ALC Game #10: India/Asoka

Sisiutil said:

Once Liberalism is in the bag (which I firmly believe it is),

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I wouldn't count on that. In fact I'd bet my Civ4 Dvd, that Toku wins the liberalism race. The post-patch AI is really determined about liberalism and Toku had a GS in 1090, how handy.

And you still haven't build a market in Dehli. Not building a market in a shrine city asap is a sin. Build it now or you have to spend your afterlife as a vassal of Isabella. Or worse, a vassal of Alex.

Pia

pigswill said:

Its worth thinking about razing rather than keeping Tok's cities. (Does he have a holy city? Any decent wonders? Keep those, raze the rest). It'll keep Ragnar and Mehmed busy reclaiming the territory instead of building military and teching away.
Then take out Ragnar.

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This is a case where I'd vote for keeping the cities, then whipping the be- out of them for the cheap courthouses and whatever else is needed. He's got a lot of happy-making resources so a little whipping to get the cities' populations down just a bit will put him back in the black with some decent mid-sized cities left over fairly quickly. Last war, razing and rebuilding left us with a significantly longer reconstruction period - IMO, we can't afford to leave Ragnar happily teching away while our research suffers from reconstruction costs for a long time. I haven't done the math but I suspect it would take longer for us to get a fully-functioning empire if we raze some/most of Toku's cities than if we "convert" them into our new citizens. Plus, what do we gain by warring with Toku if we simply give the captured lands to Raggie (and in theory Mehmed)?

Round 11, to 1505 AD
Part 1: The Race to Liberalism

This was a longer and more eventful round than those preceding it, so I'll use three posts and plenty of screenshots to fill you in on what happened.

For starters, I agreed with Zarah Nander; I did not in any way think that Liberalism was in the bag. The thing that made me most uncomfortable was the fact that I still needed Philosophy. Usually I build the Great Library, generate a Great Scientist, and pop him for that tech. It isn't because I'm all amped on getting Taoism, because I'm not--it's because it gives me a big leg up on the Liberalism race. Not only do I get a pre-requisite for Liberalism for free; the fact that Taoism has been founded seems to take the shine off of Philosophy for most of the AIs, and they don't prioritize it.

That's not the case in this game. Tokugawa has been beating me to tech after tech (which still shocks the heck outta me), and I was betting that he'd do it again with Liberalism. I was worried that he'd pick a military tech like Chemistry--making a war with him a nightmare. I had to be first to Liberalism.

The key was to get Philosophy as quickly as possible. I could research it myself in 3 turns. My buddy Ragnar had the tech, but was unwilling to part with it:



Or was he? Maybe he just needed a little more grease on his palms, if you catch my drift. I made the rounds of the other civs to ply them for cash, either through extortion, as with Mehmed and Isabella:





Yes, a vassal still will still give you tribute. Interesting and useful factoid.

I got gold for techs from Churchill and Alexander:





And for my world map from Tokugawa:



Then it was time to go see Ragnar again:



YES!! With Philosophy in hand, I now had to adjust my cities' tiles and specialists, as Jeff1787 suggested, to max out commerce and, thereby, science. I also pop-rushed a Buddhist Missionary in Bombay, my second-best science city:



That contributed significantly--on the next turn, the turns to research Liberalism went down by 2, not just 1. I also switched civics:



Bureaucracy, in particular, gave me a boost, trimming a whole turn off of Liberalism's research. Of course this trick would not have been possible with any leader but a spiritual one. I love that trait.

Look what happened on the next turn:



I'd been waiting for that to happen, but now I had a new, expensive city without a courthouse (of course). I had to somehow pay for all my accelerated research. I was delaying the war with Tokugawa to avoid the extra unit maintenance costs, but it obviously wouldn't be enough.

Remember how I traded Paper to Ragnar on the previous turn along with a lot of gold? Well, I got most of it back:



Hee hee--ain't I a stinker?

Nevertheless, I didn't have Music or Nationalism, so Military Tradition was out as possibilities for the free tech. I figured it was down to Nationalism, Astronomy, Printing Press, or Chemistry.

Research got another boost when the citizens of Lahore started getting recalcitrant:



CRACK!! Instant Library. Clue in, you worthless peasants: with all those clams and an irrigated rice tile, your city is, literally, my whipping boy.

