[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Turn 176

The Great Library has completed. Three era score, some extra , extra scientist and writer points and a free eureka anytime anyone else recruits a great scientist. More importantly my golden age is secured. I also completed a trade route and that nets me another era score. In another bit of good news Ichabod has accepted my trade offer. Now it’s Foggy, Cleggy and Compo that are displeased. I hope to change that shortly.

Apostle heads for Cleggy and has enough movement left to spend a charge. Three citizens converted, three to go. I’ll likely need the remaining charges from the apostle and at least one from a missionary. Both missionaries at Marina spend a charge and the city converts. Marina now has an extra amenity that I need to see if I can convince the game to move this turn. Missionaries move within conversion range at Compo. Pearl’s missionaries embark – it’ll be faster to get to Compo by sea than by land.

Builders position for their next junglemills. There are a couple of third ring jungles west of Foggy & south of Howard, both are currently controlled by Foggy. The builder at Howard will get those milled up and then I’ll decide how to split them up. The builder at Compo heads for Marina – there’s a forest that I can lumbermill. Land units at Marina continue pushing southwest. Cuirassiers are in position and I’ll use one to monitor Charly Burke while the cavalry heal up. Speaking of which the lone cavalry not healing in Canadian territory moves into Blackhawks’ territory to heal. I also bring both of the remaining picket caravels towards their nearest cities. I’ll have enough to upgrade all six with room to spare. Only SEAWACS is going to stay as a caravel so that I can take advantage of its high movement rate.

Now for that trade route. The trader is at Howard and has many many options. The only Phoenician option is The Gray Havens, which has only a Cothon. That’d be worth +3 once the age rolls, but it’s actually a net -1 when I take out Triangular Trade. Penguins is the better option. That route is worth 1612 now but it’s got three completed districts. The route’s income will rise to 21 or so. Trader heads there.

What to do about builds? Well, my options at Foggy are walls, units or a district. I don’t see a shipyard being as useful here as at other cities. I could build Ancient Walls in two turns but is that necessary right now? No, not really. However, the defense bonus from walls carries through once Steel completes and I can build two levels of walls in eight turns. Walls it is. At Cleggy I’ll put 2-3 turns into the university and then get out another quadrireme. The newly built one moves to Howard and will upgrade there. Marina’s archaeological museum is complete. Four turns until I start working on the zoo. That’s four turns I can put into the Campus.

That leaves the northern Egyptian theater. Triple-A is banished to Isaac once more. Sinan moves to the coast. Agent Merciful Death’s view at Alara Kitan:




Builder in position. Wonder if it’s going to repair the whale boats? Dunno if it’s cumulative but I start a Listening Post mission here. I quickly check the coast further south, nothing new there. I reposition the sea dog a bit to the north and bring the frigates up in this direction. If the builder moves out to repair the whale boats I’ll capture it and retreat.

Kaiser got into battle somewhere – he lost 40 milpower last turn. Look at the Great People situation; Ichabod is earning 11 GAP – guess he’s built a lot of Theater Squares as well. I made 9 last turn but will be making 11 next turn (1 each from the new museum and the Great Library). That should hold him off. I’ve got the first writer locked up and I’ll recruit in four turns. That’ll add to the pressure at Kings and make the city fall faster. Canada is racing for era score – they’re up to 99. DO NOT GET FIVE MORE IN THE NEXT THREE TURNS! However, in running the numbers Wild and Bruins would still flip if Canada was in a normal age, it’d just take a little longer.

Looking a little ahead to the diplomatic situation my current treaties expire as follows:

- DoF with Brazil – ends start of my Turn 181
- DoF with Phoenicia – ends start of Phoenicia Turn 183
- Military Alliance with Canada – ends start of Canada Turn 185

I’ll be curious to see who renews and who declines. I think I’ll take the initiative with Woden since he’s the greatest threat to me (still) because of his naval presence. The timing with Canada will be a bit awkward. Bruins is calculated to fall at the start of my Turn 185. Wild will likely be rebelling on my Turn 187 and once that happens the flip countdown starts at Kings. The next 10 turns will be interesting, for sure.

[suboptimal]

Turn 177

What I need now is three quiet turns of shuffling units and Canada not getting era score. The only notificaiton was Loefflaed completing the Listening Post mission in Isaac. He starts another one to pass the time. I also see that Triple-A has remained in Isaac. I guess he’s given up with that idea. The military engineer has moved to the city center at Alara Kitan. He can use that unit to repair the whale boats since engineers cannot be captured – they teleport to the nearest city. I’ll come back up here in a bit.

First of three apostle charges goes into Cleggy. That first charge brings the city up to five citizens following. This might only take two charges (nah….). I also see that Cleggy is no longer displeased – only Foggy and Nora Batty remain in that condition. First two charges go into Compo, four followers out of the five that I need to convert. Seaborne missionaries head east from Pearl. Junglemills go in at Howard and Auntie Wainwright and the builder at Marina treks towards the woods.

Land forces continue their migration. Take a peek with a cuirassiers, see nothing. Cavalry are peacefully resting.

Back up in the Tethys Ocean I bring Sinan ashore at Barry. I’ll make a run along the coast and stop on the Industrial Zone next turn and see what happens. I set up the boats to position for a Harbor pillage next turn. I leave the backup three hexes east of the sea dog:




While getting into position I let SEAWACS wander a bit and spot a 2-promoted Phoenician caravel by the ice on the NW fish.

Canada hasn’t gotten any era score (or any score at all) last turn. I earned a tourist with Phoenicia and will pick up one each with the others next turn. I don’t expect a culture victory to be possible. We’re all (except Canada) accumulating at least 1 domestic tourist per turn (100 = 1 domestic tourist) and you need to accumulate 1000 tourism with an opponent to get one foreign tourist.

Woden is pushing for Eiffel – he just generated 61 GEP on his last turn. Egypt generated 70. They’ve each run a project. Eiffel is the first Industrial Age engineer. The others are James Watt (instantly build a workshop & factory, factories provide +2) or Ada Lovelace (triggers eureka for Computers, lets the city build one more district than the population limit). I would find both of these useful. I know that the production bonuses with James Watt don’t stack (tried that in a test game a loooooong time ago) but I do wonder if Ada Lovelace would trigger a random eureka on her second charge. Even if I slammed out two projects I would not be in position to grab Eiffel, so Woden gets that one. I think if the next one is Lovelace I’ll jack out a quick project at Cleggy to overtake Kaiser (unless he completes another one). However, Kaiser is also making way more points than I am at present so that might not be viable, either. I know for sure that the project fireworks will probably start when Tesla shows up.

