[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Before getting to the turn proper I figured I’d expound a little bit on my prior response. Right now I’ve got six cities with two settlers out. Barring anyone else settling or taking additional cities in the next 5 turns that will tie me with Woden for the most cities (at 8). I feel that I should be spending the next 15-20 turns, if not longer, on improving what I’ve got and making it more effective, rather than adding to a pile of undeveloped cities. This is particularly true in light of my current and rates vs. those of my neighbors.

The current round of builders (two freebies and three built ones at Foggy, Cleggy & Nora Batty) will be it until Feudalism. They will get me most of the “immediate” remaining builder-related boosts. The two Feudalism prebuilds will give me two builders ready to go for additional improvements. For example, a 5-charge builder out of Cleggy would let me place a lumbermill, a pasture (for ore housing), chop out a jungle and marsh (for Truly’s planned Aqueduct and Cleggy’s planned Industrial Zone) and then maybe something else up that way. Foggy’s builder would mine a hill, lumbermill the forest and perhaps put down some banana plantations for added income (and eventually ). Once military engineers come on line I’ll likely use them for any harvesting/chopping needs and just use the more expensive builders for improvements.

I’m also keeping an eye on district discounts. That mechanism will start to kick in with the districts completing over the next 5-6 turns. I’ll be able to get 1-2 discounted Theater Squares up and running and by completing one I’ll be able to put down two discounted Industrial Zones – one at Compo and one at Truly, with Cleggy just straight building one. As always, the question is “where will they go?”. Howard will get one but I want to hold off on the second for a while since I don’t have district capacity in my cities. Mountain Silk will be getting one, it’s just a matter of whether it’s the city’s first or second district (though it wouldn’t have any adjacency bonuses).

Is my expansion phase over? No. I intend on having Foggy complete a settler timed with the completion of Military Engineering so that it’s available to do a resource-grab settlement if needed. I’ll likely do the same for Steam Power and the revelation of coal.

On to the turn…

Turn 75

Military Training is boosted and will complete next turn. Encampment at Truly is complete and I’ve gotten an era point from that. Irrigation is complete, start Engineering. First thing up is builder work. The ones at Truly and Howard reposition, the one at Foggy harvests the stone for 144roduction and heads into retirement. Settler will complete next turn. Truly starts the watermill and will build the barracks after that. Themistocles makes it back to Cleggy’s harbor. I’ll likely relocate him to Nora Batty next turn and use him to scout east of there while the galley continues healing. Settler at Compo sets out unescorted from Compo and will arrive at its location in three more turns.

Out in the west, Canada has brought their warrior up to the copper to say hello to my scout. I know that I won’t be meeting any new civs down here but I want to find out how Canada has the science and culture rates that it does. Forgot to look at the pantheon last turn but they’ve got God of the Open Sky, so there’s likely a few pastures around. Scout heads west, sees some borders to the south and finds Kings:




This does mean that taking out Yerevan would have resulted in immediate loyalty pressure and I would not have been able to hold the city. I also take a second look at the cities...check out Bruins on the loyalty lens:




What’s hidden by the dropdown is that the city is receiving pressure from three Egyptian cities to its west and northwest. That means I’m likely to find an Egyptian city if I continue west, rather than the Canadian capital. Need to make a scouting decision here as having Canada fully scouted would be useful. I think if the Yerevan archer moves out of the way I’ll go southeast. The loyalty lens also tells me that Yerevan is receiving pressure from three Canadian cities, further bolstering that layout.

It also means that I might want to reconsider my earlier statement about the settlers and put one out here. The wine hills SE of the horse might be a good spot as it would immediately apply pressure on Bruins. I think, though, that I’d wait for Feudalism to do that as I’d want to chop in a few population and a 5-charge builder would be the thing to use for that. Mountain Silk is 8 tiles away from Bruins. I think I may very well put the second discounted Theater District here to be built after the walls and Aqueduct are complete.

Internationally I see that Ichabod has started generating Great People points of the writer, artist and musician varieties so he’s got a Theater Square down. Missed that earlier (like 7 turns earlier). Looking at how the map is developing I have to wonder if CMF/Canada got themselves boxed out of their expansion zone by a forward settle by Kaiser.

[Alhambram]

Ah yes, you are right about Naval Tradition. It helps double science of RND's in free injuiry golden age period.

I argee that settling period is over for now and spend time improving tiles, construction and apprenticeship is around corner too. Though maybe put some pressure at Bruins...

Regarding science and culture of others: A easy way to get science in this period is to find two spots with 4 adjaceny for campus and run natural philosophy policy card for total of 16 per turn from two campuses.
That is sort of play that I think everyone is doing, we lacks such yields for campuses due few mountain ranges or two adjacent reefs.