While I was at it, I also whipped a courthouse in Patak. Huh? Patak? Yeah, that's what I renamed Bjorgvin, in honour of my favourite brand of curry sauce:



On that same turn, I checked the tech board and found out that Tokugawa now had Education, which could only mean he was also pursuing Liberalism. I tried to remember if I'd checked the tech screen on the previous round, specifically with Toku--how long had he had Education? I wasn't sure.

Then, in 1340...



Now I had to decide on a technology. Ultimately, it was my stack o' doom waiting just outside of the Viking borders near Patak that made up my mind. I wanted a military tech that I could start using NOW:



Chemistry it was, for Grenadiers, and, soon, Frigates as well, because the next technology I started researching was Astronomy--for the Observatories and especially the inter-continental trade routes as well.

To be continued...

Yay! *claps*

I'm really enjoying reading this. Keep up the good work!

Just briliant! I take my hat of for you Sisiutil!

how you managed to get the liberalism by micromanagement and sneaky trades are trully a work of art!

Round 11, to 1505 AD
Part 2: In A.D. 1360, War Was Beginning

How are you Tokugawa. You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha ha ha ha...

Before the war with Japan started, however, it was time to reap the rewards of the Liberalism race with my horny buddy, Ragnar.

Okay, that didn't come out right. Anybody else get a disturbing visual image, there? Sorry about that.

Ahem. I went to Ragnar to see what techs I could clean from him:





Yeah, it was a little dangerous, giving him Chemistry like that, but I think it was worth it. Fortunately, even though the Viking is "Pleased" with Tokugawa, the Japanese leader is "Cautious" with him, and we all know that means Toku won't trade techs for love nor money. Even so, I'm glad Ragnar is Friendly, and I'll have to keep an eye on him. He did not want to attack Toku at all, by the way, so I just hope he'll be happy to sit on the sidelines and watch.

(Sidebar: I should take this opportunity to add that the Colossus helped me bag Liberalism. Part of the city tile micromanagement I performed involved moving citizens to tiles producing the most coin. For coastal cities, that was easy, with all coastal tiles producing 3 commerce apiece. Lakes too. It helped a lot, probably shaving a turn off of the research time. The Colussus' cultural output also helped flip Bjorgvin. It became obsolete once I finished Astronomy, but that has been a very valuable wonder for me in this game!)

With Banking in hand, I made a civics change:



Mercantilism didn't make that much of a difference, but it's better than decentralization.

My stack was looming over Tokyo's borders, so it was time to go see Tokugawa and stop staving off the inevitable:



Tokyo, as it turned out, was lightly defended:



It took 2 turns to take the city: one to remove the defense bonus (I had to use almost all of the Trebuchets in addition to my 4 Accuracy-promoted Catapults), the next to attack. As I recall, Warlords and/or the patch has enhanced the ability of walls and castles (I gather Tokyo had both) to resist bombardment. Can anyone tell me how many Accuracy Catapults I'd need to remove the defenses of a wall and castle in one turn? And what if that civ has Chichen Itza as well?

With the defenses gone, it was time to take this new unit, the Trebuchet, for a whirl:



They did an awesome job. I don't think I lost one during this attack; one of them retreated, the others all won their battles. That left my City Raider III Axeman to do the cleanup:






He's one XP away from Level 5 now. Once he has it, he gets upgraded to a Grenadier. I also have another CRIII Axe at 12 XPs that I'm considering upgrading soon, a CR II Maceman, and a CR I and a CR II Swordsman. Since the Trebuchets are doing most of the heavy lifting, I'm thinking I should hold off on upgrading any of them until they have CR III. The CR III Axe I'm torn over: I held off upgrading it at first because I didn't want a CR III Grenadier being the best unit defending a city and absorbing attacks. Now that I have a Combat III Grenadier, I'm thinking up uprading him--but then I lose 2 XPs. Hmmmm...

So what did Tokyo contain? A wonder, as it turned out:



Not that the University of Sankore is going to help me much--I only have a temple in one city, the captial. The U of S doesn't seem to boost the research power of Monasteries, strangely, just temples, and maybe Cathedrals, but I haven't played a Warlords game yet where I built those and this wonder, so I can't be sure. Still, it was good to deny it to Tokugawa.

