RBtS1b - The Thief Economy

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Nice work. Aside from the use for the Great Spy, I agree we're ready to go for Darius. I think Shaka will join once it's a dogpile.

Take it away, Kodii.

Scotland Yard leads the Pie Bomb 2-1, so do what you feel is best when the moment arises, and we'll accept your decision with good grace.
 
Sorry for the delay. I got distracted several times and had to break up my gameplay. Here we go:

T1 1060AD - I accept OB with Hatty; I sabotage Darius' horses then declare war. Shaka joins in for CoL.



T3 1080AD - The city revolt in Pasargadae succeeds and I take the city with the loss of a single treb.



T4 1090AD - The city revolt in Ergili succeeds and I raze the city with spare troops. If anyone disagrees, we can always resettle it later.



T6 1110AD - The city revolt in Persepolis succeeds and I take the city with the loss of two cats.



T8 1130AD - IBT - Shaka captures Ecbatana



T10 1150AD - Hatty captures Zapotec. A random event encourages peace between Shaka and Darius, which is taken. :sad:



T12 1170AD - A massive Persian stack comes into view since Shaka is no longer a target. :sad:

T14 1190AD - The most intense turns I've ever played. I managed to whittle down the massive SoD, most of which retreated into Susa. The city revolt succeeds and using every unit we have, we BARELY take Susa.



T15 1200AD - Darius is now royally screwed. I pillaged his iron and he no longer has access to horses. Our troops are healing in Persepolis and Susa. Darius' remaining garrisons are weak. I have a spy set up in Tarsus already, and one headed to another of his cities.





IMPORTANT - We have TWO GGs. One in Mutal, the other in Lakamha. I had meant to settle them, but in the intensity, I forgot. We can discuss what we want to do with them.

Oh, and we haven't gotten a Great Pie yet. I also believe we should use it for Scotland Yard simply because it will do so much more in the long run.

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Nice turns! Darius is indeed gassed. Gordium only has 1 LB & 1 cat for defense. We have 2 knights nearby. Perhaps we should move them in range of the city. If he whips a defender, we don't have to attack. But if he doesn't... :mischief:

Also, I wouldn't bother with a Barracks in Pasagarde. That city wants a market! Lucky us, it kept its Grocer. But it is pulling in a nice tidy sum of $$$

Take a look at Susa. It is a production monster, and already has several wonders, including the most worthless wonder for us this game: The Great Library. Not only do we need to watch out for any scientists, but apparently Darius was quick to the library quest because we have 3 free scientists from the great library. Say hello to Golden Ages, because the city also has MoM.

Darius will capitulate. Do we accept? If we don't, we risk the chance of Shaka taking him as a vassal and declaring on us. He does have a higher power rating.

Finally, do we continue dumping our EPs into Darius or do we move on to Wang? I notice he is researching Astronomy.

Edit: GG - one for a medic 3 chariot, the second as an instructor. Darius has already built a MA in Susa for us, so we get to exploit that bug whether we wanted to or not.
 
Great turns, Kodii. Hail to the Thief (honk!)

Nice turns! Darius is indeed gassed. Gordium only has 1 LB & 1 cat for defense. We have 2 knights nearby. Perhaps we should move them in range of the city. If he whips a defender, we don't have to attack. But if he doesn't... :mischief:
Sounds good to me, but watch out for his Xbow on our borders.

Also, I wouldn't bother with a Barracks in Pasagarde. That city wants a market! Lucky us, it kept its Grocer. But it is pulling in a nice tidy sum of $$$
The bank survived, too, so get that market! 60 gpt already. Woot.
Take a look at Susa. It is a production monster, and already has several wonders, including the most worthless wonder for us this game: The Great Library. Not only do we need to watch out for any scientists, but apparently Darius was quick to the library quest because we have 3 free scientists from the great library. Say hello to Golden Ages, because the city also has MoM.
Re Scientist: as we're likely to be huge, we'll probably have Alu, but we can keep a GS and try to found Alu Co for denial to AI, or to spark a GA.
Darius will capitulate. Do we accept? If we don't, we risk the chance of Shaka taking him as a vassal and declaring on us. He does have a higher power rating.
Is capitulation to Shaka possible while they're in a peace treaty situation? And is peacetime capitulation possible as such poor relations?




