RR11 - Takeshi's castle

Right I've played ten turns. I got PP, met Louis (who's still only on paper), and started war with Sury.
My micro decisions are pretty bad, I'll blame my cold, it's really killing my concentration, but everything else went well.

Turnlog:
T35:
Some manoeuvering.

T36:
Hakata Samurai>Sword.
Kamawhatever Samurai>Forge

T37:
more manouevres, I sent a cata to inspect Sury. T40 for results.

T38:
Sci to zero (first bit of weed, should have done this the previous turn).

T39:
Asoka wants:

As he's only WE with Sury and we make Sury dead soon, OK.
I also decide to sell him some stuff:

Hakata Cata>Samurai.
Changsha Samurai>Longbow.

T40:
Asoka wanted CS for Music and change and I said no. I don't see the point in a music trade.
2 pop Whip the library in Dongjiang. My addled brain says big overflow and is proven right.

Oh and the status report on Sury:

One of the Phants is poking around Tibet, the other has ridden off into the sunset.

T41:
Asoka wants:

I say no on the grounds of we don't want to give Chinggis an excuse.
Dongjian Lib>Chouse.

T42:
Heian Uni>Harbour (will get 2 gpt at the moment)
Sci back to 100%

T43:
Chinggis wants:

Well the request was a bit laughable so I said no.

T44:
Meet Louis. It looks like:

He has quite a few techs on us, but is behind in the Lib race. Check on optics though, as he may trade that. I didn't open borders as he contacted us, and OB is useless for us without los on his cities.
Science to 0%
Printing Press>Optics (I've only overflow and 1 turn 0% in this so change can be done)
Hakata Samurai>Cata.
Chengdu Granary>Chouse. The Elephant is poking around here so mind the workers.
Changsha Longbow>Pike (LB is gone to Chengdu as extra protection).
We get the black pearl event in Guangzhou (knew a girl from there once, she was pretty, but not very nice).
I declare on Sury, and move in on Hanoi (waited this long just to get the cata back).

T45:
Lose 2*catas and a raw Samurai to take Hanoi, with the GG (it was a 99.9% battle). The city still had only two L'bows, so no danger. As above the Elephant is nosing around Chengdu, so send the Pike up there when he finishes.

I keep the city as it is a nice location. It has granary attached so I put in Chouse.
We get GM van Diemen in Kamawhatever. I have him signposted on a boat.
Heian-Kyo Harbour>Lhouse.

I definitely could have done better, was a bit slow in attacking, and my micro is off as well as my concentration. But I don't think I was too bad.

Looks good enough ...

Ok, on issues to discuss:

Techwise: we are teching Optics. It is expectable to get it in 6-8 turns. What next ? PP ? Lib ? Something else ? BTW the Hokkaido hut will be popped by border pop in 5 turns ... that means that if we want to gamble Astro out of it, we need to get Optics in 4 or less. That means deficit spending ( atleast 50% ... that means -15gpt ). I think it is worth the shot, but the team may difer.

Expansion plans: India, most definitely. But the timing needs to be pondered. India is running the missio strat ( see that hindu missionary near our borders ? ), so he is surely running low on the military. Hit them now or wait for more military ?

On cities: keep them all. The reason is the same as to shun cottages in general: the time to make a new city profitable makes it a .

What to do with our GM ? Bulb ASAP ( with Optics researched, it will partly bulb Astro ) ? Use it as a scout and maybe a mission in Europe ?

Anyway, if Liq is still civless, lymond is up, with myself on deck

P.S Ivan the Terrible ( Samurai ). Nice touch

Okay...I'll take a look this evening. Any reason we are not going for Lib now? Any ideas on what to take with Lib?

A part bulb of Astro would nice. I did not know GMs could bulb it.

Anyway, I'll get back with a report by tomorrow.

Music would be good for Curs though.

Optics for an Astro bulb, if I recall correctly.

So, we go by this:

Enough research to get optics in 4 turns ( @ 50% currently is enough )

Then see the result of hut pop by border

If no astro ( the odds are low because we don't have drama ), bulb astro with GM ... then Lib ?

Okay, a few thoughts/questions and then a cursory plan:

1) Why are we running no religion Civics? OR would be nice but Pac might be good to for a while?

