@tjs282: Yes, we can stop building Cavs now, we'll soon have Panzer... So cities, which still have something useful (Universitiy, Police Station etc.) to build, should switch now, while the ones that have finished their civilian imporvements, can build a few more Artillery or Infantry, while we are waiting for Motorized Transportation. Also: keep empty Armies for Panzer. they have the same speed, but are almost three times as powerful...
We currently have over 20 taxmen. If you switch them to scientists, we get 33% more output from them! (Taxman = 2g, Scientist = 3b!)
In fact, switching all taxmen to scienists and then raising the science rate from 80% to 90% is already sufficient for getting Refining in 5 turns instead of 6. So we should do that. We can later make other deals to refill our bank account... (for example, the Mongols would be willing to fork out 221gpt for Medicine (!), the Indians would hand over 77gpt. Sooner or later, when the ToE is no longer in danger, we should take these deals. These deals would even be better than going to war with them for a luxury resource?! Especially as we already are at 0% lux rate, so additional lux ressources would not increase our income in any way at the moment...)
Can you already do some first calculations as to when we will need to start our various pre-builds? Not that we miss the time to start them... When doing this, you can make it a "close shave": a pre-build can finish in the same turn that the required tech finishes, because beakers are counted before shields. So when the tech comes in, you can switch from F6 to F1 and then switch the pre-builds to the wonders. They will then finish in the same interturn.
Slight problem: the Palace in Kolossusstadt will finish in 17 turns (can even be lowered to 15 turns, if we use that currently unused mined plain), but we need at least 23 turns to reach the modern age (3 turns left on Refining and then 5 more techs at 4 turns each). But as we probably won't be able to do the remaining 5 techs in 4 turns, it will be more like 28 turns till Modern Age. Darn, that war weariness slowed us way too much, or where did we lose all that time compared to my calculation a couple weeks ago?!
BTW: Hamburg should use that plains tile instead of a taxman! As it currently is, we get 7 coins + 2 from the taxman = 9. If we send the taxman to the mined river plain, we get 9 coins, so the same amount of gold! But we get 46 beakers instead of 42 (and of course 12 shields instead of 9). So that taxman is in fact not producing any extra gold (we get the same total income by sending him to work on that tile), and it is even wasting 4b and 3s...
PS: similarly it seems that most of the taxmen currently employed in core cities can be send to the fields for a bigger income than they can provide as either taxman or scientist.
General rule to remember: in non-currupt core cities specialists usually don't make any sense. The reason for this is: gold/beakers from specialists are not affected by mulitplier buildings (libs, markets etc.) So while a e.g. a scientist gives 3 beakers and that's it, a tile with a river also gives 3 beakers, which are then increased to 6 by the library & university.
PS: yes, start joining native workers to cities, whereever it makes sense.
BTW, I noticed: we have not been paying attention: some of the English cities have already grown once and now contain a German citizen. That means we can no longer produce slaves from them: any worker produced in that town will be native (until the population is again 100% British). Fortunately it's no big deal, as we have use for more native workers for joining as well. Just make sure that the towns don't grow again untill we have "harvested" the last slave...
And: please double-check the MM for our main cities. In addition to sending some specialists back into the fields, there are also some adjustments for faster growth or faster production possible. For example, if Brandenburg switches a forest (2s) to a mined hill (4s) the Marketplace will finish this turn instead of next turn.
Well, I started playing last night -- only got 4T in so far, and it took a long time, much of which was spent at the beginning, shuffling tiles round between cities and reassigning citizens. I tidied things up a bit, but I couldn't prevent a lot of waste/overrun.
Anyway, I almost certainly won't be able to finish until Wednesday. The war is due to start this evening, and that will also take some time to manage. The English still seem to have a lot of spare units kicking around -- enough to send a 5-stack of Pikes/Spears onto our turf repeatedly, presumably to reinforce Newcastle (at least, that's where they seem to be headed before I boot them...) against the Army+Stack'o'Cavs I've parked just outside its border. Even though I also have a much bigger, multi-Army stack parked outside Coventry and Oxford's borders...
@tjs282: Yes, we can stop building Cavs now, we'll soon have Panzer... So cities, which still have something useful (Universitiy, Police Station etc.) to build, should switch now, while the ones that have finished their civilian imporvements, can build a few more Artillery or Infantry, while we are waiting for Motorized Transportation. Also: keep empty Armies for Panzer. they have the same speed, but are almost three times as powerful...
Bad news on the 'peaceful invasion' front -- Hyang-san's borders popped 2T into my set, disappearing our beachhead-site -- I hadn't even been able to dispatch the Settler yet, because both our Galleons were mid-ocean (heading for Bath? Dunno). An Explorer is now on the way over, but will take another 1-2T to get to the nearest landing-point and start Exploring.
We currently have over 20 taxmen. If you switch them to scientists, we get 33% more output from them! (Taxman = 2g, Scientist = 3b!)
In fact, switching all taxmen to scienists and then raising the science rate from 80% to 90% is already sufficient for getting Refining in 5 turns instead of 6.
I put all the core-city Taxmen back to work, and converted the science-farm Taxmen to Scientists. A lot of the farms were also running massive food excesses, hence the irritating growth (and we don't need more native Workers, we need fewer!). So one of the things I did before I even started, was reducing all 40-odd farms to 0FPT and turning the excess citizens into scientists while starting Worker-builds. I didn't need to raise the Sci% to get Refining down to 4T left, but I couldn't make 3T without a large –ve GPT (and we didn't really have the cash for that).
We can later make other deals to refill our bank account...(for example, the Mongols would be willing to fork out 221gpt for Medicine (!), the Indians would hand over 77gpt. Sooner or later, when the ToE is no longer in danger, we should take these deals. These deals would even be better than going to war with them for a luxury resource?! Especially as we already are at 0% lux rate, so additional lux ressources would not increase our income in any way at the moment...)
I thought the mooted wars were to be for Wonder-busting, not Lux-grabbing. I haven't signed any deals yet, because (1) it makes no sense to start ToE yet (see below), so it's not 'safe' and (2) if we go to war with the Indians/Mongols to kill their GW-builds any time during the next 20T, we are going to break any deals made.
Can you already do some first calculations as to when we will need to start our various pre-builds? Not that we miss the time to start them... When doing this, you can make it a "close shave"... *snip* ... when the tech comes in, you can switch from F6 to F1 and then switch the pre-builds to the wonders. They will then finish in the same interturn.
