[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Turn 155

Open the save to see that I am now allies with Canada. No shared unit visibility (that’s OK) but I’ve got +5CS against Egyptian units. Very nice. I also got the Electricity eureka with the completion of my third sea dog at Cleggy. Right-e-o. Non-Egyptian stuff first.

Truly has completed its pike & shot and starts a musketman. I’ll use this city to get out a few land units though I might build a University after the musket to repair my rate. Pike & shot heads down the road towards Howard. Nora Batty’s library is finished and the city starts a builder. It’ll take 11 turns and will be used for some junglemills and crab boats. Cleggy starts a spy, that’s due in two turns. Reposition some units and send the new sea dog west.

Down at Charly Burke there’s no sight of any Egyptian units. I move the courser NE:




Not going to pillage that niter just quite yet. I’d need the city’s defenses to be neutered and for that pike & shot to disappear. For the time being I’ll hang out behind the woods. Over at Marina I bring the knight back into my borders to heal. Upgrades in four turns. Up at the Isaac Coast:




Kaiser has started moving out his troops. I do have to wonder if he has a privateer lurking around up north. Maybe once I get the coast cleared out I’ll send a sea dog up to investigate. The immediate question is what can I kill? The armada can just about one-shot either of the field cannon that are outside Geneva’s borders – the damage range is 93.5 to 140.3 with a 116.9 average. However, I know how those rolls always work – I am the guy, after all, who needs a three or better on that d20 roll to win the combat and comes up 2 after bonuses.

Before moving any vessels in to shoot I move SEAWACS to the coast:




I pin their locations and move back out to the patrol position. Now to figure out what I’m going to do with naval movement. The challenge is getting everyone into position. I’d like to kill the two western field cannon (thus pinning the other one in Geneva) first. I come up with the following:




Ths issue here is the eastern sea dog – it will lose an MP once it moves out of admiral range and likely won’t be able to shoot. Same goes for the Armada. However, I believe a the frigate and one sea dog should be enough to kill the western field cannon. The question becomes what happens if I don’t kill the middle one with the armada? Well, he can’t sink a ship with the units he has and that one can’t move far enough to avoid being killed next turn. I start moving ships in. I first move up Magellan to the marker. That will provide continuous movement coverage for all the ships moving up. I move up the armada, frigate and western sea dog and open fire. Field cannon takes 98 damage. Frigate fires on the western field cannon for 56 damage. Sea dog follows up, unit dies. I decide the bring the eastern sea dog up and fire on the remaining uninjured field cannon and do 40 points of damage. Both of those units will die next turn as neither can get out of range of my ships. I suppose, theoretically, I could have retired Chola first for +3 CS but if I need to split my navy up for coastal shelling I’d rather have that option. Land units and Artemsia move up and rearrange. The status after the action:




I’ll be able to clear out all of these field cannon next turn but the musket should be able to retreat. Of course, if it hangs around in range I’ll try to kill it. Kaiser will be able to set up a defensive line at the same latitude as Isaac though it’d only be for ranged units – any melee unit that moved up to attack would get killed. The question will be breaking through that. The good news is that I’ll get all sorts of support bonuses while I’m landing. The ranged attacks from the city will be a bit of an issue but if I’m careful I should be able to get a couple Tortoise promotions out of it to slow things down. I’ll be +10CS vs units as well. As for the bombard he’s moving up it’s good against ships but crap against land units.

I also didn’t start this war just to show up and then back off. I’m all in here, unlike in PBEM 10 where I kept chickening out with my flock of knights. I’ll be making a landing and then attempting to take Isaac and/or inflict as much damage as possible in the process.

Ichabod grabbed Ana Nzinga this turn. Next general up is Gustavus Adolphus, who instantly creates a bombard unit with a promotion. Dunno if Kaiser will run some projects to grab that unit or if Woden will get there naturally first. I’m not about to attempt to grab him. Canada founded Capitals on the eastern shore of Lake Huron.

I checked the CO2 screen again and I’m adding 4 CO2 units per turn right now. Gotta get that a bit higher at some point.

