[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[williams482]

Turn 72:

Sailing completes:



Research into Celestial Navigation for this turn only. Blues completes it's trader and starts a Settler, currently due in 5 turns. The trader is assigned to Kings. The builder reaches the grass hill 2W of kings, ready to mine next turn. 

Somehow, we met Ichabod on the interturn. He has four satellites, all with default Brazilian names. They have pops 4, 4, 3, and 1, and have placed the Plaza, three Holy Sites, and a Theater Square. He is pulling in 32 beakers, 29 clefs, and 23 GPT. Ichabod also has a proposal for us:



I don't mind losing the horses, as we'll get them back before we try building any more horse units, but 2 GPT is 80% of our current income, a completely unacceptable loss. The extra amenity would be helpful. Ichabod currently has four horses and no iron, and the fact that he's trying to trade for exactly enough to make 20 suggests he might not have a source of his own. I counteroffer by pulling the gold and increasing to 20 horses. I don't expect him to accept, but if he does, great. I will need to adjust the micro plan to account for that extra amenity, but that's well worth it. 

As anticipated, Yerevan has cleared the barb camp. Beats a blowup, I guess. The warrior withdraws. 



The southern horse heals for a bit, but the northern one is a bit of a question. We've now met all the human players, but only six city states, and I don't recall notifications of other dead city-states in the fog. On the other hand, this horse is a valuable military unit, already stretched further from my borders than he can cover in a five turn post-denouncement window, and I don't want to die because the toughest parts of my army were out scouting. He's coming home. 

Suboptimal surianed Geneva, one turn before Amani was scheduled to do that for us. That means no era points, and no map knowledge unless we invest another envoy. We will still get the two beakers though, and that's the part Operation Corsi was banking on. Both Suboptimal and Kaiser have held steady on milpower, suggesting that 30 point bump might not have had injuries wrapped in. Warrior + Scout, perhaps? Or two slingers?

The great person screen confirms the new Cothon for Woden and no other additions. We are currently on track to pick up Great Scientist Aryabhatta in eight turns, worth three random classical or medieval tech boosts. Not Hypatia, unfortunately, but better than the guy Egypt picked up ahead of us. 

Scores:




- Kaiser adds Euclid, a tech, and one era score (for Euclid)
- Ichabod adds a city and an additional pop/building, a tech, and two era score (one from meeting us)
- Woden adds a tech and two era score
- Suboptimal added two era points

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Logging in from a random coffee shop.

Life update: I'm back Stateside, a mixture of happy to be home, excited about the year to come, incredibly anxious because I'm teaching on Monday and I haven't even talked to anyone in the district except via email, and missing Korea a lot. I should have reliable Internet access starting next week.

Game update: You're doing great. I love the detailed micro plans, which you know aren't a strength of mine - my strength, if i have one, is in big-picture stuff. I agree, massive, rapid expansion is the only way we even have a slim shot in this game. I think we're definitely in last place, but that's almost entirely traceable to Canada - if WE could have taken Antananarivo instead of Kaiser, we'd have a solid, defensible core and a selection of good expansion targets. Just our bad luck that our one good expansion area is now being contested by England (is he isolated to the east, or is Ichabod out there, too? Not clear where he is). We made a few errors here and there, but I don't think we could have played our hand significantly better than we did.

SInce you have such a detailed plan, do you want to keep the turns so you can see your baby through to completion? It makes no difference to me who the turnplayer is.

[williams482]

I should be able to keep the turn for a few more weeks, and plan to hand off around t86. If my schedule changes to prevent that (plausible) I'll be sure to let you know in advance.

I don't know where Ichabod is exactly, but I do know that he and Suboptimal have yet to meet, while Kaiser has known both Ichabod and Woden for some time now. Presumably Suboptimal and Ichabod will share a border eventually, but that loyalty pressure on Wild/Avalanche is all Suboptimal, which with Eleanor as the leader is quite dangerous. It would behoove us to keep a strike force capable of raising any english forward settles, although being Canada would force us to telegraph any such assault.