Can't yet say for sure, but all our 1st-ring inland cities are pushing out 50-60 SPT after wastage, so it won't take long to finish ToE (10-12T) or to get >800s into the US/Internet-prebuild (14-16T). The main question ATM is how fast we can research, and I won't be able to answer that for sure until all the 2nd-ring cities which were still at Pop6 or less (W'heim, Neu Osloh, Bergen, Stockholm, Potsdam, etc.) are all up to Pop12 with Worker-joins, with Markets (to keep them all happy) + CHs (to minimise wastage) + Libs/Unis (to maximise BPT).
CAII is currently predicting ~5T per tech at +ve GPT. If this holds for the rest of the Industrial Age:
US(Internet)-prebuild should be started around the same time as we finish Combustion/ start MassProd:
either in a 50-53 SPT city 1T before (16T => 800-848s collected)
or in a 54-57 SPT city at the same time (15T => 810-855s collected)
or in a 58-59 SPT city 1T after (14T => 812-826s collected)
ToE should be started in O'stadt (60 SPT) on the same turn as MotorTransp (10T => 600 SPT)
Dropping the Sci% 1T before Refining gave us a nice windfall, allowing me to cash-rush some more Workers/ Slaves/ Settlers and still leave enough over to research Steel at -ve GPT in 4T (barring WW). I've already queued up Combustion and MassProd (both 4-5T) as the next 2 targets. Deciding exactly when /where to start the prebuilds will therefore fall to CommandoBob, assuming he takes the next turnset. (BTW, Refining showed that we have Oil hooked up near Bodo, plus another unhooked source near Bath.)
The major problem on the horizon is that we have no other practical possibilities for prebuilds except Palace and US (and we're already using Palace for SETI), so it will almost certainly become essential to attack Delhi, if the Indians are likely to get US before we get Flight+ToE=Comps+Mini. Although Delhi is close to the coast, we don't (yet) have anywhere near enough (read, any) ships on the east coast of our continent to get a Crowd'o'Cavs(TM), a Gaggle'o'Guns(TM), InfiniteInfantry(TM) and an Armygeddon(TM) over there in time to do it ourselves. I will do what I can re. shipbuilding, but we may also/ instead have to bribe the Mongols (with Med?) and/or Japs to attack the Indians -- and/or then backstab/ attack the Mongols and go after Pusan (if I can find it...).
Slight problem: the Palace in Kolossusstadt will finish in 17 turns (can even be lowered to 15 turns, if we use that currently unused mined plain), but we need at least 23 turns to reach the modern age
I already slowed it down to 22T for now ... it can be slowed further (to ~29T) or sped up (to ~15T) as needed.
EDIT: Yet another brainfart -- we don't need to kill Delhi and/or Pusan (Bachs), unless one of them cascades to ToE (a possibility, if SciMeth is acquired over there before Bachs is built). We do however need to know where the Indians and Mongols are building US. Naturally, the F7 screen is the one thing I forgot to check during the preturn -- will do that this evening, first thing...
When I got home from work yesterday, I discovered that I messed up -- not the game (I don't think!), but my turnlog. I'd failed to save half of it when I shut down on Monday night (not sure how, I'm pretty habituated to regular Ctrl-S-ing). Since I couldn't remember exactly what I'd done during the two missing turns (mostly just MM-ing cities and assigning Worker-tasks), I went back to the autosave for the last turn that I'd logged and replayed from there, plus a couple more turns. I probably assigned Worker-tasks a little differently on the second go-round (since I had a better idea how long things would take), but that's about all. Hope that's OK?
(Also, my younger son was very poorly last night with something bronchial, so taking care of him every time he woke up took priority over playing. He seemed better this morning, but has nonethless been taken to see the doctor).
Major developments from Turns 4-6:
F7 says that USuff is being built in Kohlapur and Almarikh (spelling?) -- the former is invisible so far, but the latter is coastal (NW Mongolia)
The Mongols gave us a soft-boot order on the IBT after our Explorer landed (Turn 4). Our Galleon was already out of their territorial waters, so I (lied and) said we'd move, but they then immediately DoW'd us anyway (I think they might have run out of cash) and killed the Explorer. So we lost the Silk-import (and the ~50GPT they were paying us for... something -- a tech?), and I'm still ignorant about their continent
On Turn 5, I loaded the 2 available Galleons with some spare troops (5 Cavs, 2 Inf, 1 Arty) and sent them towards the Bath-island, since we should be able to capture a few Mongol cities there without having to deal with their entire armed forces. I'm hoping to bring them to the negotiating table ASAP.
Since it was long-planned anyway, and I wasn't expecting it to be difficult, I also DoW'd Lizzy on Turn 5. Newcastle and Oxford fell immediately, but (I think) because of the cultural borders and the forests/rivers around Coventry, only the Armies could get through with enough MP left for attacking, so I couldn't finish the war in 1T -- Coventry fell on Turn 6, and the English are dead.
O'stadt and K'berg immediately rioted on the Turn 5 IBT, I assume as a result of the lost Lux + WW from the DoW vs. the English. Obviously I couldn't up the Lux% at that point (should probably have done that before DoWing the English, but I was hoping the the WH from the Mongols' DoW would counter any WW), so I turned on the Governator in All Cities. I figured that was better than wasting the next 1T as a result of rioting in all core cities... Now the English are gone, so is the WW, so the next/last job for Turn 6 (tonight) is to go through all 70-ish of our cities and make sure all the citizens are reassigned as before *sigh*
Not sure what to do about the lost Silks though -- will have to look and see if another deal is available, because I was already deficit-spending for Steel-research (and the deficit just got ~50GPT bigger -- inconvenient, but not a disaster, since our treasury will still cover that comfortably). Any ideas?
But the Mongols DoWing us out of the blue is strange indeed?! Have we been weak compared to them? They can't have been broke: when I looked at your turn 0 save, they were willing to pay over 200gpt for Medicine. (A deal which I would have loved to get, as it would allow us to run 100% science for quite a while.)
But it might as well be to our advantage: battle plan for now could look like
take their island towns
bust their wonder builds
take silks and gems (not necessarily by capturing a city, we can just as well just settle our own town next to it in order to avoid an unpleasent culture-flip later on in peace time, which would send our empire into riots once again...)
otherwise leave their core intact so they will hopefully be able to support us with large gpt payments again after the war...
