Von Münchhausen II

Ok then. I'll start with tech.

To get to Dynamite as things stand will take 30 odd turns (not counting the RA that matures in 10 turns). We have a GSci sitting around that I thought was going to go for rifling but we haven't got that any units to upgrade to Rifles yet. If we put a second sci spec in Si Sat then we get our next GSci in 22 turns, which is almost perfect for Dynamite if we bulbed Rifling with our current GSci.

So what am I proposing? Well hard tech up to MilSci, bulb Rifling and Dynamite. Rifling could be bulbed before this point providing we get a few more units to upgrade.

Yet again we enter the thorny grounds of SP choice - we get one in 9 turns. My suggestions are either Landed Elite for the extra food and growth in our capital, Freedom for faster GPs or Patronage so we can expand our CS holdings. Landed Elite is the most neutral IMO, Patronage could be ok but we're simple not getting CSs so its probably a waste and Freedom would prohibit the use of Autocracy later. I've come round to Autocracy a little and I consider the right hand side of the tree to be pretty good (left hand seems a bit weaker IMO, unless you only have a few oil or aluminium). So....?

We have a tonne of gold as well. How do people feel about the following? Hostile maritime CSs, buying a worker or two, buying some pike to upgrade to rifles at a later date, buying OB from America so we can then get an RA from them (they're 50 short ATM).

For builds I'll start some cannons and maybe some pikes/muskets to upgrade to rifles. I'll leave starting any new infrastructural this set even though I think a garden in Sukho would be nice.

That cannon in Delhi is a PITA. I'll drag our cannons round to the east and take it from there. there are a couple of unprompted units I can use to draw fire so the may well pay the ultimate price for our greed.

I wish Cathy would take Istanbul so we don't have to later. Also the USAs lands suck arse in all that tundra. I reckon his relative strength has to drop as the game progresses.

EDIT:
I think annexing some cities is an ok idea but maybe we should wait till this current war is done so we can take stoke of what we have. Also we really need kill the farms around York and London.

Landed Elite? I'm gonna bow out on the SP discussions I think.

As far as units go, I would look at what you get for your gold and production investment. Rifles & upgrades to rifles are somewhat expensive and the return is a 25 CS unit. The investment for elephants is very low actually and the return is a 22 CS unit. I'd rather flood the field with cheap to produce elephants, even if they do die a little easier. I think you still come out ahead.

grandad1982 said:

We have a tonne of gold as well. How do people feel about the following? Hostile maritime CSs, buying a worker or two, buying some pike to upgrade to rifles at a later date, buying OB from America so we can then get an RA from them (they're 50 short ATM)

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I would at least wait until buying any hostile CS until we know the lilac CS. Hostile ones are bottomless money pits. RA with America is fine. I'm not in favour of buying any units. Building cheap and upgrading is much more effective.

We don't have that much gold either. If our war efforts stall at some point and we have to settle for a diplo win, we'll need to lot more than this to secure a win.
We also need a lot more troops to successfully war with America, there will be turns that we upgrade unit after unit. I think you might be underestimating the amount of units that's needed on this level. Buy one CS and a bunch of upgrades and our money is already gone.

It surprises me how poor the AI is, by the way. I think the biggest ones, like America and Russia, have just been building troops most of the game. There's no Persia or Iroquois in this game, they would have been much better.

NotSure said:

Landed Elite? I'm gonna bow out on the SP discussions I think.

As far as units go, I would look at what you get for your gold and production investment. Rifles & upgrades to rifles are somewhat expensive and the return is a 25 CS unit. The investment for elephants is very low actually and the return is a 22 CS unit. I'd rather flood the field with cheap to produce elephants, even if they do die a little easier. I think you still come out ahead.

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your last suggestions have been for Honour and Autocracy. We can't take Autocracy right now and won't be in the industrial for at around 20 turns so that rules that out. The opener of Honour is a total waste at this point in the game and the better SPs don't come till 2/3 policies in by which point we would be able to take policies in Autocracy instead. If we're going to start annexing then our SP rate will drop off so we have to consider would we get to the good policies in both in a timely fashion.

You may well be right about the Elephants though. I'm guessing its still best to bulb rifling thought to get to Arty sooner.

Optional said:

I would at least wait until buying any hostile CS until we know the lilac CS. Hostile ones are bottomless money pits. RA with America is fine. I'm not in favour of buying any units. Building cheap and upgrading is much more effective.