I'm curious about your thoughts on which city sites we should prioritize. My current plan is for #1 out of Kings to go to Wild, #2 out of Blues to go to Blackhawks B, and #3 out of Kings to hit Penguins. #4 and #5 are pretty up in the air, with the best boundary pushing sites showing some major loyalty risk. I think I'd lean towards Ducks and Lightning, but there's a land quality based case for Red Wings, and Devils miiiiight be possible if we can grow Blackhawks and Ducks fast enough and maybe purchase a monument.

Good luck with your classes!

[williams482]

Turn 73:

Recorded history completes:



Viva la revolucion:



Magus is recruited and sets up shop in Kings, with Liang moving to Bruins. The builder throws down a mine, granting us this:



The trader in Kings starts his trek to Blues, completing Currency:



Research goes into Apprenticeship, due in 7 as expected. Civics research goes into Military Training. Blues switches off max production config to work the Rice and Wines. Kings places it's Commercial Hub. 

Ammani did establish in Geneva, earning us a couple extra beakers, but Diplomatic League did not get us an additional envoy there. Disappointing, especially as this means Ammani is kinda stuck there until we get another envoy so we can keep that science. 



Ichabod rejected our counteroffer, so that's that. Someone ate an unmet city state, score tracking implicates Suboptimal. Woden's milpower spiked 62 points and his horse stockpile dropped by 20, so he's building some serious military. We have now reached the normal age threshold, and we have at least 26 turns to add another 14 points for a golden age. No detailed planning on that yet, but we should be able to knock out at least 6-8 tech boosts, a Great Scientist, and a high adjacency Commercial Hub in that time. That's 10-12 era score right there, plus whatever other nonsense we can stumble across. No relevant changes on the Great Person Screen. 

Scores:




- Kaiser added two empire score, guessing a district
- Ichabod adds a civic, and era point, and four empire score. Guessing a district plus pop/buildings
- Woden added a tech and three empire score, gusting a district and a pop/building
- Suboptimal adds ten empire score, probably a pop three city with a district

[williams482]

Turn 74:

Another drought near Blackhawks, before the last one has even finished. That's going to be a bit of a nuisance. I put an aqueduct pin on the plains hill. 



The builder moves to the Commercial Hub forrest, ready to chop in four turns. Blues will expand in one turn, currently the tilepicker has designs on a less useful grass forest. Kaiser' horse and archer have reappeared along the Saint Lawrence, and a Brazilian warrior appears at the border of Kings. 



Our northern horseman has the opportunity to kill a barb scout and takes it, earning a promotion. I will probably attempt to clear this camp once the unit has healed. 



The southern horse whacks it's camp, and should be able to clear it next turn. The great person screen reveals that Ichabod has completed a Holy Site (or possibly a shrine), but no other players have added districts. Suboptimal's trade screen shows no evidence of a city state conquest (I forgot to check that last turn), but that big spike in empire score definitely happened, and it didn't come from new districts, population, or great person point buildings (Do conquered City States remain occupied for a few turns?). He has just this turn settled an additional city, and taken some additional milpower damage. That city's borders are visible in the fog:



Avalanche is so clearly not an option. Wild is now at -8 loyalty, which is just barely manageable but getting super sketchy. Damn, damn, damn. That clinches Lightning as city #4, I think. It might even be worth using the third builder charge at Wild to harvest that marsh for an extra couple of pop points.

I was clearly incorrect about Ichabod's horse acquisition status earlier, he is pulling in a steady four per turn. 

Scores:




- Kaiser added two empire score (maybe this time it's a district!) and a tech
- Ichabod added three empire score (district + pop/building?), a civic, a tech, and three era score
- Woden added a pop/building, a tech, and three empire score
- Suboptimal added a new city and a tech

[williams482]

Operation Corsi does disrupt my original plan for boosting Feudalism, and leaves two viable paths for doing so.

