Bugsy's Braves Ride Again

[stormtrooper412]

Well, it's your turn anyway, I think only our cap has a Market, so the economy will improve, and if your plan with CS works, it should remedy both food and happiness issues

 

[consentient]

OK well I'm waiting for Bugsy and Acken to chime in on what is definitely an unusual gambit.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I really like the unusual gambit idea. By liberating the city states, we will be their ally and gain some international stature as freedom fighters. The front will be very controllable and with Genghis essentially being surrounded, he will not be able to focus any attack on us. You will note that Hastings (captured by Mongolia) is yellow-lined, presumably by Shaka.

 

[consentient]

What does yellow-lined mean? OK, I'll go ahead with the plan.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The city is being attacked. The strength line is in the yellow.

 

[stormtrooper412]

if Khan is dog piled at any point, no matter how strong he is, there won't be much left of him in a very few turns

 

[consentient]

Yes he was dog piled pretty nicely. Well done Bugsy for getting us into such great diplomatic shape, and seeing the opportunity. Once the idea was seeded, it just took some manipulation to get everything going.

T120 Reassign citizens. Buy Silver from Bismarck to get a more workable Happiness
Myriad deals with most of the AI to raise money for war and alliances. Buy Ragusa and Sidon. Denounce Khan. Shaka pays for DoW in a structured deal worth over 800 gold.

T121 Retire Scout. His work seems done. Sidon smashes up Antananarivo. Move unit into capture distance.

T122 Open Aesthetics

T123 Buy Caravan in Douglas for more food to Edinburgh.

T124 Liberate Antananarivo, staff Uni in Edi. Queue an Artist’s Guild.

T125 Shaka asks about war with Korea. I say no. Korea asks about DoF. I say no.

T126 Liz offers DoF. I say Yes.

T127 Buy Pagoda in Douglas. Shaka likes our DoF with England.

T129 Liberate Sofia.

T131 Finish and staff Artist Guild.

T133 Liberate Birka for good measure. Stop Unit Spawning from Sidon. They have done more than enough for the cause of Global Sheepshagging. It was they that really helped liberate the CS. We just let them do the hard work and captured.

T134 I’ve gotten us some alliances, but I’m afraid I’ve messed up our gold situation. I hope it proves worthwhile long term. If not, sorry guys. Give most of our units to Antananarivo. I think we’ve convinced everyone of our niceness and don’t have to worry about attack anymore. Caravan to Lampang for GPT.

T135 Khan makes peace for Beshbalik and Turfan. Pretty good deal, if you ask me. We don’t want them, so I sell them. Gold problems over. I hope you like the way I’ve left the empire.

With the lump sum, we could easily ally Kabul, maybe part through a gift and part through a coup.

But I’ll leave it up to the next player to decide what to do with the cash.

I have to say, I think that CV is very doable, providing we get to Archaeology in good time and make sure that some of the AI are thinned out. Ideal situation. We get to T250 with only Bismarck and Shaka left in the game, constantly warring with one another. Shaka takes Order. Bismarck takes Autocracy. We take Freedom. Shaka wipes out Gustav and Sejong (or he helps us conquer Seoul) and Trollface; and Bismarck wipes out Liz, leaving only two very war-hungry guys to convert. They will have a lot of wonders, but we'll be able to test Manpanzee's theory about the IG.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Impressive! That's a lot of cash ...

 

[Sir Bugsy]

That was nicely done.

OK, so now the big question: Do we start moving toward tourism now? Archaeologists still will need a place to put their artifacts. Also, how about the various guilds? When do we start those?

How about some of the tourism wonders? Should we try?

 

[consentient]

Artists Guild is built and staffed in capital. I recommend we get all the guilds in the capital, and use all caravans to grow it as much as possible, adding each guild when we can afford to do so and not kill growth. We should concentrate on culture buildings in all cities, Rationalism, and using Oxford for Radio. I think we should wait until we have the tech lead before going for wonders. Let's go for Louvre, Eiffel and one of the modern era ones.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Good idea, Louvre is generally not that high on anyone's list. We should be able to get there around 175-ish

is it Acken's turn now

also, I'm strongly in favour of taking Seoul for us

 

[consentient]

Yeah, that's why I rejected his offer of DoF, in case we all wanted to (I kinda do)

 

[stormtrooper412]

Just determine the whens, I obviously don't know when's the right time, I'm assuming a dog pile would be in order and we just snipe it with a lone cavalryman?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

If you count on capturing a city with a single unit, you will not capture it. Gotta go in force. I'm in favor of a dog pile on Korea. We take Seoul, let everyone else split up the rest.

