KoS2 - There can be only war

Water under the bridge I know, but I think it may have been right to whip the initial archer. In general, I think it's probably best to whip aggressively when the AI has a stack nearby. I would be interested in hearing other opinions.

Regarding the current situation, I would expect him to attack pretty aggressively, especially if he has a chance to take Kish. I can't open the save (at work). However, during my play I saw him taking a very similar approach (moving along beside Kish for inscrutible reasons).

For those reasons, I prefer to keep moving the archer towards kish. Guerrilla seems required.

1. Take off Uruk from stagnation as it will be happy next turn.
2. Kish: option a) take the citizen working the forest and assign him to coast. 3-whip the Ziggurat next turn.
option b) whip an extra spear this turn

WK has 2 more galleons which I think seem to be coming our way... this is partly good and bad. Good because it makes stealing cheaper. Bad because it's our land!

Archer... two options
Take him back 1 tile wait for promos or go GII and onto the hill. I'd agree with GII and the hill though. We have a bit too much unit upkeep anyway.

Meerk said:

Water under the bridge I know, but I think it may have been right to whip the initial archer. In general, I think it's probably best to whip aggressively when the AI has a stack nearby. I would be interested in hearing other opinions.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm wishing that I had done that now too...

kossin said:

1. Take off Uruk from stagnation as it will be happy next turn.
2. Kish: option a) take the citizen working the forest and assign him to coast. 3-whip the Ziggurat next turn.
option b) whip an extra spear this turn

WK has 2 more galleons which I think seem to be coming our way... this is partly good and bad. Good because it makes stealing cheaper. Bad because it's our land!

Archer... two options
Take him back 1 tile wait for promos or go GII and onto the hill. I'd agree with GII and the hill though. We have a bit too much unit upkeep anyway.

Click to expand...

OK, I'm playing the rest of the set (barring any other panics/screwups/disasters) looks like we are unanimous for GuerrillaII, which is good.
Thanks for the reminder about the governor, I had totally forgotten about it
I'm going to two pop whip the Spear too, without the archer in the city I'm feeling very vulnerable...

Continued from here.

Turn 115 continued.
Move the archer up to the hill, promote to GuerillaII, hope it takes out one HA.
Whip Spear in Kish for 2 pop. It pains me to do that, but I think keeping a city with 2 less pop is better than losing the city outright with little prospect of regaining it (despite maintenance costs )
Take off the no growth gov in Uruk.
Send a worker into Kish, next turn (assuming Kish is still ours...) it will try to move up to Lagash to mine the bronze there.

Turn 116
I give the spear in Eridu combat one and fortify.
Boudica’s Golden Age begins. Looking back at the log, a great spy was born in 25BC, so that is probably what happened.

Elizabeth spreads Buddhism to Eridu, right now “its nothing but supersition,” we all know the true god is the RNG because:

We lost our brave archer to Saladin’s first HA, so we don’t even take out a unit. Piss.

Also, I spot some more units coming from Saladin. Three Archers to be precise, could be worse, but could certainly be a whole lot better. I decide to que a Vulture in Uruk, I think we’ll need some more powerful units to push Saladin out.


Turn 117
Ok, so Saladin decided to suicide his units without any time to heal! So no casualties on our part. Phew!


I switch Uruk back to building Research.
I two pop whip the Zig in Kish, it now has 19turns of unhappy, but that will save us 3gpt in maintenance and Kish will regrow to 3 next turn.

Saladin’s HA North of Lagash enters our territory, I could attack it with the spear stationed there, but at 87.7% odds. I decide to leave it alone for now, its not sitting on any of our worked tiles, and can’t pillage any tiles on Saladin’s next turn.

Buddhism spreads to Lagash via a second Missionary from Elizabeth. Why can’t she spread it to Uruk?? That’s the only city that could use the happy right now...

Turn 118
I que a wall in Kish for 3 turns. If Saladin’s going to keep this up I think it will be very good for my blood pressure.

Bad news on the spy front, our spy incompetently let itself get caught in Pyongyang. Of course we publicly denied the existence of any active spy network in our allies’ cities and let him hang.

I get a worker to chop the forest 1SE of Cheju, I figure the border pop will probably steal the forest eventually, and the chop will come in after currency. The wood will go into a Zig.

Turn 120
Math is in! Currency is in 27 turns at 0%.
Looking at the techs, maths is almost a monopoly tech, but none of our tech partners are willing to trade for it. WK sais Math for HBR can’t be done, the stingy git.

Eridu is now Stagnant at size 6.

Also, we are at +4gpt!

