RBtS1b - The Thief Economy

I was a bit confused during my turnset, so forgive me for any :smoke:

On turn 1, while trying to check out the whole waiting discount, I accidently selected Metal Casting... which we got without any repercussions :mischief:

On turn 2, our spy is caught attempting to steal Mathematics and Hatty knows its us. Someone had mentioned revolting to Vassalage, so I do so

On turn 3, I don't want to waste our discounted Spy in Persia, so I go ahead and steal Mathematics without any trouble.Nevertheless, I am certain that I am doing something wrong. I also steal Archery from Hatty, but she knows its us.

Wang Kon and Shaka know Construction

On turn 7, I steal Sailing successfully. I send a spy towards Shaka in case we want to steal Construction from him

On turn 9, I steal HBR successfully for jumbos, etc.

I stop on turn 10 because I am still quite confused. I have redirected spy points towards Wang Kon in preparation for stealing CoL and maybe Construction. I am certain I have screwed up somewhere, since I have been pressed by so many SGs at the same time. Sorry :sad:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/96336/RBtS1b_AD-0550.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
it looks like another good round of RNG rolls. Don't worry about screwing up Kodii, we're all flying dark here. Besides, netting 6 techs in any 1 turnset can never be a bad round.

Btw, you have 5 more turns if you want them. (We are doing 15 turns at a time, right?)

Some thoughts from the save:

1) Next player should sell Shaka Priesthood for his 160g.

2) Good call pulling the EPs from Hatty. If we steal all the rest of the techs she has on us combined we will still have EPs left over on her.

3) Wang Kon may be the best potential long-term stealing "partner" on this continent. He is already doing better than Darius. His empire is small, meaning he will develop infrastructure over expansion. I've noticed technology-driven AIs to play a smaller empire and focus more on increasing their tech rate, and usually can do well with what they have. It also means that we do not need to wait until Darius has optics to attack him; we can do so now and wait for WK to get to Optics for us.
 
I'll pass on the extra five turns. I had lost track which SGs were playing 10 and which were playing 15. Plus, I'll need to re-familiarize myself after my short time away.
 
@Kodii - no, I think you covered everything we'd mentioned. And to only have Hatty discover our attempted thievery was a nice touch ;)

@Pindicator - you're up! I've not looked at the save, but turning our attention to Wang seems wise now that he's beginning to catch up/overtake Darius. I'd put Construction as first priority (over CoL) in order that we can get some Jumbos into the field before Darius cancels the Ivory, but that's a personal preference.
 
OK we're making progress. We need to keep all our esp after Wang. If he builds AP and makes it Jewish, we are sunk. Darius will win and we will face resolutions that will stop us cold.
Very likely that it will be BIDL, as theo founded away.

Now that we have sailing, we need to get a couple of lighthouses up.

We will shortly be able to build swords, as well as LB. Not ideal this late but not a bad unit for the cost. Tough call on the steal--COL vs. con. I might go for COL from Wang as Hat is researching con. Stealing from Wang could save us around 5 turns or so but then we don't get COL. Might make sense to get CH out as we need a large army anyway and we need to pay for it. I vote COL first. Running a spy in Mutal is important--we need to reload the pie bomb.

We should scout Hat's last city.

Building temples in the Egyptian cities is a mistake and should be changed. We have desperate need for units, spies so barracks or spy better.
 
1) Next player should sell Shaka Priesthood for his 160g.
absolutely.
It also means that we do not need to wait until Darius has optics to attack him; we can do so now and wait for WK to get to Optics for us.
I figure we're waiting on our army--not on Darius to tech. We can't do much against LB w/o some better units (lots of cats, sword at minimum. jumbos for defense). Problem now is ATM we can only build LB that we need.
 
Short/Medium Term Plans
- Prepare for war with Darius-Hatty. This means getting some Barracks, and a more up to date army. As Hatty is researching Construction and might well gift it to Darius, I'd change my mind and put CoL as the first steal from Wang, as I don't think Darius will cancel the Ivory trade until we DoW. We can train Longbows in cities with barracks, and maybe build the odd Stable pre-jumbos. The Chicken might contribute a couple of Triremes with whip overflow.

- Stabilize Economy. We need to invest quite a lot of EPs in Wang, so we need to increase our cashflow. Market in Thebes should be lined up and chopped and whipped in. Lighthouses in Uxmal, Maypan, Thebes. Sell Priest to Shaka.

- Micro. Spotted two idle workers in ex-Egypt. These should be woken. City Management is generally best left to the governer as there's the bug where he intervenes anyway when tiles are improved. Make sure the Egyptian cities have enough tiles each now that Hatty has stolen back a bunch of tiles. I assume the worker in Zulu was poached from the barbs. I think we should clear chop ex-Egypt as we don't want our enemies bombarding us from the safety of a forest.

- Happy Cap. Let's not forget this is a slightly false picture: when war starts we'll lose Ivory (1-2 happy) and troops will need to move out of cities, further lowering the cap. Forges will give +2 happy.

The Apolostic Palace
Good news - it's not enabled because Space is the only possible victory (Diplo must be on for AP).
 
The Apolostic Palace
Good news - it's not enabled because Space is the only possible victory (Diplo must be on for AP).
AP victory is not on or there is no AP?
I'm not worried about Darius winning an actual victory, just a series of resolutions to give back Egyptian cities or later make peace. We are almost all Jud so we'd pick up unhappy in a very big way if we had to keep defying resolutions.
 
I generally agree with Pauli's outline.

Add my thought from earlier to cancel temples.

I'm not sure that stables are really going to be worthwile for us. We will I think start building jumbos everywhere once we get con and so I think each city will not produce too many. Probably not worth the cost of the building taking 5xp to 7xp.

