RBtS1b - The Thief Economy

Cultural pressure is a bit worse than I thought it would be. I think we should send a rush of spies to D, send our espionage that way, and steal all his tech sooner rather than later.

We can get med, compass, aesthetics,lit, optics, banking from him and once we have those then take him out. Don't think we need theo this game.

So maybe build a few more units.

Some MM issues--I saw a temple somewhere--should be CH.

I'll try to play tonight. Agree to steal Darius techs and then his cities.

FYI - I am back, but have not caught up reading the past turnsets. As of today, I'm in work plus school from 7:00am-10:00pm most days, so Civ time has to be managed carefully

Only played 10 despite quiet turns, but it felt like a natural place to stop:

We failed to steal Banking from Darius on the first attempt (and he knows its us).

We did steal Paper from Wang and he is none the wiser. Many more spies are en route to destinations, but oh do we need more!

Spies currently are waiting to steal at max discount from Hatty on Turn 291 (Pi-Ram) and from Darius on Turn 293 (Sardis). I recommend Compass from Hatty and if successful then Optics/Banking from Darius.

Since most of our towns are already heavily from whipping, I laid off the whip ... mostly. But we do have a few more Courthouses than before

Stone is online! Castles are now halfprice and give us +25% EP. Just another thing to juggle in our decision of what to build.

A distant civilization circumnavigated and didn't even bother to stop by and say hello. The other continent is definitely ahead of us in technology. So what do we do about it? Build up infrastructure on what we have now or assimilate the Zulu and then build up? I vote to build up an army and take out the Zulu now. We need to be large and generate mucho EP!

Finally, we are now the proud parents of a Great Prophet! What shall we have him grow up to be? (My vote: settle in Pasargadae.) I also found a sleeping Great General. He could become an instructor in several cities. Persepolis looks like it will be a great military/wonder pump this game.

I like this graph:



Click me and be Saved!

Looks like a solid set of turns, great work pindicator!

It looks as if the members of the A team have started up a new SG with variant a la Qwack. You don't think they're done already, do you?

We're cooking nicely now. I wouldn't be too concerned about the other continent: circumnav could have been obtained by bullying a map out of Wang, and only proves they have caravels. We need to worry if they turn up with Frigates! We're top of most important demographics, though I guesstimate that the Nr 2 in GNP is on the other island (though it could be Wang).

We have two sources of Ivory that we can now camp, and have a worker-gang nearby to do so.

It's best to take on Shaka's huge stacks when we have a key military tech advantage over him, which we don't currently enjoy. In BtS, Steel is a great path to take to this end, but we're dependent on the AIs choices, so it might be Rifling. Wang is researching Gunpowder.

sunrise is up! (Feel free to take your time on playing: ungy's up in another SG, so I'm fine to wait until the weekend for you to play.)

Kodii said:

It looks as if the members of the A team have started up a new SG with variant a la Qwack. You don't think they're done already, do you?

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They haven't posted a 'game complete' over at RB, so they're either giving up, or more likely have crossed the Rubicon and realise they're in for a slow cruise to Space, and are looking for a new, stimulating challenge .

Swiss Pauli said:

It's best to take on Shaka's huge stacks when we have a key military tech advantage over him, which we don't currently enjoy. In BtS, Steel is a great path to take to this end, but we're dependent on the AIs choices, so it might be Rifling. Wang is researching Gunpowder.

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Wise words, yet my desire of taking of the Zulu comes from a desire to increase our overall production for spy generation. Perhaps I am being impatient, as we do have many cities building spies at this time.

I think we should designate a HE city pretty soon here. Hatty is working on Literature and Darius already knows it (obviously, since he built us the GrLib). It is probably also good form to have military units being constantly produced out of at least one city with an empire our size.

Lastly, for some reason I am very excited to build Castles. +1 trade route and +25% EP just make me tingle. I don't know why, as I hardly ever build them. Can somebody help me get my fix?