 

[consentient]

If you count on capturing a city with a single unit, you will not capture it. Gotta go in force. I'm in favor of a dog pile on Korea. We take Seoul, let everyone else split up the rest.

Actually it's pretty easy to do. I admit I had more than a single unit standing around waiting to liberate those 3 cities, but I've done it many times. On that 22 civ India Deity Challenge someone posted a while back I watched 2 civs dog pile Attila and when the city was on 1 HP I DoW'ed and captured with a Scout!

 

[Sir Bugsy]

My luck has been that when I plan on grabbing an easy capitol, the AI is able to get it with that very last unit. So here is the plan. When it comes time to grab that city with a single unit, we allow the player with the best luck (which is not me) to play that turn.

 

[Acken]

Since we reached T135 here is how I did with a straight 7 city NC on turn 137 for reference:

Spoiler :

Good job with those ninjas captures ! Very clever, very efficient. I was a bit disappointed of our state at T90 but we're back in the game. This happiness and gold will allow us to catch up in infrastructure and population.

Alright moving on to my play:
T135:
Capital should have made writer's guild ! Switching to that now.
Douglas and Nantes are really lagging, the basic infrastructure isn't there (aqueducts) while it has things like universities. I use 800gold to rush two aqueducts.

This is where I really dislike the patronage choice. We have not started to even make amphitheaters and on top of going for a CV we need our UB for happiness. But we don't get the cultural centers bonus. Sadly with our low culture we cannot wait for the policy. Switch Nantes and Dublin to Amphitheaters. Truro and Cardiff are making good gold so I let them on markets.

To help with low culture we have brussels that can be allied for 500G. It would also give us access to gems and complete one wltkd. Sounds like a great deal for next turn.

I don't understand why we're not working (again) Sinai. We don't even have enhanced yet ! Fixing that and requesting a Prophet out of faith.

There is a 6 iron tile near nantes that we should have gotten earlier.

T136: I go ahead and ally Brussels with also gifting an archer for 10extra influence which was behind and just barb spotting.

If we want want to attempt to Ninja Seoul we need a Knight I think. Shaka is willing to attack Sejong.

T137-138
We get Banking. Since we have workshops everywhere it's a good idea to unlock the Ironworks.
Dublin switches to Caravan.

Gustavus makes the Globe Theater.

T139
Open Rationalism.

I notice Sidon is on stop unit spawning ? Why ? If the units arent interesting just remove them and get back some gold or gift them to CS.

Cardiff makes an Amphitheater after the market.
The writer guild is finished and staffed, I make a garden in the capital considering the concentration.

Thankfully Sofia gift us a Mandekalu cavalry so a knight isn't necessary. I bribe Shaka to attack Sejong for Salt + 4gpt, let's hope it creates opportunity, Shaka is the only guy really likely to create this anyway. This unlocks pearls from Sejong which we exchange for a wltkd.

T140-141
We get our first great artist which we make a great work with. We're likely to mostly fill the hermitage.
We finish Machinery. I think the best option is to put Ironworks in Dublin since its the city with the less stuff to build right now.

Leaning Tower is very unlikely so I go Architecture for a shot at Uffizi.

Nantes works on a Ceilidh Hall.

T142 We get a Prophet
Sadly Shaka decides to also declare war on Genghis... so it's likely he won't touch Sejong at that point.
We finish a caravan in Dublin and I send it to Nantes as it is lacking in food.

So I enhance and here is my thought process for 2 unconventional choices. There are only 3 good follower choices. Guruship, Feed the World, Swords into Plowshare. Guruship is a guaranteed 2.2 to 2.3 production in every cities (with modifiers). After calculation swords is between 1.2 (Cardiff) and 2.8 food (Capital) and doesn't work if we ever go to war. Feed the world is between 0 and 2 food until we can get shrine and temples absolutely everywhere. Considering we are also late in buildings I picked us Guruship.
We also good have considered the hermitage stuff for 20ish late game tourism but we're like 25turns away from hermitage anway...

