Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 7: 1460 AD to 1710 AD, Part 1
To start off the round, I made a couple of tech trades. May as well get what I can from Divine Right, I figure.
I also obtained Music and 140 gold from Sury for DR. I quickly switched to Mercantilism and put mostly Merchants to work in many of my cities.
As I closed in on Liberalism, I began to switch to military builds in most of Spain's cities, anticipating the war to conquer Rome. I also, at long last, became Resident of the Apostolic Palace.
That did allow me to stir up a little mischief later on.
When Liberalism was within a turn of completion, I left it aside and started putting research towards Economics instead.
Yes, it will obsolete the UB, but the GM is a very tempting prize, especially given the dearth of gold in the treasury and all the unit upgrades I'm going to need to do: Swords and Axes to Macemen, Horse Archers and Knights to Conquistadors, and so on.
First, however, I lowered switched around the levels on the research and espionage sliders for about 5 or 6 turns, until I had visibility into every other civ's research, and also several espionage points to spare on Augustus. The Roman had built not only walls but also castles in many of his cities. I saw what a pain those are to remove with Joao. So I wanted plenty of EP to burn on city revolts, so the defenses would be removed on the turn that I attacked.
Once I had all the EPs I needed, I switched the sliders back and declared war.
I was going to wait a couple more turns for a couple more units to be in place, but Augustus had a Great Merchant in my territory, evidently intended for a trade mission. I decided to take him out:
I kind of think that if you capture a great person like this you get some sort of bonus. But there would have to be a price to balance it--probably diplomatically. Every one would close their borders to you for several turns because you can't be trusted. Or something like that.
At any rate, I suppose I could have let the GM finish the trade mission since I would have captured the gold eventually. But I figured Augustus was more likely to spend it, especially on unit upgrades or even purchasing techs, possibly military ones. No, it was better to just kill the GM, I think.
Now I thought I'd post the Battle of Neapolis in a little more detail, since some of you were asking about the effectiveness of the Spanish Citadel-promoted Trebuchets. First off, here's a look at the Roman garrison before I attacked:
13 units, not a bad protective stack. They didn't attack my own offensive stack at the beginning of the turn at all.
After my Accuracy Cats removed the city's defenses, here's what the odds looked like for the first Treb's battle:
It survived. Here's the damage it did to the defenders:
So 75% damage to the defender, effectively rendering the Longbow a sitting duck for an attacking unit capable of killing, and 7.5% collateral damage to 4 other units. Who says I can't do math?
(Oh, yeah, I usually do. Well, it's kind of like a cat swimming; they can do it, but that doesn't mean they like it.)
By the time my 10 CRIII Trebs were finished, here's what the city defense looked like:
Obviously, that meant my remaining units didn't have too hard a job taking the city.
Overall, the Trebs did outstanding work in the war. I did lose a couple--about one every other city. I don't think I lost any other units at all. All things considered, especially the part where Augustus had a slight tech lead, pretty darned good.
Augustus sent a couple of Catapults at Neapolis, but nothing too troubling. As my units healed I expected a massive counter-attack, but none came. Granted, I had enough EPs on Augustus to see that the type of counter-attack I feared meant he would have had to drain his cities of defenders, and I've noticed the AI is usually reluctant to do that.
Rome fell next:
As you can see, as a bonus, I have a settled Great Engineer! In fact, Neapolis had one as well. I think Rome is a good candidate, as good as any, for becoming the Ironworks city. Not a lot of watermills--4 in all--but the best candidate I've got at this point; it has a decent food supply, some hills to mine, and can get away with plenty of workshops, especially under State Property.
Oh, by the way, I should mention that I was surprised to run into Knights in Rome. Yep, Knights! It seems Augustus did manage to get some Galleons over to that island to our southeast:
My Trebs meant the Knights didn't present too much of a problem, but I had to take precautions. It also meant I had to hold off on building more Trebs and rush-build some Pikemen instead.
In other news, I was closing in on Economics, and had Liberalism tucked away with only 1 turn to go for completion, so I figured I should get what I could for Education before everybody else researched and traded it and stuff.
I also got Printing Press from Sury. I dunno, these two guys have been awfully friendly so far.
To be continued...
To start off the round, I made a couple of tech trades. May as well get what I can from Divine Right, I figure.
I also obtained Music and 140 gold from Sury for DR. I quickly switched to Mercantilism and put mostly Merchants to work in many of my cities.