I should mention that right around this time I got my next great person, a Great Scientist in Dehli. Nice--it was 50/50 between a GS and a Great Prophet, so I lucked out there. I used him to build an Academy in Delhi, which trimmed 2 turns off of Astronomy, proving it was worth it.

On the next turn, Tokugawa attacked Tokyo. He had a stack waiting a few tiles to the east of the city when I took it. I almost think he pulled them out and then wanted to use them to retake the city. An interesting stratagem, but I had left the city very well-defended. On his first wave of attack, I lost a City Garrison 2 Longbowman, a War Elephant, and a Maceman--ouch. I quickly upgraded a Combat II Maceman to a Grenadier. That unit absorbed the next wave of attacks all on his own, killed all the attackers, and earned Combat III.

Once he healed and the attacks on Tokyo died down, my CIII Grenadier then accompanied my stack south to Osaka:







I lost one Trebuchet and my CR I Swordsman earned CR II. Toku launched another attack on Tokyo, but I had upgraded one of the Drill II Crossbows to a Grenadier, and he proved just as formidable as his CIII counterpart. I love Grenadiers!

Osaka did not contain any wonders, but I am disinclined to raze these cities and hand the land over to Ragnar, even though his borders are claiming a lot of the tiles anyway. I whipped the living daylights out of Tokyo, which is why it's down to 4 pop, but it will grow back, and it has a Courthouse and a Library now, IIRC.

My forces have paused in Osaka to heal before the march on the next Japanese city. But that wasn't all that happened in this round.

I finished Astronomy and started trading with the other continent, with Churchill in particular, so I'm trying to be friendly with the portly Englishman. I even made nice with Isabella, since she had some spare GPT and Alexander did not, at least not until the end of the round. I didn't get a "you have traded with our worst enemies" demerit from anyone, but Alexander is pleased with me, so if he ever asks me to cancel my deals with Spain, I'll probably comply. Isabella won't trade her sugar and spice to me anyway.

Er, that last sentance also probably inspired an unfortunate visual image for everyone. Sorry...

You might notice that I started researching Economics. Mercantilism was proving to be no great boon, and no one else had it. Could I possibly win another research race, this time to the free Great Merchant? I didn't think Tokugawa was likely to rival me in techs anymore, with two of his best cities gone, including a tech-enhancing wonder. My buddy Ragnar, however, could certainly beat me to Economics. But it was worth a shot, I decided.

I used the same strategy as with Liberalism. I went around and got some gold from the other civs--not as much this time, but every little bit helped:



I then maxed out the research slider. A handful of turns later...





So suddenly I'm feeling a lot better about the tech standings in this game--something we'll discuss in more detail shortly. The next post will detail the "state of the world" at this point in the game, and I hope will lead to discussion about what we should do next--there are a lot of very important decisions to make in the next round!

To be continued...

Round 11, to 1505 AD
Part 3: The State of the World

Let's start with a look at the map. Here's my continent:



And here's the "dark continent". All I know is the coastline because no one over there will trade their world map to me! Sheesh...



I do have OB with Alexander and Churchill, so I should probably send a Galleon with some Explorers or something over there soon. Or missionaries, even better!

Now you're probably wondering how close I am to my next Great General:



15 XPs. I'm guessing three more cities, maybe two if Tokugawa launches more counterattacks. I haven't faced much in my own territory. Toku sent a lone knight up near Calcutta, who only managed to pillage a farm before a War Elephant killed him. Mehmed has only sent one Crossbowman at me, probably at Tokugawa's behest; a tusker did him in too. My Caravels have also sunk a couple of galleys, but that's it. Most of the action occurred around Tokyo. The AI is still predictable in that regard: take one of its cities and it will focus on getting it back.

Here's the power graph:



Toku is falling, I'm only a little bit behind Ragnar, and Churchill is trailing me slightly. Nevertheless, look at how Toku's line is rising again. You can see when Tokyo and then Osaka fell, but he's obviously whipping units elsewhere. All the more reason to keep pressing him.

Diplomatic relations:



So my two best friends are Ragnar and Alexander, of all people! I'm hoping to keep on Churchill's good side just because we have so much trade. I'm not sure what that takes--has anyone played many games with him thus far? Perhaps switching to Free Religion will help relations there, but I'm reluctant to give up the bonus a shared religion gives me with Ragnar until the war with Japan is done and I can give consider taking on the Vikings.

