LK149 - WM, Indonesia

[Elephantium]

Game continued...

IBT:

It gets worse. Australia lands a stack on our home island. It will be tricky to get troops there to rout them.
And we've lost Saltpeter. Ouch.

Turn 6 (1480 AD):

Well, it could be worse. We can seize Salt from the Persians if we build a new city near Arbela.

Defense of Medan:
Cav retreats from Musket (3/4)
Cav kills Musket
Cav kills Cav
rInfantry dies to MDI
rSword kills 2/4 MDI

Near Bogor -
Sword kills Aus Spear => 2/4
MDI kills Spear

Binjai founded near Tegal.
We redline two Infantry next to Banjarmasin.
Lose eCav on the first
Second eCav handles it.
vCav loses 2hp on the second but kills it.

Well, so much for the Arbela plan. Army *retreats* from a single Infantry

IBT:

Australia lands on New Guinea.

Turn 7 (1485 AD):

Karachi: Bombard the defenders. We only manage to ping two Infantry
Army kills 2 Infantry and razes the city! We burn at least one Frigate with the city

Found Kendari near Arbela.

Bandar Lampung: Cav narrowly kills Musket
MDI kills MDI

Looks like the Zulu are set to take Hamadan (Sri Lanka)

IBT:

Persian Infantry attacks ...and promotes our Conscript Inf
Sioux complete the Manhattan project.

Turn 8 (1490 AD):

Not much...just moving troops into position.

IBT:

Not much happens...so much for Persian attack!

Turn 9 (1495 AD):

Arbela:
We bombard and redline 3 Infantry plus a Cav
We lose one eCav on the first redlined Inf
Cav kills it => 2/5
Cav kills second Inf => 2/5
Lose vCav
vCav kills Inf
vCav kills Cav and razes the city!
Purwokerto founded to claim the Salt.

Antioch:
Army kills Inf
First Cav Army kills second Inf
First Cav Army kills third Inf and razes the city.

IBT:

All is quiet...

Turn 10 (1500 AD):

Pematang Siantar founded between Tegal and Kendari, helping lock in the Indian subcontinent for us.
Palangkaraya founded between Kendari and Purwokerto -- again, helping establish our territory.

Found Dumai near Purwokerto, too.

I tried to prioritize settling cities on hills and plains vs. grassland in India; that area will simply be tax-farm country.

 

[LKendter]

ROSTER:
LKendter (up)
Northern Pike (skip Aug 1 to Sep 5)
Greebley (on deck)
Elephantium (just played)

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

"Sioux complete the Manhattan project."

scary

 

[LKendter]

1500 AD (0)
Culture as of 1410 AD - Mongols 73,673 - Sioux 125,475.
Culture as of 1500 AD - Mongols 85,146 - Sioux 153,016.
11473 vs. 27541 gained in favor of the Sioux.
The Sioux have 34 more cities.

Unless we have a plan to immediately stop some Sioux culture we will lose shortly. I'm throwing this out for suggestions from the rest of the team, as I have no clue how to fix this outside gifting cites to Mongolia. That will be the kiss of death also, as our empire size is to small.

I don't have the energy to invest in this set just to lose. I need some ideas from the team what to do.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Seems you have two choices and I am not sure of the second one. One is to play on until they get to 250k, which is the proper amount for 250x250. Not sure exactly what size the map is, but 100 for std 100x100. 160 for 160x160 and so on.

The other is I thought you had turned of culture in a game awhile back, after the fact. Maybe I am confused as to the action, but I suspect it can be done with Gramphos.

 

[LKendter]

I think I can turn of culture victory. The game will still be ugly with the runaway Sioux, but the game won't end in 20 turns.

Can I get votes from the other players?

I don't see a way to force the limit higher.

 

[Elephantium]

I don't really see the point in turning off culture victory -- we'll just switch the loss condition to "Sioux launch their spaceship" about 20 turns later.

 

[iPwn]

I assume they have same civ traits as Iros have in unmodded game (agr+com). You could nerf them by giving less uber trait combination, rel+mil perhaps. I mean - for future games, not now.

 

[LKendter]

You could nerf them by giving less uber trait combination, rel+mil perhaps.

Yes, they are the Iroquois renamed and moved to the center of North America. Giving them a crappier trait does sound appealing for next time. They often become a run away civ...

 

[Greebley]

I think if we lose the game then we lose the game, so I would vote against turning off cultural victory. Removing victory conditions doesn't seem right to me. We were at a disadvantage but we also got about as unlucky as we could. It happens sometimes.

I do think removing Agr from the Sioux would be a good idea. The US seems to do badly most of the time -you could try switching since the SIoux have the early (and good) UU advantage already, it would be more balanced.

