RBTS5 - Multiple Personality Disorder

Rome, hmm?

Nasty indeed. Good call on the iron, I vote for peace and we get some praetorians online and steamroll his mainland in the north!

LKendter said:

I see I am not the only person to do that.

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I do it to - I even have a pre-made notepad file with turn numbers and words like "the save" filled in.

Got it - peace, missionaries, and praetorians coming up.

Sullla said:

I decided to merge the Great General into Madrid as a super-specialist. That seems more valuable to me long-term than creating a beefed up unit at this point. Maybe use the next one on a Medic III chariot (?) Note that units coming out of Madrid now start at 8XP, thanks to barracks + Ikhanda + Great General specialist.

(5) 890AD Literature discovered, I start us pursuing Civil Service. Never a bad way to go, cliched as it may be in this game. Madrid starts the Great Library, let's cross our fingers on getting it! The only one who can trade for Literature is Darius, and he won't give us anything but Monotheism for it. That's definitely not worth it, so I hold off on the deal for now.

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(my emboldening)
I think our GG would have been better off in Kwa-Dukuza, seeing as he couldn't contribute to this Japanese campaign.

Also, I'm away until Monday, so can I please get a swap. Thanks.

Hey sunrise, it's been about two days since your "got it" post. Can we get an update on your status? It's fine if you need more time to play, just let us know what's going on.

Since Swiss Pauli requested a swap, I'm also placing him at the end of the turn roster for this go-around:

Sullla
sunrise089 <<< UP NOW
Dantski <<< on deck
TheArchduke
Swiss Pauli

Please note this change.

Sullla said:

Hey sunrise, it's been about two days since your "got it" post. Can we get an update on your status? It's fine if you need more time to play, just let us know what's going on.

Since Swiss Pauli requested a swap, I'm also placing him at the end of the turn roster for this go-around:

Sullla
sunrise089 <<< UP NOW
Dantski <<< on deck
TheArchduke
Swiss Pauli

Please note this change.

Click to expand...

Edit - nevermind, I shall play now.

Turn 1 - I make peace with Toku for his 40g. I also rearrange some builds to get a worker or two out while waiting for iron to be hooked up. After that it will be all Praetorians.

Turn 2 - The Great Library is BIDL - that was fast! GE, I guess...or Industrious plus marble. Oh well - more Praetorian building power.

Turn 3 - Iron arrives and Praets go into build queues.

Turn 8 - Civil Service, and our first Praetorian come in. I don't think we've chosen a next tech here, so I will go ahead and take the revolt to Bureaucracy now so I only burn 1 turn on a tech we didn't agree on...Currency. Incidentally, Peter and Darius will both make us multi-tech trades for Civil Service. While I hate giving up such a nice tech, I'd advise making such a trade...especially if we can then make a run for liberalism.

Turn 9 - Christianity fails to spread to Nagoya. At least we got a free spread to Rome this round to offset the loss.

Turn 10 - Our exploring workboat meets Shaka. He is not ahead in tech, but he is cautious and therefore won't trade and give us the diplo bonus.

I played ten turns as well, so someone should consider playing nine at some point to even the numbers out. For the next turns, I advise taking whatever trades we can get for civil service and seeing how far behind we are on liberalism. I'd like to make a go at it if possible - BtS often has late lib dates. Otherwise, let's build so more Praetorians and hit Toku - I built two workers so we should be ok there. I didn't build that many Praets - I inherited a lot of hammers in buildings, and I didn't want to whip them away while working productive tiles.

The save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/91988/RBTS5_-_Personality_Disorder_AD-1060.CivBeyondSwordSave

The roster:
Sullla
sunrise089 - just played
Dantski - up!
TheArchduke - on deck
Swiss Pauli

I'll get to it tomorrow.

So feel free to chime in

As in take it and play it?

Well I guess we wanna build up a sizeable Praetorian force and finish Tokua, no?

Start by removing 3 spy specialists from 3 cities.

Our peace treaty ends the first time I hit end turn. We don’t have nearly enough to attack yet and Toku has a reasonable force in his NW city.

Currency finishes and helps us by 9 GPT. It also allows us to build Forums (market with 25% GPP bonus.

We can research everything available in under 10 turns, I decide to choose Metal Casting at 5. With Machinery 1 tech after, I wonder why we don’t just wait till we get Maces before attacking Japan.

Shaka demands Civil Service, I refuse and we’re now his worst enemy.

MC -> Machinery in 7 turns.

And the fairly dull turnset ends. We have a decent number of Praets now in Antium and Barcelona at the moment. Also our economy is a little better. Think we get another GP out of Madrid next turn.

Toku now has horseback riding and will grab alphabet next turn. I don’t think he has anything to trade with the other AI’s though.

And a shot of the current demographics. We’re distinctly average.



Duke be up!

p.s. I played 9 to even the turns

Checking over the save, I will probably go to war with Tokuwaga to take Nara and then Kyoto.

Tokyo on a hill is a bit too nasty with protective archers.

On the whole, I'm quite pleased with our situation. Two quick issues:

1) Do NOT wait any longer to go after Tokugawa! We have more than enough units to start mowing down his cities. I captured Nagoya with far less than we have right now. Remember, Toku does not have longbows as yet, and every turn we delay attacking him puts him closer to Feudalism. Praetorians go through archers like a knife through butter. Just make sure we have enough cats to drop city defenses, and enough axes/spears to defend our main stack from axes and horse units. There's really no reason not to go on a major conquering spree ASAP. Our economy is in very good shape and can handle absorbing more cities - so go get them!

