LotR28 - Random Rollicking for Returning Refugees

pre-turn
Re-arrange citizens in Paris to increase production, bringing time-to-Pyramids down to 6 turns. I would totally put the library scientist to work building Pyramids if I could get it down to 5 turns, but I can't, so he gets to stay in his comfortable library spot.

IT
Currency comes in and we go Medieval!

The Pyramids are built in a far away land Arabia. Drat.

turn 96

The situation outside Dublin has turned nasty with the sudden arrival of a squad of barbarian archers.



In the interests of minimizing potential unit losses, our warriors retreat out of range of the archers. I want to retreat our archers one tile and fire on the barb archers, but fall foul of not paying attention to line-of-sight rules.

Set up Orleans for a swordsman assault next turn



Paris starts bulding a market. Apparently we lost all the production that had gone into the Pyramids. Troyes finishes it's library and starts a swordsman, since we appear to have no military in that part of the world.

Workers build roads.

Research. Hmmm. We just lost one wonder race, but I'm feeling ambitious. I pick Theology, looking at going to Education and The Porcelain Tower to help with our space-race ambitions.

IT
Helsinki wants assistance with barbarians, Dublin doesn't like us any more, and we're about to lose ally status with Venice.

Orleans pointlessly bombards our archer, instead of any of the units that are actually a threat.

turn 97
Our archers fire on Orleans, and magic up a Great General! Down by Dublin, our archers now have figured out the line-of-sight thing, and bombard the barb archers from on top of a hill.

IT
Venice is no longer our ally. Paris is starving.

turn 98



IT
Caesar tries to buy Peace. Interesting.



If he'd offered a city instead of the useless-to-us horses, I might have gone for it. But no, Rome is going down! :hammer:

Caesar makes peace with no-longer-our-ally Venice.

turn 99
We finally manage to deal with the barbs down by Dublin and pocket our 25 gold.

IT



Looking good for our space victory!

turn 100
Down by Tours, we have a warrior searching for the barbs that Helsinki wanted destroyed, but I'm not seeing any.

IT
Gandhi comes to insult us for no reason. Something about us being his favorite "city-state".

Some unknown civ has built the Great Wall.

One of our workers at Troyes was captured by barbarians :eek:

turn 101
Our troops are advancing on Rome.

turn 102
End of Golden Age, we are now in -ve gpt. Trade our excess cotton to Gandhi for 50g+3gpt.

Troyes finishes a swordsman who sets out to rescue our lost worker.

turn 103
We begin our assault on Rome!



Paris finishes Market, starts building National College.

IT
Vienna is allied with Arabia.

turn 104



Rome becomes a puppet city. I think we should leave it as such at least until we get our happiness up a bit.

IT
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia informs us that our Pact of Cooperation is over.

turn 105
Our swordsmen rescue our lost worker.

Notes: workers are working on road network to help our economy. I'm building monuments in some cities to stockpile more culture for our Rationalism land-grab. We also need to work on colosseums for happiness and more markets.

Research: Theology is finished. I selected Education next, going for The Porcelain Tower, but it doesn't have any beakers applied yet.
 

Attachments

  • LotR28-250BC.Civ5Save
    550 KB · Views: 115
Nice progress :goodjob:

A pity about the pyramids, but we got the cash at least.
 
Impressive round of stompage. Not sorry in the slightest to see Caesar go.

I guess we're not going the gunpowder route after all? I don't see much tech strategy discussion, and each turnset seems to go in a different way on research.
 
I leave research as it is, I think we need a consolidation phase anyway before we can go to war again, so that Porcelaine thingy might be nice to build in the meantime. Checking F4, I see Gandhi is hostile, Harun is not. Gandhi has a higher WarmongerHate value, so that might be the reason...

Turn 106: I notice the dyes at Tours are not online yet, so I buy the tile for 60g. We need the happiness.



I notice a lot of fog tiles still on the map (on turn 105 :crazyeye: ), which I'd like to reveal - who knows what natural wonders lie hidden there? Some units at Rome move southeast and the spear at Orleans moves northeast to investigate.

Turn 107: Genoa wants Helsinki eliminated (and, next turn, vice versa). Both are maritime city states south of Tours, very far away in the south. Something to keep in mind if our units get bored enough, though.

Turn 108: Tours demands pearls. They demand pearls?!? Do the citizens of Tours know what happens to people who demand something from their king? (Have we invented the guillotine already?)

Troyes and Tours both complete a monument and start a colosseum and a market, respectively.

Turn 109: Orleans completes a worker and starts a monument. And my fog-busting adventures pay off - we meet Yet Another Maritime City State (YAMCS), Ragusa!