[suboptimal]

As I randomly ponder things this morning there are a bunch considerations I need to take into account for this situation:

1) Thursday's patch will likely drop the anti-cav v melee malus from -10 to -5. The Tortoise promotion is also likely to drop to -5. The former makes pike & shot a viable, non-resource unit for attacks. The latter makes life a little more difficult at Isaac.
2) Given the hills around of Isaac it might be worth spending the time cycling a few (all?) of the muskets past Matterhorn for the ignore hills and +3CS in hills bonus. That'll let me get units around the city to attack while they move.
3) Truly can complete the Terracotta Army in 8 turns if I keep Craftsmen slotted (I was considering removing it to get Raid and Professional Army simultaneously). That'd let me get promotions on the invasion force and give the muskets Tortoise the easy way. These two delays would let me get the pike & shot at Marina and Foggy into the mix at Isaac.
4) If the armada can get its first promotion from land unit killing I can take the +7 vs. districts and use Artemsia for the +10 v districts. That'd make the unit CS 94 against districts with an admiral.
5) Alara Kitan might make for a better initial target if I get the armada promoted as above. The sea dogs can line up and fire at the city (I believe they remain invisible even if they've attacked or pillaged), the armada can come in for extra firepower to chunk down the walls 35-40 at a time and I can clean up with a caravel (for a raze). The same tactic applies at Geneva.
6) If Kaiser commits his land forces to defending Isaac before I land I could go land at Ed Mercer, though I'd likely lose a unit to city bombardment before it disembarks. What I really need to do is get Gordon Malloy defogged.
7) If the spy mission at Geneva is successful I believe the city defense will come down a bit.
8) I know you can upgrade units in a city-state when you're suzerain. Need to check if you can upgrade units while in an ally's territory.

[suboptimal]

Turn 156

Open the turn to find out my sea dog was attacked. It’s one that’s off the coast so I’ll assume that attacking causes it to be visible for a turn (it’s been a WHILE since I’ve used these units). The good news is that’s the unit with an available promotion. The other field cannon heal-promoted. A bit of an oddity, though. My armada is showing the tile west of the field cannon as an eligible target while the sea dog does not.




I’ll come back to this. The barbarian camp notificaiton is in the empty lands where Brazilian cities once stood.

Marina’s trader is done, start a builder. The trader can go to Penguins via Compo for 1611 or The Grey Havens for 161. I take the former. One knight is healed, the other three have a way to go. Move a horseman into Wild’s territory – it’s upgrade eligible. Nice. It moves back out to be polite. The healed knight and Boudica move into a gap between Marina and Wild. I’ll start moving everyone through once they’re healed up. Pike & shot make their way towards Howard to join the main fleet. Hildegard reaches Truly and transfers to Pearl. Looking at Truly I move the citizen from the 3 tile to the factory and I overwrite the marsh to build the Terracotta Army – 8 turns to complete.

Look around, nothing at sea. Troops at Charly Burke are on the move:




I cross the river then move NE along it. I’ll see what Kaiser does with his units next turn. Up at Isaac I move up SEAWACS for a look around:




The cuirassier has disappeared, as has the western musket. Pin everyone up. Caravel moves slightly west, finds nothing else, returns to its position. That tile the armada can target is confirmed empty. Armada and eastern sea dog swap places, sea dog kills the deadlined field cannon and Magellan earns 2 era score for the victory. (Nice). Frigate shoots the field cannon. Armada won’t be enough so I bring the injured sea dog over – it’ll be exposed to fire from Geneva but should survive (the sea dog coming west confirms there’s only a musket in the city) and I’ll either pillage-heal or promote heal (or both) next turn. It shoots and the armada cleans up. I get three era score for killing a veteran unit. Six more era score and I’ll have a normal age. Kaiser’s got the Great Scientist on the coast but can’t see any of my land units.

My plan here is to ferry muskets along the open corridor to Matterhorn. It’ll take two turns to get one unit promoted plus one beached, a third turn to swap. That process could take as long as 10-12 turns to do all the units; but I only need to to do three since the trailing two units can pick it up on the way to Issac. I start shuffling the muskets at sea to get the promotions started next turn. The delay also lets me complete the Terracotta Army for the Tortoise promotion and to get the cuirassiers into position south of the Encampment. I’ll move them up to siege the city from the south (and attack the bombard and any units around the city) as I land my forces.