Got it. Due to real-life time-management and being "up" in S-07, I won't be posting turns until the weekend.

pindicator said:

Wise words, yet my desire of taking of the Zulu comes from a desire to increase our overall production for spy generation. Perhaps I am being impatient, as we do have many cities building spies at this time.

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Probably a bit impatient, young Jedi . If we took on Zulu now, we'd need to divert a lot of to military, rather than Spies. Once the whip anger fades, we can whip buildings, using the overflow into spies.

I think we should designate a HE city pretty soon here. Hatty is working on Literature and Darius already knows it (obviously, since he built us the GrLib). It is probably also good form to have military units being constantly produced out of at least one city with an empire our size.

Click to expand...

Well, Persepolis has an MA/AI combo, so it will be on miltary full time anyway, therefore I wonder whether we'd get more value out of a second pump. This might well be so, and I like Lamakha as a second unit-pump (settling the GG there too). But there's no urgency right now, so let's debate the merits of uber-pump versus two strong pumps.

Lastly, for some reason I am very excited to build Castles. +1 trade route and +25% EP just make me tingle. I don't know why, as I hardly ever build them. Can somebody help me get my fix?

Click to expand...

We've unlocked a lot of infra lately, so let's prioritize, based on the relative need for happy, cash and EPs per city.

NOTE: Those that have become acustomed to my beautiful BlueMarble screenshots will be dissapointed. I uninstalled the graphical mod while trying to think of reasons why my S-07 save wouldn't load. Of course, if I can't keep my neighboor's borrowed internet connection stable, there might not be any pics to begin with.

Turn 1: Successfully steal Theology from Hatty. Order our workers to build a camp on the ivory. Settle our Great Prophet in Pasargadae. I keep the Great General around for more discussion.

Turn 2: Start a castle in thebes to give pindicator his fix. We also complete our Ball Court building quest. Our three reward options are +1Happy from each Ball Court, +4culture from each Ball Court, or a Golden Age. I choose the first option.

Turn 3: We loose a spy (randomly stumbled upon).

Turn 5: (IT) Shaka declares war one us. (and Hatty)

He has brought two stacks. One of a crossbow and a sword outside Persopolis, and another mixed stack of eight units outside of Pasargadae. If those are all the forces he plans to engage us with we shouldn't be in too much trouble.

I'm going to stop here so those more current on the game can decide how agressively we want to fight back. His initial atack did grab at least one worker, but that isn't too great a loss. I also haven't changed any of our builds yet, but we may want to discuss that.

Besides the Great General, we should also probably discuss where to build the Forbidden Palace and the Maoi Statues.

The Roster: (is this the right order?)
Kodii
pindicator
sunrise - just played
Swiss Pauli - up!
ungy - on deck

The Save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/91988/RBtS1b_AD-1380.CivBeyondSwordSave

It doesn't look so bad that we need to change builds. I would let the infrastructure builds finish and transition to military. Maybe another couple catapults for taking out any stacks we find in the field would be good as well. Oh, and get a spy into Zulu lands so we can see what they have.

Well, I'd get some cats going, and settle that GG as an MI in Lambada. Shaka is probably powerful owing to his huge amount of units, so I advise switching to military in Mutal & Lambada, and keep Persep pumping units, too. Let's soak up his assault and then decide whether it's worthing punishing him further for choosing unwisely .

At this point, we should put some Spies in our front-line cities to thwart Shaka's attempts to mess us up with his own espionage. He's using Spies on me in another game I'm playing atm, and we saw against D how effective city revolts can be.

FP and MS can wait for the time being. The former will need to go somewhere in Zululand, and there's a few candidates for the latter, but I don't see any pressing urgeny for it, as we don't need Prophet points.

The Roster
Kodii
pindicator
sunrise - played some turns
Swiss Pauli - swapped
ungy - up next

@sunrise - feel free to play on some more if you have time available in the next day or so. If not, then please advise so that ungy can continue.