[suboptimal]

Turn 178

In one more turn I get to make my usual cliched turn of age statement and start assimilating Canadian cities. No notifications to star the turn. Take a quick look at the Great People screen and Ichabod poached Eiffel with a faith purchase. Kaiser just completed what looks to be 2-3 more projects as he generated 118 GEP last turn. James Watt is up next, Ada Lovelace will follow and I’ll be left fighting for whichever modern GE shows up first. Take a look around the map and away I go.

Drop an apostle charge into Cleggy and the city converts. One charge remaining and I’ll put that into Truly next turn. One missionary charge into Compo, it also converts. Remaining missionary heads for Truly. All my cities should be content next turn, just in time for assimilation to start consuming amenities. I do earn the boost for Reformed Church, which gives me a three-turn leaf civic for a quick policy change if I need it. Other missionaries head for Auntie Wainwright en route to Truly. Continue shuttling land units towards Canada – I’ve got four muskets and pike & shot and a field cannon at Wild along with a field cannon at Marina. Builders reposition. Picket caravels have returned to port or are close enough to upgrade the turn after next.

Truly’s Coal Plant is complete. I had queued up walls, the university and the library but with the disappearance of Eiffel to Ichabod I think I’m going to attempt a wonder build here. My options are Chichen Itza, Alhambra and Huey Teocalli. I start Chichen Itza on the flat jungle to the southwest. It’ll take 10 turns to complete. I also swap over a junglemill from Auntie Wainwright. That brings the build time down to 9 turns. It’d be worth 510 if I complete it. After that I’ll get the infrastructure builds and then consider one of the other two wonders. Another consideration up here is that Cleggy acquired the 6 tile at Mount Kilimanjaro. If I swapped that over to Truly and put both IZ specialists to work I could grow the city to 13 population in 8 turns. That gets me another district slot. I may also want to push Cleggy up to 13 population as well as get Compo up to 10. That’ll give me an empty district slot in my three high cities.

Foggy and Howard have also completed their builds. I want to start a zoo in Howard in two turns but there aren’t any really quick builds. I’ll put two turns into a builder and then start the Zoo. That prebuild will let me get any reachable oil online faster. At Foggy I’ve got a couple of options. I suppose a theater square is an option but I’d like to keep my district options open here. Huey Teocalli would take 20 turns to complete. I swap a few lake tiles around and start Huey Teocalli in the third ring adjacent to Auntie Wainwright’s soon-to-be-completed Theater Square. The question then becomes whether to magnuschop out the jungles with the builder or just lumbermill them and wait. The chops would take 4.5 turns off the build (162) and put another amenity-consuming population into Foggy. Hmmm...I’ll lumbermill and take the slow route. If I get fail-production I’ll put it into something else (shipyard, medieval walls or a unit).

Two cavalry are completely healed up. I send them out for some scouting. The musket on the silk at Bortus is now a musket corps. I think next turn I’m going to check out John Lamarr and if I don’t see anything significant I’ll make an east-to-west push through the city, pillage what I can and then leave via the western road. I’ll then either heal up or go around Venice by sea and heal in Canadian territory (if we’re still allies, that it) I suppose the alternative would be to transit them to Barry and then run a jailbreak operation on Geneva.

Up north Sinan makes a run for it and stops on the Industrial Zone. I could move further down the coast but that doesn’t get me any new information. I’d like to get to a hill with visibility to Gordon Malloy to get the city center defogged for future espionage purposes. At sea I move Chola over to the sea dog’s position and then pillage the harbor and move back out. Chola retreats east two tiles. That makes the sea dog visible to the ironclad. He’ll see I’ve got an admiral in the area and would be able to do about 67 damage if he attacked, taking only 13 in the process. However, I’d be able to redline or kill the unit outright with the frigates and if he didn’t die in the process I’d be able to use the sea dog to try to capture. We shall see.

Rifling is down to two turns, that’ll be pretty much complete or almost so after the age rolls. I’ll keep working it. I’ll roll all the overflow from Rifling and Steam Power into Refining. I want battleships and to see where oil is before artillery and urban defenses. Likewise I’ll switch over to Natural History next turn, complete that and resume a slightly cheaper Nationalism.

Looking at the gossip Ichabod has two cavalry making a mess of Woden’s infrastructure. A plantation, mine, market and Commercial Hub all bit the dust over the past two turns. Canada got three era score last turn. Can they get three more this turn? I hope not.

Hmmm...another wall of words. Here’s a closing picture for you:




VICTORY SHALL BE MINE (in 141 turns).

[suboptimal]

I CAST WALL OF TEXT!
Lurker, roll saving throw vs. spells
[u]I rolled a 1[/i]
You have to read the whole post...*chortles heartily*



Plans for the Industrial

The Industrial Age is going to be a busy one. This one should also last for forty turns and get us through Turn 219. So...what’s the plan?

Canada

There are many ways this particular cookie can crumble. It all depends on whether or not Canada got three era score on their Turn 178 and avoid a dark age. A dark age has me in possession of three of their largest cities in about 15 turns. A normal age has me in possession of two of them in the same period of time. The question then becomes what about the rest of their empire?

For starters there are the walls. The four cities with direct exposure to the Egyptian front have Renaissance Walls, so 300 fortification damage and impervious to siege towers and battering rams. Wild has Medieval Walls, which I don’t care about because the city will flip. Penguins has ancient walls which should be trivial to get through for, say, a couple of battleships. The Blues cannot be loyalty flipped unless I can grab a few of the southern cities and get a Theater Square filled with great works in one of them. Therefore I’d need to take the city by force and that would require bombards, preferably artillery (which need oil) and some more land units in the area. That’s a bit of the ways off.

Canadian forces that I can see currently total four 1-promoted crossbows, two swordsmen, one pikeman, two 1-promoted coursers, one horseman, a knight and a 1-promoted musket, plus an embarked warrior somewhere off my east coast. That’s 546 out of 776 visible, so he’s got another 4-5 units in the fog that I can’t see right now, including either a galley or a caravel (he’s got Cartography completed). Canada has two niter that I can see but only one (at Penguins) is currently hooked up. There are also two coal, both mined, but he hasn’t completed Industrialization yet based upon their yields (only 4).