We don't have that much gold either. If our war efforts stall at some point and we have to settle for a diplo win, we'll need to lot more than this to secure a win.
We also need a lot more troops to successfully war with America, there will be turns that we upgrade unit after unit. I think you might be underestimating the amount of units that's needed on this level. Buy one CS and a bunch of upgrades and our money is already gone.

It surprises me how poor the AI is, by the way. I think the biggest ones, like America and Russia, have just been building troops most of the game. There's no Persia or Iroquois in this game, they would have been much better.

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I'm very much in agreement with all of this. We don't have much of a tech lead, so we'll be slugging it out for quite a while. We'll loose units too, but hopefully the AI will be loosing units at three times the pace. As long as that happens we're good. But, we'll need to dump a lot of our production and gold resources into military.

I like the idea of holding off on bulbing techs until artillery. If we're lucky with oil we can jump to tanks and have a great turn advantage with really strong and fast units.

grandad1982 said:

your last suggestions have been for Honour and Autocracy. We can't take Autocracy right now and won't be in the industrial for at around 20 turns so that rules that out. The opener of Honour is a total waste at this point in the game and the better SPs don't come till 2/3 policies in by which point we would be able to take policies in Autocracy instead. If we're going to start annexing then our SP rate will drop off so we have to consider would we get to the good policies in both in a timely fashion.

You may well be right about the Elephants though. I'm guessing its still best to bulb rifling thought to get to Arty sooner.

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As far as the Honor thing goes, I know the opinion here is that it's too late and the opener is bad. Everything else is great though. The flanking bonus alone is worth opening that tree in this kind of game. That's the second policy (discipline), and then you're only two policies away from 33% discount on upgrades. We were having this discussion two policies ago when we took a golden age from Piety. Doesn't really matter though. As you said, we've walked these "thorny grounds" before .

Landed Elite gives +2 food and an aqueduct effect to the capital. Great for a tall empire approach and I suppose it could help us work another mine or two, but it also has the potential to hurt us if growth starts cutting too deep into global happiness. I think we get 5 food in the capital from one allied maritime. Is that right? We'll get two Landed Elites when we liberate Cape Town.

If we're just looking for a policy to burn until we reach the industrial era, we might as well work on finishing Piety or take Aristocracy for the happiness bump or Oligarchy for a couple of free units. Don't those seem better in a wide empire strategy? For the record, I still advocate opening Honor and having it as an option... as if you all didn't see that coming.

I forgot to weigh in on the RA. I'm opposed to making research agreements with an AI that has opened Rationalism and/or has the Porcelain Tower. Washington has opened Rationalism in two of my games recently. I haven't checked this one, but it wouldn't surprise me.

NotSure said:

I forgot to weigh in on the RA. I'm opposed to making research agreements with an AI that has opened Rationalism and/or has the Porcelain Tower.

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Yes, you're actually right. It'll help them more than us.

Still waiting to know what to do with our SP....

If you want a vote from me I'll vote Freedom. I needed another look, as I don't know these later policies very well.
Some policies in the Freedom tree look rubbish, but especially half unhappiness from specialists could be good. All our core towns have lots of slots, and we will go annexing some towns, a lot of them will have markets and banks, so empire wide the happiness effect should be good.
8 units maintenance free is also good, the rest is a bit mwah, but a lot of policies in later trees aren't very good anyway.

Well I've put off playing for long enough. If no one has anything to add then I'll play this evening (GMT).

Sorry for the delay guys. I had to go and visit a new client on Thursday evening and then didn't get a chance to play till just now.

PFT

I put another sci spec in the uni in Si Sat to speed up our next GSci.

I start shuffling troops around Delhi to get in position to bombard it.

1

IBT Rammy asks us for a DoF but I decline. Oda enters the Renaissance. Egypt denounces Russia.

Our gold to Sulieman ends so I resell it to him.

Hastings, cannon > barracks. I decide to work some barracks into our main troop producing cities as I hate building unprompted ranged units.
Maung, cannon > cannon. I deicide one city building a baracks at a time is best so we can keep our force levels up.

2

IBT we lose an XBow to the cannon in Delhi and 2 of our NEs gain promos. We also earn a GGen. I send him to go sleep near our capital.

Printing Press is in and we switch to Economics.


3

IBT we lose an NE (double shock I think). Ottermans denounce the USA.

Hastings, barracks > NE
Si Sat, Circus Maximus > NE

4

IBT, Egypt denounces USA. OB and gold deal with Rammy ends.