Yes, I was surprised too -- they didn't even give me a chance to move the 'offending' Explorer. But no, we're not weak -- I've been spamming out 2T-Infs for the last 6T, and Corporal Punishment says we're 'average' right now (although we still have very few ships -- maybe a Mongol Armada of Frigates is heading our way). Also, they DoW'd us before I started the English war (during which I lost only 1 foolhardy vCav -- out of nearly 50). They have a lot of land/cities though, so probably have more low-quality troops in total...
They can't have been broke: when I looked at your turn 0 save, they were willing to pay over 200gpt for Medicine. (A deal which I would have loved to get, as it would allow us to run 100% science for quite a while.)
I did notice that the Indians are currently hawking Fascism (I wanted to know what Gandhi might want for an MA vs. Temujin -- and it was Medicine, so I didn't make that deal -- yet), but I don't know about the Mongols. Maybe Temujin bankrupted himself buying Fascism? Re. selling Med, I didn't want to help anyone further towards SciMeth this early. Buuut... do the AICivs always ask for the tech they're currently researching? If so, that means that the Indians and Mongols are researching Med right now, so if we want to make any gold from our tech-lead, we should probably sell it before they get it (oder?).
But it might as well be to our advantage: battle plan for now could look like
take their island towns
bust their wonder builds
take silks and gems (not necessarily by capturing a city, we can just as well just settle our own town next to it in order to avoid an unpleasent culture-flip later on in peace time, which would send our empire into riots once again...)
otherwise leave their core intact so they will hopefully be able to support us with large gpt payments again after the war...
Working on (1) already -- our troops will land next turn.
For (2), we're gonna need a bigger boat(s)... (and/or more of them -- I'm working on that too).
(3) may be problematic, if it requires native Settlers to minimise flip risk(?), because building them will either take no time at all, or far too long!
Our core cities are all far too productive for Settler-building (K'berg is now at ~70SPT!), but the outer rings still need infrastructure (CH, Markets and Libs at least), and the rest of our towns are 90% corrupt, and/or still being enslaved to shrink them to Pop1 and get more maintenance-free Workers (/Settlers?):
There are some Settlers currently building, but only those in the 2-shield English/ mixed farms are sufficiently advanced for rushing them to be affordable in the next couple of turns -- and the bloodlines of mixed-town Settlers will be suspect until they're built.
I'd like to get the ex-English coastline filled in ASAP, because capturing the last couple of English towns made a lot of holes -- and Privateers, Jap Galleys and Indian Frigates have been sniffing around Oxford+Cambridge for the last couple of turns.
The newly-founded 'purebred' German farms (and slow-growing ex-English concessionary Tundra-towns) are still mostly too small (Pop1-2) to rush-build Settlers (and although I'm also not happy with some of those city placements, it's not worth abandoning towns yet, since we need the free unit-upkeep). (I am however going to move Cambridge to the adjacent Hill chokepoint, to free up its Grass for more FPT).
(4) will have to wait until at least (1) and preferably also (2) and (3) have been accomplished...
Question re. the outer-ring towns:
So far, I have only joined native Workers to ≥Pop7 core-cities, not to outer ≤Pop6 towns, since we still had high-manpower jobs to do in/near the core and immediately adjacent areas (e.g. roading Hills and Jungles for later mining/ settlement/ Slave-clearance). That's now mostly done -- and most/all of our remaining outer-ring towns have been massaged to Pop6 -- so I'm now thinking to join as many of those Workers as possible to those outer-ring settlements with the space/ buildings/ terrain to support them (and maybe also to the German farms, if there are still any spare Workers left over). I'll need to build a lot of Markets to keep the expanded cities happy, and CHs to max. their output -- OK to proceed?
Question re. Civ-Engineers (which neither Bede's excellent article nor the subsequent discussion answers):
Can city-improvement (pre)builds which include CivEng-shields be (fully) converted to unit-builds? If so, then I could significantly speed up slave-production in the farms without cash-rushing (but at the expense of halving our Scientist-derived BPT to around 50*2*3/2 = 150 BPT) by changing 1-2 Scientists to CEs in each town, building e.g. Walls or Libs, and then converting the builds when they reach 1T to 'completion' (i.e. 9s or 30s, for Workers or Settlers, respectively).
As far as I remember, the CE-shields of all previous turns "disappear" again from the shield-box, when switching the project from a building to a unit. (However, CE-shields do count towards a wonder! Which really surprised me, when I first saw it. I had expected they would count as "tainted" shields like from a forest chop or a cash-rush.)
PS: but shields from a Policeman can be used for everything. And also shields from mobilization: if during mobilization you build a unit (with doubled shields) and then after a while switch to a settler (or artillery/bombers, which for some reason don't receive the mobilization bonus), then the accumulated shields all remain in the shield-box.
And also I remember kind of an exploit (though I can't remember whether it is actually banned under either GOTM or HoF rules): if you use CEs to build a building, let's say an 80s library, then shortly before it is finished (e.g. when the box has 79 shields) you cash-rush the remaining shield(s) and then switch to a unit, let's say an 80s Cavalry, the shield-box remains full! So the Civil Engineer shields can actually be used for units as well, but in my eyes it's an exploit of an obvious programming bug. When rushing some shields into it, the shield-box apparently "forgets" that it contains CE-shields that should be deleted when switching to a unit...
Here's the latest save. All the citizens are (I think) reassigned as I wanted them. Some of the outer cities are using Specialists either because they can't/shouldn't grow further until they've built something (e.g. Harbour, Market, CH), or because working a food tile gives an unneeded food excess (although thinking about that now, a food excess is OK if it raises the income, right?). If you can see a better arrangement, I can still reassign those citizens before I push 'Enter'.
Just had a quick look back through the autosaves as well -- at no point were we 'weak' against the Mongols, and they were only Annoyed at us (as are the Indians) on the turn before the DoW. We were selling the Mongols coal for that ~45 GPT, so maybe they just got their own source hooked up (there's one on the Bath-Island), and a DoW was the quickest way to break the deal...
Ok, took a look at the save, and here is my idea : sell Corporation to India.