I’m going to use the sea dog to coastal raid the Great Scientist out of the way. That’ll let me know if I can raid and move afterwards. If that is permitted (believe it is based on land pillaging) I’ll use that tactic against the coastline at Ed Mercer.

I’ve also been hit by the GUI bug:




I played my PBEM 20 turn and didn’t exit the game and look what happens. I’m at the end of turn so make my EoT save, exit and reload since I want to refer to the tech tree for costs. The Campus districts should net me a bit over 600 with Raid slotted, so that’s a bit over 8 turns of research.

I do make one final move and put the most injured knight into Marina to heal faster. I think the nearby catapult is going to get upgraded when the time comes and take part in harassing Geneva when I get around to it.

The Enlightenment will complete the turn after next. I think Craftsmen will disappear for a bit. It’ll cost me 10 at Cleggy, 6 at Truly and 5 at Compo. However, having Raid and Professional Army slotted together will be needed so I can start coastal raiding. I’ll also need to decide if I head for archaelogists or Nationalism next.

[suboptimal]

Turn 157

I will admit to considering turning the crossbows around towards home territory for the purposes of upgrading them to field cannon. However, I also realize that field cannon won’t be any better than the ships for ranged support, particularly if I’ve got cuirassiers coming through the back lines at the same time. The plan to upgrade the crossbows after taking Isaac still stands – obviously there will be no upgrades if I don’t take the city but if I don’t take the city I don’t need forward-deployed field cannon. I’ll delay to get some muskets upgraded at Matterhorn and the cuirassiers and en route pike & shot into position, then attack. Terracotta Army completing mid-attack will provide a ready source of promote-healing.

Open the save, the sea dog was attacked by Geneva and is at 48 health. Triple-A has moved one hex from the invasion force. Isaac is building out its Commercial Hub. Good. Hopefully it completes in the next few turns.

Spy is complete at Cleggy...Mildgyd reporting for duty. My first thought is “must be Welsh” and something in my head compels me to alt-Tab out, fire up the browser and check. Yep, it’s Welsh, but a corruption of a High German name Mildgyth. Mildgyth was a saint and daughter of Merewahl, king of Mercia. The roots of Mildgyth translate to kind/merciful/generous (Mild) and battle/fight/killing blow (gyth, from guntho) [source, name-doctor.com]. The more you know (graphic omitted). Agent Merciful Death heads to Geneva; five turns to establish. The fabricate scandal mission currently has a 50% chance of success. Those odds should rise when the Intelligence Agency completes in two turns. Cleggy starts a musket, three turns to complete though it’ll turn into four when I take out Craftsmen next turn. While I’m at the city I move the new citizen from the unimproved fish into the IZ as a specialist.

Southern caravels come out of their cities and head towards Nora Batty. Hildegard gets to the Holy Site at Pearl and retires, giving me 100 and +1. Pearl is now 7 population and the new citizen there is working the plains farm. The city will grow again in 5 more turns. I could barely be loyalty positive without a governor there. Knights of Marina still have a couple of turns to heal; I’ll upgrade them next turn. One pike & shot will embark from the coast near Howard next turn; the other will embark three turns from now.

Turning to my units near Canada I decide to send my scout up towards the north side of Bruins/west side of Wild for a peek ahead. I can’t actually move into the passes or the unit will die but I can check for pickets or Canadian units that would be in the way. With the courser I’ve got a new plan – Kaiser has only one copy of each of his luxuries and given his population, the fact he’s building Entertainment Cmplexes and the length of his war he might have some serious war weariness. His has incense (though not his only one) on Bortus’ outer borders, second ring in the desert. If he’s got no units there I could theoretically move in, pillage and move back out. I send the courser down the Canadian road network and will use that to outrun the musket & siege tower he’s bringing south. I’ll be in position in three turns. Talla Keyali is first ring incense near flat terrain, so a bit trickier, while John Lamarr’s is rough terrain. However, they also have accessible districts.