Turn 110: A great scientist is born in Paris! I'm unsure what to do with him - academy, or stash him for later bulbing? We should discuss this. Anyway, the scientist in the library gets fired for now, as Paris (size 6) should grow a bit.

Turn 111: Lyons completes a monument and starts a colosseum. And more fun with scouting: YAMCS, Singapore! :lol:



Oh my god, if we allied with all the maritime city states on this continent... :crazyeye:

Turn 114: Our scouting swordman finds Arabian units outside their territory. LOTS of Arabian units! :eek:



What are they up to? I hope they don't want to attack Lyons, as we don't have any military to speak of there...

Turn 115: No, they don't want to attack us. Arabia and Vienna both declare war on Venice, "our" maritime city state! :eek: Venice naturally calls for help, and we need to discuss what to do now. I've moved our military units towards Venice, but most units are several turns away. I haven't moved our two swords yet though and leave this to the next player, after we've decided on a course of action.

We can see a swordman, a spearman, a horse archer and four Arabian warriors. My suggestion would be to move most available units toward Venice, let Venice kill as many units as they can, and then join them when they are in danger of going down. We still have some warriors that can be upgraded to swords, by the way. (If we don't upgrade them, we should think about disbanding them - we are paying 28gpt unit maintenance!) Note: Two warriors are guarding workers, and I think I might have fortified them.



We also have to decide what to do with our great scientist. Should we keep him for getting Gunpowder later?

The road network has been worked on, and next turn should see Lyons connected. I've also moved another worker over to Orleans, where a lot of work is yet to be done. Rome needs also some worker love. Oh, and Gandhi is medieval now.

Roster:
Arathorn -> UP NOW
Corbeau -> on deck
ThERat
Jaffa Tamarin
Kylearan -> just played
 

Attachments

  • LotR28-0AD.Civ5Save
    559 KB · Views: 102
  • lotr28_bc0225.jpg
    lotr28_bc0225.jpg
    156.5 KB · Views: 719
  • lotr28_bc0150.jpg
    lotr28_bc0150.jpg
    131.2 KB · Views: 718
  • lotr28_bc0100.jpg
    lotr28_bc0100.jpg
    96.3 KB · Views: 746
  • lotr28_bc0025.jpg
    lotr28_bc0025.jpg
    169.2 KB · Views: 731
  • lotr28_ad0000.jpg
    lotr28_ad0000.jpg
    151 KB · Views: 709
Group talk time. We have a few issues.

Great Scientist: I tend to bulb all the time. I think this is a bad plan long-term! Academy probably pays significantly more in terms of total beakers provided, though it does mean some tile doesn't get any other benefit. I would tend toward Academy in whatever we designate as our best science city (typically one which can grow large and still build occasional buildings). Really, we have three choices -- golden age, bulb, academy. What do others think?

Venice: I hate when my city-state ally is attacked. We have at least four choices. First, do nothing, which probably costs us a lot of food. Second, go to war to protect Venice before it's captured. Third, surround the city with 6 units so it can't be captured. This third option is difficult unless you are in position before the war starts. The fourth option is to wait to declare war until after the city-state is captured. As liberator, we would get a HUGE bonus to their loyalty to us. This fourth option also requires war and city-states tend to have defensive buildings, so they can be tough to take, even after a first capture. With our weak-ish military, I would tend to go for option 4, since it also gives us time to build up some military.

I want some form of consensus or agreement on these points before I play, because they will significantly influence how I will play.

Arathorn
 
I would be very wary of allowing Venice to fall with intent to liberate it. Warsaw, on our western border, wants Venice eliminated. If Arabia conquers Venice, Warsaw will ally with them. That might not be an insurmountable problem, but devoting a unit or two to keeping Warsaw contained in the west would weaken the Venetian front against Arabia. City-states tend not to be offensive powerhouses, but their few units are always upgraded to the most modern standards in the world. I've seen them take cities from AI civs.

We've pretty much hit our happiness cap, which argues against another conquest spree. We'd want to be certain of capturing new happiness resources in any war of aggression, and/or preparing beforehand with happiness buildings. So if we went to war with Arabia, it probably wouldn't be total war.

Given our need to gear up for the long term, and how our recent research has been directed towards infrastructure, using our Great Scientist for an Academy makes the most sense. I like making sudden leaps forward, since they can pay enormous snowball dividends, but we're not really that close to any meaningful sudden leap.