It won't bring them closer to ToE, and might even slow down their advance towards Scientific Method, as we'll drain all their gpt... It will equalize our budget deficit and it will give us Music Theory on top of that:
An additional pre-build in case we are not able to bust the Suffragettes in time, and also a nice wonder to build ourselves eventually. (I've had enough of those unpleasant surprises always sending our best core cities into riot... )
OK, I'll do that then. But not tonight (I had a date with the wife, and it's too late to start playing now). I will try and get my turns finished and post everything tomorow evening...
Turnlog spoiler'd to hide at least some of the clutter
Spoiler:
Turn 0: 1310 AD Pre-IBT assessment and MM
Lots of Pop12 core cities need more mines and less food
Some sleeping Workers+Slaves with turns still available, so Joined the Workers to Aarhus, K'berg, G'stadt, built 1 mine near W'haven and started 1 more (will build next IBT), also started 1 mine near Aarhus
MM'd all cities and reassigned citizens and builds for improved efficiency as far as I could -- will still waste (lots of) shields+food this IBT, but can't help that now, because I have no more free Worker-turns -- but many Workers+Slaves will become free next turn...
All Taxmen switched to Scientists in science-farm zones -- Refining now in 4T at 80%Sci and -9 GPT
MM'd Catan and K'berg to 24FPT
Slowed Palace/SETI-prebuild in K'stadt to 22T -- can be slowed or sped up again later
Switched Aarhus Factory-build to CH (2T, no waste )
Stavanger looks 90% corrupt(?), so I waste 2s to switch CH-build to a Harbour, so we can use the coast tiles for food instead of the shield tiles (which can instead be used by Trondheim and Leipzig)
Stuttgart founded
Galleons are both at sea, with 2 eCavs (WHY?), among others, so I can't send off beachhead settler+mil units yet!
Move Armies and half the free Cavs to English borders now, so they're already where I need them. 2 stacks of Cavs left in O'stadt and T'heim
Fortify Infs in coastal cities, apart from Brighton stack, which covers Arty-atack outside Coventry+Oxford
Renogotiate deals already turned off
IBT:
Some English units run out of Oxford and across our borders. Think Lizzy's getting nervous...
Hamburg: Explorer --> Galleon (5T)
Stavanger: Harbor --> CH (80T w/o rushing)
Catan: Inf --> CH (2T)
B'burg: Market --> Uni (10T before adding Workers)
Hareid Harbour--> Market
English cities: Slaves --> Slaves (10T w/o rushing) + Settlers (where I can get 2 SPT)
Turn 1: 1315 AD
Mostly Worker management. More mines built near Aarhus + B'burg, more irrigation and rails near sci-farms
Fischberg, B'bucht, B'burg all brought to Pop12 Walstadt to Pop11. more Workers available soon
W'heim, NeuOsloh, Potsdam and Bergen MM'd for fast growth to Pop7, as homes for more Workers
Beachhead exped loaded, but can't leave yet (Galleons have no more MP)
Tell Lizzy to bugger off, but she doesn't. This time.
Worker-joins bring GPT back into the black (+18), Refining in 3T
Move Cav Army towards Cambridge, but it can't get there this turn -- stuck inside English borders
IBT:
Lizzy tells me to bugger off right back. OK, OK... But you can too... Oh no, you're moving more Pikes+Spears onto my land instead. Oh dear...
T'heim Army --> Army (8T)
O'stadt, K'berg, München: Inf --> Inf (2T): probably won't change this again this turnset
E'stadt Inf --> Inf (3T until I build some mines -- I just wasted 42s -- Ouch)
Turn 2: 1320 AD
More Worker fiddling
Dammit! Beachhead is busted -- Hyangsan's borders have expanded! Now we're going to have to do it the hard way...
Explorer is still good to go south...
Bonn founded
'Beachhead-builder' instead founds Salzberg, to block English rSpear's access to Newcastle
Lizzy given a second warning, and she bottles it -- her troops are mostly withdrawn, apart from the Spear, which moves to still-neutral territory...
IBT:
Thin Lizzy's English boys are back in town...
Catan: CH -> Inf (2T): probably won't change this again this turnset
Norwich: Worker -> Settler (chopped a forest expecting it would go to Stuttgart's Harbour, but it went to Norwich instead :grrr: )
G'stadt: Fac -> PolStn
Mongols have Espi -- do we want it? I think not, at least not yet
Turn 3: 1325 AD
More worker management -- most available tiles have needed improvements already, so continue railing+irrigating sci-farms, and start on roading Hills and jungle (for later stack-clearance/ Settler access)
Disband Mace in Stavanger (Pop8, nearly unhappy) for 10s on the CH-build, and convert 2 citizens to CivEngs for 0 FPT and completion in 14T
New Army (empty) parked in York, for later transport to India.
Sci% dropped to 20% for completion of Refining and +500g
Lizzy warned again -- she complies.
IBT:
Lizzy's troops are back again. The girl just won't quit
Refining --> Steel (treasury = 771g, so push Sci% to 90% at -79 GPT and 4T to Combustion)
Turn 4: 1330 AD
Move Workers towards W'heim (will hit Pop7 this IBT), available Slaves fortified nearby for instant terrain improvements
Explorer lands near Pyongsong, vGalleon goes south to explore foggy ocean -- maybe there are some islands we can use...
We have Oil near Bodo (hooked) and also near Bath and Bristol. And multiple cities ready to produce 2T-Panzer...
Our targets will be Kohlapur (Indian) and Almarikh (Mongol) to kill the USuff builds, and either Pusan or Delhi (to stop the Bachs-build from cascading to ToE if SciMeth is learned before Bachs finishes)
Boot Lizzy yet again. Next time it'll be for real...
IBT:
Mongols annoyed about our ... Explorer? The Galleon is gone already -- huh?
We lost our Spices! The Mongols declare war! Explorer dies! WHY?!?
Hamburg: Galleon -> Factory
B'bucht: Fac -> PolStn
W'heim --> Pop7
Turn 5: 1335 AD
Ah -- our income has just dropped by ~50 GPT. Guess the Mongols couldn't pay us anymore, so they DoW'd us instead. Still, now we have WH to make up for the lost Lux -- and we can legitimately grab a Mongol city or two. Now almost wish I'd dropped off those Cavs at Bath 5T ago...