With that out of the way, SEAWACS moves up to check the lay of the land. He’s got a bombard on the Holy Site. That’s new. The good news is that they’re only at a 38 CS against land units and my muskets will be at 65 or better. He’s also got a cuirassier over on Ed Mercer’s Campus. That’s also new. It’s also about to die. I advance Chola to just outside Ed Mercer’s borders, then move the frigates and western sea dog into position. The sea dog reveals a musket stationed on Gordon Malloy’s Campus. The cuirassier dies and all three ships earn promotions. The musket will be slightly problematic as I can only get two ships into firing range and one of them would be subject to ranged attack from Ed Mercer. I consider that a solvable problem, though, and am willing to expose the armada since I have Artemsia for a promote-heal. I send the newest sea dog to the northwest side of the fleet to check for pirates and find none. The damaged sea dog moves west out of Geneva’s firing range and promotes. I take Loot for since I’ll be coastal pillaging. The unit is down two damage but there are farms and fishing boats if I need them.

First mustket moves ashore, second moves up to the coast to disembark next turn. The rest of the forces stay in place off the coast. SEAWACS moves back into patrol position. Next turn I’ll move the navy away from the coast, promote all three units and then deal with the musket or other land units that are in range. Total Egyptian casualties are three field cannon and one cuirassier (1320 replacement cost, 244 milpower).

Final positions:




I notice something interesting down at Bruins that I haven’t seen before:




The Encampment is pillaged but now has fully repaired walls.

While working up the scores I find something else out. Kaiser recruited a Great Person this past turn. That person was Leonardo Da Vinci. I go to the GP screen to see who is next in line for me and find this instead:




Guess it’s Mimar Sinan. That’s...useless and unfortunate. Since there were no other recruitments I have to assume that Ichabod wound up over the point total when Kasier grabbed Da Vinci and didn’t want Sinan. That means that Ichabod will get Brunelleschi and we’ll start working on the Industrial Era ones. Them’s the breaks. It is an era point, though, and I only need five more to make a normal age. It’s also an invincible scout. Sinan relocates to Howard and I’ll figure out what to do with him next turn.

[suboptimal]

Turn 158

Today’s fun fact of game wierdness as a result of random musings. I ran through a couple of calculations and determined that it’s cheaper to buy a catapult with and upgrade it to a bombard vs buying the bombard outright...by a factor of two. What that also means that if I want to build up a bombard squad the thing to do is have Cleggy build a catapult in two turns while I have no niter available and then upgrade it as soon as I have enough.

This edition of “open the save” is brought to you by “You Have Completed The Enlightenment”, “Your knowledge of Scientific Theory has advanced considerably”, “Woden has finished building the world wonder Colosseum”, two established governors, two amenities complaints, my frigate available for promotion, the letters “Z” and “G” and the number three. Have a look around, nothing much amiss.

Woden got Brunelleschi, up next is Gustav Eiffel for 545 points. Woden and I are both making 13 a turn though he’s 50 points ahead. I’ll need to make that gap up somehow. Ichabod is in the lead with 252/545 but he’s only pulling in 6 GEP per turn.

I have a civics change and policy change to make. Nationalism gets me another spy slot, a governor promotion, the ability to form corps and fleets and Grande Armee. Colonialism is +1 to fishing boats, 2 envoys and some policies I won’t use but puts me one step closer to Natural History. Neither is boosted though I could get the boost for Colonialism by researching Astronomy (which would currently be 8 turns from now). However, I want to do the Siege Tactics → Military Science line first. I’ll just hard research Colonialism. For policies it’s occurred to me that I should take out Naval Infrastructure – that’s only worth about 20 whereas Craftsmen is what’s got Cleggy getting stuff out in 2-3 turns instead of 3-5 turns. I make the policy switch, putting in Raid and Professional Army and taking out Naval Infrastructure and Press Gangs. Income drops to 95.6 per turn. I’ll get to upgrades in a second. I’m actually going to deal with Egypt first…

Down in Canada the courser continues heading for southern Bortus. That unit is now outside Canadian territory between The Blues and Blackhawks. I’ll turn north into the desert next turn the set up to start pillaging. I see I overlooked an incense at Talla Keyali. There are a total of four with two being relatively easy to pillage and one will require two river crossings to get to, which would likely cost me the unit. No farms to pillage-heal, either.