In the long term, I think we should be seriously considering a trading post strategy. If we can build up a robust trading post economy to buy off Maritime city-states (of which there are a ton), Rationalism will boost our science through the roof. But we'll need a Renaissance tech to open Rationalism, and we're still a fair distance away. If we take it slow, and focus on infrastructure, we might be hitting Gunpowder when we're finishing up our round of infrastructure. Then we dash up the Rationalism tree and get ready for a new round of conquest. Recall that capturing cities also gives cash, which is quite handy for paying off those Maritime city-states (that in turn offer increasing benefits as the size of our empire grows).

So. I'd suggest defending Venice against Arabia with our limited military, building up all types of infrastructure in the meantime (including an Academy), and researching our way conventionally towards Gunpowder.
 
Had a look at the save. We can easily defend Venice and gain a huge boost to be their ally. We should move the swords into better position for one turn and then declare war on them. We have 2 archers nearby and a spear. Upgrade that one warrior near Orleans and we should be very comfortable to defend the city.

As for the Great Scientist, I agree we should try an academy, it gives -1f +5s, which I think can be huge with modifiers.

Are we planning to go down the liberty path to gain that 1happiness per trade network city? Can be a huge benefit in my mind.
 
I'd prefer an academy over bulbing (and think that starting a golden age with a great scientist is wasteful).

Regarding Venice, surrounding a city with units to fool the path-finding AI is cheesy in my opinion, and I never do this in my single-player games. This is not my game of course, but I'd like to cast my vote against such tactics.

I'm in favor of defending Venice now, before it gets captured, for the reasons Corbeau mentioned. As we are friendly with them already, this will ensure allied status for a long time even without having to liberate them. Note that we need to leave some protection at Rome in this case, as Vienna will attack us as well. We have three swords (two at the scene, one en route at Paris), and the warrior west of Orleans could be upgraded to a sword as well this turn. Together with our other units and Venice's defenders plus Arathorn's skills at warfare, this should hopefully suffice. We might want to keep some cash for an emergency purchase if needed, though.
 
An Academy is 5 beakers/turn. You have to work the tile as well. I can't see how that's better than the ability to discover, in full, any tech you are capable of researching. Let's say you have a University and National College in the city (which you don't). That's 10 beakers/turn. Dynamite is a 1900 beaker tech. Your going to be able to get the pre-reqs for it before turn 300. You are better off sitting on the Great Scientist and working a Mine/Trading Post/Scientist, then bulbing later. You are best off running two scientists in as many cities as possible, and 5 bulbing Dynamite (or whatever). IMNSHO, of course ;).

Darrell
 
Academy with university, observatory, public school, research lab, and national college gets (I think) 20 beakers/turn. We're not going to be getting all that until way late in the game, if ever, and I suspect the math still favors bulbing late-game techs, but I'd like to try one or two academies with our first great scientists. If we focus on science we're going to be getting a lot of great scientists.

Research. I've been picking techs that boost science. Obviously we need to get the military techs at some point, but I'm not a fan of a "space race" victory that is really a victory by conquering the world and then carefully avoiding triggering the domination victory condition.

I support defending Venice over deliberately letting it being captured and planning to liberate it later. That just seems so unsporting!
 
(115) 0 - I build the Academy outside Paris and start working it. It costs 1/4th of a food at this point and provides almost 10% of our science. Feels like a pretty worthwhile build. And it saves us some upkeep.



Maneveur our swords over by Venice to be in the best position to eliminate as many archers on the first turn of war as possible. Ranged units must die. I think we'll probably end up losing one sword to kill 4 or 5 Arabs. I have to think/hope that's worth it. Move a warrior into our land and upgrade him to a sword. We're not gaining any cash, so I hope/plan to start building some trading opsts, too.

(I) Arabia comes insulting us and our pet city-state. I insult him in reply, since we're going to be declaring soon.



Combat-wise, Arabia uses a sword and a warrior to kill a spear. Venice uses city bombard and an archer in the city to kill the wounded warrior.

(116) 25 - Education finished. I select Civil Service as our next tech. The extra food from irrigated freshwater squares is nice. And nothing else seems pressing. After CS, though, I would probably go Horseback Riding, Chivalry, and Banking. I then trade Open Borders and Wine to Gandhi for 80 gold and 3 gpt. We have the extra wine, so we might as well get some cash for it. Some WLTKD break out, but we have 1/4th food at this point, so it barely matters.

Our eastern explorer finds the eastern sea beyond the two maritime city-states in the NE. There might be more lands beyond Arabia, though. I might try to push through during our war, which is mostly about Venice.

Speaking of war, I do not declare this turn. Venice is safe and we are not in optimal position. Yet.