And culturewise Canada is pulling off from pantheon and monuments which gives him small starting edge but we are catching up with them due having more cities and soon we should leave Canada behind with theaters.
Egypt at other hand got fairly good culture output, I still supsect a culture city state and maybe good suzerain power. Also Kaiser might have spammed some Sphinx's (if Kasier's faith output is decent, then probably Sphinx's).

Also you are about to get envoy, save it up, or use it to maintain suzerainity of Geneva, it gives us extra hard needed science and someone did put Amani in Geneva, likely attempt to claim suzerainity.
This does at one side make Geneva harder for us to capture if we desires but with Frigates it would be easy to take Geneva anyways. At other hand it serves now well as a barrier between us and more powerful Egypt.

[suboptimal]

This map has been very sparse on good Campus locations. There's nothing that's naturally +4 that I've seen (except maybe in Egyptian territory) and there are only two +3 locations southwest of Mountain silk - one nearby and one close to Yerevan. I don't know that we'd "need" Natural Philosophy - the two unfinished Campus districts (Cleggy & Truly) are +5, I'll be eventually be building out libraries at Foggy and Cleggy (+4 each) and when the Medieval starts I'll be getting 15 from the RNDs, doubled to 30 from Naval Infrastructure. If anything I'll run Natural Philosophy until I unlock that policy. I also have a Pingala promotion coming up in a few civics, that'll be worth 7-8 right out of the gate.

I'm guessing there's at least one city state somewhere south/west of my scout - whether the scout or galley finds it first remains to be seen. I've got two envoys in my pocket (one now and one from completing Military Tradition) and will hold those for future city-state meets. Canada is using Amani and has no envoys in Geneva. If I lose suzerainty I don't know that I need to get it back immediately. I'd rather use Diplomatic League to get 3 envoys into a second scientific city-state (or a commercial or cultural city-state) rather than fight over Geneva (for now).

I think Canada is (long-term) screwed. What I've seen so far is low-production and they can't take city-states to make up for it. As the second half of the medieval proceeds a consideration might be to invade. If their capital is coastal (doubtful but one can hope) that might open the door there.

Edit: There's a stone hill 2SE of the Mountain Silk location. If I harvest the stone and build a Campus on that hill it's a +3 adjacency - +1 for the mountain and +2 for a geothermal vent to the SE. That'd also give an initial Theater Square a +1 adjacency. I could also put an Entertainment Complex in the marsh to form a district triangle to get the Campus to +4.

[suboptimal]

Turn 76

Open the save to Military Training completing. The horseman at Compo is also complete, gaining me an era point for my first unit with a strategic resource. That horseman also boosted Mercenaries since it’s me eighth military land unit. I’ve also got a notification that an unmet city-state has bitten the dust and a quick check of the scores indicates that it was Woden or Ichabod. I’ve also got a notification that there’s a barbarian camp around. Where?




That...is a good opportunity. I can send Themistocles down to investigate, retire him to form a quadrireme and kill the spearman. That’ll let the warrior at Nory Batty clear the camp and get me the inspiration for Naval Tradition. Nice. It's also some era score. Even better.

I start Drama & Poetry, 6 turns to complete (the Mercenaries boost wiped out a good 13 of overflow. :smoke). Time for a new government. Leave Oligarchy for Autocracy and the new policies are Veterancy, Conscription, Urban Planning and Ilkum.

Foggy starts a builder, Compo starts its lighthouse. Settler at Foggy heads down the road and will turn east next turn. Other settler continues its trek towards Mountain Silk (more on that in a bit). Builder at Truly farms the rice and heads into retirement. I send the galley down the coast towards Yerevan. Themistocles rebases to Nora Batty and will get eyes on the barbarian camp next turn. The warrior is not yet healed but I send it in that direction now. I also send the galley out ahead – if it meets a quadrireme I’ll be able to earn a promotion.

Up at Howard the builder chops the first of two jungles. The RND is down to 5 turns and the city is at 2 population. The bad news is that I thought I had started a granary the turn after I founded the city. That messes up the overflow calculations a bit. The good news is that I’ve got options here. The first is to chop anyway, lose some overflow and then build the Granary. The second is to let the RND complete in five turns then chop the granary. That gets me a little extra yield from the chop. I could forgo housing and build out a discounted Theater Square. I’m going to go with door #2 – build the granary so I can get to 6 population easily, then build the Theater Square. I do bring the archer out to join the builder this turn since Geneva’s got a pile of stuff around and I don’t want a sneak levy by Kaiser.