Active trades:



As I said, Churchill and I are trading a lot! The dye-for-fish trade I'll cancel once Karachi's borders pop. I'll build a work boat for that fish tile soon and have it standing by. Ragnar's dye-for-silk is also doomed once I claim more Japanese territory, which contains that resource. I'll have to see if my trades with the dysfunctional couple aggravate relations and act accordingly.

Here's how I stand, tech-wise, with Ragnar:



No, I haven't traded Astronomy to him yet. I obviously don't care about Divine Right (Ragnar has already finished the Spiral Minaret, by the way). If Ragnar builds Versailles, I may have to just take it from him. I'm starting to pull away from Ragnar tech-wise, so I'm becoming reluctant to help him.

You can see that both Toku and Mehmed have Printing Press, which I'd love to get:



However, I'm reluctant to give Tokugawa a moment's rest, lest he finish researching a troublesome military tech--like, say, Chemistry! I could maybe get it in a peace settlement with Mehmed if he breaks from Toku, but going by the vassalage stats, that's a long way off. So I should probably do one more trade with Ragnar for PP. I'd prefer to give him Economics, especially so he can adopt Free Trade. But it's worth less that PP, which means coming up with a lot of gold again. Or I could trade Astronomy to him, but I'd rather not. Ideas?

Here are the Demographics:



Okay, so I'm still #3 in GNP, but everything else is coming up, I think.

The top 5 cities and wonders:



My point here is about Satsuma, which contains the Great Library and Angkor Wat. Not only is it a prize, I'd like to deny its benefits to Tokugawa ASAP. It's the logical next target for my stack, and it's lightly defended:



Actually, let's take a look at Japanese and Ottoman territory:



Whew--there's a lot of cities yet to go, including a couple that we can't see. War weariness is going to start to become an issue. I'm thinking of switching to Vassalage and Theocracy again soon, pumping out several more units, and sending a second stack down through Edrine while my other stack takes out the core Japanese cities.

Okay, so let's talk about our decision points.

1. Military: I think a second stack heading down through the southeast makes a lot of sense. Does the civics switch to support it make sense too? It will mainly consist of Grenadiers and Trebuchets. What about the other stack? I think I really should take Satsuma off of Toku's hands next, but what after that? Do I head south to take Yokohama and Itumo, to secure my rear and flank? Or do I push on to Kyoto and Kagoshima to capture Toku's remaining core cities and put the nail firmly in his coffin? And as for the Great General--I'm thinking I should finally get that Medic III unit going, again to accelerate the war machine. But I can build military academies now, too.
2. Research: I chose Nationalism next, with a mind to Military Tradition and Cavalry after that, and maybe even building the Taj Mahal. Or should I select something else? I'm beginning to think that Steel would be a better choice, for Cannon. Trebuchets are great, but Cannon will make the war machine's wheels spin even faster.
3. Civics: I'm starting to really take advantage of the spiritual trait. As I mentioned, I'm thinking of making another switch soon--build up an Treb and a Grenadier in most cities, switch to Vassalage/Theocracy, and let them come out with the additional XPs, then go back to Bureaucracy/OR. I'm also thinking of going to Free Market. Ragnar, Toku, Mehmed, and Isabella are running Mercantilism, but Churchill and Alexander are still decentralized. I could trade/sell Economics on the cheap and see who'll switch, of course.
4. Economy: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm starting to get banks built, then grocers and markets in the cities that need them, and universities, too. What about the Great Merchant? I could settle him in Delhi, of course, which is likely to become the Wall Street city. However, I'm leaning towards a trade mission. I can foresee a lot of upgrades coming up soon--Axes and Swords to Grenadiers, Catapults and Trebuchets to Cannon. It would be nice to have the funds to accomplish that. It would allow us to more seriously consider taking on Ragnar, and help end the war sooner.
5. Other: National wonders! They kind of fell off the radar, didn't they? I've got several universities to go before I can build Oxford. I think it should go in the capital--Satsuma is the other candidate, but I think it will be preoccupied recovering from the war. And Scientific Method isn't too far off now, making its Great Library obsolete probably before Oxford is finished. I was thinking of Wall Street for the capital as well, which precludes building the National Epic there. Where should it go? Lahore seems like the most obvious GP farm, but it will have happiness issues until Mehmed is dead, dead, dead. The Hermitage, I think, should go in Tokyo or Patak to fight off that Viking cultural pressure.