I think if we had chosen Republic, we would have done better in this game. We would have had a better chance of keeping up in tech, and we also didn't really start using the advantage of Monarchy until after we were already behind. I have been kind of wishing Indonesia was religious so we could make a switch. That would also help the hopelessly behind in Culture problem due to fewer cities. Sci/Rel would be a really good combo to have.

Also the large amount of Jungle hurt us (as NP mentioned). I would consider strengthening Indonesia by making some of it forest (I wouldn't make it all forest though - that would be too much with the other changes).

 

[LKendter]

I already added some more land to the main island for Indonesia to help them since this game started. I will swap some jungle to forest.
I think the USA does suffer with late UU and UB. I'll take a look at their traits.

Based on the feedback, scratch disabling cultural victory. I don't need to wait for NP with 2 no votes already.

IMO this game is already lost, and we are going through the motions. Between the absurd Sioux runaway, jungle overload, resource shaft (no saltpeter, no luxuries) and failure in variant setup (no pikes, etc) I don't see how to win.

I'm putting the first question back out there - what is our game plan to counter the Sioux culture? I have no clue what to do at this point. I don't want to play just to wait for the "you lost" screen.

 

[LKendter]

I just upgraded the scenario.
Sioux downgraded from agriculture to seafaring. That second trait won't be useful early on.
USA upgrading from expansionist to agriculture. Hopefully we can finally get a balance in North America.

I swapped a few jungle to forest, and clear some jungle on the islands.

========================

The big question is do we keep going? If not, would people be interested in LK150 (maybe final game unless Civ6 is good)?
If keep going, what is the game plan? I know the theory it isn't over to the you've lost screen. However, wiping out Persia fails to help us at all.

Let me know, as I plan to start tomorrow unless I hear otherwise even though I can't see a win.

 

[Elephantium]

IMO this game is already lost, and we are going through the motions. Between the absurd Sioux runaway, jungle overload, resource shaft (no saltpeter, no luxuries) and failure in variant setup (no pikes, etc) I don't see how to win.

I'm putting the first question back out there - what is our game plan to counter the Sioux culture? I have no clue what to do at this point. I don't want to play just to wait for the "you lost" screen.

Just a point of information -- we have saltpeter now. I locked that in towards the end of my turnset.

I don't know what to do about the Sioux though.

Edit: Wiping out Persia will give us access to the Russians and Zulu; I think we can keep expanding from there...if the game isn't lost due to culture (or space) before then...

 

[Ray2]

lurker's comment:

I'm putting the first question back out there - what is our game plan to counter the Sioux culture? I have no clue what to do at this point. I don't want to play just to wait for the "you lost" screen.

The only way to delay Sioux culture is to make them mobilize. This can only happen if you sign against them civs on their continent. You would also have to sign alliances with any other civ you don't want to fight with.

Still, this will not win the game for you.

Maybe your only chance to win this game would be to send 2-3 armies (ideally with an infantry army only for cover), on the nearest Sioux island. Capture a city - let them recapture - repeat. This will give you the money for steals and alliances.

Difficult and kind of exploitative, but I don't see any other way.

 

[Elephantium]

Keep in mind that the Sioux have Bombers and Tanks at this point. Probably Mech Inf for defense.

 

[Northern Pike]

I agree that turning off the cultural victory condition would be unworthy and pointless. Better to lose this one cleanly and play a revenge game.

We're at war with the Aztecs, so could we buy the Sioux into that war? If the Sioux started taking the huge Aztec cities near the mutual border, they'd have to wait a long time before gaining any culture from them, in fascism. If that card doesn't seem worth playing, though, I have no objection to shutting this one down.

Greebley is right that as this game has actually gone, we would have been better off in a republic. But it always seems defeatist to plan on the assumption that we won't be able to do much conquering.

I like the various proposed improvements to Indonesia's start.

In principle, I'd like to play LK150, with Indonesia again, to avenge this result and to round off the LK series. The timing will be a problem, because I'm committed to the next CCM game from early September and I don't like to have two large games going at once. But I hope it will be possible.

 

[LKendter]

We're at war with the Aztecs, so could we buy the Sioux into that war?

The Sioux and Aztecs signed an alliance during the 1.5 turns I've played so far. I don't think that is possible.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

I understand the pointless part as you will lose anyway. Help me understand how it is "unworthy" to turn off culture and play till they hit the correct value and then accept defeat? The game should have had a culture value larger than it does.

 

[Greebley]

I am ok with calling this a loss now. We have too much against us to have any hope.

At this point I don't see a strategy that will work with us so small and behind at this point in the game.

 

[LKendter]

I made some progress during my set, but I also feel this is a loss. Taking out Persia doesn't do much for us, and Mongolia (our key target) is off limits.

Our start was to slow was the number one issue. Others like bad resource distribution made it worse.

I'm willing to stop playing, and call this a loss. Can I hear from the other two about a loss?

I know I can't start the revenge LK150 to quickly with the next Rat game comments.