Wang seems to be sending a small stack towards Shaka. I’ll see what happens, we might be able to mop up after it, but I doubt it.

Finally, I notice that Saladin retreated his archer stack.

Turn 121
Uruk is at its happy cap now, I set it to build a settler in 7 for the sugar banana, or maybe the Corn Horse. Elizabeth is expanding fairly rapidly.

Kish finishes walls –>Spy in 4, maybe it will do better than the last one...

Turn 122
All spy progress was halted in Kish so that sucks. Spy in 5 now.
Also our scouting vulture discovers that Elizabeth is expanding faster than I thought... We’ve lost the Corn Horses spot.


Turn 123
Christianity founded in Coventry...
Wang Kong seems to have called off his invasion of Shaka.
Also he still refuses to trade HBR

A scouting Vulture discovers that Sitting bull has captured Hastings.


Turn 124
Eridu finishes Zig, build Galley for settler transport purposes.
2 pop whip the settler in Uruk
Micro Kish to grow when the unhappy expires
Decide against whipping Zig in Lagash, it will be done in 3 turns and we can only do a 1 pop whip.

Turn 125
Get GS in Uruk. Settle as an acadamy, cuts 2 turns off of Currency at 0%.

Turn 126

Notice that Saladin is sneaking a small stack towards Lagash from the north.


Turn 127
Tthe stack has changed directions, now looks like it is going for a standard attack on Eridu.

Turn 128
I’m going to end it here. The settler could settle and that needs group discussion. We might also want to move the settler further East to stop Elizabeth from expanding more.
With the Zig done in Lagash we are at a mighty +6gpt at 0%, so we might not even be able to afford a fifth city yet.
I qued a library in Lagash and a Spy in Kish, but there are no hammers invested yet, I think those are what we want -- library for culture and Spy for techs from Chenju.
WK and Lizzy still refuse to trade HBR and Monarchy respectively.
When the Zig is done in Lagash we’ll probably want to stop working the copper and work a forest grassland to speed up growth.
Currency will be in in 8 at 0% so we could probably afford a tiny bit of negative spending.

The tech situation


And Empire

Note that Saladin has gone in with only mounted units this time.

Looks like a fine set,

Trades: let's put a few turns of research in Monarchy so we can trade it with Lizzy or WK... bump the slider up... we can spare some gold for it... whoever agrees to it first.

Eridu: coast without a lighthouse for food at happy cap? -> plains hill

Kish: not working the rice/cow pains me to see. Switch to rice+cow+2hills+1 scientist. It will have at most 1 unhappy turn but can always be stagnated if that's too unwanted (shouldn't be too much of a problem really).
Let's chop the jungle tile 1E of the city to prevent Sal parking units there. The hill is all we'll give him.

WII Vulture: pull him back and give him WIII promotion. He can be our healer and should provide more defense although it looks like we don't need it much

SB is doing an impressive job... I think we don't have to worry about Liz expanding for too long.
In any case, there's Boudi in that area so it doesn't matter too much if we don't get every city there.

Very nice handling of Saladin!

Also, good writeup.

I am a little worried about the size of our empire. It feels like we are kind of hemmed in on all sides. As such, I think we should put our new city further east and plan to backfill. This would require us to make another settler pretty quickly, and be ready to push it in asap. All this military spending that we have had to do is really hurting our expansion. As a side note, I think it's great that Elizabeth is fighting SB. How can we encourage that?

Elizabeth's settling of corn-horse is bad news for when we capture ulundi. Seems like we will face cultural pressure. I see us having to use the cultural slider down the road to try to keep our space near Ulundi as well as flip Cheju.

FWIW, I would really like to get away from building research. Of course, I don't see that we have much choice right now. Still, we need to get building some more cottages so we can have some economy down the road. The plains and grasslands near Uruk seem like they should be cottaged.

Maybe we can also put some near Kish, assuming we kick out Saladin's units sometime soon.

I still think we should send at least one archer up to sit in maybe Seoul. It would provide nice advance notice of future attacks. If Saladin decides to attack, then we get the nice defense multipliers without having a city of ours get attacked.

Happy new year everyone!

We can't afford many more cities is the problem here.
Better to solidify our current position and then take cities from Sal/Boudie imo.

Regarding cottages: we just don't have a good city for them right now. The banana city and Shaka's capital will be the first ones.

kossin said:

Eridu: coast without a lighthouse for food at happy cap? -> plains hill

Kish: not working the rice/cow pains me to see. Switch to rice+cow+2hills+1 scientist. It will have at most 1 unhappy turn but can always be stagnated if that's too unwanted (shouldn't be too much of a problem really).