2) I really don't know why we're sitting around on our most valuable trading asset, Civil Service tech. It's not a monopoly (Ramesses has it), and we can score many techs back in the exchanges. I was able to get Horseback Riding and Compass for Civil Service and Literature (which everyone else already has) with Darius, then parlayed Civil Service into a further Monotheism + Drama with Peter. 4 for the price of 1, plus picked up some cash in the deals! You gotta make those trades. Breaking the monopoly earlier also would have meant we could have avoided the bad situation with Shaka. Maybe after the next civ swap, he'll forget that and not hate us (?)

One More Thing (TM): We have 80% odds to pop a Great Engineer next turn. I'd advise taking Shwedagon Paya and then going to either Theocracy (if we want more XP) or Free Religion civics. Free Religion could do us a lot of good, with 2 native religions and helping out in diplomacy. The Mausoleum is another option if we want more Golden Age goodness. It would be my second choice.

Sullla said:

2) I really don't know why we're sitting around on our most valuable trading asset, Civil Service tech. It's not a monopoly (Ramesses has it), and we can score many techs back in the exchanges. I was able to get Horseback Riding and Compass for Civil Service and Literature (which everyone else already has) with Darius, then parlayed Civil Service into a further Monotheism + Drama with Peter. 4 for the price of 1, plus picked up some cash in the deals! You gotta make those trades.

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My two pennorth: not making tech trades (along with GP hoarding) is a curse of the SG. Always better to go ahead and make the trade if you think it's right. Even if it's 'wrong' then you're likely to learn more from doing it than not.

1150 AD

I make the sweet tech deal, first with Darius and then with Peter.

1160 AD

We hit the GE and I decide on the Mausoleum. With our rate of Great Persons, we want to score some Golden Ages after Tokuwaga is gone.

1170 AD

Madrid gets a forum next, even enhancing our great persons possibilities. And we dow Toku.

1180 AD

With a bit of luck I destroy a swordsman and an axeman who sneaked across our border superearly.

1200 AD

Tokyo is stripped of defenses, Toku gets a GS in Kyoto, hopefully building us an Academy.

1210 AD

We discover Machinery and Peter demands a canceling of our deals with Darius. The persian dislikes us already, so I agree with Peter. I decide to press onto Paper, researchwise.

With two suicide Cats I manage to wittle down Tokyo´s defenses, but I am stopped by a Horse Archer as I am out of Praetorians.

1220 AD

Tokyo is taken with a loss of 2 suicide cats and one Praetorian altogether.

1240 AD

Our heavily wounded army (though with small losses, quite victorious) is still healing up in Tokyo. The honour of the assault on Kyoto belongs to the next player. I built some more reinforcements, they should suffice.

Also don´t stone me but as we were protective and have stone I decided to build walls on our flanks during the assault, but apart from a minor incursion at the start nothing happened there.

1250

I whip some infrastructure in the south. As Tokuwaga has silver and gold (both ours soon hopefully) I ordered forges in some cities, some which can be whipped in the last turnset.

You´re next Swiss Pauli.

Got it for tomorrow.

I wasn't so happy with the set up I inherited: going for Forges meant that we were going to miss out on Forums (to which we can then add a regular market) so I swapped some out and changed some builds around; other cities simply lacked the hammers/pop to complete the builds they had started - we need to really thinking through the builds in the penultimate set before the swap. We really are struggling for happy and the whipping (also those made by myself) is hitting hard. We could really use a CHM civ next!

The assualt on Japan went slowly:




Some annoying low-odds defeats in there, and Toku has been training troops like fury (but not whipping). After healing up, we were finally able to claim our prize:



As you can see, Paper is finished and we're stockpiling cash (but REP specialists are generating beakers), so I spent some on upgrades to Maces. There are some units closing on Nara, with the main stack in need of a little healing before it continues.

My whipping a forge on my last turn, and miscalculating the whipability of a forum in one of the island cities. Forgot momentarily that the swap is made on this turn, not on the next. And it was a double whip, too.

In the north, Toku seems pretty well gassed, but our lack of happiness means that we can't keep warring much longer ourselves. Also, we need to abandon Jesus as we can't afford the diplomatic isolation (and aggravation) we now face, so SPI would be cool. So let's hope for Brennus of Maya...

EDIT: GG settled in Kwadukuza (we have a medic2 chariot).

Nice game you have going here guys! This is probably the most interesting variant I've seen so far (RB1 was an entertaining read, also, the conquest victory w/ culture flips only was a fun game to follow.)

I'm really interested in trying something like this out in SP, how exactly do you switch civs using WB? Thanks in advance and keep up the good play!

schwartz said:

I'm really interested in trying something like this out in SP, how exactly do you switch civs using WB? Thanks in advance and keep up the good play!

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Check out this thread.

Darrell

Checking in with the save, and will plan on playing tomorrow. I would like to capture Nara if at all possible for purposes of rounding out our territory. I agree that we need to abandon Christianity soon... which is why I suggested using our Great Engineer for Swedagon Paya so that we could go to Free Religion civic. Anyway, perhaps we'll land a Spiritual civ, or maybe we can burn a Great Person on a Golden Age for a free civics swap.

Let me know if you have any other comments in the meantime. Oh, and because we've been moving the roster around a lot, I'm planning on keeping the same for this upcoming rotation. That is, the order will still look like this:

Sullla
sunrise089
Dantski
TheArchduke
Swiss Pauli

We'll change things around again on the next go-around after this upcoming one.

I think we might as well take Osaka and Kagoshima, too, as their defences - at present - are rather light.

One thing I forgot in the report: Peter built Parthenon, so assuming he has NE, his GP rate will be silly.

We should really concentrate on making that continent our own and get rid of Toku asap.