(I) Arabia kills a Venetian spear and loses nothing.

(117) 50 - Now Venice is in trouble. SO I declare on Arabia. I hope I can make it pay off.

It doesn't look promising. Our archer dents their archer. Our sword kills their wounded sword but gets badly wounded. Another sword damages a warrior but doesn't kill it. In the NE, our spear wounds their spear, but not as much as the odds would hope for. More units are on their way. I doubt we'll LOSE the war or Venice, but casualties could be heavier than expected.

Workers try to finish irrigating the wheat by Orleans and start a trading post (our first, I believe) by Paris. We need to get a worker to Rome to trading post it up.

(I) Arabia's spear kills our wounded sword. Their damaged spear in the NE almost kills our spear but promotes him instead, so I will kill him. Venice manages to finish off a wounded warrior.

(118) 75 - Spear kills wounded archer. Sword avenges his buddy and finishes off the wounded spear. That is enough to bring Venice in as our allies -- our "war" is complete in their opinion. But not in mine. We move a couple archers and more swords closer. At least we can pillage and pick up some cash. That's probably about all we'll do. I do use the spear's promotion in the NE to insta-heal and kill off the Arabian spear, for another casualty for them without costing us a unit. Now I'm more concerned about not losing any more units.

Orleans comleted its monument, and I start a catapult. One more military unit probably won't hurt. And all Orleans has is production, but not marble.

(I) I guess I still don't understand line-of-sight. Arabian archers on a hill shoot over another hill to our sword on flat land and do 6 damage and kill him off. I really thought he was safe. Venice offs another Arabian warrior.

(119) 100 - Archer and spear combine to kill an Arabian warrior. Other units move forward, but I feel I've already flubbed things up a bit. We are also now at war with Vienna, because Arabia allied with them. I will check if any good city-states want Vienna eliminated. If so, I might give it a shot. If not, I'll mostly just ignore them.

(I) Venice offs another warrior. No surround means Arabia is in trouble.

(120) 125 - Rome and Orleans both grow. We are at 2 spare happiness. Not so good. I just maneveur in the war. No combats. I hope to kill an archer next turn.

(I) Arabia's archer does 2 damage to our archer. Vienna's archer does 2 damage to our healed spear up in the NE. Nobody cares about Vienna, though, so I plan to just run away. Unless I can kill it pretty safely.

(121) 150 - Archer and sword combine to kill Arabian archer. NE spear runs away. Troyes completes colosseum and goes to Market, even with its limited gold output. We are in range of Damascus. More scouting than expecting to do anything with it. Paris National College to University. Tours starts a colosseum. More happies means we can expand (militarily or via settlers) more easily.

(I) Nothing.

(122) 175 - Just healing. City check and a bit of management there.

(I) Arabs move a catapult into view.

(123) 200 - Instead of fully healing, our sword in range kills the Arabian catapult. He'll get nailed by Damascus, but that's worth killing the 'pult, IMO.

(I) Arabs come offering peace straight up. I debated quite a bit, even thinking about asking for advice. But I turned him down. I want him to pay us for peace. Dublin wants gold. In the NE is an unclaimed gold. By my settle-luxuries rule, a city there will pay for itself easily. And if it gets Dublin on our side, even better. Settler is high on my priority list now. Also, CS finishes. Arabia moves another catapult into Damascus, too. So it won't be easy to take.

(124) 225 - Retreat from Damascus to let units heal and we're really ready to assault the city or to end the war. Mostly just waiting. Catapult from Orleans might be the key to breaking cities, if we want to go that route. Start HBR as I had mentioned earlier. More for opening up later techs.

(I) A pop-up. We have relatively pointy sticks...



(125) 250 - Still healing, primarily. We can move in on the next turn, probably.

Some notes:
- Paris is getting 7.5 science/turn from that one square. The library only seems to benefit the science from population, so both the library and the academy are kinda lame.



- I want to form two cities. One in the jungle near the front with the Arabs, beyond Venice. Universities get an extra 2 science per worked jungle square. And jungles aren't bad squares in general. The second is in the NE, to get the gold up there. I personally would prioritize these two cities over taking out Arabia. We could probably grab a city and raze it, however, with reasonable happiness.
- Workers need to get to Rome.

This pic shows the front and also where I'd like to settle.



Good luck.