2) With that said, I'm not seeing an Astro bulb with a GM. I knew I had not seen it before, but I don't see Astro on a GM's bulb path. Correct me if I'm wrong. Looks like Guilds, Econ and/or Rep Parts is next. We do need Rep Parts. Anyway, maybe it's a good time to run a Golden Age - switch to Pac for a bit and then back to OR. Another option is to put him on a Caravel and send him to Europe.

3) What do we want to take with Lib? There's really not much to take at the moment. Optics would open up Astro of course. I kind of question going Optics now. Seems like we should be going Guilds and pushing toward Rifling. Is the idea to get Astro and trade it around for things like Gunpowder and Rep Parts?

4) Any thoughts on an HE city?

5) I see a lot of building as opposed to unit pumping at the moment. Just want to make sure we are in sync here.

Cursory plan:

I'd like to trade maps with Asoka for 25 gold. Should give us a better view of the world and make our maps more valuable. Downside is we get those hidden WE hits.

We can get Optics in 3 turns actually. I imagine we should get a couple of caravels out asap to explore east and west. Really would like to meet more AIs.

After Optics, I think we should start teching Lib and look to make trades to set up taking something like PP or Rep Parts.

I'll continue pushing on Sury and hope to eliminate him unless he has already settled some islands down south. We have some buff Samurai sitting in other cities so I will whip out some LBs and move them to the frontlines.

I'll try to set things up for hitting India but not sure if I'll get to attack them this turnset. Probably need a few support units up front too.

What is the standard number of turns we are playing for each turnset?

Still haven't seen the save, so it's difficult to comment anything substantial. I do think that for now military still takes prevalence, at least until India is subdued. Although I guess there are more juicy targets to the west.

Plan sounds okay with my limited information. I guess the turnsets are about 10-ish turns or some natural stopping point.

Waiting for some feedback from BS and rolo and others....I can play this evening (US)

You are right , I messed out the GM and GS lines. GM will bulb guilds ... it is not such a bad tech, but wasting a GM in it ... I'll let it to your consideration.

Org Rel is Ok, but wasting one turn in anarchy for a single civic swap ... not good. And Org Rel does not boost military builds :/ I would wait for another civic to change to make a double swap

About the building part ... I agree that we could be building more units, but remember we are mainly whipping units and oerflowing to buildings ( that we sorely need ). BTW we are hitting whip limits in alot of cities ... we will probably need to let some cities to cool their heads

HE city ... can't see any city for it in the moment. Hanoi would be nice for that IMHO , but it will take a while to put it running, between infra build, improvement of the terrain and city growth.

Your plan seems Ok . Sury has only his current cap and should be on the ropes, so finish him ASAP. Getting some caravels is a good idea as well, especially to get the circumnavigation bonus ( makes a big diference in huge maps ). After that I think that we will only need some extra cats to start on India.

Oh, and the regular turnset duration is 10 turns, but I prefer that you stop in a natural stopping point ( say, when you're ready to strike India or something similar ) than a rigid 10 turn set with stuff in the air.

P.S Sorry for the delay, but the forums have been unstable today... :/

Well, I was referring to a civic switch with a Golden Age. OR would make that Unit whips into buildings much more profitable.

We could put HE in the cap for the bureau bonus since this is all about war. Would make faster ships as well, but the long term potential I'm not so sure.

So the question is do we us the GM for a GA now or wait. Guilds does lead to Rifling, but we might trade for it a little later.

So the gist of the turn set given the length is finish Sury and prep for India.

Edit: I'm going to go ahead an play. I'll save the GM. Likely put him on a caravel and send to Europe.

Same as rolo for the lack of replys, this is the first time I've been on all day.

In the last set I didn't whip too much, mainly because of the production centres being productive, and of the aforementioned whip limit.

As regards the GM I was personally putting him on China for the move to Europe for the money (I think that'll be better than a GAge).

The Lib bulb of Astro will at least give us the tech to go after rolo's targets in the Americas, i.e. Monty and Huanya.

Dongjiang would also be fairly allright for the HE, but the problem here is Mongol culture. I'm not really seeing anything aside from these two at the moment.

