Immortal slavers!

There is no difference, other that putting off choosing a tech to research. I guess I'll try to pick something reasonable. Maybe literature for HE? Can't go wrong with that one really.

A fun set

IT: Nothing. I'll wait for our new catapults to merge with our stack before proceeding.

Turn 112 - declare war. We have to do something about these expenses:


suicide catapults sounds like a great idea about now

Turn 113 - Corinth falls. Revolt into representation/caste. We also get a GG. I send him to merge with our woodie 3 jag. Who's now a super super medic

Turn 121 - Athens falls. That was a long march

Turn 122 -

I stop here as it looks like a good spot for discussion. I have some units heading to Pharsalos - the axe + spear nearby can help so that it falls in 2-3 turns (i.e., once catapults are done bombarding). Pericles has a small stack at Argos. I'm not sure how we're going to move around it. I'd like to move the catapult stack west towards Sparta.



I think its current strength is enough to take the city unless Pericles moves his Argos stack there. I haven't built many more units as we're nearly bankrupt (-2 gpt running a few merchants). We can trade for currency though. I'm not sure how we want to sort out our trades though:



I'm thinking CS -- MC with Willem + gold. Then CS for currency calendar + gold with DG? We want to keep Hammy backwards so I'd rather not trade with him if possible. Toku is... well Toku.

And both Willem and Hammurabi are turning into monsters. Willem has almost 20% land and Hammy has built the SoZ + GL in his capital (yeah. Another big bullseye).

Also there's a GS sitting outside Madrid. I wasn't sure what to use him for so he's still there. Taoism is open, we can build an academy somewhere (not sure where really), or we can start a GA (ugh). And the next player may want to revolt out of caste to whip some units/altars. Or if you want to keep our economy alive, stay in caste for merchants

I think I'm up, in which case I got it.

Yeah definitely CS+45 to DeG for Currency+Calendar.
I guess CS to Willem for MC. Should we? He would throw in Mono+Archery from Willem as well as his 90. Should we?
We could then broker MC off to DeG for 150, or wait. Should we broker it?
I guess Philo bulb with the scientist we have.
Then start Machinery for Macemen.

Right now we're running 7 merchants for +21 and are at -2.
Bureau should net +9 and Currency about +6 (1 for each city).
Police State would be -2.
So with Police State / Slavery we'd be at -10.
Making the capital work the lake and Silk under Bureau should bring it up to about +0.
And we'd be whipping and would have at least 150 banked, so I think we'd be fine.

I'll probably do what was suggested with Pharsalos (and raze it), but I'm thinking about moving the cat/cat/jag to Sparta instead.

Make sure we make the De Gaulle trade first. The AI value trades less once we are not monopolizing them anymore (and we currently have a CS monopoly) and while Willem is still throwing in garbage techs we do not need De Gaulle already is asking us for extra money. Make the trade with Willem first and De Gaulle might not want to trade anymore, so trade with De Gaulle first and see if you can get Willem to repeat his offer without archery.

Mono might come in useful once we get a good religion and both Willem and Hammu are sending missionaries, but I'm not sure if it's a tech we want to risk WFYABTA for. Probably safer to self-tech once we can get theology in a trade for the bonus exp.

After that we might also consider brokering calendar to Hammurabi because he's got so much gold on his hands I feel obliged to relieve him of it one way or another. It's not a dangerous tech to give away and we can use the gold to deficit-research Machinery.

Philo bulb is always good in a situation like this. Once Taoism is gone the AI is less likely to tech it which means we can hold into it for trading.

Nice set Shyuhe!
I agree with Paulus about the gold, brokering calendar to Hammu can allow us to have machinery in 10/12 turns (we would end up with 500 gold in the tresury)...
I would also bulb philo, because we are first to it, and also because with no cottages, I don't value an academy and bureaucraty as much as usual...
Also, we might consider a restart honnestly... while Willem and Hammu are bigger than us, we'll have soon a tech lead (we have already monopoly on CS, we'll have one on philo, perhaps one on machinery), and those don't usually build troops so they should be done with maces/cats or maces/trebs, then with cannons...if this is the case we might restart... what do you think? Perhaps make a decision about that after next turnset?

@Jet: Rusten said to me perhaps he would perhaps get a new connection today, if it's not the case (no post from him), go for it...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

Nice set shyuhe.