W'heim Worker-joined to Pop12 -- needs lots of mines to balance the Floods
The good ships 'Mongolmörder' (Mongol-murderer) and 'Temujin's Tränen' (T's Tears) load up with 2 Inf, 1 Arty and 5 Cavs for transport to Bath-island
Meanwhile, I take a deep breath, and DoW the English before the Mongols can get any (more) help from them:
Newcastle's 2 Rifles (1v, 1r) fall to Richthofen's 2nd Army (2-0)
Newcastle v+eCav stack mop up v+rPike/Spear 4-stack plus lone rSpear with no losses, but no promotions/MGLs either. (7-0)
Hengest's Warwick Army attacks Oxford's 2 rRifles -- successfully (9-0)
Barbarossa's Liverpool Army attacks Oxford's rPike+rSpear, with no losses (11-0). We now own SisChap (not that it does us much good...) and the English are down to their last city.
Richthofen's Army (17 HP) goes after Coventry's rRifle -- 11(!) HP later, it wins... (12-0)
Inf captures Worker
Most of the Cav stack unfortunately needed all 3 MP to cross 2 Forest tiles and a river to Coventry's suburbs, but is now waiting for mop-up. Sole vCav with 1 MP remaining attacks rRifle no.2, but dies in the attempt (12-1)
Then I see that Hengest's Ipswich Army still has 1 MP... *grrr* This is sufficient to dislodge the 2/3 rRifle (13-1), leaving an rPike as top defender.
Richthofen also still has 1 MP, so I risk it -- Army retreats with 1 HP(!) remaining. I think it killed the rPike, but I'm not sure, because an Army-flag is obscuring the defender's HP bar -- there's now a(nother?) 3/3 rPike on top
Infantry+Arty moved within bombardment range of Coventry. It will all be over by Christmas...
IBT:
Mongol rLBM approaches Bath
O'stadt riots! So does K'berg! WW from English invasion forces? To prevent any more cities from rioting, I use the Governator to manage moods in all other cities for this IBT -- will up the Lux (if needed) when I can talk to Mrs. F1 again, and turn the stupid Govs off ASAP.
Bergen --> Pop7
Turn 6: 1340 AD
2 Arty open fire on Coventry's cRifle and rPike. You really shouldn't have conscripted that Rifle, Lizzy -- now Coventry is down to Pop6 it's lost its 50% def-bonus...
Hengest kills 1/2 cRifle, eCav kills 1/3 rPike, eCav kills rLBM (16-1), but no promotions. Ding dong, the witch is dead... Coventry is ours, The English are no more, and all their remaining units outside their cities disappear. That was easy...
Workers joined to Bergen and Walstadt --> Pop12
Slaves continue improving ex-English lands
There are now a lot of holes to fill along the ex-English coasts, so I cash-rush a couple of Settlers in the English cities that started growing too fast under their Governors' tender ministrations...
Governors turned off. Now all I have to do is re-MM about 70 cities. Tomorrow *yawn*...
Steel in 2T at 90% Sci and -124 GPT. We still have 543g in our Sparschwein...
Pause for online consultation -- Lanzelot recommends selling the Indians Corp
Offer Indians Corp -- they offer Espi, MusThe, 20g and 112 GPT. I up that to 145GPT, and they'll still accept it. OK Gandhiji, I'll shut up and take your money... Now, why are you still annoyed at me...?
Now the deficit's covered, I rush Settlers in Molde (88g, but it will grow to Pop3 this IBT), Hannover (24g), Cambridge (36g) and Canterbury (100g). Although that last one is expensive, C'bury is currently 2/6 German, so I hope the Settler will be a native...
IBT:
Get a native Settler from C'bury -- yesss! Now slaves to Pop1 (irWheatGrass is currently supporting 3 Scientists!)
G'stadt PolStn --> Inf
B'burg Uni --> Fac
Turn 7: 1345 AD:
Decide not to build IntelAgency yet -- that's a possible 400s prebuild...
Neu Osloh Worker-joined up to Pop12 and adjusted to 24 FPT
Rush Market in Odense (40g) to prevent shield overrun, and home another 4 Workers (Pop7 to Pop11 -- would have made it Pop12, but I used up my Worker-turns already) -- make 2 Clowns at -2FPT so it won't riot before the Market builds...
Expeditionary force landed near Bayanhongor. Hopefully this will distract the Keshiks near Bath...
Steel in 1T, so drop Sci% to 60% for 310 GPT
IBT:
Both Keshiks attack Bath, but retreat redlined -- vInf at 3/4 HP
Japs request audience -- they want an MPP. If I could be sure they wouldn't go and attack the Indians instead of the Mongols, I'd be tempted to take it, but I can't be sure, so I decline. They'll only make an RoP for a tech or a Resource (Saltpeter for preference), so I tell Tokugawa, laters
Steel --> Combustion (4T @ 90% Sci and +40 GPT)
Odense: Market --> Lib
Fischberg: Factory --> Galleon (2T @ 26 SPT)
Potsdam and Stockholm both --> Pop7
Turn 8: 1350 AD:
Found 'Jorckflussmund' ('Yorkrivermouth') near Hastings, start Harbour (for growth to Pop12)
Found 'Tannenbaumdorf' ('Fir-tree village') near Coventry, start Settler
Found 'Buchtblick' (Bay View) near B'ham, start Settler
Found 'Mauerbergdorf' ('Wall-Mountain village') near Oxford, start Settler
Odense --> Pop12
Potsdam --> Pop9 with Worker-joins, Scientist assigned to prevent riots (growth in 10T) before Market finishes (currently 11T, but rails/mines in Hills will be built shortly)
Stockholm --> Pop8 with Worker-join
Galleon Südlicherstern ('Southern Star') exploring the southern 'Atlantic' spots coastline -- an island -- east of Japan, west of Leicester
vCavs kill approaching Mace and Archer, both promoted (at 2/5 HP!), Mongol Worker captured, all units returned to Bayanhongor (21-1)
Move Cavs (3e + 1v) and Arty to K'stadt, ready to board Galleons
Temujin won't talk yet...
With only 4T to Combustion, and with Flight due in ~17T according to CAII, K'stadt is still going to prebuild Palace (i.e. SETI) too soon (14T), so I give its mined Sugar-tile to W'haven (currently building Factory, now 4T to finish instead of 6T). SETI will now build in 18T -- need to keep a close eye on this -- possible to get it done simultaneously(?)
Pause to make a dotmap of potential ICS-sites
IBT:
Nothing really exciting happens, a few Indian Frigates flit around, remaining Keshik runs into the Hills near Bayanhongor. That was... unwise.