As for happy, my thought is we would use some of our obsolete units as garrisons.

We will face the typical dilemma for this period--do we build forges/CH or units? I would vote for very limited CH--maybe only capital and a forge or two and get the army going once the tech is in.
 
@ungy - you're right about Stables. I had forgotten we're in Vassalage. As to the AP, here's the details:




Seems like Diplo must be enabled, but I guess we'll find out sooner or later.
 
@Pindicator - how's progress with your turns? We're not in any great hurry, but it would be handy to know when you plan to play, so the next player (errr...me) can get an idea of when he's likely to be up. Cheers.
 
Was playing as you wrote that Pauli. Did a lot of the micro, and had to take quite some time to get familiar with what everything was like. Wow, we have a lot of spies (and a lot of units on goto orders :nono: at least warn me of that).

Shaka was a cheap SOB and only gave 85g for Priesthood.

But I've only played half a turn because an interesting development occured on the first IT:



Shaka will get wiped. He has axes and impis going against LBs and swords. I want to gift him HBR so he can build Jumbos, but figure that I should run it by you guys first. He does have Construction, it should be known.

I wish we had an opening here, but without Construction we really aren't able to

EDIT: I'm pretty sure the above is the right thing to do, but I'll sit on it for a few hours and then come back to it and play.
 
What we really don't want here is for Shaka to cap to Darius. Another possibility is to steal a tech (con or COL), and then give it to D to get him to make peace with Shaka. If we can get tech on both, then we should be able to get them to make peace before that happens.

It may not be so bad--D doesn't have too many units if I remember correctly.
Shaka likely does, and D doesn't have much for taking cities.

I think we take a -1 hit with D if we give Shaka tech.

I think Feud is a better tech to give. If he upgrades his defenders he won't lose any cities and this should end in a stalemate. Of course that is the best of all worlds for us. Jumbos means he builds a few units--AI doesn't know how to use them and they're not much for taking cities.
 
Turn 1 (211), 565AD
Decide that Shaka is going to want military help. Darius will have xbows in 2 turns and is already militarily superior. The deciding factor is an err on caution: I'd rather have Shaka take it to Darius than Darius take it to Shaka (and become a superpower on the continent).

Perhaps I should have just gifted it to him. But the miser in me won forth, and we took Shaka's 120g in exchange for HBR.

Turn 2 (212), 580AD
A favorable event.



Shaka is sending stacks of Impi and Archers against Axes & Swords :rolleyes:

Turn 3 (213), 595AD
Seeing how Monotheism is ultra-cheap from Hatty (80EP!) I try to steal it but am caught.

Darius now has Machinery, which will cost us a little over 900 EP to steal. If we had Iron I would give it a try, but our borders won't pop to the iron on the east coast for 4 more turns.

Turn 4 (214), 610AD
:sleep:

Turn 5 (215), 625AD
We lose another spy, this time at random. Egypt knows it's us again, putting us to -4 for pie making.

Whip the market in Thebes for 4 pop.

I see it's time to steal from Wang:



Success! Raise Espionage to 70% to celebrate.

Hatty's research has been getting worse. She went up to 28 turns for Const and is now to 18. It will probably be faster to put more EPs into Wang and steal from him.

Turn 6 (216), 640AD
Can someone explain this for me?

I got the message saying that Korea won the town. But no message saying the barbs took it back, and I never saw blue borders.

I know the plan was to steal Construction from Egypt, but I can have that faster from Korea. So when I saw Machinery cheaper in Heliopolis than anywhere else, I went for it:



And succeeded. We built a couple xbows to celebrate.

Now, I'm trying to decide which would be better. We have to put EPs into some opponent to get Construction. Shaka has it now; Hatty will have it in 11 turns. Wang has it now.

Decide to go against Shaka. We will have enough EPs to steal Construction in about 5 turns. His multiplier is a little more favorable right now as well. Plus we'll be eventually taking him over as well.

Turn 7 (217), 655AD
Darius asks us to cancel with Shaka. Considering we're building up to backstab Darius, I tell him no way.

Wang is 3 turns from Machinery and will buy it for 320g (he has 410, so I know it's max money). After that he sets his research for Compass.

Mayapan is our heaviest hammer producer, so I order up a Forge there.

Turn 8 (218), 670AD
Darius asks us to attack Shaka. No, no, no!

Turn 10 (220), 700AD
Shaka starts by demanding we attack Egypt. Sorry buddy, not until you cough up Construction.

And he does!



Then Wang Kon demands Feudalism. I give it to him as everyone else already has it.

Going to stop after 10. I always play SGs a little more dilligently, so 10 took me long enough.

Cause for concern:


Most of those units are running around in the west against Shaka. There is actually a large stand-off between a Zulu stack and a Persian stack. The upswing in Shaka's power is that he just built his first elephants. I hope they keep him alive. Actually, I hope the AIs will sacrifice some units against each other instead of just building up stuff... :rolleyes:

If we want to give Shaka Feudalism, we need to gift him Monarchy first. And so far neither AI has done anything but build up (which is exactly what we don't want)!



Here are the units I completed in these 10 turns. 2 xbows are due in 3 turns. We now have the wonderful choice of building: Courthouses, Ball Courts, Catapults, Elephants, and Xbows! Have fun with the variety!

One more thing to worry about. I notice we are losing many of our cultural battles, probably because we aren't building Libraries for this variant. (And because Darius is building every wonder known to man.) The war will solve that, of course.

The Save, 700AD

EDIT: One more details about the war. It's going to get worse for Shaka as Darius is 8 turns away from researching Guilds.
 
I think the original plan was to steal Construction from Wang first, but as long as we have it, everything looks great. :)
 
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