I look forward to your thoughts. The saved game file is below. (By the way, to avoid hitting the 20 MB file upload limit on the board, I've had to remove a number of saved game files from previous ALC threads--up to and including ALC6, Louis. I've saved them to my hard drive, and I left the game start in each thread. If anyone wants the complete files for any ALC match, PM me.)

War Plan

Here's what I was thinking of as a plan for the rest of the Japanese conflict:



Basically, the main stack continues cutting a swath through Japanese territory, taking out Tokugawa's core cities while leaving the "junk" cities. After the stack captures Kagoshima, it does a 180 to mop up the remaining cities in the southern tundra. There are worthwhile resources down there--remember that this is the flying camera shot that strangely removes the bottom four tile rows of resource indicators.

Meanwhile, a second stack will be built in the north and head down to take Edrine. It will then capture that Japanese mystery city to Edrine's southwest. After that, it takes out Konya, thus finishing off Mehmed and putting a sock in all those whiners in Lahore. Then it has two more cities to capture, both Japanese--Nagasaki and the other hidden city in the mid-east.

2 stacks. 12 cities.

Whaddya think?

I believe taking out Mehmed is reasonable. He's got two cities, and will probably break vassallage to Toku when Edirne is yours. What he does after that I'm not sure, but he won't be useful vassall anymore with just Konya left, so even if he breaks from Toku and comes begging I'd rather turn him down and hurry to take out Konya (which I'd raze instead of keeping). This may leave a short window of opportunity for him to try to vassall to someone else, which should it happen would be unfortunate, but I'd take my chances there.

As you push Toku down, eventually he'll break and capitulate. If he instead vassalls to Ragnar, you'll have hard choices... I'm not sure about the game mechanics involved, but either your war with Toku will end at sudden peace (as you're at peace with Ragnar) or you'll find yourself at war with Ragnar as well. My best guess is that if Ragnar is Friendly (and thus would not for any reason declare war on you), Toku vassalling to him would lead to peace with Toku instead of war with Ragnar. Hopefully someone well versed in the subject can tell which one would happen.

For as long as Toku has reasonable military he won't cap. You should thus have time to take what you want. I'd concentrate on taking the prize cities and making sure they will have room to live, but it's handy to have vassall's cities on potentially hostile border instead of your own cities. I think taking Edirne from Mehmed, then Satsuma and Kyoto from Toku, maybe cleaninig up room around them, would be reasonable. Hopefully Toku will offer to cap when he's got something like Yokohama, Izumo, Kagoshima and Nagasaki left, therefore being a nice vassall, small enough that you won't need to fear him being able to break but still large enough that you can sell excess goods to him for good income (vassalls will buy anything you want to sell and will pay full price).

So on the warfront, if your empire can handle the war for the time, I'd push until Toku caps.
Would cannons arrive and make difference already during this war? If not, then I don't think they're urgent at the moment. So if Steel can be researched fast enough for cannons to be on the front during this war, then yes, go for it. But if you think you can end the war before cannons are rolling to the front, Nationalism or PP (if not bulbed/traded) would seem like the way to go.

On economics: sell it, gift it, hope to have trading partners. Can you pull enough coin with it from the others to pay Ragnar the difference between PP and Econ?
What does the GM bulb? PP? That's a choice too.. Although trade mission isn't bad either. Settling the GM is often nice, but you've reached 16th century so it might not be worth for raw coin output anymore - added food may make it worthwhile though (I value that food from settled GM quite high in some cases).

Eventually you'll lose the shared religion bonus with Ragnar. Will you befriend him by other means, keeping him at Friendly at all times? Or will you take him down? I wouldn't want to share borders with Ragnar that is "only" pleased with me.. Not even if my power rating was five times his.

A couple of points:

You mentioned that it would take cash to trade economics for Printing Press with Ragnar. Wouldn't that be a good use of the trade mission? Of course, if the GM would lightbulb part of PP, then that might be enough to make the rest a low enough value to make that trade, while denying Ragnar the cash. It's a thought.

On the war plan, I'd hesitate to try to assimilate his entire territory in one war. How soon can you build FP down there? As soon as you can you should. What resources are down there?