Swiss Pauli said:

They haven't posted a 'game complete' over at RB, so they're either giving up, or more likely have crossed the Rubicon and realise they're in for a slow cruise to Space, and are looking for a new, stimulating challenge .

Click to expand...

. We have finished now...I'm catching up on your thread but I did a fast read through and it seems you've placed yourself in a strong position. I probably won't post any comments until you have stolen victory, to avoid any possible spoilers!

Darrell

OK I'm guessing that Sunrise is passing it off here (hop in if not the case Sunrise!).

I'll post a plan tonight for play tomorrow night.

I'm glad to see Shaka come for us--makes the game a little more interesting.

darrelljs said:

. We have finished now...I'm catching up on your thread but I did a fast read through and it seems you've placed yourself in a strong position. I probably won't post any comments until you have stolen victory, to avoid any possible spoilers!

Darrell

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I'm wishing now that we had played the same map and AI settings as you guys--granted the spy bomb is huge and changes the game immensely but there would have been a bit more comparison.

ungy said:

I'm wishing now that we had played the same map and AI settings as you guys--granted the spy bomb is huge and changes the game immensely but there would have been a bit more comparison.

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I have some time, so if you haven't played yet, I can finish up my ten turns.

sunrise089 said:

I have some time, so if you haven't played yet, I can finish up my ten turns.

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go for it.

Just taking a quick glance at the save makes me think we just play defense for a bit and take peace when offered. Continuing with the stealing prioritizing D so we can finish him off. Don't think Shaka can take anything--his SOD is not great for us to attack--better to send in some defenders and hope he suicides it (or breaks it up a bit).

T5 - Settle the GG as a MI, change some builds from infrastructure to cats. We have a lot of troops, so I'm not too worried. I move our 2-move units (knights) towards Shaka's stack.

T6 - Fair to steal Aesthetics from Darius. Shake moves a large stack of primarily Jumbos and cats towards our land. Hatty moves a small stack towards Shaka's lands - thanks girl. I upgrade our Medic III GG chariot to a knight for free. Our knights kill Shaka's small southern stack with no losses. I send most of our free units towards the front. Spies are moving into position to help defend from espionage attacks as well.

T7 - Hmm...odd. Shaka has a huge stack just outside our borders - 20 some units. Oddly, he isn't advancing it. I think he's waiting until Pasargadae's defences are bombarded down. I may take this opportunity to attack his smaller stack outside the city. Normally I'd prefer to let Shaka suicide onto us, but I'm worried - the vast majority of our units don't get defensive bonuses, and I don't want to unilaterally whip our cities to quickly produce some longbows. Plus Shaka has 9 siege units, which will put a hurting on us if he attacks all at once. I debate with myself about waiting to take the small stack out, but worry that will leave my units less time to heal. Therefore I decide to try my luck. Battles go as follows:
-suicide cat
-knight kills pike
-knight kills impy
-knight kills axe
-knight kills crossbow
-knight kills crossbow
-knight kills jumbo
-gg knight kills axe

Overall I think attacking was the right call What really helped us was having a variety of promotions on our knights - we have anti mounted, siege, melee, and general combat 3.

T8 - (IT) we take out a Zulu spy. Hatty offers a tech trade, I decline. Hatty has moved her small stack into Zulu lands. We're providing moral support. Shaka has moved his large stack next to our city. I'm going to take a few pics here and end my turnset - I don't know whether or not to let him hit us. The team can collectively decide whether or not to use our limited siege forces to weaken the stack versus letting it come to us. All of our military units in the city can still move.







http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/91988/RBtS1b_AD-1400.CivBeyondSwordSave

ungy said:

I'm wishing now that we had played the same map and AI settings as you guys--granted the spy bomb is huge and changes the game immensely but there would have been a bit more comparison.

Click to expand...

We played the same map, and the only change in settings we had was switching off AGG AI, aside from allowing the Pie bomb.