For the enhancer we basically have better spreading ones or reliquary. I think we're screwed at that point for better spreading and we will start hoarding faith in not too long so let's give Reliquary a shot.

T143
Bismark makes the leaning tower
Sejong is plotting against us
Ramkhaeng declares war on Genghis too

Douglas finishes University and makes an amphitheater
Capital finishes Garden. With 4 turns before Uffizi I make a forge: 2 Irons and the bonus applies to archaelogists.

T144
Shaka is definetly busy with genghis and seems to focus on him rather than Sejong. Oh well.

World fair in 9 turns, as a result I focus Dublin in production so that it can finish the Ironworks.

T145
One of our capital food TR expired, I use it for Dublin, the capital is still at a good food per turn (+20) for a liberty/wide game, I suggest using the gold TR in 14 turns to feed the capital.
Cardiff builds StoneWorks, it's cheap and efficient.

T146
Seijong makes Taj Mahal.
Bismark asks us to help against Shaka I refuse

T147
We get Architecture but I've been a bit too optimistic I think. 18 turns is really long so change of plan.
Now I look at the incoming world fair in 6 turns with the 2 RAs incoming in 2-3 turns. I think getting Scientific at that point would not be that useful considering we'll be in a production lock for some turns since I think we should pull all our effort into the world fair. These 2 RA should be way better suited toward chemistry which will help us overall more than a too early scientific theory.
For the same reasons Douglas starts on stable.

T148
Germany is angry for us being friend with Shaka
Truro makes a Circus
Cardiff makes a Colosseum

T149
I accept a RA with England. We have not paid enough attention to potential RA apparently as I remember to do so and sign a RA with Sweden.
We get our first great writer to get a great work.
Our first RA finishes with Siam which I renew. The RA gives us 2 techs toward chemistry.

T150
Second RA finishes and gets us 2 turns away from chemistry. This will allow us to get it exactly when the world fair comes.
World fair soon so I start quick buildings:
Circus in Nantes and Colloseum in Capital
Shaka is likely to finish Genghis Khan.

Pointers:
We are currently at -1 happiness. We have deals coming to terms, just don't renew the Sugar deal with Sweden and renew the Silver deal with Germany, then the happy buildings should be there next turn.
Be ready for a full focus on World Fair (all cities at the first turn on it + working all mines).
Allying Kabul could be a good idea since it has bonus for gifts.
I would otherwise start to hoard gold for possible rushs.

Regarding the next phase after world fair there are multiple ways to deal with it. My approach would be to select 3 cities that have a good production and can make a forge (and which aren't the capital):
Dublin, Nantes, Cardiff
Make that forge just after the world fair (you will be able to prebuild it for a turn or two it seems). Meanwhile get Economics and bulb Industrialisation with the incoming scientist. Since we play NQ map on default we're guaranteed Coal in the capital (and anyway with 6 cities it's likely to get some). Improve that asap and go for schools. The 3 cities make 3 factories so that we get both the ideology and archaelogists factories. Put schools somewhere in there as well as amphitheater/ceilidh hall (other cities make school before factories).
Go archaeology after schools then switch to Radio for the wonders and keep Oxford for a late game tech.

We also have to put down Observatories at some point... but it will probably be after schools.

Spoiler :

 

[Sir Bugsy]

So I now have several questions answered.

May I make the observation that earlier feedback such as when to build the writer's guild, aqueducts, and amphitheaters would have been helpful.

 

[Acken]

Well I don't really mind what I consider mistakes. I think the fun of succession is actually to make those and have the game played not optimally due to the succession of players having different ideas and steering the game in different directions. It's also unrealistic to plan for all buildings in advance.

That being said I did say that I think cities should get stable and aqueducts.

Not much more to say. Cities should go Aqueducts followed by stable. All have at least 2 pastures so I'd make a stable in all.

Caravan 3 can feed either the capital or one of our newest expansion so that we can focus on mines to catch up in buildings.

 

[stormtrooper412]

My turn now. I'll try to detour other civs into wars so we can win the WF