You mentioned demanding tribute from a vassal. The best part about that is that they can't conduct their own foreign policy (declare war) so you can demand tribute without fear of much retribution.

National wonders: Are they all cost-effective? Obviously Wall Street and Oxford U are, but national epic? I've never really believed in it being all that effective, especially if it's not built until the Renaissance.

Sisuitil,

beware of the sudden switch of vasselage. risky as it may be after taking the cities on the way to the capitol I would save, then split your attack and hit 4 cities at once. then see if he will capitulate. if not try to clean him up before ragnar accepts rule over him.

tough decision to be sure

NaZ

Phrederick said:

You mentioned that it would take cash to trade economics for Printing Press with Ragnar. Wouldn't that be a good use of the trade mission? Of course, if the GM would lightbulb part of PP, then that might be enough to make the rest a low enough value to make that trade, while denying Ragnar the cash. It's a thought.

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I just want to chime in and say I like this idea.

On the war plan, I'd hesitate to try to assimilate his entire territory in one war. How soon can you build FP down there? As soon as you can you should.

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And this one too. If you can get a second stack going to take Mehmed down, then you should. But I'd take Satsuma and move east like you're talking about, then instead of looping south and back west, either finish mopping up what the second stack hasn't taken, or if the second stack has everything taken care of, sue for peace. I wouldn't worry too much about the cities down in the tundra right now. Like Phrederick is suggesting, I'd take the major production centers and Mehmed's territory now, then use the peace to whip or otherwise build the FP before starting the next round. Even if Toku was still able to tech (which he really won't be, at least not well), he won't have much to produce with.

I don't think I'd worry too much about Toku vassaling to Ragnar if you leave 3 or 4 cities, even if two of them are complete rubbish. While Raggie might capitulate at that point, Toku seems to need a bit more "convincing" before he starts looking for a master.

Sisiutil said:

Okay, that didn't come out right. Anybody else get a disturbing visual image, there? Sorry about that.

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Not as bad as the visual of Mehmed submitting to Tokugawa's domination. Bleh...

I can't see the civics, but with Astonomy mercantalism prevents some trade routes, especially as you uncover the major cities on the other continent.

Take your Great Merchant and some missionaries and "light up" the other continent, with the GM trade mission to London a major priority. That money will fund your war and your research. The missionaries will push back the darkness and increase shrine income.

As for the war, your plan sounds fine. I am surprised that Toku focused solely on retaking cities as my experience has been different with this patch. Makes warfare easier though.

The CR Grenadiers and CR Cats will perform admirably. In my games, I usually needed 6 accuracy siege weapons to strip defenses.

Elandal said:

I believe taking out Mehmed is reasonable. He's got two cities, and will probably break vassallage to Toku when Edirne is yours. What he does after that I'm not sure, but he won't be useful vassall anymore with just Konya left, so even if he breaks from Toku and comes begging I'd rather turn him down and hurry to take out Konya (which I'd raze instead of keeping). This may leave a short window of opportunity for him to try to vassall to someone else, which should it happen would be unfortunate, but I'd take my chances there.

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If I'm right, Mehmed's voluntarily vassalized himself to Toku - they haven't warred so he can't have capitulated. That means he can break the arrangement at any time. If you take Edirne (which you definitely should), he'll probably capitulate to you, but I'd be inclined to make peace in exchange for all his techs and gold instead and finish him off ten turns later. That's the easiest and quickest way to pick up both techs you're missing so don't trade for either with Ragnar.

As for your war plan:
I can't check the save, but I think it's overambitious for now. Toku's already pretty much toast, despite what it may look like on the map. I'd use the southern stack to take Satsuma and Kyoto, which effectively guts the remainder of his core leaving him with a bunch of desert and tundra cities and then make peace while you consolidate gains and regroup ready for another offensive. While the southern stack's taking those two cities, reinforcements from the north can clean out Edirne and press south into Japan.

In the meantime, the GM can set sail for London (the top city in the world tends to give the most cash), givign you the gold to upgrade your veterans.

In terms of tech, if you're going to press on against Toku and then turn on your buddy Ragnar, Steel's a good option. Upgrading those CR3 trebs to canon will be nasty.