Bergen: Uni --> Fac (14T, but mines will soon be mined...)
Portsmouth: Harbour --> Settler
Resistance ends in Bayanhongor
B'bucht: PolStn --> Galleon (1T, no overrun )
Turn 9: 1355 AD
3/4 vCav kills 1/4 vKeshik, no promotion (22-1)
2 vCavs, vInf and Arty sent from Bayanhongor cross-country towards Atlay (which then has a road to Uliastay)
Galleons collect more e+vCavs, vInf and Arty from K'stadt. Mission: Deliver Kindness to Atlay next turn (so long as the nearby Mongol rGalley doesn't sink one of them with its A=1...).
The good ship Südlicherstern discovers Punjab on a 3(?)-tile island east of Tokyo
Join 6 Workers to West'berg --> Pop12, one Clown, one CivEng assigned, to finish CH in 6T (rush it?) -- needs Market, then PolStn, and maybe Uni and Factory
Market in Hareid is 3T from finishing, so rush it for 84g, and join Workers (Pop8 --> Pop12). One Clown (and 1 Scientist) needed to keep order during IBT before Market builds
Workers chop forest into Stockholm's Market, remainder rushed (152g), so that we can start on a Harbour ASAP -- needed before it can be Worker-joined further to Pop12
Lachshaven (Salmon Harbour) founded near Oxford
IBT:
T'heim: Army (named 2nd Trondheim Troops) --> Army (8T)
Stockholm: Market --> Harbour (3T, can't get it to 2T)
Carlisle abandoned to make room for more ICS-farms
Delhi builds JSBachs!
Turn 10: 1360 AD
4/5 eCav kills vLBM near Bayanhongor, no MGL
Galleons unload Cavs north and Inf/Arty south of Atlay
2 vCavs @ 1HP after retreating from rRifle in Atlay, defender undamaged
Kill-death ratio for total turnset = 23 (possibly 24) to 1 (now that's more like it!) -- but unfortunately no MGLs because many of those kills were inflicted by Armies/non-Elites. Still, there are now 5 eCavs on the Bath-island, so fingers crossed...
HANDOVER NOTES ESSAY (Sorry!)
Wonder-builds /tech cascade:
MOST IMPORTANT: according to CAII we currently need 2T to Combustion, 4T each for MassProd + MotorTransp and 5T for Flight (= 15T) so our ToE and Internet-prebuilds must begin SOON.
The Indians and the Mongols have both been building UniSuff for at least 10-11T already (in Kohlapur and Almarikh). The Indians still don't have Med, but do have Electricity (we can't sell it to them), so they may well go for SciMeth soon, but we should still be able to beat them comfortably to ToE -- so long as nothing cascades. The Indians already built Bachs, but I got no report that the Mongols are now building another GW in Pusan instead. I'm not sure whether that was because we were already at war with them, or because they wasted their Pusan-prebuild into a Cav (or something) instead.
To get our US(/Internet pre)-build to ~800s in that 15T timeframe (= 53-57 SPT), I suggest starting it right now, before this IBT, rather than later:
E'stadt or München (both 56 SPT) have just finished their Inf-builds, so either could start (pre)building UniSuff this turn (15 * 56SPT = 840s)
O'stadt and K'berg will finish their Inf-builds next turn, and O'stadt could then build it in 14T (14 * 60SPT = 840s), but
K'berg should not start UniSuff next turn, since it will only need 13T (13 * 64 = 832s) and
O'stadt can build ToE in exactly 10T, and should start on it in 5T time, because its build should be calculated before K'stadt's. Speaking of which...
Keep an eye on K'stadt's Palace/ SETI prebuild as well (currently at 16T to completion) -- it can possibly be sped up by 1T by taking the mined SugarPlain back from W'haven, but must not be allowed to reach 1000s before we get Flight + Free-tech (Rockets? ) and build ToE + Comps (switch Palace to SETI) + Mini (switch US to Internet)
Mongolian War:
Two stacks of v+eCavs/ vInf/ Arty are waiting outside Atlay to bombard/ attack the city after the IBT. If you can take the city without bombardment, that would be preferable, because then you can save the Arty for the rRifle(s?) defending Uliastay (it's on a Hill)
Fischberg and Bananenstadt are turning out Galleons every 1-2T. Hamburg will build a Factory soon, and can then build Transports
Trondheim is building Armies every 8T -- there are 2 empty Armies (1st and 2nd Trondheim Troopers) already heading for Bath-island (along with more eCavs, vInf and Arty) on the 2 just-built Galleons ('Fischberg's Feinste [Finest]' and 'Beste Bananen' [~'Top Bananas']). Lanzelot suggested to keep those Armies empty until we get Panzer-plural-without-an-'s' but you might want to put a pair of vInfs in one of them for stack-defence (unless the Atlay assault nets a MGL, then you can use it to build a third Army instead)...
There is still a large stack of vCavs fortified near Oxford, so these can also be exported in the next couple of turns/Galleons as well. (Our Cav Armies can serve as homeland defence, at least until we can build Transports in 2T, and then they can be exported too...)
I would suggest capturing Uliastay and Manp'o, then immediately shipping units over to take Pyongsong and Tosontsengel using the Galleons which are already over there, while the newly-built Transports with some/all of the Cav-Armies catch up later. Choy't's units would need to go through Jap territory to approach Manp'o, so are not an immediate concern.
Bath-island can also be ICS'd once it's mostly ours. I would suggest keeping Atlay, but moving Uliastay 1N, to make room for a third city on/next to the Horses ('Ponystadt')
You may also need a Destroyer or two to defend the troop-convoys (I haven't seen any Ironclads yet, but it may only be a matter of time...).
Hopefully Temujin will see reason sooner rather than later (he's still not talking to us)...
Workers/Settlers:
I joined most of the 50-odd native German Workers to outer-ring cities during my turnset, rather than growing the cities naturally. Although there are still 9 Workers available for joining (4 near Stock/Pots, 2 near Bergen, 3 near Hareid), the cities they could currently join (Stock, Pots, Stav) still need Markets/ Harbours/ CHs. These can be rushed over the next couple of turns if needed, especially with the end-of-research low-Sci% windfall (due in 2T).
The former English lands still need lots of rails+irrigation for the planned science-farms, but there are also still many tiles which can be forested/chopped for faster builds, both on our northern coasts and in the to-be-Farmed lands. Most of the existing cities in former English lands are building slave-Workers (in cities still with >1 English citizen) and Settlers at 1-2SPT.