Few comments: I would NOT trade around CS yet. I would wait until some AI has it. Also I would bulb Philo instantly but not trade it around either. Founding tao now makes the AI less likely to chase lib and not trading yet slows the AI (which is what we want ATM). We can run 0% and fill our treasury for deficit research once we get MC.

Clearly don't trade for mono and archery. Paulus is right with trading order. Just a small note: there is a discount on techs other civs have. Be that while selfresearching or trading for a tech. A tech becomes less valuable if several civs have it. Always keep that in mind! (I guess it's some kind of balancing attempts, to stop extremely backwards and runaway civs...)

I don't think we should decide on a reroll yet. Much can happen still. Let's wait a bit with that decision

Will have a look at the save tonight.

We're losing money at 0% mysty. So I would argue that we need to trade for currency, at which point we might as well trade for MC and calendar. Archery isn't worth it but I wouldn't mind OR.

If we're going to war with maces, then we shouldn't trade CS around and instead try demanding gold from the weaker civs. If we go full research, we can get currency in 2 turns - although we'll need ~200 gold to fund it.

I am aware of the state of our economy (which is part of the reason I think we should delay rerolling...).

But we're not losing much money, and can count on regular money boosts from pillaging and capturing cities (jet, make sure you pillage cottages before they are in our borders).

I don't see us fielding maces vs pericles unless we take a cease fire/peace treaty so we can just wait a little. If we have enought gold to deficit-research machinery I'm fine with trading CS around.

I repete: Not (yet) trading around techs slows down the AI tech pace. We want that since we're teching slowly and want to focus on war.

I think we cannot hold on to our CS monopoly. We desperately need currency, and if we are getting currency we might as well take MC & Calendar for CS in trades since it's not a monopoly beyond that anymore.

As much as I want to hold on to important military techs, we need to get something of an economy if we want to be competitive in the long run. We're fine now but who says we still are in 1000 AD.

Another discussion point:
A quick look at the powergraph tells us that Hammurabi is actually weak compared to us - he has been building wonders, not troops. Something tells me we have a fair chance against him with maces, especially if we get the veteran troops from the Spanish and Greek wars.
What I'd do is rush to machinery ASAP and get those maces, then attack Ham (I'm content with leaving Peri crippled as he is now, once we take a few more cities take peace and let him rot). As long as he doesnt get engineering I'm not afraid of him. Enough catapults will also suffice against a few longbows or xbows, if we can keep the sieges quick without having to grind castles. If we're definite on going medieval on Hammu we should also turn around all espionage to him and plant a few spies to speed things up.

Our goal in that war should be to take Akkad and Babylon. Once we have those two he's effectively down, and we'll help our economy up with a big shrine and the Great Library.

To be fair, we can trade CS to the AI least likely to let go of quasi-monopolistic techs. I'd have to look at the reference sheet to figure that out though. If we do that, it's not likely that it'll spread beyond the guy we give it to. That would also help us keep CS/machinery (i.e., maces) out of Hammy's hands for a while. If we're serious about warring with Hammy in the medieval era (which is totally doable given the situation), then we should try to wrap up our war with Pericles soon. I think we want to capture Sparta and Thebes to open up a faster route from Tenochtitlan to the Babylonian border.

Also, another option is to 1) revolt to bureau then 2) demand some gold (maybe Hammy since he has less power than us) and 3) do full blast research for 2 turns to get currency. In this situation, we'll keep CS as a bargaining chip for feudalism. Vassalage will help us save a LOT of money on military as that's our biggest expense right now. It will also let us demand gold (or techs) from Pericles for peace once we're done with him.

Or we can set a city to spam Buddhist missionaries and build a market in Madrid to keep our research going. Basically as long as we're marginally positive at 0%, we'll be able to research with representation specialists at least through liberalism. By which point we'll hopefully have enough land that it doesn't matter.

Edit: regarding our overall tech rate, CS @ 175 AD is actually not that bad. It's just that we don't have the income stream to sustain max (or even 10% really) research.

122 -
* Hammurabi is between techs or in anarchy, so I put off trades for one turn so that we can see his research again.
* Bulb Philo and get the elusive BudTao Hydra! Send the missionary to the war front for culture duty.
* Adjust builds so that we can do multi-pop whips next turn, assuming we'll trade and slave then.