As I closed in on Liberalism, I began to switch to military builds in most of Spain's cities, anticipating the war to conquer Rome. I also, at long last, became Resident of the Apostolic Palace.
That did allow me to stir up a little mischief later on.
When Liberalism was within a turn of completion, I left it aside and started putting research towards Economics instead.
Yes, it will obsolete the UB, but the GM is a very tempting prize, especially given the dearth of gold in the treasury and all the unit upgrades I'm going to need to do: Swords and Axes to Macemen, Horse Archers and Knights to Conquistadors, and so on.
First, however, I lowered switched around the levels on the research and espionage sliders for about 5 or 6 turns, until I had visibility into every other civ's research, and also several espionage points to spare on Augustus. The Roman had built not only walls but also castles in many of his cities. I saw what a pain those are to remove with Joao. So I wanted plenty of EP to burn on city revolts, so the defenses would be removed on the turn that I attacked.
Once I had all the EPs I needed, I switched the sliders back and declared war.
I was going to wait a couple more turns for a couple more units to be in place, but Augustus had a Great Merchant in my territory, evidently intended for a trade mission. I decided to take him out:
I kind of think that if you capture a great person like this you get some sort of bonus. But there would have to be a price to balance it--probably diplomatically. Every one would close their borders to you for several turns because you can't be trusted. Or something like that.
At any rate, I suppose I could have let the GM finish the trade mission since I would have captured the gold eventually. But I figured Augustus was more likely to spend it, especially on unit upgrades or even purchasing techs, possibly military ones. No, it was better to just kill the GM, I think.
Now I thought I'd post the Battle of Neapolis in a little more detail, since some of you were asking about the effectiveness of the Spanish Citadel-promoted Trebuchets. First off, here's a look at the Roman garrison before I attacked:
13 units, not a bad protective stack. They didn't attack my own offensive stack at the beginning of the turn at all.
After my Accuracy Cats removed the city's defenses, here's what the odds looked like for the first Treb's battle:
It survived. Here's the damage it did to the defenders:
So 75% damage to the defender, effectively rendering the Longbow a sitting duck for an attacking unit capable of killing, and 7.5% collateral damage to 4 other units. Who says I can't do math?
(Oh, yeah, I usually do. Well, it's kind of like a cat swimming; they can do it, but that doesn't mean they like it.)
By the time my 10 CRIII Trebs were finished, here's what the city defense looked like:
Obviously, that meant my remaining units didn't have too hard a job taking the city.
Overall, the Trebs did outstanding work in the war. I did lose a couple--about one every other city. I don't think I lost any other units at all. All things considered, especially the part where Augustus had a slight tech lead, pretty darned good.
Augustus sent a couple of Catapults at Neapolis, but nothing too troubling. As my units healed I expected a massive counter-attack, but none came. Granted, I had enough EPs on Augustus to see that the type of counter-attack I feared meant he would have had to drain his cities of defenders, and I've noticed the AI is usually reluctant to do that.
Rome fell next:
As you can see, as a bonus, I have a settled Great Engineer! In fact, Neapolis had one as well. I think Rome is a good candidate, as good as any, for becoming the Ironworks city. Not a lot of watermills--4 in all--but the best candidate I've got at this point; it has a decent food supply, some hills to mine, and can get away with plenty of workshops, especially under State Property.
Oh, by the way, I should mention that I was surprised to run into Knights in Rome. Yep, Knights! It seems Augustus did manage to get some Galleons over to that island to our southeast:
My Trebs meant the Knights didn't present too much of a problem, but I had to take precautions. It also meant I had to hold off on building more Trebs and rush-build some Pikemen instead.
In other news, I was closing in on Economics, and had Liberalism tucked away with only 1 turn to go for completion, so I figured I should get what I could for Education before everybody else researched and traded it and stuff.
I also got Printing Press from Sury. I dunno, these two guys have been awfully friendly so far.
To be continued...
and is set to complete a courthouse in 3 turns, saving it roughly 3.5 
iron tile and put him on a sea tile you'll see your income jump by 3
. i gotta rub that in since when i realized it was 2/3rds of the world i laughed so hard i scared my dogs!
Those Trebs were really impressive. I know you could have waited for Economics but don't beat yourself for it. You could go for Scientific Method and spend the earned cash to get both the GS from Physics (should be done first as Elizabeth might beat you to it) and the GSpy from Communism.