Click to expand...

Yeah, that hurt too, but it was needed to stay in the green until the Zig went up. There were several times when we were in negative spending even at 0% so I juggled the tiles a bit to avoid that.

Eridu is building a buhddist temple to boost the happy, I wanted to start growing asap, when the worker finishes the cottage on the grass (I think 3 turns) then it would be better to switch to that.

Meerk said:

Very nice handling of Saladin!

Also, good writeup.

I am a little worried about the size of our empire. It feels like we are kind of hemmed in on all sides. As such, I think we should put our new city further east and plan to backfill. This would require us to make another settler pretty quickly, and be ready to push it in asap. All this military spending that we have had to do is really hurting our expansion. As a side note, I think it's great that Elizabeth is fighting SB. How can we encourage that?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm worried too, I'm just wondering if we can take it financially before currency? I think we should settle sugar banana, cottage spam (keeping food surplus=happy surplus), and then churn out another settler to go after it.

To help our SB maybe we could gift ivory when we have a trade route? That might be a bit too overpowered...

We won't get a TR to SB because of war with Boudi. Also he doesn't look like he needs any help... if anything I'd rather keep Liz in the game than have an overpowered SB (he's already pretty big and with that huge stack he could take London...)

kossin said:

We can't afford many more cities is the problem here.
Better to solidify our current position and then take cities from Sal/Boudie imo.

Click to expand...

I agree we can't found the cities before we finish currency, but perhaps we can start the second settler before currency finishes.

In the short term, it's clearly a loss to found additional cities, but I am worried about a situation where we get hemmed in by allies and can no longer expand. I suppose this is more of a problem on the northwest than the east.

Regarding cottages: we just don't have a good city for them right now. The banana city and Shaka's capital will be the first ones.

Click to expand...

That's certainly true. We will have big economic problems until we can get a proper commerce city (Ulundi is certainly the standout there).

At the same time, we are working a fair number of ocean tiles -- in the long term it would be better to be working cottages. I just don't want to get into the position where we want to have a better economy but don't have any towns/villages.

Sorry guys, I have to quit this game (and the other succ game). I'm not really motivated in to civ anymore + Real Life needs some extra time.

Sorry to see you go mfie. GL with things in RL.

Sorry to see you go mfie, hope you 'recover'... nah just kidding. Take care of what's really important.

So... the updated roster:

1. kossin
2. Stochastic - Just played
3. mjg5591 - UP!
4. cripp7 - On deck
5. Meerk
6. The Simple Mind

Got save will look over it and post some thoughts. Plan on playing today.

Ok had look,

Planning on doing as Kossin suggested about switching to monarchy and bumping slider up to trade math for it. Then Head back to currency. what to research after though. Col for religion and CS? Or do we still want slavery. Construction or HBR to head towards WE and cats? I'm leaning towards Construction. Can steal HBR of wang hopefully.

WIll bring back Woody 3 to kish. Will rework tiles in Kish to grow more. Should have monarchy in soon enough, and with those units Happy cap will jump alot. Also spy in kish what's plan keep there ? scout?

Eridu, after temple what should we build? Research or more units?

Settler near banana site? settle or wait? I don't think we have the economy to settle just yet? But if settle and cottage like meerk suggest's might actually help economy.

Also like Meerk's idea about sending archer into Wang's lands. I like Wonson as it's on hill and gives larger Radius to see unit's coming from Sal.

See Sal has 2 HA up near lagash. And 1 more near gold in lagash. Should I try and put 2 units on gold to save? So he doesn't pillage gold. Sal has small stack next to kish also, but I can attack with spear @ 88.9 odds. Seems like a good chance to take. The chariots will fall easy after HA is killed.

Plan on playing within few hours. If anyone has anything to add.

I'd say go for construction, the sooner we get rid of Shaka the better. We can move the palace, build cottages, have all our troops in our culture (no supply costs), consolidate border for anti Saladin defense, in shot solve all our problems!

My plan for the settler was settle and build cottages asap. There is one worker nearby clearing the jungle on the bananas, I think that will be done in ~3 turns, that will help grow faster without having to build farms.

I don't think you will need to put units on the gold to save because once the HAs move onto the Hill they will loose their movement points and so won't be able to pillage that turn. Then you can move out to attack without having to split our defense.

Re Eridu, I'd probably go for more troops because we will probably be loosing some soon.

Farm the banana for a decent food source. Maybe another farm and the rest cottages.

With that many HAs near the gold city, I'd just sit tight and wait to see if they attack or go right by.