First, the givens:
- Wild builder will pasture the first ring Horses and Cows
- Penguins builder will irrigate the Rice and mine the Iron

Option A:
- Blackhawks builder makes a full farming triangle
- one of either the Wild or Penguins builders knocks out a 6th farm

Option B:
- Blackhawks builder farms one of the wheats, plantations the Wines, and mines a plains hill
- Blues kicks out a new three charge builder to farm it's rice and remaining two thirds of Blackhawks' triangle

Option A gets feudalism faster, while option B gives Blackhawks better initial tiles to work and accelerates it's growth curve. Without running any numbers, I think option A is superior because it makes it easier to set up a little Feudalism Wave with Blues/Kings/maybe Bruins once the settlers complete, and plunk down #4 and #5 with serfdom active for four extra charges there. A dozen additional builder charges would pay for themselves quite quickly, adding lumber mills at Blues and Kings, hooking up Silks and Elephants, boosting Celestial Navigation at Penguins, chop-mining one or two hills at Bruins, and adding some additional chops and improvements at the new satellite cities. This should also add a fairly minimal delay before switching over to the Commercial Hubs and markets.

Ancestral Hall builders do increase the cost of the next builder (tested and confirmed in SP), so that Feudalism Wave would cost 70/74/78. With Ilkum, Blues would need four turns, Kings five, and Bruins seven. No crazy micro plan needed here, it shouldn't be difficult to line up those builds to complete within the window that Serfdom is active (as our two cities will almost certainly not be settled at the same times). Bruins completing it's builder first would be preferable because it's production is so much weaker than the other two and it's builds are processed after theirs.

Rough plan for policy swaps is Theology to swap Colonization -> Ilkum, Feudalism (finished via boost, ideally) to swap Ilkum -> Serfdom, and something else (Civil Service? Mercenaries?) to get out of Serfdom. That last swap could get clunky, as the boosts in that part of the tree are going to be a little tough to reach on schedule. Some further thought may be needed.

[williams482]

Some additional tidbits from finishing off this turns tracking data, most of them ultimately meaningless:

- Suboptimal was pulling in 2 faith pur turn up until t72, one turn before he conquered a city state. We can reasonable extrapolate that this was a religious city state.
- Ichabod's faith increased by 37 on t73 and 53 on t74. I have good reason to believe he completed a Holy Site on t73. He also completed his 11th civic at the beginning of t73, and his 12th on t74. It's possible (I would say unlikely) that his 11th civic was Theology, and with Work Ethic, Sacred Path, and presumably both Monumentality and some very strong Holy Sites, he should be running the +100% adjacency policy full time as soon as he can. Running with the above assumptions, that 16 point increase in faith represents the completion of one double-adjacency holy site, and doubled adjacencies on his two existing sites. Or, he just completed a +8 HS with the card already active, which is totally plausible for Sacred Path Brazil (four adjacent jungles). That seems more likely, as it's hard to imagine pulling in 37 faith per turn at this point in the game without almost all of it coming from Holy Site adjacency one way or another.
- Kaiser dropped a beaker per turn, after gaining one last turn. He added two empire score in each of the last two turns. The two ways I can think of to lose a full beaker are having a city with a strong campus drop to negative amenities, and building a settler in a Pingala city (such as, I presume, his shrouded capital). With that in mind, I think I'm going to ignore that northwestern barb camp for a bit and continue withdrawing the horseman towards Blackhawks/Ducks, just to get some more eyes and options on that contested area.
- Kaiser's milpower fell by 10 and 16 in the last two turns. No dead units, probably barb damage.
- Ichabod's milpower jumped 36. Dollars to donuts that's a horse.
- Woden's milpower jumped again, this time by 27. He's now at 373, 103 points on the next highest civ. Woden is a builder at heart, but he's also shown a bit of a chip on his shoulder about somewhat passive play in earlier PBEMs. He's also my pick to win the game at this stage given his lead in city count and powerful expansion abilities, and he is (I think) at 54/60 era points to renew Free Inquiry and maintain his strong tech pace. Is he fortifying his borders, or gearing up to invade a neighbor? We're probably too far for him to attack directly (if he even knows where we live), but still something to keep an eye on. A successful war would likely end the game, a failed one could drag some of the leaders back to our level.

[williams482]

Turn 75:

Turn wrapped around early, lets go. 

