G-Major 137

[Qactus]

The purpose of the Phalanx' bonus is just to cancel the Chariot's bonus against axemen. That's why they don't have a bonus against non-Chariot mounted.

 

[aitkensam]

Right, isn't the phalanx a unique axe rather than a unique spear? If so then the bonus makes sense.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm a little confused. Asoka just declared war on me. He was Pleased, right on the border of Friendly, and I would expect him to get friendly any moment because we're in the same religion. According to Civ Illustrated he doesn't plot at Pleased, nor can he be bribed. So is this the same old bullsh** of shared diplo with vassals, and despite the game telling me he likes me, he in truth is raving mad, wants my head on a spike, or to use it as a toilet bowl?

Another two-front war it is then. How I have missed thee

Disappointed with the Oxford date. Was horrible to get out the universities in time with few forests to chop, too small cities, and not having a religion at the time, so no OR bonus. Had to 5-whip a few cities. Got Oxford in 500BC, after 1-turning it, which is one turn later than the previous game.

Is it a mistake to save up so much gold before Oxford btw? I turned off research at Education and turned it back on when Oxford was completed, and between some failgold, tech selling, begging and not running research, I have 16,000. That should last a while

Still hope to beat my previous game, but some things simply aren't as good. I was on the 'wrong' side of the continent so getting caravels and eventually settlers/workers over to the new world will be a little awkward. Hopefully the better economy can make up for some shortcomings. Think I'll do a more proper comparison at 1AD.

 

[Pangaea]

Castles are evil!



Have bombarded it for two turns now, and defence has only gone down from 125% (grrrr, Pizza) to 100%. Should I suicide a whole lot of them, or will odds still be crap?

Need Trebs something fierce. Cannons would be great. These catas have been whipped from here and there so they don't have Accuracy either. Not enough promos.

(Not sure what happened to the screenshot, the original has the same line near the top too.)

 

[yyeah]

Castles are evil!

Should I suicide a whole lot of them, or will odds still be crap?

Odds still will be crap ;/, Even C4 CR3 mace have crap odds vs a bit dmged longbows and def down to ~85%

 

[misterfilmgeek]

'City Revolt' missions for the win.

 

[ZPV]

Here's a message from the future: popping Astro from a hut is not guaranteed.
I'm having to squeeze it in between Corporation and Medicine. I'm not sure it was wise to wait this long, but I really wanted to get it free.

I have a dozen settlers and some prebuilt galleys on ice, so I should still be able to get a bunch of that New World Seafood up and running before I get full Sushi spread.

 

[WastinTime]

Here's a message from the future: popping Astro from a hut is not guaranteed.
I'm having to squeeze it in between Corporation and Medicine. I'm not sure it was wise to wait this long, but I really wanted to get it free.

I have a dozen settlers and some prebuilt galleys on ice, so I should still be able to get a bunch of that New World Seafood up and running before I get full Sushi spread.

ouch. sometimes you can trade for it but you probably told your vassals not to go there.

 

[Seraiel]

'City Revolt' missions for the win.

The problem with city-revolt-missions in Space Races is, that the needed must come completely passively, because using the Slider for is no option.

If he has 30 cities, the most he can get is 30*2 +8 = 68 / turn from Courthouses and the Palace. A usual city-revolt takes about 300-400 points, with a Spy having the 50% stationary bonus, so he would need to alocate his Espionage onto the target on the next war 50 turns in front, for a single revolt.

Ofc. that's possible, but planning of that degree and that preciseness is very difficult. What he'd need as an alternative, would be 12-15 accuracy promoted Catapults, which is a lot easier, and takes a lot less planning. It also allows to use the points for tech- and gold-stealing.

Going for Cannons early is also a diversion from the optimal tech-path, so I wouldn't consider it as a choice either. Switching 5T of the GA-phase towards Theocracy isn't desirable either, but it's still the best choice. Castles need to be considered before the war in the planning-phase, otherwise conquest against them is really horrible.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, I unfortunately don't have any espionage on this guy, because I planned to kill him anyway, and joined the war when Peter asked me (I was going to declare the next turn anyway). Then Peter pulled out a turn before he was going to clean him up. Stupid AI. Getting spy revolts from this position would not be easy, and take too long.

Barely have any barracks in the empire, so even Theocracy wouldn't do too much, I'm afraid. I'm therefore a little unsure what to do here. Bombarding takes away about 10% per turn, so by the time I get it low enough to attack, there will be maybe 10+ more defenders, and the city much smaller. If I attack right away, I'll probably lose all catas and a fair few cleanup troops too.

Thankfully I should get Engineering soon as I can trade PP for Eng with Mansa, but getting out trebs will take time too.