With the horseman at Compo I have an interesting situation….observe:




The view on Settlervision:




Canada is trying to get a settler out, likely up to where that archer is positioned. Canada is also weak. The question becomes “do I attempt to take that settler by force?” The answer is no.

My scout can move back and block the fast route, getting me a turn of delay. I could also park on the jungle hill between the city borders and force them through Bruins. It’s 6 turns to the closest fresh water tile, 5 turns to the closest tile that could be settled. My shiny new horseman could get to the open plains SW of the hills wine in 5 turns but I couldn’t attack until Turn 82. By running interference with the scout I could, in theory, attempt to capture that settler using the horseman, scout and warrior, though the archer could be an issue. However, they could run up the other side of the river and still get to the location before I could take the settler. If I could surprise-declare this is a no brainer, but this is Canada and I can’t do that. However, by the time I could declare the settler would be adjacent to the city-site or, at a minimum, be able to settle on the spot it stands.

Besides, there’s another thing to consider here: loyalty pressure. By the time Canada settles Horse Hill the loyalty pressure from all surrounding population will be at least -10 on that tile. Running the loyalty pressure numbers he’ll need a governor in there until the city grows to 4 population. With no food improvements that will take 24 turns (so, Turn 107 if he settles Horse Hill). He'd be negative from the get-go but it'd be a slow drip for a while. Compo and Howard are close enough to provide a little bit of pressure and Marina would be doing the heavy lifting.

The turn of the age is where it gets very interesting. I’ll be in a Golden Age. Kaiser has gained 19 era score, so he’s likely got enough for a Normal Age and he’d need to get to 66 (if I’ve got the math right) to get a second Golden Age. Doable given his position in this game, but not guaranteed. Canada, OTOH, has got issues. Having ended the Ancient with 35 era score they are up to...39. They need to reach 51 in order to get a normal age. I don’t think that will happen. What are the consequences of a Canadian Dark Age? He'd lose the city, to me, in 12 turns with a governor, Limitanei and a monument. A promoted Victor in Bruins slows that to 20 turns. In fact, it's the same for a Normal Age. I wouldn't even need to build an Entertainment Complex and run Bread & Circuses projects. However, I will build that district in Marina first since if/when Horse Hill falls it'd be close enough to Bruins to cause issues there as well. It would also be a discounted build and could complete around Turn 107.

That’s why I’m going to sit tight. Canada won’t know I’ve settled Mountain Silk unless they’ve already defogged the area or they see the loyalty numbers change. I’ll be in a Golden Age when the era turns and should be in a position to do some non-aggressive conquering here. Canada is going to struggle to get a Golden Age and with their point totals where they are they might struggle to get a Normal Age. They will not hold a Horse Hill city without some serious (and likely crippling) hoop jumping. I will send the horseman over to say hello, though, and send it into the Ogaden Desert.

I send the scout southeast as planned and find a dead end – mountains plus Yerevan’s borders.

Canada has a Provision-promoted Magnus in Kings since the city didn’t lose any population. That leaves another governor (likely Pingala) in Bruins. Ichabod and Woden each gained at least one city to their counts. Without visibility I'm now just tracking empire scores rather than trying to determine the score breakout.

[suboptimal]

Turn 77

Foggy has grown, I put the new citizen to work on the sole remaining forest in the city’s boundaries. Nora Batty has rebuilt its monument, I start a builder there. Cleggy’s Campus is complete, netting me 3, the Recorded History boost and 4 era points for being “splendid” and a district. Five era points to go. Three will come from RND builds, two will come from that barbarian camp. I’ve got a couple of other sources to milk if need be.

I also have a notification that I’ve met Ichabod, along with a notification that he canceled a deal (and an era point). Where’d I meet him? Why, here:




OK, good to know that I can get to him by coastal routes. So, how bad are things? Well, not as bad as I feared. 43, 35, 232 milpower. The deal screen indicates he’s pulling in 27 and 56 per turn. , but he’s got no iron hooked up. His continent has spices, gypsum and marble. Nice to have some culture and gold generators there, but that’s fine. Nothing that can’t be surmounted. He may also get “stuck” in about four turns – Nora Batty’s borders extend to he ocean and he won’t be able to get by unless he’s researched Shipbuilding.

I move the various land units around. At Truly I bring the slinger south into the Encampment. I’ll be meeting the settler at the iron. The archer and builder at Howard retreat to the city center for a couple of turns. The scout in Canadian territory moves back to the northwest, briefly revealing the settler & warrior standing in the desert NW of the copper. Making my way to the north of Kings I also come across an Egyptian warrior.