For my own amusement as much as anything -- but also to help me figure out where to place the Settlers I'd already built, and for future reference -- I prepared a crude dotmap of the former English lands for ICS-farms. As I suggested in earlier posts, I prioritised coastal tiles first, then worked inwards, retaining existing city-sites (and their Imps and GWs) as much as possible, and choosing Tundra/Hill tiles as city sites over Grass/Plains, and Plains over Grass. I also left a little more space around potential Pop12 sites, and didn't bother placing any farms in the several stretches of non-coastal Hill/Tundra (SW from Hannover, SW from Dover), since these tiles won't have enough excess FPT to support even 1 Specialist at Pop3 without the city starving back to Pop2 after 10T.
Our 'core' border will fall north of Leicester/ Warwick/ Liverpool, so we should be able to fit a couple more Pop12 outer-ring cities (the 'R3' sites) in that jungle-zone south of B'bucht and Neu Osloh. These will be 70-80% corrupt before building a CH (according to CAII), but once that's done, it should be worth getting them up to Pop12 and building at least Markets, 'Ducts and/or Harbours, and Libs. Other symbols used are:
Yellow dots = suggested sites
Red 12's = potential Pop12 farms
Red X's = poorly-placed towns which should be Settler-abandoned* to make more room/waste less FPT
EDIT: After I posted it, I noticed at least 2 mistakes on this map: (1) the 'Pop12' Hill-Farm SSE of Jungelstadt is not on a river after all, so will not grow to Pop12 without a 'Duct; (2) the coastal town ('Lagunestadt'?) S of Fischberg and SE of W'burg should also be marked as an R3 town, according to CAII
*Hidden by the mini-map, Carlisle is already gone, and Berwick will disband in 2T -- we can fit 4 Harbour-farms at CxCxCxC along that coastal stretch instead of 2[or 3] towns at xCx[C]xCx.
In the north, Alesund, Birke and Elastischestadt (NB should have been 'Gummistadt'?!) should probably also be abandoned/moved to make/gain space/FPT, e.g.:
Gummistadt's Settler could go 1N-1E to Plains near Gold-Hill, and grow to Pop12.
Birka's Settler should go 1N and build on coastal Tundra, with another Settler (from Molde?) building on the Hill 1SE of Birka's current position
Alesund would be better moved 1SW to the coastal Tundra corner-tile, with a Harbour
@ Lanzelot:
If any/all of my city-/ship-names are wrong/bad German (likely -- I didn't use a Wörterbuch), please feel free to edit them!
@ Everyone:
As Choxorn already noted: someone will probably be able to launch our Ship before another 50T have passed, so I don't expect to be playing another turnset in this SG. So I'll just say this now: Thanks guys, I've had a lot of fun, and learned heaps from from all of you. I'll continue to follow this thread, but may be a little less verbal than I have been to date... Until then, see you in the Forum(s)...
I imagine you haven't heard of Pusan switching to a different wonder because Uni Suff is the only other one they can build (assuming the AI still hasn't researched Navigation)
When I was reading your writeup, I was saying to myself "he can't have done all that by himself, he must have asked his wife to help him..."
In fact, everything is fine. Only improvement: "river mouth" would be "Flußmündung" instead of "Flußmund". But everyone would know what you mean by Flußmund...
Comments on the game:
I think that island can be conquered by "ordinary" troops, and there is not much hurry there. So instead of sending our Armies to that island, I would already send them to the Mongol mainland in order to get ready for finding and busting their Suffragettes before it's too late.
We could fill one Army with 3 Infs and unload it together with another handful of Ins on the mountain at Cheju. A 3-Inf Army on mountain will certainly not be attacked by them. Next turn we add a 4th Inf and then first use that secured mountain to unload 2-3 shiploads of Cavs, take Cheju as beachhead and then use the Army for scouting their territory and finding the Suffragettes unharmed. (Meanwhile the Cavs can already kill their hordes of Keshiks that they will hurl at our beachhead... So when the Tanks arrive, it's mainly only taking their cities, or at least the UniSuff one, covered by the Inf Army, if we want to continue using the Mongols as cashcow.)
There are a few towns the can use an irrigated grassland instead of a forest, and grow faster with the same production (1 or 2 spt). Also sometimes a police man is better than another specialist: for example in Bergen and Potsdam the current project (factory and market) would be finished 1 turn faster, while producing the same amount of commerce: the taxman in Bergen produces 2g, the police man would "de-corrupt" 1-2 commerce, which would then be doubled by lib+uni, etc.
I suggest that we do not cash-rush too much now, but start saving a bit on the bank account. At the start of the Modern Age, we will need to run 100% science for a while in order to get some decent research times, at least until Commercial Docks are in place in the main coastal cities. So it's good to have some reserves for deficit research.
C-Bob's been absent from CFC since the 9th October -- he won't even have seen my savegame yet. I guess you (Lanzelot) would be up next, if he hasn't got time...?
And regarding asking my wife to help with the naming... I love her dearly, not least because she humours my hermit-like (gaming) habits, but I don't think her sense of humour would stretch that far...
We are doing swell... Currently way over 1200bpt at 90%, so Combustion (4800b) is easily done in 4 turns, currently 2 turns left. After that we have Mass Production and Motorized Transportation (4200b each) and Flight (5200b), and I'm pretty confident that we can do all three in 4 turns, Flight if necessary at 100% for a couple of turns. Our deal with India (145gpt) still lasts for 16 more turns, so cash is not a problem.
So that means in 14 turns from now, Bismarck is going to get a new outfit...
Prebuilds:
The consequence of the above is: our prebuilds need to be ready in 14 turns.
SETI (1000s) in Kolossusstadt: Not a problem. The Palace (1000s) is currently due in 16 turns and can easily sped up to finish in 14.
ToE (600s): No problem either. Here I suggest to just start building it in Oasenstadt in 4 turns from now. Oasenstadt is making 60spt, which fits perfectly. Apparently it has been building Infantry at 120s a piece the last couple of turns. I will let the current one finish, as there is nothing better to do and will then build 3 more Artillery for the remaining 3 turns (disband a Cav for 20s and then the regular 60spt will complete the 80s-Artillery), as I think we can use a bit more Artillery against the Mongol Rifles.