We lose another NE (again I think a 2 promo guy). I've committed to the attack here but more and more units are appearing out the fog. I've seen 3 cannons, several LSwords and a few Muskets. Out XBow and NE have been whittling them down and our cannons are in place to open up.

I'm fed up with losing units and I can see if this goes on for another turn we're in real trouble so I push the button. Our cannons and xbow open up taking over half the cities health from it. 2 uninjured NE attack from the south and there is less than a 1/4 of the health left. I risk an injured NE who survives but is not quite enough! The last unit in place to attack is a cross river injured NE. He squares up and makes his peace before charging at Delhi.... he takes the city and has just 1 HP remaining!!! Blimey.


I take peace for Gandhi's gold.


5

IBT, rammy wants OB again. This time I say yes as i want to scout out his lands in prep for our attack.

I start the long process of healing and dragging units down to the SW of our empire. This is definitely were 1UPT sucks arse.

6

IBT, Gandhi denounces us.


Japan and the Ottermans sign an RA. OB to Sulieman ends. Japan denounces Russia. The Forbidden Palace is BIAFAL (Oda maybe?). I resell some gems to Cathy. I sell some gold to Rammy. I also sell amrble and Silk to Washington. We're sitting on a lovely nest egg now.

I use some of this gold to buy a worker in Sukho (though we might capture some but we didn't).

7

IBT, Russia ask for a DoF and I say no. Suliemand wants our OB so I sell it to him. OB from Liz and Cathy end.

Hastings, Ne > cannon
Sukho, NE > barracks
Maung, cannon > LSword. I think we should build a few melee to upgrade to rifles even though we're still relying on NEs. They get no negative city attack and get terrain bonuses so they are pretty handy.

I swap OB for OB with Washington.

8

Cathy enters the renaissance.

Si Sat, NE > bank. Its not really a troop producing city so more gold is good here IMO. I did consider a garden but that can come later maybe.
Sukho, barracks > cannon

9

Economics is in and we start on MilSci.


We also get and SP this turn. Now I'm aware of the friction this has been causing and the general lack of agreement in the team so with no strong votes in any direction I choose Freedom. Sorry if this causes any upset but I didn't really see what else to do


This means our next GSci is in in 10 so almost perfect for Dynamite.

10

Either nothing happened this turn or I forgot to take notes. Mainly moving units towards Egypt.

Demo screen. We're kicking arse here. I'm particularly pleased with our Mfg. This is the stat I link most with my victories.


Our empire (political and unit filters on).



So a few things to mention before I forget.

The new GGen is sleeping next to Sukho. I didn't know if we wanted to burn him on a GA or use him for a second army group. I actually think a second GGen is pretty good for us now.

There is an RA due next turn or the turn after (I forget which).

After MilSci is in I would say lets start towards Bio and oil. The GSci for rifling is sleeping near Sukho but I would hold off till the turn we can bulb Dynamite as well so we can build a few more muskets/LSwords/whatever.

Maung hasn't got a barracks yet but might benefit from one.

I wasn't very tight on my worker control so they might need sorting. There are some roads that need tifying that the AI left us. I would leave the one from London to Mumbai/Delhi and add one from Pata to just south of Sukho so we have a loop system (good for mobility and will only cost us a few extra GPT).

I would suggest the only cities we want to annex are going to be London and Delhi (Delhi is in revolt for quite awhile still) so don't TP spam their tiles.

Ummm. Thats it for now I think.

The Roster
NotSure
Grandad1982
Brichals - up now
gozpel - on deck
Optional

The Save

Nice one Grandad. I can get back into this on wednesday, had a tumultuous week but I've had a dream of our peoples future and it was glorious, glorious....

Hey Brichals. I hope things have settled down for you a little bit. If you have RL stuff to deal with don't feel rushed to play your set or anything.

Very good job capturing Delhi! That was probably the best defended town in the game at that point.
We already have an army gathered on Egypt's borders, I'd like to hear Brichals' thoughts, but I think we should move straight on to Egypt. That should be quite profitable with their Burial Tombs and they look easy prey.

I noticed we can make a Research Agreement with Japan - they're peeved with us, but only in Gods & Kings this will prevent an RA. Here we should just take it, we won't miss the 250 gold.
Also I would like to buy Catherine's silver. Sydney asks for it, it'll be easy influence, and we'll need the happiness very soon.