****reserved for report****

attaching save now...will have write up later....gotsta eat

quick summary: Sury no mas, Optics in 3, Traded Optics to Qin for Music (quick border pops) - screw monuments, push to Lib (2t), met BK, other Ais can tech Lib, Army near India, Mongol in WHEOORN - yikes!, 2 Caravels out - 1 w/GM to Europe and 1 w/Explorer to America

edit: can't upload file for some reason...forum may be jacked...will try later

edit: Okay...since the forum remains jacked in terms of uploads and I just recalled that I have an upload account elsewhere, I'm providing a link to the file for download.

http://hotfile.com/dl/108893644/232c025/RR11_-_Takeshis_Castle_AD-1525.CivBeyondSwordSave.html

extended report/screenshots:


Khmer view:



Rest of Empire:


Finished off Khmer fairly easily. 3 LBs in city. Lowered defenses and Sams had good odds. Lost one raw recruit and took the city and 3 or 4 workers. Moved them up to Hanoi to finish Pigs and Spice. Built culture in captured cities.

Mainly whipped units to finish building in most cities. Ghangzhou has focused on getting out another GP. Lin'An is good for unit whipping into buildings action.

Optics in 3 turns. Hut pop only gave us some gold. Got 2 caravels out quickly from Japan and built 1 Explorer in 1 turn in cap for the caravel heading east. Figured he could pop some huts on islands. I would have like to send him to Indonesia/Australia for hut poppage but figured we need to get that circum thing going asap.

Passively teched Lib until I saw it open up for France and China. China should not be an issue, but who knows how fast France is teching now. So I just set the Empire up to push it out in 2 turns. Astro seems the best tech to take.

Mongols had a small stack headed to Khmer before I took them out. I think the moved back home and left one Keshik in Dongjing. Mongols went into WHEOOHRN shortly after destroying Khmer. I guess we could be a target or maybe Russia.

One thought I have is to delay India a bit and finish off China. Trade PP for Gunpowder right before attacking and then wipe Qin out. This would also bring our stack back up in case Mr. Khan attacks us. Meanwhile we can continue build up for India. On the reverse flip, India seems pretty ripe for the picking at the moment.

GM is in a caravel heading west and is just SW of Ankor. Little risky I guess moving through there but all is good now with ocean to move on. If we can get OB with Arabia we might be able to drop him off near the Persia gulf and have him move north into Europe to scout and then run his mission in a big Euro city.

I think we should get a settler out to settle below Ankor and maybe some of the islands. With Astro, the trade routes would be nice. I know the focus is conquest, but settling these first means we don't have to pick off all these islands later or Australia.

Our next GP might be good for a Golden Age.

Not that although most cities are building wealth/research at the moment, there is a some stuff queued up in cities. I did get some CHs out here and there as the maintenance was pretty bad.

Looks good. I guess I'd just go for India as units seem to be in position there and meanwhile build up some stack for Qin's final demise.

Who is up, grandmaster rolo himself, I presume?

Yup, it's me ... Got it.

I'll give a look to the save today.

Ok, I've seen the save ... and I don't have much to say. We are pointed clearly to start the war with India and I'll start it as soon as possible ( not sure if we should march to Pagan first or if we should go to Benares directly ... Pagan can be taken with reinforcements, I guess )

Techwise ... first, I think the better deal is to get Astro out of Lib ( or there is anyone against it ? ). And after that ? Not that we will tech a lot, since we will need the money to pay the maintenance of the army :/. Sugestions ? I like the idea of getting Gunpowder ... Natio would be nice for the draft, but only after Gunpowder IMHO

If nobody oposes , I start the Palace in Changsha. We need the Palace in the mainland to cut the overseas maintenance ( we are spending 53 (!) g in overseas maintenance, more than the other components of maintenace combined ). It is imperative that we do that fast IMHO

I think the best deal regarding the GM is to drop them in the mouth of Euphrates and walk it to Europe. We still need to locate the ToA city, that is most likely the best spot for the mission ( that is in a unknown civ, a thing that excludes the French ... I bet that it is either in Rome, Constatinople or London ... maybe Mecca as well ) . Dropping the GM in Iraq and sending the caravel the long way will allow us to both meet more people, explore Africa, and get the circumnavigation bonus faster.

