In one of my last sets I had to build 3 or 4 horsemen to upgrade because we rushed to Chivalry and hardly had anything to upgrade. But we had three warriors... for some reason.
Don't forget we went for the Great Library, and couldn't research Archery or The Wheel early, so warriors was our only build option early game. If we had three warriors, it means we only built two, that's not too much for early game protection, also we could have gotten free influence with Sydney, if only we had made an effort.
The problem I've seen on this map, is that not one of our cities was even close to have the important tiles improved...
I made a different assessment. Our core towns were well improved, what was missing in my view was roads. Just the section to York would have connected York, London and Nottingham, which is one happy face per town and a lot of money. What some workers were doing is making farms on bland grass tiles, these tiles are not important, as we're not even working all river-farms yet.
I noticed the scout-archer has been given a promotion against cities, I'm not sure we're all aware of the promotion chart for ranged units:
The best promotions are extra range and logistics, and you need either tripple accuracy or tripple barrage to get there. Taking the bonus against cities means a huge delay.
In itself 25% bonus against cities is almost worthless, as also without that an archer or crossbow will do the minimum damage of 1 hitpoint. Against weaker towns you'll do more damage, but that means you hardly need ranged unit anyway and melee units can take care of it.
With later artillery units that 25% might be okay again, as you'll notive the 25% difference more, and it could be too late in the game to reach logistics anyway.
The town builds going on at the start of my set were mostly workshops. For building artillery this wasn't so good. We could have built trebuchets at 120 hammers each, but now those workshops are in it's cannons at 185 hammers each. The 10% build bonus of the workshop does by no means make up for the more than 50% increase in artillery build cost.
In a while it's the artillery unit caled artillery, at 320 hammers each. Let's be wise and build our artillery units
now, while they're still 185 hammers, as cannons. We have the money for upgrades, but hammers are more scarce.
Okay, I owe the team my turnset, here it is:
600AD, turn 140, inherited turn:
Sign peace with Genoa, we're not really interested in that war, are we?
Sell a spare Gems to Ramesses for 240 gold.
Upgrade a catapult to trebuchet near Mumbai.
Denounce Gandhi - I believe denouncing before declaring softens the diplo hit somewhat.
IBT:
Catherine doesn't approve of us denouncing Gandhi.
Ramesses doesn't approve either.
But Washington approves, and he's our moral barometer, isn't he?
Elizabeth denounces us.
Catherine
Suleiman
Washington
Catherine
2 horses are coming back from a Washington deal, I keep them for now.
620AD, turn 141:
Research Agreement with Russia, 250 gold.
Muang Saluang, workshop > colosseum
A worker near Coventry starts on a road, I send another worker over to help, I'll prioritize the roads this set.
We
India, Washington pays us 200 gold for this.
Kill a knight + trash 2 trebuchets near Mumbai.
IBT:
Gandhi enters the Renaissance era. That's not where we are yet.
640AD, turn 142:
Hastings, workshop > watermill
The watermill had 69.8 of 75 hammers already invested; was this a mistake, perhaps?
It would be strange to put so many hammers in a building and then not spend one more turn to finish it.
Sell a spare gem to Suleiman, 146 + 3gpt; the gem had come back from an India deal, in a slightly dodgy way. I'm not doing any more deals with Ramesses for this reason, as he's obviously the next one on our list. Selling stuff and then declaring is... hmm.
Kill another indian knight, do a few dents to Mumbai, we've got the trebuchet involved.
IBT:
Washington asks if we're interested in a war against Ramesses. No thanks, maybe another time.
RA between Egypt and Russia, those two have money.
660AD, turn 143:
Hastings, watermill > colosseum
It's one turn til Gunpowder, but I switch to Optics for one turn, so our scout in Russian lands can get the embarkation promotion before he carries on.
Kill another knight near Mumbai.
IBT:
There's a trebuchet in Mumbai, this turn it's our scout-archer who gets the load and yellow-lines. No problem, it means our elephants remain 100% battle fit.
680AD, turn 144:
Optics > Gunpowder (switch back, scout now has embarkation)
Warsaw is helping us in the war, I see a couple of wounded indian pikes on their border, it's nice to see that.
In the meantime Canterbury is still under siege from Egyptian units, but it turns out they're not making much progress.
We can probably take Mumbai this turn, but I'm cautious, if an elephant remains wounded in front of Mumbai's gate it'll be easy pickings for the Indian knights around:
700AD, turn 145:
Gunpowder completes, also Oxford, we're choosing Chemistry and Fertilizer - scientist for one of those - and research goes to Metallurgy.
Sukhothai, Oxford > colosseum
Si Satchanalai, workshop > colosseum
Maung Seluang, colosseum > horse, I prefer artillery, but with a stable Naresuans are dirt cheap to build here as horses.