The bigger sticking point for me regarding violence is my economy. Right now I’m getting 127.9 7 9 and 5 from my trade routes to Canada. Some of those numbers will move around when I take out Triangular Trade and Reform the Coinage goes active next turn. Theoretically I can relocate most or all of those routes to Phoenicia without too much trouble.

Regardless of what age they get I think my approach needs to be to apply maximum cultural pressure to their cities and consolidate those that flip to me during the next age. I’d like to be in a position to begin a war of conquest as the Industrial Age is winding down (ie 30 turns after renewal of a DoF or alliance).

Once Bruins falls my objective will be to get a Theater Square plus buildings built there as soon as possible. That would let me move great works over from Smiler to keep up the pressure on surrounding cities. Wild is a safer city to do that in but it only reaches two cities. Bruins would reach seven cities. One of the issues I have with Canada’s territory is that many of the cities have no district slots. There is a Theater Square down at Blackhawks, though, so that might be useful if I ever took that city.

Egypt

This is the game’s current leader and a tough nut to crack. He’s tops in and yields right now and that’s a problem. The good news is that he appears to be militarily stretched thin. Yes, he did show a bunch of units that he could bring to the defense of Isaac. However, he’s unable (or unwilling) to launch a counteroffensive, most likely because he needs to remain vigiliant to a Phoenician attack.

Along the entire Canadian front Kaiser has established a good defensive position. Bortus and Charly Burke are vulnerable as they’re on the “wrong” side of the river. Along the Tethys Ocean all of his cities are at least two tiles off the coast (except for Alara Kitan) and have limited visibility. At first glance this seems like an impenetrable position. However, the same tactic I used in PBEM 10 against Rowain’s coastal cities should work here – spies plus battleships. Battleships only need visibility of their target; what they don’t need is direct visibility. Around the time I complete Refining I should also be getting Bouboulina and have at least four frigates (one armada + three regulars) awaiting upgrades in the northern ocean.

The plan of attack would be to use the battleships’ range to try to take out the coastal units south of Ed Mercer and then launch a new raid on Isaac. The navy would take down the walls and then I’d go in with the cuirassiers to take the city. Anything that tried to move along the coast would be subject to bombardment. Alara Kitan and Ed Mercer would fall in a similar manner. This is why it’s important to eventually defog Gordon Malloy. If I can get a spy in there for visibility I could have three battleships shelling the city’s defenses.

I don’t intend to take and hold Ed Mercer or Alara Kitan. Loyalty pressure is just too strong to do so. However, I’d take a page out of Woden’s book and let the cities flip free before taking them down again. The entire purpose of this would be to bring Kaiser back to the pack. However, I might consider razing Gordon Malloy. It’d depend on how many other cities are around to provide loyalty pressure.

What of Charly Burke and Bortus? Well, Charly Burke needs to go at some point. I’ll likely park my bombard in Bruins’ Encampment and start shelling the city for laughs and XP. I’m sure Kaiser will continue to do the same (actually, I’m not sure why he stopped). If Bortus is, as I suspect, a city-state I’d look to eventually liberate it. The bonus envoys I’d get would give me a big jump on suzerainty.

While waiting for battleships to arrive, however, I’ll continue to probe and harass his border areas with my cavalry.

Phoenicia

Woden is the strong #2 in this game. However, he’s bogged down in a war with Ichabod for a good long time now. I think it’s largely devolved to pillaging, border skirmishes and Woden using his navy to terrorize whatever it can shoot. It’s been a while since any cities have changed hands or milpower has gone up or down significantly. Over the past 10-15 turns milpower has gone up but it’d been in drips and drabs so I’m assuming that’s upgrades.

Woden is in the same position as Kaiser – vulnerable to a two front war, warring with someone on one of his borders and unable to do anything concrete about their main competitor. A bit of a stalemate. I suppose that if I started taking out Alara Kitan and Ed Mercer that might spur Woden to action but I don’t know that he’d have the military to support any prolonged action. Woden is also the one I have the least visibility on in terms of their inland cities.

My primary concern with Woden is his navy. He’s got a number of frigates and he’s not afraid to use them. He doesn’t have Steel yet but I don’t know if he has Refining. I don’t see any odd yields in his territory indicating oil but he has advanced to that column of the tech tree. My current belief is that his navy is smaller than mine by a significant margin and that if I’m careful enough I’ll be able to prevent or defend against any attacks he might attempt. To that end I’ll be upgrading all of my caravels to ironclads as soon as Steam Power completes.

Do I intend on slowing him down any right now? No, mainly because I think I’ll be able to catch him, particularly after I start assimilating Canada. That might spur him to action, so I’ll need to be ready just in case.

Brazil

Of all of my opponents this is the one that puzzles me. Ichabod broke out to an early lead and then seemed to fall apart a little bit. I don’t know if Woden caught him out of position while he was fighting Egypt or if the coastal raids and loss of those cities was a much bigger blow than I’m currently aware of. He’s not a major concern to me because I think he’s got bigger problems to deal with.

My only concern with Brazil is that he’s making a play for great works. His artist point count is equal to mine and I have a small edge on writer points. We both have four Theater Squares built though I think he doesn’t have capacity for any more. I’ve got at least three more in the pipeline, which should give me a nice edge.

Navy

The plan here is simple – upgrade everything as soon as possible and terrorize the Egyptian coast. Eventually Canada might find itself on the receiving end of my southern forces but that would be a ways off. I’m going to build another quadrireme or two at Cleggy while I wait for the World Congress resolution to expire, then get out a few sea dogs. I’d like one or two to head east to check out that coastline and keep tabs on Woden’s navy. Once the upgrades are complete I’ll likely retire Rajendra Chola – without Medieval or Renaissance units around his retirement benefit (+3 CS) is more useful than keeping him around. Compo can’t get out any quadriremes before niter accumulates so I’ll likely just build a battleship or two once Refining is complete.