I'll play tomorrow hopefully ( I'm watching Barça-Arsenal ATM ).Feel free to toss a coin of advice

Plan looks good to my eyes. I am for Astro and pointed out Changsha as a possible location.

Other than that a move towards bang-bang units to unlock or second unique is a good idea.

Not watching the game because it's on TV3 and that channel is useles. Funny to parody though (last one is RTÉ pundit Eamonn Dunphy).

Whatever we tech, I think we should be moving towards Rifles since Toku rifles rock! Any consideration of trading for Gunpowder?

Lib/Astro sounds like the best move. We can start work on New Nippon over in the Americas.

Nothing really to add but one thing: Nationalism would make sense before gunpowder, 'cause nationhood will decrease our civic costs quite a bit.. And that would make sense even before gunpowder. And I'd agree to lymond that we should try to trade for gunpowder. So I'd start on Nationalism!

Astro, nat and guns all sound good to me too!

If the main stack goes to the core of India, maybe the broom wagon can take care of Qin's last city and then follow up towards Pagan.

Ok , I'm a little tired , but let's wrap this up:

First thing I've done was to trade ...

Guilds was a little light , but Louis was already gunning to PP, so better bank it. Drama is a good call because of the GT.

Anyway I haven't lost a lot of time to dow India ... basically the time to get the stack to near the Benares border:

That had a unfornutate side effect: there was a Indian double team of a sword+phant roaming in our lands in the time of the DoW ... that went straight to pagan near tiles ( when was far closer of Taiwan ... bad luck ) . That and the fact that Asoka decided to upgrade 3 swords to maces in pagan made it a somewhat problematic spot for us

Anyway, what is due is due and we libed Astro

And got a GE ... still unused.

Then we disembarked our GM in Arabia ... and got a cascade of meetings

A quite spectacular display of the not so widely known fact that if you meet a member of the AP, you meet all the members of the AP .

Anyway with that we discovered that the ToA is in English hands ... aka London. Rats.

Nothing that a conquer of a double shrine can't partly heal

In between the healing of our units and minor counterstrike from India ( one phant suicided vs Hanoi ) and we meet the Inca

I told you that opening the jungle would not help them a lot ...

We got our palace moved ...

And saved instantly almost 100 gpt . Ouch

One more Indian city to the box:

And we got a GG in Lin'an from our efforts. Still there ... wanted to discuss what to do with him.

And the last city we got:


We had 4 samurai in our SoD at this point , so it was quite a feat to capture it without losses ( that and the heavily promoted samurai we have ... C1Drill1CR3 is quite something ). Anyway that cuts the Indian iron out , so we should not see more x-bow spam as we were seeing.

And we ended the set with the end of natio ( could had traded for it, but none of the trades seemed appealing at the time ).

Our battle front:

Pagan has a CG2 lbow , 2 C2 maces, a C2 phant and a C1 x-bow with a 20 % defense. it is clearly the better defended of the indian cities we have still to deal with ( btw he has a mace near hanoi ). You can also notice that the Indian cap is up to the northest , near Ssladin. no intel on it

The tech trade screen ( minus GK , that has nothing on us ).

I agree with trading banking, but not theo ... because Pagan has the S. Paya . The best deal IMHO is to put the way to the rifles, by dealing banking with someone + teching RP->Rifling ASAP

On builds:

I've let our cities to release some of the whip anger they had , and so it is time to change this queue to almost all units, mass whip and overflow into buildings again. Hanoi and A. Wat are becoming quite good prod centers... maybe we should actually make the HE in Hanoi as I sugested.

So I guess the main discussion is about war strats. We simply can't resume the offensive as we until we erase Pagan out of the map and our reinforcement stack is still too small for that. This needs some look, maybe even a cease fire ( not my favourite idea, but might be the least bad )

Other thing to discuss is what to do with the GP we got, the GE and the GG. I think the best to do is to put the GE on ice until we get the S. Paya and then revolt to Theo, Natio and maybe something else. The GG ... well, I don't think we need another medic GG so far. If we make the HE we could settle it there ... or wait for MilSci and make a MilAcad. None is ideal, but...

Ok, thy got it. Nocho is on deck