As for National Wonders:
A lot depends on if and when you war against Ragnar. However, Delhi's a no brainer for Wall Street and Kyoto looks like a good spot for the Ironworks. Forbidden Palace location depends a bit on whether Ragnar builds Versailles or not, but you'll be wanting to run state property once it becomes available anyway so that isn't critical.

The game's essentially won by this point, so congratulations. Now it's just a case of which victory condition you decide to pursue. Now seems like a good time to make that decision.

about toku vassalizing to ragnar, it seems unlikely.
Because it would mean that ragnar agrees to go to war with you. Something he wouldn't do (we won't betray our closest friends).

So if you continue hitting him he could capitualte to you quite soon.
Hurry to GL city, and delay scimet a bit, while building a taoist monastery somewhere.
Yes monasteries of the right kind also give you 2 beakers until scimet obsoletes it, and cathedrals!
But do you have buddhist monasteries?

Sisiutil said:

Okay, so let's talk about our decision points.

Military: I think a second stack heading down through the southeast makes a lot of sense. Does the civics switch to support it make sense too? It will mainly consist of Grenadiers and Trebuchets. What about the other stack? I think I really should take Satsuma off of Toku's hands next, but what after that? Do I head south to take Yokohama and Itumo, to secure my rear and flank? Or do I push on to Kyoto and Kagoshima to capture Toku's remaining core cities and put the nail firmly in his coffin? And as for the Great General--I'm thinking I should finally get that Medic III unit going, again to accelerate the war machine. But I can build military academies now, too.

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I would use both stacks against Mehmet on the same turn in a giant pincer movement and take both his cities. That way he won't be able to change vassalage to Ragnar which would be embarassing. You need to get rid of his Motherland culture in several cities so it's worth the delay and extra effort to deal with him properly.

I doubt you'll be able to take Toku in one attempt and so I would plan to take the good cites and have a contiguous land area stretching through Mehmets cities. Leave the southern end of the continent for another push. Think carefully about whether you'd accept Toku as a vassal if he offers. Convert him to your religion and he could be a good pet

Research: I chose Nationalism next, with a mind to Military Tradition and Cavalry after that, and maybe even building the Taj Mahal. Or should I select something else? I'm beginning to think that Steel would be a better choice, for Cannon. Trebuchets are great, but Cannon will make the war machine's wheels spin even faster.

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I'd consider Constitution as well. That gives Representation (see civic discussion below) and the Mausoleum (which is a Jail with +2 Happiness) which could make protracted war easier. Canons are wonderful in this situation. Military Tradition is not much use in my opinion... Cavalry brings nothing special (just more expensive upgrades and you've enough of those needed already ) and West Point and you have enough National Wonders outstanding already

Civics: I'm starting to really take advantage of the spiritual trait. As I mentioned, I'm thinking of making another switch soon--build up an Treb and a Grenadier in most cities, switch to Vassalage/Theocracy, and let them come out with the additional XPs, then go back to Bureaucracy/OR. I'm also thinking of going to Free Market. Ragnar, Toku, Mehmed, and Isabella are running Mercantilism, but Churchill and Alexander are still decentralized. I could trade/sell Economics on the cheap and see who'll switch, of course.

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You have used Spiritual well but I think you missed a trick with your civic choices. One of the most powerful ways to generate GPs is the Caste System + Pacifism shift and if you add Representation to that you get good research at the same time. You have several cities that could generate one of two GPs by running that combination. With Spiritual you can run that combo for just 5 turns and then switch back to other civics for diplomatic or military purposes. In my shadow game I generated 2 extra GS using that technique and won the Liberalism race in 1270.

Economy: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm starting to get banks built, then grocers and markets in the cities that need them, and universities, too. What about the Great Merchant? I could settle him in Delhi, of course, which is likely to become the Wall Street city. However, I'm leaning towards a trade mission. I can foresee a lot of upgrades coming up soon--Axes and Swords to Grenadiers, Catapults and Trebuchets to Cannon. It would be nice to have the funds to accomplish that. It would allow us to more seriously consider taking on Ragnar, and help end the war sooner.

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No comment except

It is not normally worth upgrading catapults and trebuchets to cannons. Maybe a favourite CR3 treuchet or two but not in general. Just build new cannons with barracks, Vassalage and / or Theocracy or even a military advisor. CR2 cannons will soon get promoted.