Up at the Isaac Coast the musket has (wisely) abandoned the Campus. I move SEAWACS down for a look:




All marked units are still behind their pins. Three sea dogs in the area, what to pillage? Well, Ed Mercer’s Campus has two buildings, so that’s three pillages. I believe they’ll all be around 124, give or take a couple. I’d move the sea dogs into position now but they wouldn’t have enough movement to get to the coast and pillage. I bring the other two down to the borders and use the one currently coastal to coastal raid the banana plantation. The northern one has a clear line of sight to Ed Mercer – Kaiser’s got a level 2 bombard there. The good news about that is that bombard promotions don’t target naval units until level 3. That sends the Great Scientist back to the closest city (Gordon Malloy) and reconfirms three things – can’t coastal raid a tile with a unit and coastal raiding uses up all remaining movement. That means everything will need to be done wolfpack style for raids. The good news is that there are a couple of fishing boats along the coast for healing, one of which is Kaiser’s only source of whales.

I back off and promote the two frigates, both taking the Bombardment promotion. I’ll keep Artemsia in reserve to heal the armada if need be. As it is I’d do about 25% damage to the walls at Isaac. Shame it’s not closer to the coast. In looking at possibilities for Geneva I think it might be possible to use a 2x promoted armada, the frigate and all three sea dogs (plus a bombard on land) to slowly wear away at Geneva’s walls, then take the city out. I could do that while the land forces work on Isaac. Speaking of the land forces, up the coast towards Geneva the first musket gets the Alpine Training upgrade and the second one comes ashore. They’ll swap positions and then I’ll bring a third one in for disembarkation. I send two crossbows back towards Howard for field cannon upgrades – that’ll be three more turns to upgrade and three more turns transit back. Everyone else up here chills out and SEAWACS gets out of the way.

Down at Marina the injured knights are 1 and 2 turns from being fully healed. I’ve come up with a new plan for these units when they upgrade to cuirassiers next turn. I’ve realized that going through the woods and jungle past the Encampment en route to Isaac would be repeating my tomfoolery of PBEM 17 and Pindicator. Instead, I’ve realized that they’d be more effective as the initial landing group – they could land, withstand the first round of ranged attacks from the city and then kill, or mostly kill, the bombards while the muskets and siege towers land. That would put the cuirassiers into position to besiege the city, though that exposes 1-2 units to a range fire sandwich. I send everything but the one in Marina proper northwards, first embarking the pike & shot at Howard to get it out of the way. That gets two knights into position to embark next turn and one the turn after. I’ll proceed to Isaac with three cuirassiers and trail with the fourth one after another turn of healing, with all upgrades performed at Howard. I do send the scout up to check out the area between Egypt and Canada north of Bruins, just to see if any Egyptian units are there. All clear.

Caravels in the south fogbust some more, finding nothing but some ice caps.

My immediate plans:

- Finish Ballistics, pillage out Ed Mercer’s Campus into Siege Tactics to get it to eureka + 1 and start researching Astronomy.
- Upgrade three knights at Howard and one at Marina, plus the catapult at Marina. That’ll let me 2-turn a catapult out of Cleggy for a bombard upgrade and the Siege Tactics eureka.
- Sinan and Boudica will head to Isaac. I’ll put them ashore near Isaac and see what I can scout out around Gordon Malloy before they get sent home.
- I’ll research Colonialism to inspiration + 1 then start Nationalism.
-Cleggy and Truly will finish their incomplete muskets after the catapult and Terracotta Army, respectively.
- The spy I get from Foggy needs somewhere to go. The immediate tempation is Wild but I want to run the Neutralize Governor mission there so that the mission ends 3-4 turns after the military alliance.

The World Congress meets after next turn. That should be...interesting. . I’ll actually have some diplomatic favor to toss around at this one.