Internet (1000s): This is indeed a bit of a problem. The only available pre-build (Universal Suffrage) can only hold 800s. If we build it in Königsberg (64spt), it will last for 13 turns, while the 1000s-Internet will take 16 turns. This means, for the first 3 turns of the Modern Age we will be without Research Labs, the research boost coming in only on the fourth turn of research! I am beginning to think it might be better to pre-build 100s-Research Labs in all our core cities?! Most of our core cities are making more than 50spt, so by starting the Lab prebuilds two turns before entering the Modern Age, they will be ready right for the first turn of the MA. The two cities building the wonders (Kolossusstadt and Oasenstadt) can build one in one turn by disbanding a few more Cavs and would then have their Lab on the second turn. Still much better than on the fourth turn...
I think this can easily mean 2 turns for our first modern research project, even if we choose the cheapest possible tech (Rocketry at 7200b). So I'm putting this up for discussion: should we skip the Internet and go for a dozen Labs in the most important cities? We can still build the Internet a few turns later, if we want to save the upkeep; we don't have any better use for our shields for a while anyway.
Another reason for not trying the Internet is: we need the Universal Suffrage to be alive for 14 more turns, and it could be built by the AI any time now. Then we'd lose a big pile of shields and would have to go for the manual Labs anyway.
Military Situation:
I'm going to prepare the landing in Mongolia mainland as outlined in my previous post.
I guess that's the main things. Neu-Osloh can build the Iron Works, so I guess we should do it after the factory. With factory, iron works and police station we can probably get that town up to 80spt.
The Indians will probably finish UniSuff (in Kohlapur) on your turnset, or shortly after it (they began it 1T(?) before mine)... But it sounds like you've given up on the idea of busting that build? Is that because you don't think we can get sufficient troops over there quickly enough? Or because we're getting that large chunk of GPT from the Indians now? Or because if the Indians get it before the Mongols get SciMeth, the Mongols will waste another bunch of shields (on their UniSuff-build in Almarikh, which will then get switched to something useless -- again)? (Or all of the above?)
Whatever -- the UniSuff-->Internet prebuild was a nice idea, but not absolutely essential to our strategy at this point (we're not likely to get a HoF-worthy date at this point anyway, due to various early-stage mistakes/ setbacks -- including mine). We can certainly hand-(pre)build ResLabs in most of our core cities quickly enough (4-6T) after we get Flight + ToE + Comps + Mini. So I agree, do that instead, and then go for Internet (in K'berg?) once we're into the Modern Age. ToE should be a shoo-in, so long as the Mongols don't yet have SciMeth when the Indians finish UniSuff. (Kohlapur and Almarikh are both on the wrong side of the Mongol/ Indian continent for an overland invasion from their east coast though).
OK, we'll have to pay 3GPT per ResLab for the 9-11T between building them and completing Internet, but so what? If we haven't annoyed the Indians by invading them to bust their UniSuff (which we didn't want anyway, in itself), there's no reason why we shouldn't cover at least some of those costs by extracting yet more GPT from them for 1 or 2 of our (by then) obsolete Ind-Age techs -- which will also let Gandhi keep Temujin sweet and/or resist his bullying for longer than he otherwise might. Either way, Temujin should be sufficiently occupied/distracted, so we can build our Spaceship in peace before he gets (too many) Battleships and Tanks and upgrades his status from 'irrelevant' to 'potential nuisance'
And we can also get some GPT from the existing and soon-to-be-built farms, if we need it. A lot of them can hit Pop12 without a 'Duct, so a 3:2:1 split of Citizens:Scientists:Taxman could net a lot of beakers and gold...
I can't believe I missed that possibility! There's the Coal in plain sight in the Jungle...
Also, a heads-up:
This SG-n00b has a nagging feeling that he might have set the Galleons' destination already This is an ingrained solo-game habit which Choxorn(?) has complained about once already in this SG, so I apologise in advance if I've done it again without thinking If I have, then both boats are on their way over to (the south end of the) Bath-Island on a 2T(?) GoTo order, and if you still want them to go somewhere else instead, you will need to interrupt that (if you have the opportunity) before anything else is moved on your first turn.
The Indians will probably finish UniSuff (in Kohlapur) on your turnset, or shortly after it (they began it 1T(?) before mine)... But it sounds like you've given up on the idea of busting that build? Is that because you don't think we can get sufficient troops over there quickly enough? Or because we're getting that large chunk of GPT from the Indians now? Or because if the Indians get it before the Mongols get SciMeth, the Mongols will waste another bunch of shields (on their UniSuff-build in Almarikh, which will then get switched to something useless -- again)? (Or all of the above?)
Basically all of the above plus one more reason: we can get the boost from Labs a full 3-4 turns earlier by "handbuilding" them. Because even if we are lucky with Universal Suffrage, it can only hold 800s, so 200s are missing for the Internet. This most certainly means that our first modern tech will take 1-2 turns longer to research, if we rely on the Internet. Turns which cannot be caught up later on.
And also, if we don't damage the Mongols too much, we might get more cash out of them. Almarikh is a pretty good core city for them, so I would hate to take it away from them.
BTW, what do you mean the Labs take "4-6T"?!? Don't forget we are scientific and get half-priced Labs! So it's 2T for all core cities, and perhaps 3 T for some of the second rank cities. In any case, if the next player remembers to start the prebuilds on time (an ordinary Infantry can be used as prebuild), we will have them on the same turn we finish Flight! (On the popup announcing the discovery of Flight jump into F1 and switch all Infs to Labs, before they finish in the same interturn.)
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So cities, which still have something useful (Universitiy, Police Station etc.) to build, should switch now, while the ones that have finished their civilian imporvements, can build a few more Artillery or Infantry, while we are waiting for Motorized Transportation. Also: keep empty Armies for Panzer. they have the same speed, but are almost three times as powerful... 
-- will do that this evening, first thing...
: sell Corporation to India.
)
because many of those kills were inflicted by Armies/non-Elites. Still, there are now 5 eCavs on the Bath-island, so fingers crossed...
So I have to do it all over.
Most of our core cities are making more than 50spt, so by starting the Lab prebuilds two turns before entering the Modern Age, they will be ready right for the first turn of the MA. The two cities building the wonders (Kolossusstadt and Oasenstadt) can build one in one turn by disbanding a few more Cavs and would then have their Lab on the second turn. Still much better than on the fourth turn...
