipline -2 unfavorable terrain -5 further damage = 3 CS => the Warrior should do between 37 - 55 damage, so a high roll would kill our Slinger this guy is already the 2nd time in such a close call situation 
I believe Warrior 3 will cross the river to the Wheat in order to be picked up by our Archer next turn



Pantheon comparison time



It seems that the following pantheons are gone already:
- Fertility rites
- God of the Open Sky
- Goddess of the Hunt

It looks like my estimation for income has been off as I extpected everybody to have reached 25 before me

Our pick choices narrowed down to
- City Patron Goddess => combines with our bonus production near rivers for the 1st district => short term bonus
- Divine Spark => combines nicely with Bologna and our plan to suzerain early next era as we need the 1st tier buildings anyway => mid to long term bonus
- God of Craftsman => would give us 1   and 1 each in EM, GM and Wonder City => short term
- God of the Forge => would let us leverage further our current tech edge over CMF => short to mid term, would help getting units out to conquer at least two city states and threaten CMF => revenge!
- Goddess of Festivals => would bring nearly immediately 2 but not many more plantations available nearby => short term, checked and there are 2 in our territory, 1 near Jungle Campus and a Banana 5-6 tiles SE of Wonder city
- Lady of the Reeds and marshes => strong bonus but tiles are sparse, I currently remember one marsh near Wonder city which we already plan to chop => short term, checked it and only 1 tile near our 4 currently planned cities
- River Goddess => strong bonus, combines with Egypts production bonus for districts near rivers => very long term, I tend to emphasize HS to much when picking it

After some discussion with my wife we eliminated:
- Lady of the Reeds and Marshes ==> not enough tiles
- River Goddess => too long term and tempting to deviate into HS for me
- Divine Spark => to much mid game optimization as I currently lack any benefit and need to build at least a Library and best case a HS to utilize this. However Ichabod is already on his way to a GP
- Goddess of Festivals => boni are huge but we already have a very good culture rate and there are few tiles to benefit from this

The discussion went on between
- City Patron Goddess => continue buildering on a already strong position I assume
- God of Craftsman => a hybrid as it helps building districts, units and everything else and also provides  for potential usage with Monumentality
- God of the Forge => short term bonus for our revenge on CMF, sadly it only covers up to Horsemen/Swordmen/Catapult so the immediate tech level we are at

In the end we decided to go with the golden middle of God of the Craftsman as this increases  and  in EM and our two new cities which we can pour in districts, units and buildings. We will hopefully also benefit more from it when finding Niter, Coal, Oil and Uranium (if the game goes this far) later.

 

This ended up finishing Mysticism as well



Which we used to reduce our unit maintenace coming from the Archer, I wonder if that was actually worth it as we plan on building a unit in KG after its builder to finish with the planned chop for the GP



The envoy is being kept for the moment to Suzerain a CS next era for the era score



I thought a lot about this and the discussion with my wife was one were we did not agree in the end, but I finally decided to also declare CMF war in order to avoid any further disturbance of our Settling plan.



Due to passing by him before declaring he cannot block the GHorse tile next turn or the Wonder City location the turn after. This means we will hopefully get our designated spot and put loyality pressure on the tiles he want to settle as early as possible.

Due to his aggressive blocking here I assume we are in a Settling race and his Settler is running northwards right now. I just checked the thread and he finished the Settler on turn 43, meaning he could now be at Kings (if there is no road between the two cities, which I currently do not see)

[Kaiser]

Yesterday's report




My Warrior down here seems to be chased, we have the Alpine ace up on our sleeve as CMF should not yet know the Matterhorn



Up here CMF decided to move into our territory. The barbs decided against attacking with their Warriors and moved further in.
We need the Archer support against the barbs this turn to avoid pillage healing of our PWheat. I am hopeful we can move him down next turn if Warrior1 does not block the tile E and Warrior3 does not move SW.



Interstingly this does not prevent us from working the PHJBanana, which I was expecting



Unsurprisingly Ichabod with his at least +3 HS is leading the score, I am third thanks to my pantheon choice. I will likely pick Monumentality next era for the faster Movement and will hopefully be able to buy at least one Builder or maybe even a Settler.