Foreign news: Suboptimal did capture a religious city state, Armagh. I know this because the game told me explicitly, once I thought to look. The city was renamed to Nora Batty, which does not appear on suboptimal's tradeable city list, although Bortus does appear on Kaiser's. Must be some kind of occupation thing. Phoenicia also captured La Venta this turn, renaming it LA VENTA. That city also does not appear in his trade screen.



Kings completes it's settler, and we experience a complication: Suboptimal's scout, who chanced upon the exact tile that Settler wanted to be on. Fortunately (and I do mean fortunately, I didn't plan for or even think about this possibility) we have a warrior in position to prevent any opportunistic captures. Those two will be moving en tandem for the foreseeable future, and I'll need to remember to have proper escorts available for the next four. 



Kings has expanded to claim the grass forest we didn't want, delightful. The one we did want is 10 turns out, too far out for our purposes. I consider purchasing the tile now, but opt to wait a bit, in the unlikely event that we anticipate a more pressing need for gold in the next two turns. 

More troublingly, Blues' settler is at 99/170. I expected 100/170. That's a tiny difference, not relevant on it's own, but it suggests that I've got a small error in exactly how much effective production per turn I'm getting in Blues (and presumably also Kings, if one of my formula is wrong). I'll keep watching this, and swap the rice to a one hammer tile a little early if necessary. This is the kind of thing I was worried about being lost on handoff, so I'm glad for the offer to continue a few extra turns until these fiddly little things are no longer critical. 

The southern horse heals for a turn, and will clear the camp with zero chance of an embarrassing demise next turn. The northern horse promotes (I take anti-ranged, nobody except barbs build spears). Vilnius is taking their shots at the camp, and the prospect of 50 gold is certainly attractive. I'll cross the river towards Devils next turn regardless, and decide how to proceed from there if the camp hasn't died yet. Astute readers may note that I've previously expressed plans to get this horse back home as fast as possible for various good reasons which have not changed. I guess we'll find out if I actually do that!



Kaiser has two archers and a warrior hanging out by the Saint Lawrence now. I get nervous and impulsively move my archer within a turn of Bruins' encampment. That eliminates the chance of Kaiser denouncing us and trapping the unit there for five straight turns, requiring a minimum of five strategically placed units, against which I could get the first strike. Thats... a fairly comical thing to worry about, and it sacrifices some relevant visibility on Kaiser's border. Oops. Also of note in this screenshot: Bortus has walls. 



The great people screen reveals that Ichabod did complete a new district, a campus. Kaiser had placed an Aqueduct in Kelly Grayson some time before I realized I could see placed districts from the trade screen; he could conceivably have finished that last turn, but I have no way to confirm and will assuming pop/buildings instead. Aqueducts are basically buildings anyway. 

Scores: 




- Kaiser build the aforementioned walls
- Ichabod got two empire score, which I will blindly assume to be pop/buildings 
- Woden adds 12 empire score (LA VENTA at pop 3 plus a Cothon?), a tech, and a civic
- Suboptimal adds two empire score (district?), a tech, and an era point

[williams482]

On further investigation of the reported production numbers, I believe that the amenities bonus/penalty is multiplicative, not additive, with other production modifiers. This is a pretty marginal difference under normal circumstances, but it does affect our micro here. I also goofed last turn and failed to reassign a tile at Kings. Fortunately that reassignment was non-critical, and will only cost us a low-impact 1.5 stored food at Kings.