Army

Once the World Congress resolution expires I’d like to get out a few more cavalry units and a few bombards and field cannon. Niter will be an issue, though, so I might just have to get a settler out to the River Avon for a resource grab. In that case I’d be tempted to settle on the lake and not the river in order to keep population growth to a minimum. I’ll want to get a pile of units into the Bruins area both as a deterrent against any land-based action by Egypt and as a potential invasion force for either Egypt (Charly Burke) or Canada. Once I’m more modernized I’ll likely use El Cid to create a corps, most likely a field cannon or bombard corps at Bruins.

infrastructure

I’ll address the wonders first. Yes, I’m going a bit “wonder-crazy” of late. The wonders built so far were for era score to enable me to get the golden age. The three wonders I’m currently targeting all have empire-wide effects that will be of some benefit. Huey Teocalli and Alhambra both provide amenities while Chichen Itza gives a good slug of and a nice boost to boot. I’d like to get all three but I don’t know if Ichabod will use Eiffel to build any of them himself. Likewise, the completion of the Colossus gives me a trade route to keep my income strong.

For buildings and districts I’m running out of things to build. Auntie Wainwright is going to completely build out a water park once the Theater Square is complete. That’ll take 30 turns at current production rates but I might swap back a junglemill or two from Truly once (if) Chichen Itza completes. Howard and Marina will be building zoos for amenities, that’s going to take 14 and 11 turns, respectively. Both cities will start archaeologists after the zoos complete but at 400 those will also take some time to complete. Compo has yet to build a museum but I’m inclined to make that an art museum. I’ll wait until I need space to make that decision.

Cleggy is also a puzzle piece. I’ll be completing the university next turn and then putting turns into the Theater Square buildout between quadriremes and other units. I’d like to get an archaeological museum in here because the city will be able to crank out an archaeologist in five turns and three artifacts with Pingala would generate a pile of culture.

Pearl will work on its Entertainment Center builds once the trader is complete. I don’t think I’ll continue on the Medieval Walls so that’s a sunk cost of 87. Smiler is a bit stuck – it’s slowly growing (pop 6 in 17 turns) and will get its Campus built out once its museum is complete. In the small cities that leaves Nora Batty. Its university will be complete in 7 turns, then what? I could build a shipyard – that’d take 21 turns and give the city some extra (7 based on currently worked tiles). A Water Park would be marginally redundant over here, though the district and the ferris wheel would provide another two amenities. I might get out a builder or two for oil or other improvements as that’s the only thing, other than projects or perhaps another district, that can be built in a reasonable time frame.

Truly is not going to go straight into Alhambra once Chichen Itza completes. When the WC resolution expires I’m going to crank out a few military engineers and get a railroad built from Truly to Wild. If I complete Chichen Itza then Truly would be able to spit out one engineer per turn. I’ll do that for four turns and then build Alhambra.

In the counting chickens department I’d look to get Wild’s Industrial Zone fully built out with a coal plant as that would provide a boost to Smiler, Bruins and Barry. I’d be building out a Theater Square and military academy in Bruins.

Tech Path

I’m going to complete Rifling and Steam Power, putting overflow from both into Refining. After that it’s Steel and then either Combustion (though I need to extract an artifact first) and backtrack to fill in a bunch of techs I skipped. Despite my progress in the tree I haven’t completed Banking, Astronomy or Scientific Theory and I need all those to get to Flight. Of course, I might also detour for Electricity since the only prerequisite for that is Steam Power.

Of course, if I didn’t need the military might from Refining & Steel I’d just beeline Chemistry – I’m currently 49 turns from completing it on a beeline. That tech, though, would let me catch up with everyone else on as the research lab would give me +12 instead of just +8.

Civics and Policies

Finish Natural History and Nationalism are first up. After that I’ll likely grab Scorched Earth before backfilling Civil Engineering and Urbanization. From there I’d head for Mobilization and then for a Tier 3 government (likely Democracy). I expect my cultural yield to start to skyrocket once I get some museums filled. I’m going to time Nationalism to complete simultaneously with Refining. If I need to stall it any I’ll put those turns into Civil Engineering or Reformed Church.

When Natural History completes I’ll upgrade as many units as possible then take out Professional Army. Whether or not I take out Triangular Trade and what policies I slot depends on Canada. If they have a dark age then Triangular Trade comes out and Aesthetics and Liberalism go in. If they have a normal age then I’ll leave Triangular Trade and just put in Aesthetics. I’ll want to get Professional Army back in once Refining completes so I can upgrade my frigates, so that will likely go in when Nationalism completes.

[suboptimal]

Turn 179

The Renaissance is dead! Long live the Renaissance! The big question is what is Canada’s status for this age?




:gripe: They got a normal age, Egypt got a golden age and the West Side is in a dark age. Canada only has 103 era score so my calculations were off. No matter. The Egyptian golden age will cause them just as many problems. Here’s the loyalty lens:




Right now Wild will fall to me in about 16 turns. Bruins is going to turn into a free city in 11 turns as Egypt is putting more pressure on it than I am (213 vs 135). When it goes to free city status it will likely continue flipping and fall to Egypt. I don’t consider that a good development. Even after Wild falls it’ll be difficult to keep the city. Of course, if I can carry through with my plans for Isaac that situation could find itself rapidly changing…before going further I start checking notifications. First off, the weather report:




My caravel will need to move out of the way, which is fine because it’s heading for Cleggy anyway. Venice wants me to train a cuirassier and Magnus is established at Barry. I’m mildly surprised by the lack of amenity notifications and then check the report – everyone’s content. Good.

Go to the dedication screen, take Reform the Coinage. Traders can’t be plundered and +3 per specialty district in the destination city for international trade routes. What effect does that have?




Those numbers were all in the teens before. My income is now 138.6 per turn. I also get a policy change but I’ll think about that after everything is done moving around. Switch tech to Rifling, keep the civic as Naturalism. I need to finish Natural History after Steam Power completes but need to finish Rifling first to get the overflow into Refining. I’ll slot Natural History next turn.

Great Person waiting for me. It’s Andrei Rublev, the first great artist of the game. He shows up in Howard and immediately transfers to Smiler. I’ve got three more turns on the art museum and then the great works will start to fly. Lumbermill goes down at Marina, builder positions at Foggy. Drop a missionary charge into Truly, now have three converts out of six needed to convert. Others continue moving east.