123 -
* A barb Galley appears near Madrid. We can't save our Work boat. But we can queue a Trireme if we trade for MC.
* Pericles moves 3 Chariots, 2 Swords, 1 Phalanx from Argos up next to Athens. Defenders are Jag/Axe/Spear. I move our attack stack back one tile. The super-medic could move two tiles through the forest into Athens, but I'd rather lose the city than the medic, so I don't.
* But I still I bomb down Pharsalos down and prepare to raze it.
* Yes we can see Hammurabi's research now, it's HBR (2). I don't think he was in anarchy; I guess he's just researching that fast. Willem was almost to Philo himself and will only trade Philo+25 for Archery. So I
* Trade Philo to DeG for Currency+Calendar+20. He says something about his worst enemy which I miss and can't find on the diplo screen. Does the BUG mod show that? I don't use it. Anyway DeG is Hammurabi's worst enemy and Hammurabi is Toku's worst. Nobody is in war prep though.
* Do not sell Philo to Willem for his 30, guessing that DeGaulle will not either (although who knows.)
* Start researching MC, hoping to maybe do Philo for MC with Hammurabi. Or else finish it ourselves. :\
* Switch to Judaism for a possible Hammurabi beg. Brokering Calendar may make this useless if we get all his wealth, but we'll see. Hammurabi is still at Cautious.
* Switch to Police State / Bureau / Slavery.
* Since we don't have MC, queue galleys in Madrid and Barcelona.
* We are indeed at +1 GPT, with 133 banked. And this is without having improved the capital Silk yet.

124 -
* Second battle of Athens: he goes down to Sword and Chariot and we're down to just the Jag, holding the city. He gets a GG in Argos which he sends to Sparta. Our defending Jag attacks and kills the Sword. I move our attack stack back into Athens, planning to leave 2 jags (C3 Shock and Shock) defense while moving to raze Argos, which is not on a hill and has no walls, and I pillaged his Stone. Then go at Sparta with reinforcements.
* Barb Galley is on top of the Madrid work boat. Whip the 2 Galleys.
* Hammurabi is still at Cautious. For Calendar he'll do 230 or Mono+195. I do Mono+195 as my official pro-Theocracy action. If Pericles had Mono I might not... but he doesn't.

125 -
* lose the Madrid WB.
* Pericles converts to Judaism. Hammurabi does not have Feudalism.
* Raze Pharsalos at a loss of 1 Cat.
* Pericles's GG disappears, must be settled in Sparta.
* Our attack stack moves up next Argos, as advertised. Taoist missionary successfully does Athens, for short-term benefit.
* Temporarily take Teotihuacan off its gold so that it can start growing off CS farms. (We have to do it some time.)

126 -
* Pericles bags a Worker outside Barcelona with a Chariot from Thebes, d'oh.
* Barb galley kills one of ours, then our other Galley finishes it.
* DeGaulle asks us to stop trading with Hammurabi and I refuse. I guess Hammurabi is his worst enemy. I can't find that informaton on the diplo screen, though.
* Babylon finishes the Parthenon and a Great Scientist is born there.
* Bomb down Argos.
* I take out the Worker-killing Chariot and we get a GG in our capital. I can't decide what to do with him.
* Hammurabi still won't trade MC. He's six turns from Machinery. Oof.

127 -
* Raze Argos.

129 -
* Great Engineer BIDA.
* Take Thebes at a loss of I think 4 cats.
* Notice that we have enough money for MC and turn research up to 100%. I had it at zero.

130 -
* A maurading Chariot from Sparta takes out one of the Jags defending Athens. A Sword from the east appears outside Athens. Athens just finishing whipped an Altar. I no-prep whip an Axe (no Barracks) for defense and take out the Chariot with the remaining Jag defender.
* Sell Poly to Toku for 30.

131 -
Shwedagon BIDA.

132 -
* I had hoped Hammurabi would choose a more intelligent spot to replace Pharsalos, but he settles Shushan in exactly the same place :\. Raze that one too?

134 -
* Great Prophet in Akkad (Hammurabi)
* Angkor Wat BIDA
* Capture Sparta at a loss of 4 cats. We get 2 Workers, Granary, settled Great General.
* Hammurabi is finally up to Pleased. I check the new begging reference and calculate that he would give us 84 and asked for 70 to be safe, which I got. I reloaded just to check, and found that he would give us all 140 that he had. I realized I misinterpreted the base factor and neglected the land target factor. I think the actual maximum he would have given us was
(50 (base) + 118 (turns)) * 2 (base factor) * 3 (land target factor) - 0 (previous begs) points = 1008 points = 504 wealth.