At sea I move the western galley down to Yerevan. In the east a barbarian scout has made its presence known, so it’s likely not a naval camp. I move the galley ahead and don’t see any quadriremes. Themistocles moves out and I’ll move up and retire him next to the camp next turn. The galley will head back towards Iron Coast starting next turn – with the Brazilian galley in the area I need a seaborne builder escort and want to prevent any funny business with RND pillaging (though Compo will be exposed).

After thinking about the situaton some more I think that I should take Yerevan right as my Golden Age begins, provided that the city doesn’t build walls in the meantime. That should provide slight pressure on Horse Hill but bigger pressure on Bruins. I’ll be able to get out a couple of horsemen from Compo and/or Foggy (along with another archer) to boost my military and attack the city-state (three horsemen and a ship should do it just fine). I should also recruit Amani with the second Classical governor promotion to have available to park in a frontier city.

Nothing much internationally. Woden will recruit Gaius Dulius this turn (he’s at 59/60 right now). I’ll get the remaining admiral in another 7 turns, maybe a little quicker once Howard’s RND completes. Woden may have also captured a religious city-state – he started generating Great Prophet points last turn. Some good news is that Geneva’s galley turned back west a few turns ago and is now heading west of the city-state so I may get some free map info out of the unit.

[suboptimal]

Turn 78

I’ve lost suzerainty of Geneva as Kaiser has matched my envoy count. I stick to my guns and hold my envoys for the time being. The net cost to me is about 3.5 per turn. Ichabod has also come calling with a deal…




I take that a gesture of friendship and accept. That makes up a little bit for losing suzerainty since I regain a little science from having some happy cities.

Compo has grown in population. The city has reached its housing limit so for the time being I park the citizen on an open plains tile instead of one of the high-food tiles. I’ll rearrange that once the lighthouse completes and the city is ready to grow again. Over at Truly the watermill is close enough to completion where I can move a citizen from the flat jungle to one of the rice farms. That takes no time off the watermill but gets the city to 7 population a turn faster (2 turns instead of 3). Howard will grow in population next turn.

Settlers go on their merry way and are closer to their destinations. Mountain Silk will found next turn, Iron Coast the turn after that. Builder in Howard chills out. Slinger and horseman reposition and eastern galley starts to head for Iron Coast. Themistocles moves up to the barbarian camp and retires. Here’s something I didn’t realize:




Themistocles moved three tiles before retiring and the quadrirem gets an entirely new set of movement points. I do the reasonable thing and attack the barbarian camp. Warrior also closes the distance and will be camp-side in two more turns.

Out west the plot thickens a little bit:




There’s a land route to Brazil as well, though I don’t know if he and Kaiser have open borders (doubt it). Scout crosses the river and I see Egyptian borders peeking out of the fog to the west. I don’t know what city it is but will find that out next turn. At this point, though, I think Canada is in trouble. If I don’t turn into the Borg and start assimilating someone else might start conquering. Heck, if I conquer Yerevan with three horsemen I might have to continue and just take out Canada by force myself. Of course, that lacks a certain...subtlety.

My exploring galley has found nothing interesting except for the start of the southern tundra.

Ichabod has a settler out, his empire score just went down by 1. Kaiser landed a bunch of era points (5). Woden has his 19th tech. Wonder what his science rate is?

[suboptimal]

A bit late to the draw but I just found the CivFanatics thread reviewing the live stream of the patch coming out today....here's what seems to be landing today:

Government Plaza
- Foriegn Ministry now gives +3 diplomatic favor
- Grandmaster's Chapel now gives +5

Amenities

- now need -8 to have a city revolt, +5 to make a city ecstatic.
- Negative amenity penalties are "a bit harsher".
- Golf Courses now give 2 amenities
- Cities no longer grant a free amenity (ie Pop 1 & 2 cities now need an amenity)

Districts

- Theater Square now gets major (+1) adjacency bonus from Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks

There are going to be some immediate impacts to this. For starters, everyone in this game is going to find themselves with amenity problems on their next turn. I'm hooking up Silks in two turns and wines within the next ten so I won't be too bad off for now. Part of the issue will be finding out what the new unhappy penalties are. Entertainment Complexes might become a bit more useful.

Speaking of which, Entertainment Complex first at Mountain Silk is not looking so bad anymore. The Theater District I'd be building there would be a +2 once the district triangle is completed.

One other thing - cities with negative amenities have loyalty penalties. Oh, Canada!

The patch drops at noon ET so I'll have to look at the patch notes then to see what else is coming.