I suspect not and think it's worth the risk to push on and taking Gordium and Tarsus before making D capitulate, but it would be great to have a definite answer on the chance of D capitulating to Shaka, or some more votes either way if we're unsure.

Finally, do we continue dumping our EPs into Darius or do we move on to Wang? I notice he is researching Astronomy.
Switch to Wang.
Edit: GG - one for a medic 3 chariot, the second as an instructor. Darius has already built a MA in Susa for us, so we get to exploit that bug whether we wanted to or not.
We have one medic chariot already, but let's get a second one anyway. Instructor in MA city, or should we dodge the bug and assign elsewhere? I favour the former, given the warmongering to follow.

With Darius gassed, I think we should whip in some CHs as maintenance is high and the more EP the merrier. No need to assign the Spy in Mutal, as I think 1 turn isn't important.

Roster
Kodii - counting the loot
pindicator - up for action
sunrise - on deck
Swiss Pauli
ungy
 
Great set Kodii!!

I would have kept Ergli but not a big deal since I don't think relations with D are salvagable. Any city close by with religion pays for itself and growth/prod is a bonus.

I think keeping going with D here is a risk worth taking. We should try for Gordium and Tarsus. I guess it's possible he vassals to Zulu but I think 3-4 turns should do it.

We also have several not so great units to use in Helio to assist with Gordium.
I would whip the knight in Helio as it can then attack Gordium the next turn.
Helio will grow back pretty quick once we get Gordium and it can work the wheat.

Then we just make peace with D--don't take him as vassal. Better to leave him alive to steal his tech then take him out later if he vassals to Zulu or doesn't vassal.

I'm OK with the Scotland Yard. You guys are correct in that we are looking at a long game and we should have enough current espionage to get us through the critical techs. I was worried we wouldn't have enough to get us over the critical tech hump.
Critical techs are:
1) astro--to trade with the other continent. Most likely that will require us to give up our religion.

2) con-dem (for jail, sec bureau, emanc, US)

3) communism (int agency)

Most likely the other continent is not as advanced as ours. Although they built the pyramids generally in a 5-2 split it's hard for the 2 to catch up.

So I would prioritize the astro track as that's the only one we can make any headway on.

We should revolt to OR and switch to building infrastructure. I don't think we need more units as war almost over. Most cities should get CH first.

We need more spies--ideally we would like to be able to steal astro when Wang gets it. We should also pick up what we can from D--that would be med, compass, CS, banking. Since we're going to steal a whole lot from Wang, better to steal earlier from D and Hat.

Mayapan is the only city w/o Jud--we should build a missionary and get it over there.

GP--Susa is a GP and production powerhouse. Unfortunately there is little we can do to prevent the next couple of GP's from being born there. We could build a CH and run a spy and hope to get lucky. They will ultimately be of some use for corps--I guess the prophet would just be settled.

Forge is Thebes should be whipped--too much unhappy. Other than that I would lay off the whip and let our cities grow.

We should settle I think both GG. I think we have only one major war ahead of us and I think a single medic is enough. We will be out of vassalage before too long, and the extra XP will really help.
 
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Finally, do we continue dumping our EPs into Darius or do we move on to Wang? I notice he is researching Astronomy.
I would steal compass from D and then the rest from Wang. I'd wait on banking and CS. Since we're going to use some EP on taking down walls the next few turns we need some more for compass. Then switch to Wang.
 
General question: since the only possible victory is space, does that mean the game doesn't end until someone's ship arrives?

Or to put in another way, do we have to make sure the AI researches all the tech by a certain point?
 
Seeing as pindictor is unavailable for a couple of days, and sunrise is yet to confirm that his Civ PC is up and running, I picked this up earlier today to play the turns needed to take Gordium and Tarsus.