Caravels north of Cleggy return to the city. The university is complete. My timing is a bit off since I need three turns to build a quadrireme and I’ll have too much niter in three turns. I hold off on a build decision here.

Up north at Isaac, Kaiser has banished Sinan back to Barry. He’s left a courser out in the open, though:




I reposition the admiral and send the sea dog in for a look. I could kill that unit with the armada but the field cannon corp could, in theory, use the general to get to the Commercial Hub and open a can of whoop ass. Nope, not taking the bait. I do send Triple-A back to Isaac, though, and bring the rest of the ships southeast.

At the Bruins/Wild area I’ve got to come up with a new plan. I don’t have the units to crack Bruins when it becomes a free city and I don’t have any way of boosting my loyalty far enough to get the city outright, unless the pressure from great works and Amani factors into the “who is giving more influence” equation. What I will do is set up my cuirassiers to pillage the area once the city falls, or bring the cavalry up this way and let them handle it. For the time being, though, I stop my advance and hold position. I’ll reposition as Wild gets close to falling. If anything I might do a Bread & Circuses project out of Marina to speed up Wild’s fall once the Campus is complete.

Cuirassiers do their checks, find nothing interesting. The cavalry are all healed; I assemble them into formation north of Blackhawks. I’ll have to think about what to do now but heading for Bruins, pillaging and then going to Isaac via Barry might line up nicely with Refining.

That leaves my production at Cleggy and the policy change. In theory I could take out Triangular Trade, slot Press Gangs and build a quadrireme in two turns at Cleggy. I could also pull out Professional Army instead, but I want to remove Professional Army when Natural History completes. Do I burn the Reformed Church quick-change to pull this off? What I should have done was stop the university build last turn, upgrade the quad and start one this turn, but I didn’t. I could just bite the bullet and build a frigate in 6 turns. Or I just not worry about it and settle for building battleships once the resolution is gone in 11 turns (Cleggy could build a battleship in 5 turns). Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

I’ll leave Professional Army in but swap out Triangular Trade for Aesthetics. That’ll get me an additional slug of - 10 the upcoming turn, 12 the following turn and then 16 three turns from now. I make the swap and Cleggy starts its +4 Theater Square. My income does drop down to “only” 105.6 per turn.

The situation with Canada & Egypt and the policy timings also change things a bit elsewhere in my plans. I don’t need as many amenities since I’d only be taking one city. That means I can likely get away with not grabbing Liberalism until I start pushing my production centers to their next district slot. It also means that Marina and Howard don’t need to build a zoo right away and can start on its archaeologist after the Campus completes. Auntie Wainwright can go into an amphitheater build and hold off on the Water Park (though I’ll place the district to lock in its cost). I’m also going to build the Entertainment Complex at Pearl starting next turn, so that’ll provide an additional amenity or two once it’s completed.

[suboptimal]

Turn 180

I’ve realized that with Bruins and Wild both falling to civs with golden ages that Kings is also at risk to fall, though it will take a while. The other interesting thing is that once Smiler has its great works of art Bruins will slowly start to rebel. Getting Marina’s museum filled, adding population at Marina, Pearl and Barry and running Bread and Circuses would flip the city to me quicker and bring Kings along for the ride. Of course, razing or taking Isaac as part of that process makes it easier to keep the city. I think the best course of action would be to pillage as much as possible before taking and razing the city, and, if there’s still quite a bit of pillaging to do, take the city, let it flip, pillage and then raze it.

My wall of text post mentioned that I would might be looking to go military on Canada in thirty turns. That’s not going to happen, partly because of the Bruins situation but mostly because I’d be shooting my golden goose. Canada is keeping my economy afloat right now. My next two trade routes (trader completed this turn and the one next turn from Colossus) are going to Phoenicia to diversify my portfolio.

My focus right now needs to be on the plan I laid out early on – Theater Squares and culture. Since it looks like I’m competing with Icahabod for great artists and writers then archaeologists are the way to go. Besides, artifacts are easier to theme and generate more per artifact than great works. Secondary to that I’ll be continuing to harass Kaiser and inconveniencing his near-coastal cities.

Policy-wise I’ve realized that the best course of action is to leave Professional Army slotted until Refining is complete, then upgrade the frigates and take that policy out (likely for Triangular Trade). That means that I’ll switch back to Natural History this turn, complete it next turn and then continue with Nationalism. The shift in priorities also means it may be worth diverting to Opera & Ballet and then banging out the Bolshoi Theater at Cleggy. That will award me two free civics, the eureka for Flight, some great works slots and great worker points. I think the plan at Cleggy will be to build out the Theater Square and archaeologist, then get Bolshoi built.

On to the turn…

Rifling complete. Marina-Cleggy trade route complete. That storm made a right turn and is now headed southeast, located between Cleggy and Howard. Fookin’ ‘ell. Resume Natural History, start Refining. One turn into that to get overflow carried, then complete Steam Power and repeat.

Start with the non-military stuff. Missionaries get to Auntie Wainwright. Junglemill goes in at Howard/Foggy. Foggy takes the tile until the next mill goes in; that shaves a turn of Huey Teocalli. Rublev parks on Smiler’s Theater Square. Trader at Pearl didn’t complete because the cost went up to 100 with the completion of Rifling. The cost was 98, which is exactly how many production Pearl has into the unit. Auntie Wainwright starts the amphitheater.

For Marina’s trader the best possible income is a route to Fez (via Compo, Foggy and Cleggy) for 181. I’ll take it. Of the upcoming traders I’ll rebase to Barry for a Mount Doom route (2111) and then maybe a route from Howard to Grey Havens (15). The routes to Canada are more lucrative but I think putting my eggs in one player’s basket is not smart. As it is my entire economy is relying on peaceful relations.

Over in Canada, Bruins & Wild have the mark of the flip:




Ten Canadian turns for Bruins to go free, 15 for Wild to become mine. IN the upper left of the screenshot you can see some troop mobilization by Egypt – the courser has been upgraded to a cavalry and there’s a second pike & shot. I hold my units in the area. I’m bringing the second field cannon forward and will form a corps once Nationalism completes. That’ll provide covering fire against the free city units while I pillage. Kaiser is (wisely) not repairing anything at John Lamarr and Bortus. Cavalry head for Bruins, finishing their moves away from the Egyptian borders. Cuirassiers hold tight.