Roster:
Arathorn -> just played
Corbeau -> UP NOW
ThERat -> on deck
Jaffa Tamarin
Kylearan

Arathorn
 

Attachments

  • Civ5Screen0036.jpg
    Civ5Screen0036.jpg
    91.4 KB · Views: 604
  • Civ5Screen0035.jpg
    Civ5Screen0035.jpg
    125 KB · Views: 595
  • Civ5Screen0038.jpg
    Civ5Screen0038.jpg
    63.7 KB · Views: 664
  • Civ5Screen0039.jpg
    Civ5Screen0039.jpg
    122.4 KB · Views: 603
  • Civ5Screen0040.jpg
    Civ5Screen0040.jpg
    123.4 KB · Views: 607
  • LotR28-250ad.Civ5Save
    567.3 KB · Views: 81
- Paris is getting 7.5 science/turn from that one square. The library only seems to benefit the science from population, so both the library and the academy are kinda lame.

Libraries give you a fixed one beaker per two citizens. The later buildings in the series (university etc) are the ones that act as multipliers.

I'm curious whether the 15% bonus from the Rationalism policy tree (I forget which one gives the bonus) as added to all the city modifiers, or is applied to the empire-wide total after the cities have already done their bit (which would make it a lot more powerful).
 
I'm writing this from my laptop, because last night's windows update royally screwed my copy of Windows 7. I'm going to need a skip on this turn, though I should have the problem resolved one way or another (read: hard drive reformatted) before my turn comes around again.
 
Got it then.

I see whether we can pres on the war and extort some money from Arabia before peace.
 
I had a look at the save. We are planning to save the social policies for the rationalism tree, am I right to say that?

Are we aiming to advance to the renaissance age quickly? HBR will be done next turn, I would head for engineering so we can mill forests.

As for the war, are we going to burn Arab cities until he is gone or until he pays for peace? I would just take Arabia out and only keep the capital. The rest of the city states could be our allies. Are we only trying to woo maritime cities or some culture boost cities as well?
 
Okay, my operating system is back but I'll still have to install CiV. So I should be good to go when the next turnset comes along.

I would be inclined to settle for containing Arabia while we build infrastructure for a science push into the Rennissance, at which point we can take out one or more of our neighbors with Musketeers.
 
Pre turn
Go through all cities, stunt Lyons growth a little for a second scientist
sell India our excess furs for 162gold, all he had, he wouldn't pay gpt
Rome is building a temple, I think we better annex that city, it has marble and could build some wonders for us

Turn 126 - 275AD
decide to roll up Arabia from the north, Damascus first
upgrade a warrior at Lyons to a swords just in case
choose chivalry as we want banking as soon as possible for FP

IT The Arabian spear almost takes out one of the archers

Turn 127 - 300AD
take out the wounded spear to earn a promotion for one sword, since we will fight in rough terrain get the rough terrain promotion
Orleans has grown, stunt growth by emphasizing cash, we make 20gpt now


Turn 128 - 325AD
what the hell is Arabia thinking



take that free worker, not that we really need it

Turn 129 - 350AD
move sword to heal, catapult is slowly rolling towards the front
we get unhappy as another city grew
as growth is halted, re-assign citizen as we won't grow anyway
trying to free that locked spear near Dublin

Turn 130 - 375AD
as we got too many workers, disband one way south for 20gold and a boost in income
happiness is green again as we finish a Colosseum
our spear got badly hurt by an archer and now he is surrounded
he is doomed :(

Turn 131 - 400AD
our spear dies, I am starting to set up the attack on Damascus
we get yet another market and I start another catapult

Turn 132 - 425AD
Vienna suicides their spear on our sword covering a worker, foolish really
I don't really like spears, to me they are useless

Turn 133 - 450AD
the sword in the north absorbs the archer attack and gains xp points, fine with me
annoyingly am Arab scout appears near Orleans to disturb our worker crews


Setup attack on Damascus


chivalry is in, going for banking now
a deal with India has ended

Turn 134 - 475AD
first bombardment not that great, wait one turn

IT :dance: what a nice message after all, Singapore wants Vienna eliminated, we will do her that favor for sure
first Damascus and then Vienna I'd say




Turn 135 - 500AD
bombard Damascus, attack but city still stands, it will falls next turn
archer gets promoted to city siege

Banking is due in 8 turns, then our social policies can kick in
I suggest to raze Damascus, puppet Vienna and we have 2 great maritime allies

I went for markets and universities, we need another round of happiness buildings after that
I also suggest to got for FP in Rome, it has marble after all
currently our workers are busy setting up a trade route

We also have a ton of cash as i thought with so many city states sooner or later there will be chances to get them friendly
Later we can use that cash for keeping allies for food (Venice and Singapore) as well as maybe some cultural city states

 

Attachments

  • LotR28-500ad.Civ5Save
    571.7 KB · Views: 100
Top Bottom