Post Patch Note Drop

OK, so here are the new amenity thresholds:

New city thresholds:

Ecstatic at 5+
Happy at 3 to 4
Content at -1 to 2
Displeased at -3 to -2
Unhappy at -5 to -4
Unrest at -7 to -6
Revolt at -8

o Negative amenities non-food yield decrease changes:

Displeased -10%, was -5%
Unhappy -20%, was -10%
Unrest -30% (stays the same)
Revolt -40%, was -60%

That's actually good for me because previously cities were penalized as soon as they hit negative amenities, now they can go to -1 with no issues.

[Alhambram]

If you are already having bit amenity problems after patch, improve wine at Compo? Also that trade with Ichabod came at right moment. Finally silks also incoming soon.
Hopefully that shall help us with flipping Canadian cities, good idea to build entertrainment plazas.

Good idea to use Themistocles this way! Naval Tradition shall come sooner that I thought.

We are still behind others in term of science and culture, next era can't come fast enough. Since others are seemingly teching fast, next era change might at turn 99 already (mininum 40 turns after last era change at turn 59).

[suboptimal]

Based on what I'm seeing in the patch notes I won't have any issues immediately. Mountain Silk is settling this turn and the silks will get a plantation around Turn 83. The wines will be hooked up on Turn 85. I'm not worried about amenities right now. An Entertainment Complex at Mountain Silk is going in for the flip and future Theater Square adjacency. I might build a second one in the capital region strictly for TS adjacency and because it'd be discounted.

With infrastructure builds coming up the gap in science & culture should start to close so I'm not too worried yet.

[suboptimal]

Turn 79

The patch has dropped. None of my cities were at negative amenities when my turn ended so I should be OK. I’ll also be hooking up two more amenities within the next 5-6 turns so I don’t foresee any issues there for the time being. Allowing a city to have -1 amenity and still be content will help, though, since I’ll be planting two cities over the next two turns and Cleggy will be going on a serious growth spurt once its lighthouse completes. It does mean, though, that a couple of my cities will drop out of being happy, so that’s something I need to account for. Of course, I open the save and Howard is complaning it lacks amenities and is at -2. :gripe:

Engineering is at eureka + 1 turn so I switch techs over to Iron Working. I expect walls to complete in Mountain Silk during Turn 86 so Engineering will complete the end of that turn. I will be able to get Iron Working to eureka + 1 turn and complete Construction in the meantime, so that’s good. I’ll finish off Engineering and Iron Working then run to Apprenticeship.

Speaking of Mountain Silk…




The city immediately starts walls and the builder and warrior (because of the Geneva warrior) move to the jungle to the NW. The builder will chop the jungle there next turn to grow the city to two population, then plantation the higher yield silk and harvest the flatland stone SE of the city. That harvest should complete the city’s walls and get me the Engineering eureka right as Construction completes. The founding of this city pushes my empire score higher than everyone but Woden (he’s at 97) though with two RNDs completing over the next two turns and a new city going down I should surpass him as well. Despite what’s going on in Canada (foreshadowing) I’m still going to proceed with the Entertainment Complex build here.

While I’m over here I move the horses west to the jungle and then once more to the open plains. No sign of the Canadian settler yet. Further west the Egyptian warrior has been joined by an archer. I move the scout west one tile...make that two archers. Kaiser has denounced Canada last turn as well. War can be declared on Kaiser's Turn 85 (I'll see it on my Turn 86). Bruins is in trouble, though it has completed its Encampment and is attempting to build walls (though it’s been showing that since I defogged the city).

The Egyptian city to the west is Bortus, the deal screen says it has 4 population and has a Commercial Hub placed. That could make taking an Egyptian Bruins by loyalty a bit trickier. The scout contnues southwest to scout out the Canada-Egypt frontier. To the south my scouting galley finds the passage around the southern end and enters.

Back in the central region the settler and slinger move to the Iron Coast site for city founding next turn. I’ll stone harvest the RND into existence next turn as well. The galley coming back up for builder escort is now two turns out. That leaves Themistocles and the warrior. Another 25 damage on the spearman, two turns to kill it and clear the camp. Which is a good thing because the scout has just alerted on my city borders.

Looks like everyone else lost a point or two of and yield. Nothing else noteworthy.

A decision for me next turn will be whether to denounce Canada as well. My thinking here is that if it looks like Egypt may take Bruins I might want to try to snipe the city with the horseman and raze it. I won’t be able to hold it from a loyalty perspective and Egypt having it doesn’t do me any favors in this region. It might also let me locate and snag that settler if I do declare war. It’s going to come down to whether or not Canada can get walls in (and muster its meager military) before Egypt can take the city.