Ok sorry for delay RL came up yesterday and I couldn't play.

Played til 580AD.

Started off by reworking some tiles in cities. Sending Woody 3 to kish. Switched rersearch to monarchy and bumped slider up a bit.

350AD Sal suicide's his 3 units near Kish. No loses. Decide not to settle banana site as I am breaking even if I am @ 0 slider.

375AD Sal sends another stack to Kish. 3 HA and a chariot. Can't get worker here to chop jungle. I kill 2 HA with spears @ 88 and 90 odds. Liz won't trade Mnarchy. Think she is teching Math herself. Still decide against settling banana site. Attack HA near Lagash @ 87 odds and lose. Kill him with Vulture.

400AD Trade Math to WK for monarchy as he teched it this turn. Start on currency again. Settle UR, banana site./ Start farmiong the banana's. Start on monument.
Promote spear in Kish to formation. Revolt to HR.

425AD Sal suicide chariot into lagash and archer kills it. 0 gold at 0 slider. Rework some tiles in cities to grow.

450AD Finally start chopping jungle next to Kish. Realized monument buil in UR is not needed as were creative, switch to granary. Kish spy done start on spear. Spy asleep in Kish. Woody 3 arrives in Kish. Switch to research in Eridu as it shaves 2 turns off currency. Lagash completes library starts on spear.

500AD Warwick captured by WK. Move archer from Lagash to try and send to Wonson for lookout. Spear from kish to lagash. Shaka moves 4 archers out of Ulunid he still has 6 in there.Wang about to settle another city west of Eridu. He is up to 8 cities and has GLH.

520AD Have to move worker for jungle east of kish. Sal sending another stack here. 2HA and 3 chariots. Send spear back to kish. Wang settles city west of Eridu.

540AD Sal kills the archer heading to wonson. Spear in lagash done>monestary.resend spear to lagash from Kish. As sal's stack went after archer.

560AD Currency finally in go from 1 to 9 gpt at 0 slider. Chop forest in UR start cottaging. Eridu off research to spear. Finally with the other gold in lagash from wang. But if want to work both gold we would be shrinking. Sal sent 2 HA next to kish. I kill 1 with 96 odds. Start on construction. Uruk from research to wealth. 21 gpt @ 0 slider.

580AD Kill shaka archer who was up near lagash with vulture. Kill other sal HA with spear near kish. GG pops in Uruk.

I stopped here. Turn 580ad Still has units it can move and such.

Overview,

Sal has small stack up near Wonson. 1 axe, 2HA, 2 chariots.
Boudica has A GW 1N of Ulundi, The vulture up there is fortified on hill. Move him ?

Uruk growing in 5 turns and is at happy cap size 8.
Put spy in Que in Kish no hammers at all though.

Can whip granary in UR if we want.
21gold @ 0 slider. We have 54 gold on hand. Construction in 8 turns if bump slider to 40% only losing 2gpt.

Liz won't trade any techs.
WK will trade HBR and gold for currency. I'll let team decide. WK researches calender in 1 turn.

Galley in Uruk is heading west to explore.
Vulture up near london exploring.
WB out to East exploring. SB has a bunch of islands up there.

Sell meditation to SB for gold?
Trade for WK wine? He wants gold for it.

Celts settling close to our east city. We only have 1 Vulture defending.

SS,





\




Sorry for lack of SS during play. I always seem to forget to do this.

Save,

Nice set,

WK: pig for wine

Why another spy? We already have a few sleeping in Kish.

Gold: beg for all gold from everyone since it's <100 and they're all Pleased.

Uruk: switch to Archer and start working the Pig again so we can grow

Kish: wealth maybe?

Ur: switch forest->cottage

Lagash: monastery ain't gonna be a huge help anytime soon. Maybe a barracks and work the gold rather than copper? We can't sustain growth there anyway.

Trade routes: any way we can explore the top of the continent between us and Liz? We'd get more trade routes this way.

Agree with Construction. Let's steal HBR from WK. Send the spies to Cheju (banana/Ivory) and let them sit 5 turns for max. discount

We should consider settling 1 or 2 island cities. Trade routes will be golden and 2 cities will ensure everyone of our cities get two 2 trade routes.

We won't need that many WEs to take cities... just a bunch of Catapults so we don't need that many Stables (we should consider Literature for HE in Eridu for 5xp catapults out of the gate)

I would also settle the 2nd GG in Uruk to get 2 good cities producing Catapults.

1. kossin
2. Stochastic
3. mjg5591 - Just played
4. cripp7 - UP!
5. Meerk - On deck
6. The Simple Mind