Up north I’ve got to get my ships out of the way. Quadrireme moves to the outskirts of Barry. Caravels at Cleggy all head northeast. Further west, off the Egyptian coast, it looks like Triple-A is once again preparing to embark. That’s fine. Frigates return to Barry. Chola and SEAWACS back off the coast. Sea dog moves in for a look, everything is where it usually is. I back off from the coast as well. Sinan holds position.

Looking around I see that Kaiser has taken the Heartbeat of Steam dedication – his Campus districts are now producing . I also see that I’m one turn from getting Miguel de Cervantes. The issue is that Ichabod could, in theory, recruit him out from under me next turn with or . Given my current income (123.3 per turn) and the fact that it costs only 350 to do so I pull the trigger and recruit him now. He appears in Howard. That looks to be a good move since Jane Austen is up next and she costs 420 points. Ichabod will have the lead on me for quite a while as he’s at 227 (+11/turn) and I’m now at zero (at +12 per turn). I”ll lap the others quickly since they’re all generating 4 points or less. I’ll use Cervantes in Cleggy to get some extra mileage out of the from the works.

Looking a little ahead I’m wondering if putting my next two governor promotions into Magnus would be a good idea. That’d get him the Vertical Integration promotion and I could use him in Truly, Foggy or Auntie Wainwright for an extra 20. Dunno that I need another governor right now.

[suboptimal]

Turn 181

Natural History is complete, resume Nationalism. Start Steam Power. That tech is “complete” but I just need it to trip. Natural History is one of the few civics that does not unlock any new policies. I’ve finished the Colossus. There are two antiquity sites in my territory. Where?




In addition to the two just outside my borders there are two more to the east where I killed that barbarian camp, plus another on the tip of land east of Nora Batty. Looking in Canada there are five more in the tundra, one between Wild and Isaac’s Encampment, two near Bortus and one here that I won’t be able to get to:




That’s….odd. There are also four in the area where Brazil lost cities and three up in the Phoenician tundra. There are 15 that are gettable (those on my half of the land mass) and seven that are harder but not impossible. I think what I’ll do is send my first Archaeologists to Brazil/Phoenicia. That’ll almost guarantee that I can theme my museums down the line. There are two just north of Alara Kitan. If at some point I attack that city I’ll have to have an archaelogist or two on standby for a smash-and-grab.

Before I go any further I lock the Water Park at Auntie Wainwright. I also borrow the junglemill from Compo – that doesn’t slow down the museum build there but takes a turn off the amphitheater here. Nora Batty is going to acquire a coast tile in 5 more turns. That’ll be third ring to Auntie Wainwright so I’ll be able to put a citizen out there for some more .

Looking around, Canada has stabilized Bruins, or rather slowed its loyalty loss – the city will now rebel to free status in 16 turns, not 9. There’s no change at Wild and in fact it will start losing loyalty faster once Smiler’s museum completes next turn.

Missioanries land and head for Truly. Builder at Foggy repositions to the next junglemill spot. Cervantes heads for Cleggy’s Theater Square. That’ll complete next turn and the amphitheater will complete the turn after that. Cleggy will then build the archaeological museum. Pearl’s trader relocates to Barry. I was going to send Compo’s new trader to Phoenicia but the 27.711 from The Blues is too giant to pass up. Pearl starts the Entertainment Complex, Compo its archaeological museum. Both Compo and Cleggy will build archaeologists after they complete their museums, with Compo’s going for Brazil and Cleggy’s going for Phoenicia. Howard and Marina will complete their current builds (builder and Campus, both 2 turns to go) and then build their archaeologists for Canada/Egypt. Auntie Wainwright and Truly will pick up the artifacts in my neck of the woods. I shift a citizen at Barry to the unworked fish tile. That’ll grow the city in 14 turns instead of 27, at which point I’ll be putting down a Theater Square.

With the storm dissipated my caravels move back into Cleggy’s borders. I’m wondering why my is so low and then see what’s going on. My Campus is completely pillaged. After using the remaining movement to look for privateers that Kasier doesn’t have it occurs to me that the storm must have pillaged the tile out. Sure enough the event logs in the Climate display show one tile pillaged. It’ll take three turns to repair everything but it’s going to generate some huge overflows in the process. Once the amphitheater is complete I’ll spend a turn repairing the district, put the overflow into the museum and repeat until complete. I don’t want to carry the overflow from repair to repair because I am not sure how production overflows past one turn.

Over at Isaac and Barry I get the quadrireme into Barry’s borders. Kaiser is busy with district construction down here:




Triple-A is standing on an Encampment. There’s an Entertainment Center in the middle and an Industrial Zone to the right. That’s fine. I can use the Encampment for target practice to get both frigates their third promotion, use the great people for promotion #4 and then start indiscriminately shelling everything. Sinan stays put – that cavalry will keep me from getting to far right now.

At the Wild/Bruins theater I move one cuirassier to Pearl and move the other one to the south. It’ll go to Pearl next turn. The cavalry come north – I’ll move them through Canada, up through Wild and then into and through Barry. I’ll have to shuffle some units to fit the cavalry there, but that’s OK. I’ll let Canada handle pillaging Bruins if they choose to do so. My doing it would be like rubbing salt in the wound. At Wild I send one of the muskets towards the NW sector of the city. Kaiser’s got a pike & shot moving down that I’m assuming is headed for the Encampment. However, I want a unit there in case he tries to come through the pass for some reason. Everyone else backs out of Wild’s territory.

Revisiting my policy situation I put in a policy change – take Professional Army out and put in Trade Confederation. That’ll net me an extra 1010 for the next several turns. I’ll stall Nationalism at one turn and start Civil Engineering. I’ll finish a civic when Refining completes, get my upgrades done, finish another the following turn (Reformed Church most likely) to put Trade Confederation back in and then proceed from there. As stated last turn I intend to build the Bolshoi Theater in Cleggy (probably right after the archaeologist) and the free civics it gives appear to be the cheapest available, not the ones queued up in the tree. It’d be a waste to have it finish Reformed Church for me. This also works since I don’t need Steel boosted until after Refining is completed.