135 -
* Metal Casting in.
* Hammurabi builds the Church of the Nativity in Akkad, which already had the Temple of Solomon. His hydra is better than our hydra! We need to do something about this.
* We're back to more round turn numbers.

I couldn't decide what to do with the GG, so he is still free. Settle him in Madrid, maybe?

I think we should try to take the next Greek city, in order to get Dyes for us and no Iron for him. It is worrying, though, that Greece is Jewish and Hammurabi is one turn from Feudalism.

I suggest we scout out Akkad and Babyolon and assess the possibility of continuing full-on military builds for now to assault that city (only) at our current tech level. LBs/XBows/Elephants, could be ugly. But just one city we could bombard with Spies. We're breaking even at 20%, so the economy is fine. I included some buildings: Altars everywhere, Markets in Tenochtitlan and Madrid, Lighthouse in Tenochtitlan, and in case we do want to go research next, Library in Tlatelolco.

We might want to switch back to no SR soon (or even Hinduism, which we have now), but not before we're done with Pericles, in case it affects the vassal chance.

The Colossus is still up, but I pillaged Pericles's Copper , so... eh.

akkad/opis/babylon probably should be your target; opis will screw most of the tiles if not razed/taken. Which is a pretty ambitious plan, but with settled gg a c2/formation spear should stand decently against a phant.

or more like akkad - babylon - opis(or opis - akkad - b, 3 turns from 1sw from opis to akkad) though that'll leave the front line pretty thin till you take opis. If he goes for engineering, you'll have a problem(castle); though probably he'll go cs for fav. civic, but after cs + 1 turn for switch... The timing seems very tight.

nice game

THANK you very much jet. I've been looking for that post for like a month or so

If Rusten isn't back yet I am up, so consider this a got it.

That begging reference is certainly nice. I'll have to remember that post.

I'll do a scout round and assess how far we can go, then plan accordingly. We should remember though that we must either kill Pericles now or face him again when we attack Babylon. I expect him to vassal himself to Hammurabi as soon as we take peace.

There is one other thing. We can get Maces now by trading Philo + 185 gold to Hammu for Machinery. That's good, because we keep the CS monopoly and Philo is worthless for military. (And even better, seeing as Ham is wonderhogging he might put hammers into Angkor Wat instead of troops, which is also good. ) With maces we can probably keep Peri at bay with 2/3 maces (I really don't see us needing more than that).

Angkor was already built. I don't object to a philo trade though. I imagine he'll probably tech CS himself pretty soon though. Also, we're trading for ivory from Willem - so we can build elephants ourselves if we tech (trade) for HBR.

I think we should try to capture Pericles's iron city before taking peace. But we can take peace now and ignore him too. I imagine his remaining 2 cities that we can't see suck as there's no good land down in that area.

PaulusIII said:

We can get Maces now by trading Philo + 185 gold to Hammu for Machinery.

Click to expand...

Well paint me blue and splay my heart on the 444th step!

A detail I noticed is that Barcelona has some GPP accumulated, but of course less specialist capacity than Madrid, which also has GPP accumulated. So it might be wise to give Barcelona a head start on 2 scientists, maybe even 2 scientists and a spy, to be sure that it pops a great person before we spam scientists and overtake it, whenever that might be.

Another interesting option (not sure it's best)
1. CS+Philo to Hammurabi for declare on Toku
2. CS to DeGaulle for Machinery
3. maybe CS to Willem for HBR+Aesthetics
That would give us time to finish Pericles (probably not useful except for Dye/Iron city) but it should also get Hammurabi's main army away from his center for a while (useful).

Gentlemen, I fear Hammurabi might be on to our devious plan to overthrow him and take Babylon for our own. For once the AI is doing the sensible thing to do... he's teching Engineering.



I played 2 turns but thought this had to be a discussion point. Either we still go on with the war preparations even though we now know we're on a very tight schedule, or call off the attack, let him be and abuse our own people instead of his?

I say we can still take Akkad at the very least under these circumstances, but that might be my own bloodlust blinding me. I'm looking for team input here, because I fear I might do something stupid if I make a decision here.

We have spies heading for Babylonian land to check out his forces (and stay there for an eventual spy revolt), but if we decide to attack we have to start our buildup (another round of cat whipping, getting out a few maces as well) NOW so I cannot make an informed decision considering his forces in Akkad and Babylon, and that buildup would mean another blow to our already-poor economy which we could avoid.

Continuing military builds until we can see the units in Akkad and Babylon is fine with me.