Woden is gearing up Militarily, is he going to attack a CS?



Ichabod: 1 pop/building
Woden: 3 era score (another 1st Natural Wonder probably not, so more of a threatening barb camp?)
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building, 3 era score (threatening barb camp? I think the Natural Wonders should already have been found with 4 so far if I counted correctly)
CMF: 2 building, tech#6



First off, only some minor damage on our Warrior, the only issue here is that Warrior2 can pillage heal on our PWheat next turn and our Slinger needs to fight Warrior1 in order to survive next turn.



I decided to delay the Archer (and this means also the Builder moving S as he lacks his currently needed escort) by shooting and killing Warrior2.
Our Slinger moved to favourable terrain (so left the flood plains) as we would end up in a similar power level shooting at Warrior1 and I did not want to risk him any more than I had to.
Our Warrior took a shot at the Slinger after moving to threaten Warrior1's current position as well as the tile our Slinger was on before.



This guy will be called Forest if he should get his 2nd promotion



Moving the Settler up shows that there are no hostiles near our Wonder City spot, this allows us to chase the Scout with our Warrior at the risk of a unit showing up on one of the two S tiles next turn. 
If not then we can settle the turn after, if yes, then our Warrior needs to return and we probably have to fight our way onto the tile.



I start delaying my techs a bit, mostly to make it a little harder on CMF to calculate which techs I got as he can see my science rate.
Games & Recreation will be delayed until both Builders are ready.
I went ahead and bought the tile for the GP as I do not need the money for an urgent Archer upgrade right now.



Here I will have to delay the Builder a turn, as Ed Mercer should be able to quickly finish it after the cost go up. We are probably investing a turn into the Library as we want it to go up anyways and cannot produce Horsemen yet.

I already start to question my pantheon choices, it was picked up to help my cities get up and to generate some :Faith: for the Monumentality era. However I think the stronger play would have been going with the short term unit production bonus into an Army to conquer CS and parts of CMF.

[Ioan76]

Hi!
Returned from my holyday and I'm glad to see that the game progress fine.
Especially with that damn nasty barbs in North...

I already start to question my pantheon choices, it was picked up to help my cities get Icon_Production up and to generate some :Faith: for the Monumentality era. However I think the stronger play would have been going with the short term unit production bonus into an Army to conquer CS and parts of CMF.

I'd still say that your choice was a good one. Even if I'd not discard so quickly Divine Spark...

Keep the good work!

[Kaiser]

I would really have liked to pick it especially as it combines nicely with Bologna which we want to Suzerain anyways if possible. However, I stated at the beginning of my thread that I wanted to try to increase my snowball early and Divine Spark would not have done anything for us for probably at least 10 turns.

We could have chopped now the library with the forest on the Campus spot for GM, but I am not sure that is the best play as we also quickly want the Monument to finish. We might consider chopping it into a Horseman as well, here would have been the GotF better, but I think I will go with the Monument so Gordon Malloy picks up the Iron quicker and we continue to increase our lead.

The turn came around and I was so excited to see that we can settle undisturbed that I forgot to take screenshots after I moved everything  




Ichabod: -
Woden: -
Suboptimal: settled 3rd city
CMF: 1pop Cap, civic#6, 3 era score





He picked Oligarchy, probably for the good civic colors but maybe also because he wants to boost the Strength of his Warriors?
He got 3 era score, 2 are for the Government, the other one can be either for meeting another CIV, finding a Natural wonder (tech can be excluded as he did not get one this turn) or improving a tile which has been hit by a disaster before. I believe it is one of the first two.




Our Warrior ended up here, I assumed he was going for the PHJ 2 NW of the Warrior, but apparantly there is no Settler. He is either gunning for the Banana to the E or we were never in a settling race here  



We will settle Wonder city next turn, I am currently hesitating between sending the 1st Builder (on the Archer) over or chopping the Forest into the monument before sending it.



Some barb cleanup was done, next turn we are probably sending the Warrior down on the Horse to avoid any Scout pillaging. The Slinger will kill the Barb Slinger and then follow S.



Here we are investing one turn into the Library to delay the Builder as EM will have an easier time finishing the more expensive Builder afterwards.