Kaiser recruited Ada Lovelace. Next engineer up is Alvar Aalto (city provides +1 Appeal to any tile it owns). Holy shitboxes that’s useless. My Appeal situation:




That’ll be a pass and I’ll take my chances on getting either Tesla or Goddard. Hell, the Rocketry eureka is better than +1 Appeal. I’d prefer Tesla since that’d get Nora Batty and Smiler within my industrialization range (because I get two charges instead of just 1). I’ll need to see if I can maneuver for Tesla when the time comes.

The military alliance with Canada ends this turn. I’ll see if Canada re-offers anything and, if not, I’ll offer a DoF and/or Military Alliance to them and see if they accept. Something else interesting...we’re going to start seeing climate change effects:




Ice melt in 33 turns, coastal flooding in 56. The good news for me is that the only tile in my territory that is subject to coastal flooding is the open plains just west of Howard and other 2E of Barry. Those are both elevation 2 so won’t get hit the first time around.

[suboptimal]

Turn 182

This will be a somewhat eventful turn. In addition to the diplomatic situation with Canada I’m going to have a bit of a cultural surge. I ended last turn at 136.8 per turn and with everything going on this turn I should be ending it somewhere in the 150’s. Time to get to work…

Open the save to several “friendly” notifications. Interestingly I just got 3 era score for completing a “splendid” Theater Square at Cleggy despite the one at Howard being +6. Wonder what happened with that other district build? . Canada has a deal waiting for me – I had my turns mixed up – Canada ends T185, Ichabod’s DoF just ended. Kaiser finished Machu Picchu. The River Avon flooded but there wasn’t anything around to damage. I got the boost for Opera & Ballet and Steam Power has completed.

Cleggy’s Theater Square is complete. That’s a +4 adjacency doubled to +8 with a +15% Pingala kicker - +9.2. I start the amphitheater there. Smiler has completed its art museum and working on the library. There’s another +2. Rublev drops The Annunciation into the new museum – 3 and 2 tourism. New cultural yield: 151 per turn. I was going to wait on using Cervantes’ charges but realized that I can drop one of his works into the Great Library this turn and move it next turn after the amphitheater is complete. Of course, I should have done that the turn I recruited him. . Don Quixote rides through the Great Library tilting at windmills and my culture output is up to 153.

Resume Refining, four turns to go. Reformed Church is back to 2 turns to complete. Huh. I’ll put one turn into Nationalism, one turn into Reformed Church, one into Civil Engineering and then complete the first two (in that order) for Professional Army and unit upgrades.

So, what does Canada want?




Ah yes, the RB 1:1 “we come in peace, we mean you no harm”. The alliance expires in 3 turns. I accept. Right now I have no intention of attacking them. Canada’s my drug dealer and my drug of choice is . If they don’t I’ll definitely attempt to renew the military alliance.

Missionaries at Truly spread the good word. There are now 6 converts in the city. One more charge should do it and then I’ll drop the rest in Nora Batty. Builder ends its career with another junglemill at Foggy. This is -neutral for the city, though, as I move the previous one over to Howard to get ready for the post-worker build queue. Trader at Barry starts the run to Mount Doom – 12112. Hmmm..up to 155.

Down at Smiler I advance the field cannon to the coal. They’ll stay put until Nationalism completes and then I’ll form a corps out of them for Wild’s defense. The muskets back off except for the one in Wild’s territory. That one continues north towards the pass. Remaining cuirassier goes into Pearl. Egypt’s made no repairs, cavalry heads northeast.

Canada has rearranged their policies a bit to neutralize their loyalty pressure a bit. Wild is now at -3.4 per turn (counting the new art work) and Bruins is stabilized at -1.4 per turn. They just completed Mercantilism but remain in Monarchy. Once the other art works are completed Wild will be at -5.4 per turn, which is good for a flip in 19 turns. Theoretically I could run Bread & Circuses projects in Marina and Howard and flip the city in 8-9 turns once the art gallery is installed. Dunno if that breaks the spirit of the gold-for-gold trade, though OTOH it’s not violent aggression. However, that’s a debate for another time since both cities’ next build is their archaeologist. If Canada adds some population then Wild will stabilize but take some time. However, once I get artifacts into Marina and Howard the city is [s]toast[-s] mine. I might also run some B&Cs once Pearl’s Entertainment Complex is complete. It may actually be necessary once the great works and artifacts start taking their toll – boosting my population’s pressure with projects will be the only way for me to claim the city over Kaiser, assuming he doesn’t gain any further population. Ironically I need to keep Isaac around to apply pressure until those cities flip. However, taking the walls all the way down and then pillaging the bejeezus out of it is not out of the question.

Boats at Cleggy stand down and return to the city’s waters. Over at what I will now christen the Gulf of Malloy the sea dog checks in with “the gang”. Everyone’s still there. Agent Merciful Death’s Listening Post mission is complete. Since Kaiser seems content to keep the ironclad in the city I send my agent back home. I’m going to set her up as a counterspy in Truly’s Industrial Zone (since a spy pillage there would cause me no small amount of problems) but will promote her with Quartermaster before I start the mission. I’ll build a new spy after Nationalism is done and send it to Bologna to start that process. Before moving her home, though, I do check out mission availability in Brazil, Egypt and Phoenicia. Woden has the Plastics eureka, so he’s got oil improved. Ichabod has the Steel eureka, which I’ll be getting shortly. Kaiser has the Computers eureka. Each only has 1 eureka available so that’s not too bad. She goes to Truly, will establish in four turns, right when Nationalism completes.

Kaiser’s yield is currently 180.9 per turn and he’s got 42 techs to my 127.4/40. However, I’ve likely skipped 3-4 techs that he’s completed (Astronomy, Economics, Scientific Theory and Sanitation). We’re also at cultural parity. It feels like he’s way ahead of me given his position in the tech tree (a bit ahead of me) but it’s actually not too bad. I have a bit more room to run with my , given the gradual Campus build outs at Marina and Smiler are just starting, Nora Batty and Barry completing universities and Cleggy’s Campus repairs are yet to come. Culturally I’ve got plenty of room for growth whereas he’s got...1 Theater Square and is likely nearly out of district slots. Interesting times ahead.

Two Great Merchants went off the board last turn – Adam Smith and John Spilsbury. Up next – Sarah Breedlove: +25% tourism to other civs you have a trade route with. She’d be nice to have but that’s not going to be. Unless, of course, I come up with 13025 or 8700 somewhere along the line. Barring project or purchase shenanigans I’ll have Bouboulina in 7 turns.