Operation Corsi, revised:
t76:
- At Kings, reassign 1/2 forest to 4/0 rice
t77:
- Judgement call on Blues Commercial Hub forest. If you don't expect it to be claimed naturally by next turn, purchase from Blues and assign to Kings.
- Military Training should be at boost+1. Swap civics research to Feudalism.
t78:
- Bruins Encampment completes, boost and complete Military Training. All other civics stuff TBD, but do not swap off Colonization or Urban Planning until Operation Corsi is aborted or complete.
- Swap Discipline for Limes, start walls in Bruins. All other Bruins stuff TBD.
- Magus and Liang establish.
- Blues completes 170h settler, drops to pop 6, starts another one.
- Lost pop in Blues comes off the rice, swap from wines to 2/1 hill. Should be working horses, grass hill, 2x grass hill mine, 2x sheep.
- Purchase the Blues Commercial Hub forest from Blues if not already within borders.
- Make sure the tile is assigned to Kings, then chop for 85h.
t79:
- Kings completes 200h settler, drops to pop 3, starts another one. Still working max production tiles: horse, PFH, plains mine.
- Start moving builder towards plains forest 1NW of Kings with the Aqueduct pin.
- Switch Civics research to Theology, should be six turns to complete.
t80:
- Apprenticeship completes, next tech TBD.
t81: nothing of note
t82:
- Blues grows back to pop 7. New citizen picks up 3/0/3 wines.
- Reassign chopped grass tile with Commercial Hub pin to Blues and place a Commercial Hub, but continue production on settler.
- Builder reaches Kings Aqueduct forest.
t83:
- Kings grows to pop 4, new citizen works 4/0 rice.
- Builder chops Aqueduct forest into Kings for 85h.
- Magus may now move elsewhere as appropriate.
- Make sure Theology is still two turns out, and switch to another civic for a turn if necessary
t84:
- Kings completes 230h settler, drops to pop 3. Next build TBD, reassign tiles as appropriate.
t85:
- Blues completes 260h settler, drops to pop 6. Next build TBD, reassign tiles as appropriate.

[williams482]

Turn 76:

Ichabod joins in on the exclusively non-Canadian fun, steamrolling Hattusa:



Kings swaps from the plains forest to the rice, as planned. The Wild settler advances with escort in tow, and the freshly healed northern horseman crosses the river towards home. Nothing of interest appears along the Saint Lawrence, although Kaiser has now occupied the tile I abandoned last turn. A settler in the near future would not be a surprise. 



The southern horse clears out the camp, earning 50g and two era score, plus a nice view of aurora borealis. Next turn, he'll take a quick jaunt back along the coast and heal up while keeping an eye on Blackhawks. 



Military Training is oh so close to being 60% complete (I can't be sure how close or even if it is, because whoever designed this interface apparently saw no reason to divulge that information), and Bruins is on track to finish it's Encampment next turn, one earlier than I had originally anticipated. That's perfect, because I can swap off Military Training to Feudalism now, boost it next turn, then switch back to complete with lots of overflow without affecting the value of the chop at Kings. I'll put Bruins' next turn into that monument, and start Walls for real the following turn once Limes is in. With boost-completing the civic next turn a possibility, I purchase the Commercial Hub forest from Blues for 85g and swap the tile to Kings. 

With Kaiser not looking especially aggressive and Walls due in roughly six turns at Bruins, I take a small gamble and move the Archer near Wild (now -9 loyalty, eek) towards Suboptimal's land. My plan is to take a longer look into his borders before occupying the Avalanche pin, which is the only visible fresh water tile that won't be invalidated by Wild. I consider this area No Man's Land, and I'll think about how best to send Suboptimal threatening messages if I see a settler approaching. 



The Great Person screen reveals that Suboptimal completed an encampment last turn, and Woden acquired a Holy Site in his conquests. Woden also saw a spike in faith the same turn he conquered LA VENTA, likely a pillaged Shrine. I'm expecting annother great prophet point from him in the near future. 

Scores:




- Kaiser settled a new city (Alara Kitan, north of Ed Mercer) and added an additional pop/building
- Ichabod added 11 empire points (that's his city state conquest, likely with a campus and four pop/buildings)
- Woden did nothing trackable
- Suboptimal added a pop/building, a civic, and and an era point

I'll admit, this wave of city state conquests is pretty demoralizing. Every other civ on the map has six cities, except for Woden who has eight. We have three, and I'm fighting as best I can to squeeze out another five in the next 20 turns while everyone else is plucking ripe fruit off incompetent AIs with whatever military they had lying around. While I'm doing that, other civs will be popping out a few more settlers of their own, building other critical infrastructure which we are sorely lacking, and/or mustering an army which could demolish whatever defenses we could cobble together to protect our overextended borders. 

Yeah, there's stuff we could have done better in the early game (although not much!) and we got a weak start compounded by some truly egregious barb luck, but man. Canada sucks.