Other: National wonders! They kind of fell off the radar, didn't they? I've got several universities to go before I can build Oxford. I think it should go in the capital--Satsuma is the other candidate, but I think it will be preoccupied recovering from the war. And Scientific Method isn't too far off now, making its Great Library obsolete probably before Oxford is finished. I was thinking of Wall Street for the capital as well, which precludes building the National Epic there. Where should it go? Lahore seems like the most obvious GP farm, but it will have happiness issues until Mehmed is dead, dead, dead. The Hermitage, I think, should go in Tokyo or Patak to fight off that Viking cultural pressure.

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Oxford in Delhi seems the best place although it is not a research powerhouse. You don't even own Satsuma yet so forget that... by the time it is captured, comes out of revolt and starts building infrastructure...
Globe Theatre in Lahore and forget unhappiness, it can become a whipping and drafting powerhouse.

patagonia said:

The game's essentially won by this point, so congratulations.

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Quite a change from 640 AD. I'll have to look at that position again, to work out what I failed to evaluate correctly - I expected this recovery to be much slower in coming.



When you marooned me on that god forsaken spit of land, you forgot one very important thing, mate: I'm Captain Jack Sparrow.

On Nov 20th when some of the other posters were merchants of doom and gloom I posted a more optimistic message to Sisiutil

UncleJJ said:

I played on from the savegame for a few centuries and I can assure people (without giving too much away) that this game is far from lost and could be an easy win. Sisiutil has a lot of good territory and once that is developed and his cities get up to full size he has a research and production powerhouse here. The trick is to keep the neighbours happy while you do that.

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It might be interesting to now reveal to others and, particularly Sisiutil, my savegame from 1505 as I don't think it is a spoiler, any information from my game is unlikely to be exactly the same in Sisiutil's real game as the histories have diverged in many respects. I'd say we are are at different but equivalent positions with him ahead militarily and my economy is stronger and better developed.

Starting from the 640 AD savegame I naturally followed my own advice and vigorously set about building up the economy while researching towards Liberalism (free tech) and Optics and making sure to keep the neighbours happy. I researched Theocracy and Philosophy first, founding Christianity in Calcutta and Taoism in Bjorgvin. So I went for a religous intensive game plan building Angkor Wat and University of Sankore as suits a spiritual leader.

Several events were different in my game. Memhet became the vassal of Ragnar and Toku founded Islam and coverted. That split him and Ragnar up diplomatically as in Sisiutil's game.

Liberalism was won in 1270 thanks to lightbulbing a GS gained from running Caste System and Pacificism in a few cities. Circumnavigation was very late about 1500 IIRC and I still got the bonus (another indication of the backwardness of the other continent).

I developed Delhi very differently from Sisiutil and I think my way is significantly better The 5 plains cottages are obviously only just starting to pay off but will eventually make Delhi a powerful research and gold city. I intend to put Oxford and Wall Street there. To generate another great prophet I run priests when Pacificism is run with Caste System. Being able to run 10 priests means they pop out fast

Two other cities that are a little different from Sisutil's versions are Lahore and Cuman. Lahore has built up its research multipliers and has just whipped Globe Theatre in there (ready for my rifle drafting in a few turns). Cuman is farmed in preference to cottages and has already produced 1 GS. My economy is best described as hybrid but leaning towards SE and Sisutil is going more towards the cottage route.

Anyway; if a picture is worth a 1000 words then a savegame must be worth 10,000. So without further ado here is 1505 in an alternative universe. I hope Sisiutil enjoys the delicious possibilities

Like others, I assumed there was a "monster in the darkness" with a higher tech advantage than Toku/Ragnar; I merely objected to the notion that the game was lost, and that it was impossible to catch up & win. I'm actually very surprised to discover that the other continent is so backwards.

The war plan looks good (I'm a peacemonger, so I'll let others advise about that.) I would also send the GM to map out the new continent, esp. Isabella's land and anyone you don't have OB with. I'd also send over missionaries by the galleon-full, and try to convert some of the civs to your religion. Definitely spread religion to Ragnar's cities that don't have Buddhism yet -- he's founded Islam, you don't want him to convert!!!

Sisiutil: its worth remembering that Ragnar is level pegging on the power chart so don't get too distracted by wiping out Tok. I'd go with knocking out a couple more core cities (Kyoto, Satsuma) then seriously consider switching your attention to Ragnar.