[suboptimal]

On Hominids and Tourism

While I’ve said right along that a cultural victory in a multiplayer game is extraordinarily difficult I am going to (continue to) make an earnest run at getting one (or getting nuked trying). It’s one reason why I’ve decided to pursue artifacts and archaeologists over art museums and great works of art. For starters, the base cultural & tourism return is higher on artifacts. They are also significantly easier to theme – all artifacts dug up are from at least four ages “ago” so my first round should be from the Ancient or Classical Ages. Then there’s the Heritage Tourism card, which provides +100% tourism for all great works and artifacts. So, get three artifacts into a museum and it’s 9 and tourism. Theme the museum and it’s up to 18 and tourism. Run Heritage Tourism and that turns into 36 tourism. But there’s one other bonus that’s available to only one player in the game, and I believe that (or rather, she) could be a big difference in making my attempt viable.

“She” is Mary Leakey, Great Scientist of the Atomic Age. She has two benefits when she retires. The first, immediate, one is a lump sum of 350 per artifact in the city. The second, and more critical one, is the ongoing benefit: +300% tourism to all artifacts in all cities. That is huge – that bonus makes a single themed museum produce 72 tourism per turn. Scatter that across 6-7 museums and you’re looking at 400-500 tourism per turn. In this game that’d be roughly four tourists every two turns.

The question then becomes how to secure her when she comes up in the queue? It’s a two-pronged approach. The first prong is to pass on any great scientist after the second modern age one is taken. The worst spot to be would be near zero points and needing 960 or 1245 to recruit, so taking a scientist too close to when she could hit the board is a bad idea. The second prong is to be ready to run projects, particularly if I’m in the lower half of the point range. The best way to do this in my view is not to run projects as soon as she pops up. Instead I’ll prebuild research projects in all seven Campus cities before the third modern great scientist is recruited, then maintaining them at 1 turn to completion until needed. When she does appear I can quickly generate a pile of points and then use my high production cities (Cleggy, Truly, Foggy) to spam additional projects until I can recruit her. It’s a dicey approach and may result on me passing on a couple of really good great scientists along the way, but I’m not here for the space race; I’m here for the cultural victory.

Turn 183

Turn starts with the notification that Loefflaed’s mission in Isaac has completed – he starts another one. Woden’s been hit by another “Major Drought”. My friendship with Woden has expired and I see that I’m now at war with Ichabod. Move up the notification chain and it appears that Kaiser’s declared on Woden, Ichabod has declared on me and Canada has declare on Ichabod. . WTF? Take a look at Kaiser’s diplo screen and he’s allied with Ichabod. Oooh...military alliances galore. Canada and Ichabod have diplo notificaitons. Ichabod is the war declaration. Canada offers me this:



181 for 127? That’s an odd set of numbers. However, that also happens to be the numbers of myself (127) and Kaiser (181) as of Canada’s last turn. They’re asking if I’m about war vs. Kaiser. Interesting way to do it and if it weren’t for my turn tracking I wouldn’t have know what they meant (numbers are different this turn). Well, I accept because things have gotten….quite interesting. So, DoF with Woden is over. Woden is at war with Kaiser and Ichabod. That means Woden needs some help. I offer a DoF to Woden and if he accepts I’ll follow with an offer for an economic alliance.

Four of my cities dropped to displeased due to the loss of the trade route with Ichabod (Foggy, Cleggy, Truly, Barry). Phoenicia doesn’t have any resources that I don’t have, so no luck there. A zoo at Howard would give me four amenities. However, I want the archaeologist out first.

Convert Truly and start on Auntie Wainwright. Pearl spits out a missionary for later use and I’ll have the next one in about 12 turns. The latter will start the Water Park next turn. Cleggy did not complete its Amphitheater because it is 3 short because it’s displeased. That’s fine – the shift in completion means I’ll put a turn into the museum first, then start the Campus. De Cervantes drops his second great work in the Great Library. Over at Smiler, Rublev will put his second great work into the museum. I’ve read on the wiki that additional art pieces by the same artist only provide 1 and tourism. That’s fine for now. I’ll drop the remaining one in here and then work on moving these around once Wild is sorted. Once that happens I’ll shuffle these around a bit.

Builder at Howard is done, as is the Campus at Marina. Both are working on archaeologists, 14 and 12 turns, respectively.
I send the builder south towards Compo. Usable oil will appear in desert, desert floodplains or marsh. Most of that is south of here. Cavalry reach (or pass) Wild, everyone else holds tight. Naval units at Barry hold tight, I just check for the usual force distribution on land. One thing I need to remember before forming corps is to promote the units before doing so. Case in point – both my field cannon have promotions available but haven’t taken them yet.

The slowdown hasn’t hurt my progress too much on Nationalism or Refining. Reformed Church is at 2 turns but it’s a bit too close to being at one turn that if my amenities shift in the wrong way next turn it might complete. I start Civil Engineering. Magnus moves to Foggy, Liang goes to Barry. I’m going to go through with putting the upcoming promotions into Magnus so that Foggy’s production is boosted.

The dynamic here, particularly since it practically forces Woden onto “my” side, bodes well. I’m still in the best military and geographic position out of anyone and have climbed into second place on the :science∕ generation. My income, at 166.9 per turn right now, is going to allow me to start using for construction rather than upgrades.

Speaking of which, about that zoo. It’s 1440 to upgrade the zoo. That would leave me with 1053 now and in three turns I’d be up to about 2990. That would give me about 1550 for unit upgrades. That’s enough to do the northern fleet and leave me with some change. I’d would still do two for the eureka and to form a fleet and leave the rest for “later”. I pull the trigger and drop the on a zoo at Howard. That immediately pulls Cleggy and Foggy back to content status. The amenity shuffle at the start of next turn should bring Barry back into the fold as well. Bonus: I get 4 from the building as well since Howard is working four jungles.

[marcopolothefraud]

Wow, a culture victory is really a long-shot ambitious plan. Then again, the opportunity cost is relatively low, and everyone perceives Kaiser's Egypt as a bigger threat. Good luck!

As you enter the Modern Era, would you consider building Seaside Resorts, National Parks, and even Rock Bands for tourism? That would be amazing for a lurker like me to see. :D