I believe we must start annexing a town occasionally - I see no way to avoid it; we'll be unhappy if we take those Egyptian towns. Delhi is still in resistance, so London should probably be first.
There's one thing I don't understand, though; NotSure was talking about building the Steelworks, as we had workshops everywhere, but I don't see the build option, and I don't see it in any town. Where did that (option) go?

Its Ironworks (I think ) Its in Suhko I believe.

Work is killing me right now, so I haven't been able to check out the save, though I dled it already.

I give you some comments tomorrow this time if you care to wait for them?

And I agree, Delhi was probably a hard nut to crack with Himeji Castle and all those units. So good job, grandad.

If you give comments tomorrow goz I will go through the save in 24h time and I can make turns on Friday.

Just a few reflections.

Ironworks is already built in Sukho.

We have 6 cannons en route towards Egypt and we're still building 2 more? I think Sukhothai should finish a bank before another cannon.
Hastings has noone in the wat, I know pretty foodpoor city, but still every beaker counts.

SiSatch will have another GSci in about 9 turns, can we use him together with the other scientist, PLUS the RA that finishes in 2 turns, to get something nice?

Who are we going to war at next? If it's America or Egypt, we will have to wait 7 turns as deals was made with them.

Turn 166 - Gold to Egypt for 240g
Silk and Marble to America for 240g each.

So I'm confused here.

We have 4500g and 81gpt now, we can afford to annex whatever we want, but let's start with London, then Delhi. I think we can afford more later.

Too bad my scouts I asked for in the beginning of the game didn't show up, we know 11 alive City states (we'll free Capetown when we get there), we are still missing 4 and if we had 2-3 scouts available when we learnt Astronomy, they would be happily sailing around now.

Easy choices: Annex London, then Delhi when they stop revolting.
Change Sukhothai to bank before another cannon, we can't even fit more cannons on the frigging map!

Sort out how we get Dynamite fastest - we have one GSci waiting to buld something, we have a RA in 2 turns and another GSci coming in 9 turns. That should be more than enough. After that we need to know where there is coal and oil later.

edit: I forgot we have Fertalizer already, we should just about finish Military Science with the RA, bulb Rifling next and then bulb Dynamite with the coming GSci. I think...

gozpel said:

We have 6 cannons en route towards Egypt and we're still building 2 more? I think Sukhothai should finish a bank before another cannon.

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The cannons will be artillery soon, 3-range beauties, we want to build them now before the price hike. I don't remember the exact numbers, but a cannon costs less than 200 beakers, while an artillery costs something like 320. We want to build them now and then gold-upgrade them.
We'll probably widen our front a bit soon, we've also got two generals.

gozpel said:

Who are we going to war at next? If it's America or Egypt, we will have to wait 7 turns as deals was made with them.

Turn 166 - Gold to Egypt for 240g
Silk and Marble to America for 240g each.

So I'm confused here.

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I know. I personally don't make deals just before attacking, and that's probably how you play as well, but at no point did we come to a vote on this or come to a clear consensus. At the start of the game I had a feeling I would put off people if I pushed for strict rules, and that it would be hard to get the team on one line anyway. For the GotM and HoF there have been these discussions, and half of the players say this, the other half says that. For the GotM (I don't know about HoF) they settled for some half-baked rule that you can attack a civ you're exporting a resource to, but not beyond 'normal play', and you're not allowed to resell the resource for as long as the original deal would have run. That's just horrible; unclear, confusing, unintuitive.
The best thing would of course be that the designers put a penalty in for not living up to a deal. It's a long-standing gripe of mine that they haven't.

Earlier in the game I declared on India while we still were exporting gems to them, except the deal was perhaps made ~20 turns before. With Egypt we made a deal on turn 166, while our army was already physically move on to their borders to start a war. There is a difference between the two, but this is not a great moment to discuss this. At the moment I would just attack Egypt and following nations at the moment our military is ready, and ignore we have deals going on.

gozpel said:

Too bad my scouts I asked for in the beginning of the game didn't show up, we know 11 alive City states (we'll free Capetown when we get there), we are still missing 4 and if we had 2-3 scouts available when we learnt Astronomy, they would be happily sailing around now.

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We should have two, as I built another one in my latest set, for exactly this reason. NotSure was still happily sailing around with it, it found a culture ruin, and I hoped it would sail on to meet the lilac CS east of that Indian town. I know what the scout went on to do. I personally wouldn't have cared much about the lay of the Egyptian lands, I find knowing where enemy units are more useful.
I gave one of our elephants extra vision, I don't know if that one is still alive, though.