Report to follow.
 
Pre-flight: lots to consider regarding Darius, Wang and the long term plan. After much rumination, I decide to keep the EPs on Darius for the moment: he and Wang have the same techs and, seeing as we're going to take all but two of his cites, Darius' tech pace should slow dramatically. Therefore it makes more sense to steal what he has, and then use Wang for the more expensive later techs, without running up a big 'caught spies' bill with Korea.

1200 – Whip forge and knight. Line up a couple of Ball Courts where happiness is most needed. Move a handful of units towards Gordium.

1210 – Move our units from Helio towards Gordium. Settle a GG in Mutal and regret it as we’ll probably want to focus on infrastructure here. The best salvage would be use whip overflow to train units. The other GG is sleeping in Persepolis. I think Lamakha would be a good place to settle him, seeing as Persepolis has an MI already (as well as an MA).

1220 – Something strange happened down Sardis/Susa way. Looks like it might be an artist bomb by a look at the borders. I’ll come back to the implications of this at the end of my report. Seeing as Darius has now got two WEs in Gordium, we’ll need to attack it with trebs, so the stack closes in from the north, too.

In the inter-turn, our Pie at Tarsus gets binned, but not ID’d, and D throws at cat at Hatty’s stack outside the same city.

1230 – Revolt Gordium and take the city without loss, and clean up D’s roving crossbow.




We’ll want to be cute with the tile split between it and Helio to max each city.

Hatty asks for Guilds, but is denied; she’ll never love us anyway. Our spy outside Tarsus gets caught. Thankfully, Hatty has been bombing down the defences, but lacks the force needed to capture it.

1240 – Our Great Spy is born, and builds Scotland Yard




I think we should now focus Mutal on Commerce, with minimal whipping.

1250 - Darius has built up a reasonable defence at Tarsus, but our last remain cat moves into place for a suicide attack next turn.

1255 – Said cat does its job perfectly and we take Tarsus without further loss. Hatty’s troops had moved into the forest, the chickens. We lose our Trireme to a Persian caravel.




Bollocks to giving it to Hatty. We now control Shwedagon Paya, which is handy indeed, as it allows us to give less priority to stealing Theology and Liberalism.

Where Next?

Darius is pushing in our borders at Pasargadae (Bactra is now his capital) and Susa. Seeing as we need to take Shaka out of the running before he becomes a serious nuisance, I don’t think it would be helpful to tie up units to prevent revolt in those cities. We need to keep Darius alive for the techs, too, so I’d like to capitulate him. He’s well enough liked by all but Shaka, and his favourite civic is Free Religion, so he won’t antagonize the other continent much either.

We’re ready to adopt peacetime civics, but we need to decide whether we should delay Org Rel to combine with switch to BUR after stealing Civil Service. I’m unsure on this point.

As to the other landmass, I checked my notes from my last set and I forgot to mention that two Great Generals were born in faraway lands. Any sort of conflict will hold them back, so I don’t think it’s so important to find them ASAP. If they were shooting ahead, we’d have surely seen their caravels by now.

The game ends when the Spaceship arrives, so time seems to be on our side at the moment.

We’ve got a decent army, but when we start to plan our next campaign, we’ll need to increase the amount of siege units as most have been sacrificed out of necessity in this campaign. We also have some attacking units that are currently on MP duty whilst the whip anger fades.

I plan to play some more turns tomorrow night, after getting some feedback on the Darius and civics questions.

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We need to keep Darius alive for the techs, too, so I’d like to capitulate him. He’s well enough liked by all but Shaka, and his favourite civic is Free Religion, so he won’t antagonize the other continent much either.
I can't see the save yet but I don't see the point of capping him. I think better to just leave him alive and steal his techs. If he vassals to someone else--fine. He's no threat, and if it's Wang and Wang gives him tech we can just steal from D. If it's Shaka, we just steal what we need from him and then take him out when we take Shaka out--which I think is rifles. If we accept his cap, then we will never be rid of him and we have the - happy forever.