[suboptimal]

Going through the patch notes. Looks like there are some changes that could have some pretty serious effects:

- Amenity thresholds abnd penalties for negative happiness are going back to where they were. Everyone with cities at -1 amenities just became displeased and lost yields. It also means that Kaiser might feel it more when I start pillaging his sole copies of luxuries I can get to.
- Going to find out who's got Rationalism running since the requirements are now 15 pop and 4 adjacency for those policies.
- The boost for Refining is now down to one coal plant, not two. Since I've already got one I wonder if I'll get the boost or not. It won't matter because Compo's coal plant will complete before I get that far in the tree.

I expect to see lower and numbers across the board. Woden completing the Colosseum migth be a big advantage (well, when isn't it) given the amenities changes.

[suboptimal]

Turn 159

Wherein we find out just how the patch affects this game. Amenities and yields from policies from The Enlightenment are all in play here. I know I’m taking a hit because many of my cities are at -1 amenity. So...how have yields been affected?

Myself: 92.7/89.9/95.6 to 87/84.6/72.7.
Ichabod: 116/60 to 116/60.
Woden: 121/119 to 113/113
Canada: 66/44 to 66/44
Egypt: 152/137 to 138/108.

I need seven amenities to get all my cities back up to content. Natural History gets me zoos in addition to archaeologists. A zoo at Howard and a zoo at Marina would take care of most of my issues, as would the arenas I’d need to build zoos. I could also have Auntie Wainwright build a Water Park on the Derwentwater Lake. In looking around there’s enough room in that lake for Truly to build Huey Teocalli in fifteen turns for three amenities. I might need to consider that option as well. I hope that the amenities chooser keeps Cleggy at full amenities – it did this turn. Of course, who knows how that’s going to go.

Ballistics is complete, Siege Tactics is queued up. I also got the inspiration for Class Struggle for completing Compo’s factory.

Foggy has completed the intelligence agency and Loefflaed has appeared in the capital. The building’s completion has raised the chance of the Fabricate Scandal success to 63%. I check the name and there’s no entry on name-doctor.com, so Loefflaed it is. Where to send them? Isaac – that’ll free up SEAWACS for duty elsewhere and give me full view of a three tile radius of the city. I’ll run a Listening Post mission while there to get improved diplomatic acccess (and +3 CS ).

I start a University in Foggy, Compo starts its coal plant. Marina’s builder is done in two turns and then it’ll start its arena. Howard finishes its museum in two turns and will also build its arena. One caravel south of Nora Batty returns to the city, the other completes the pole-to-pole picket line in the ocean. Everything else this turn deals with Egypt, directly or indirectly.

Up at Howard the pike and Sinan head west, crossbows come east. Three knights enter the city’s territory, the one at Marina goes north to the bananas and then all four upgrade. Next turn three cuirassiers and the second pike & shot will embark. Boudica heads for Smiler since there are some horses down there. Catapult at Marina moves into the city and upgrades. My plan to build a catapult has a flaw – there’s no option to do so, but I can build a swordsman no problem. I’ll complete the musketman and find something else to build (start a University?). I wonder if it checks resources at the start of a turn. I’ll check that next turn. If the catapult shows up I’ll put two turns into the Shipyard, upgrade the quadrireme and then get a catapult built. If not I’ll just build a bombard. Scout moves towards Geneva and I’ll probe its borders in a turn or two. Courser south of Bortus checks the city, there’s a musket on the incense and a pike & shot on the desert hill next to it. Continue east, find a pasture, quarry and Aqueduct at John Lamarr that are unguarded. I’d only be able to manuever for the quarry but that’s on a hill – I’d get shot at and damaged to much to risk it.

Up in the Tethys Ocean the disembarked muskets trade spots. Two down, three to go. I bring a musket down to the coastFor some reason those muskets can see the bombard on the Holy Site and the city center three tiles away (I couldn’t see them when the turn started). The builder has moved so I move the pin. Sea dogs and Chola move up on the coast to pillage. My original plan was to coastal raid the Campus three times. However, given the amenities situation I’m going to pillage the coffee and the Campus only twice. Whichever sea dog gets creamed will bug out and the other two will pillage what they can. I get 189 and 189 twice. That is much bigger than I was expecting. I’ll have to figure that number out later. NOT COMPLAINING! The pillaging also registered immediately on the diplomatic ribbon. Kaiser is down to 122 and I haven’t fully pillaged out the Campus – he had two specialists in there but they need to go elsewhere. I consolidate the land units at sea just to keep them clustered together.