We capture 70 gold from Mumbai, the town has some buildings in it:
We puppet the town, and surprisingly, we're still happy, at zero happy faces now.
The colosseum in Mumbai and the one just completed in Maung Seluang have a lot to do with this.
Do a straight lux swap with Washington, gold > < furs. This is the gold that Mumbai was sitting on, a deal for money wasn't possible, almost nobody needed the lux gold.
IBT:
Finally the trade route to York - London - Nottingham finishes, that's another 3 happy faces + a nice handful of gold each turn, all of a sudden we're back at 9 happy, because also a colosseum in Hastings finishes (I may have overdone the colosseums a bit, my only goal was to prevent
unhappiness).
720AD, turn 146:
Hastings, colosseum > scout - for an attempt to swim around our mountains a bit and see if there are any city States out there.
I probably killed at least one Indian unit this turn, but my notes became sloppy. All battles always occurred around Mumbai, not even a stray Indian unit elsewhere to be seen.
740AD, turn 147:
Some deals end, I make new ones:
Gold to Catherine for 146 + 3gpt.
Ivory to Catherine for 146 + 3 gpt.
Open Borders to Catherine, 50 gold.
Hastings, scout > pike - for later upgrade to rifle.
Kill 2 pikes and 2 knights near Mumbai, or maybe one of the knights was a longsword, Gandhi has those as well.
One of the pikes had come straight from Delhi to perform a counter attack on one of our Naresuans, who only just survived. Only by two shots from two crossbows to kill two wounded pikes our Naresuan was able to retreat to safety.
I found it a little bit difficult to involve our crossbows in town sieges, because you want a bunch of elepants at the front, and then there hardly's space for crossbows anymore. Also a few pikes from Tyre were always in the way, occupying a few spots that would have been ideal for crossbows, you see it in the pictures.
But in the skirmishes around the towns the crossbows were very good. A wounded pike is usually a dead pike if a crossbow gets a shot in.
760AD, turn 148:
Maung Saluang, horse > horse
Si Satchanalai, colosseum > Circus Maximus, why not? It's gotta be a hit, with all those elephants - the kids will love it. Si Satch is not our best town, in terms of production, so this is not a big sacrifice. I prefer keeping our best owns on military.
Sukhothai, colosseum > cannon - that's what we really need, I think.
There had been a catapult in Coventry that I missed at the beginning of my set. I'm pulling it over to the front now, while gold upgrading it to a cannon.
Kill a knight, guess where. Of course Gandhi is now sending units over from especially Delhi each turn, we are right on the Delhi border now, no chance of invading yet.
Our trebuchet at the front isn't getting upgraded to a cannon because it's too busy throwing stones at Indian units each turn.
780AD, turn 149:
We are getting a nasty message; Egypt has now more influence over Warsaw than us. I always hate it when that happens. We are a long way from an artist, which is what Warsaw wants. I throw 1000 gold at Warsaw. Don't worry, we had 3000. The bigger donations are then more economical.
With Ramesses I'm not making deals, purely from a fair play point of view, but this also means he's gathering money, and this can be the result.
Kill a knight.
800AD, turn 150:
Kill a... longsword, for a change.
This is how our front now looks:
It looks a bit unsorted, but this is because we're just killing Indian units left and right; there's no coordinated attack on any Indian town going on just yet.
If you look at the most northerly positioned Naresuan, that's not meant as an attempt to take Vijayanagara, that unit just took out a longsword. It should take a shot from an archer, a trireme and the town next turn, so I expect it'll need to be retreated.
Maung Saluang needs a next build, I suggest a cannon, but that's for next player.
A worker is laying a road to Mumbai, I have a nasty habit of investing 2 turns in every flat-land stretch before I do the finishing turn, the most western tile is nearly done. There's one worker central that's making a trade post on a jungle tile - Brichals will love that - and there are a couple near Coventry who need orders.
There's also a worker south of Hastings doing a pasture.
We have a scout beyond the rocks south of us, skinnydipping, not much found yet, our other scout is also in the water, near Japan. It are hardly the right units for this type of exploration, while I saw an Ottoman caravel sailing past, but that's a little beyond us for now.
. I'm not sure when it's convenient to do that though. I guess there is a CS there. Anyway we are looking good now.
and Si Sat could squeeze a little more gold and production by sacrificing 2 food, IMO worth it. Be aware that some of the cities are set to gold and food focus when they grow.
. Maybe Gandhi will have some.
+ 2
for each town with a garrison. That type of easy culture expansion and happiness is great and really makes a difference early game. Professional army means cheaper upgrades and 1