If the other continent is warring then we should win this easily.

I think we go to OR--even if it saves a turn. We might be a while getting CS, and we don't get that much from Bur. If we are only 1 turn for revolt then it doesn't save anything to do both.
 
My parents have internet even if they don't have CIV (not complete hillbillies out in the boonies ;) ), so I can follow along and comment.

One main point I see being made wrong above: We only need Optics to get to the other continent. Spies can travel on caravels fine. But Astro will still be very high priority for trade routes and commerce.

Aside from that, good turns again! I'd vote to capitulate Darius if we can steal from a vassal -- and I think we can. I thought I saw this available for us with Hatty.
 
Thinking over the situation with Darius we have the choice between a lot of short and medium term pain at Pasargadae and Susa (straight peace), compared with some future, but long term pain in all ex-Persian cities caused by motherland unhappiness (capitulation).

Checking the happy resources, we've got all there is except Whales (which we'll get in due course). We do have 2 more happy than 'regular' civs from our Ball Courts, but the lack of Dyes is a limiting factor here.

If we go with a straight peace, it follows that we want to take out Darius once we've stolen the tech we need. The risk here is that Shaka takes him out before we're done.
 
One main point I see being made wrong above: We only need Optics to get to the other continent. Spies can travel on caravels fine. But Astro will still be very high priority for trade routes and commerce.

Astro was for trade--overseas trade is huge in BTS.

However, we may want to scout the other continent first. We'll likely have to give up religion to trade over there and we blow the colosseus with astro. So we should first send caravels (with spies) over there to check who's there. If it's say Toku and Ragnar, then better to keep the colosseus. Another issue is religion--assuming we'll have to ditch the religion to trade it may not be worth it as we have good relations at home because of it. Maybe most importantly we want the Zulu war to happen on our timetable.
 
If we go with a straight peace, it follows that we want to take out Darius once we've stolen the tech we need. The risk here is that Shaka takes him out before we're done.
I guess that would force us to steal from someone else--IMHO that's a small price to pay compared to annexing his territory later on and removing the motherland mods. I don't think it's too big a deal either way.
 
You can steal from vassals. I stole Monotheism from Hatty in my turnset. I guess I must have forgotten to mention it.
 
Onwards!

Having pondered whether to capitulate Darius, I decide to heed ungy's advice: better short term pain than long term unhappiness. A straight peace with Persia:




Susa is going to be crushed culturally until we run out of use for Darius. Troops are tied up to prevent revolt, but we're in builder mode for now. Pasargadae is less badly affected, as it has plenty of good tiles to work.

I also revolt to Org Rel. It's two turns of anarchy, but I figure the delay wouldn't be outweighed by adopting BUR and OR together as we have to steal CS first.



A Ball Court quest. We have ToZ, too, so we can claim the extra prize which is at least one Golden Age. Further GAs are hinted at in the text (I've completed this one in another game, but I didn't choose this reward as I was playing for a culture win).

I trade Shaka a spare clam for his 7gpt. I manage to get away with some thievery for a change and steal CS withour being uncovered :D

I've split EPs equally between Darius and Wang for now, but this should be reviewed midway through the next set, as to whether we should up Korea's share. I advise getting Banking, Compass and Optics from D, stockpiling EPs for Astro and Paper from Korea. A spy has just arrived in Pusan, and the CS-stealer is on go-to-Bactra.

Another GG was BIFAL, so I looked at the religion screen and it seems to me that a likely cause of the conflict is Buddhist-Confucian anger.

Aside from Persepolis, our cities are either baking Pies or building infra. There's a Jewish missionary underway at Helio (destined for Mayapan). We should also spread Hinduism throughout our empire to boost our income yet further.

Shaka's power is mounting steadily, so we need to keep an eye on him, but we seem very well set indeed.

Roster
Kodii
pindicator - up for action
sunrise - on deck
Swiss Pauli - swapped
ungy

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