My almost last task for the turn is governors – I’ve got an appointment to make. I take Liang and put her into Nora Batty. She’ll establish before that city’s builder completes and I’ll get an extra charge out of it. I’ve also got a policy change to make – forgot that completing a Government Plaza building gets you one of those. I’m almost tempted to remove Professional Army but I’ll keep it in – still got those returning crossbows to upgrade the turn after next, along with the quadrireme. The only policy I’d put in right now would be Naval Infrastructure for more cash. However, once the sea dogs are done at their current spot they’re going to regroup, pillage heal and then wolfpack the coastline at Alara Kitan – there’s two lumbermills that should get me a pretty sum of gold, along with at least one pillage of the Harbor (which would also terminate a trade route).

I take one pass through my cities, looking to see if there are any shifts I can make to slow pop growth. I move a citizen from the pasture to the Harbor at Auntie Wainwright, one from crabs to the factory at Compo and shuffle two at Pearl to slow that city down (I stop working the 71 tile). Everywhere else is already food (or housing) limited.

Next up: World Congress.

[Jabah]

If you were planning to pillage heavily the campus you could have slotted the district pillage card instead of (or on top of) the pillage improvements. (If that is available).

[suboptimal]

The policies used to be two separate ones - Raid (improvements) and Sack (districts). Those were consolidated in the February 2018 patch into one policy (Raid) and the bonus reduced to +50% from +100% with Gathering Storm (it remains at +100% for vanilla and R&F). I've got Raid slotted so am good to go there. My confusion on the totals is that I was expecting less than I actually got. After the turn I discovered that I hadn't updated my pillage formulas correctly.

[suboptimal]

Turn 159 – World Congress III




ORDER! ORDER! We shall now see what random skulduggery the game has inflicted upon us during the Turn 159 Interturn.




Looks like it’s a full plate of military selections.

For both of these I need to consider whether its better to vote in a manner that could head off an unfavorable outcome for me or do I vote attempting to get the best possible outcome for me? Then there’s Military Advisory – which unit class to target?

It’s likely, given the presence of three players with high generation, that the -50% discount for would be voted upon as they’re generating 80-90 per turn (Woden 90.8, Ichabod 77, Kaiser 89). I don’t think I’d be able to outvote that bloc on the resolution. Unlike prior votes, though, I actually gain some useful information by escaping out to the map – Ichabod has spent 150 Diplomatic Favor, according to the diplomatic ribbon:




That’s enough for five purchased votes.
I also see a problem – I’ve lost a musketman and I have another one standing in Egyptian territory. This makes no sense. My muskets should have been on the tile NE and E of that unit’s current position. WTF? I didn’t take any screenshots last turn so will need to check the EoT save, but that’s a major cockup. I did lose a sea dog, also to a field cannon. I’ll need to locate it before the sea dogs clear out. The musket has come out of Geneva, reducing the city’s defense by 10. I think that unit needs to die next turn and then I’ll consider attacking Geneva immediately.

Everyone else goes after me so they’d see my expenditures if they are also ducking out to take a look around. It would be reasonable to assume that option B will be passed and will be targeted. I’ll vote B with my free vote, taking as the yield type. If by some reason that’s what’s picked then Cleggy turns into a monster.

What about Military Advisor? Ranged attacks are my greatest threat and while the choice might affect ships it does nerf field cannon a bit. I vote -5 CS to ranged and put 6 purchased votes into that.

I submit my votes and load the EoT159 save:




How in the hell did that happen? Those units should have been 1NE and 1E of that position! I’ll embark the one in danger and disembark the next one up. Good thing I’m bringing pike & shot forward and have two muskets in the queue (one finishing at the start of my turn). I’ll either need to pay more attention to what’s going on down here or just do these one at a time.