Asoka has attacked across the line in the north, but thanks to whips I've held him off and cleaned out the units there now. Asoka has a great Hindu shrine, which I want, so keeping the war going makes sense, instead of stopping and getting everybody mad when I re-declare later. But Engineering and Castles have brought everything to a halt

In the previous game I had to take Lib early, and took Steel, so warring then was easy. Think I simply underestimated the impact castles would have, because I so rarely have been in this situation. Would usually have an armada of trebs by now, and they can deal with castles a bit better. Freddie getting the Itza doesn't help either. 100% defence is bad enough. Just glad I nabbed one city before he got a castle there. Freddie has the GLH, though, so I really want that, even if the lifespan will be fairly short.

What is worse is that I appear to be a little behind the previous game. At least in tech and city count. The economy is much better in this game and I'm doing a fair bit more beakers, but I had hoped to be ahead at this point. Don't exactly want to abandon the game, having invested 60 hours into, but maybe it's better after all Except then I don't have a chance to submit another in this timeframe.

Oh yes, due to all this warring business and need for whips, I haven't been running caste in the GA either. Not even pacifism. Quite frankly I simply forgot about it after the Unis and Oxford were up (and I needed to spread Hinduism). Note to self: don't play when you're dead tired.

 

[WastinTime]

The problem with city-revolt-missions in Space Races is, that the needed must come completely passively, because using the Slider for is no option.

Why not? It's just like money. What's another 300 gold? You'll recover half of that by taking the city. It's totally worth the faster conquest and the troops lives you'll save. 100's of hammers there.
Use the slider.

 

[WastinTime]

If he has 30 cities, the most he can get is 30*2 +8 = 68 / turn from Courthouses and the Palace. A usual city-revolt takes about 300-400 points, with a Spy having the 50% stationary bonus, so he would need to alocate his Espionage onto the target on the next war 50 turns in front, for a single revolt.

50 turns? Don't you mean 5 turns? The same 5 turns that the spy is stationary would do it.

 

[yyeah]

@ Pangaea

I would consider take out Asoka 1st , i dont think taht you can take out bouth in next lets say 50 turns, and shrine have a lot more value then GLH at this point, GLH wont give you that much

 

[ZPV]

@ Pangaea

I would consider take out Asoka 1st , i dont think taht you can take out bouth in next lets say 50 turns, and shrine have a lot more value then GLH at this point, GLH wont give you that much

If he researches Military Tradition and whips out 20-25 Cuirassiers in addition to the units he's got, he could probably take them both within 35 turns.
Does that pay for Military Tradition? There's only one way to find out!

 

[Pangaea]

Why not? It's just like money. What's another 300 gold? You'll recover half of that by taking the city. It's totally worth the faster conquest and the troops lives you'll save. 100's of hammers there.
Use the slider.

Hmm, that is a fair point I guess. Except I don't have spies, not even one. If only catas could be upgraded to trebs, that would have been an option by pulling back the troops.

@ Pangaea

I would consider take out Asoka 1st , i dont think taht you can take out bouth in next lets say 50 turns, and shrine have a lot more value then GLH at this point, GLH wont give you that much

You could well be right about the GLH, although I do have many coastal cities. The issue is that Asoka got Engineering and quite possibly castles too, so I would just run into the same problem there.

The plan was to roll over Frederick (he only had 5 cities + an island), grab the GLH and then move on to Asoka or somebody else. Asoka made that choice for me by DOWing me. Still think this is the best approach as the brunt of the army is outside Freddie's gates, but please try to talk me out of it if it's nonsense.

Don't like effectively turning off the research slider, but perhaps it is indeed the better choice. Then whip out some spies, from OF most likely. This will take time, so maybe it's still best to keep bombing down that awful cultural defence with catas, as attacking at +100% defence is almost certainly suicide to half the army. I made a short test game yesterday, but without attacking or defensive promos, and I took the city, but at a high cost. Most catas died, but most attackers survived. And there I probably had better odds than in the real game.

 

[Seraiel]

Why not? It's just like money. What's another 300 gold? You'll recover half of that by taking the city. It's totally worth the faster conquest and the troops lives you'll save. 100's of hammers there.
Use the slider.

I don't like to run the slider on money too. I try to minimize the time not at 100% by all means. It may be worth it in this case, but I'd try to not even get in that position in the first place.

 

[Seraiel]

50 turns? Don't you mean 5 turns? The same 5 turns that the spy is stationary would do it.

And I had a B in maths...

 

[Seraiel]

Barely have any barracks in the empire, so even Theocracy wouldn't do too much,

When I don't have many Barracks, I divert my HE-city towards producing siege and settle the 2nd or 3rd GG in it. 5 XP siege is really a gamechanger.

 

[Pangaea]

When I don't have many Barracks, I divert my HE-city towards producing siege and settle the 2nd or 3rd GG in it. 5 XP siege is really a gamechanger.

True, it really is, and I should have mass produced more siege there instead of mixing in maces and HAs too. It's so far away from the front, that I put in some mounted to get them there faster. Think it's 15 turns to walk or something like that for maces and siege.

Siege keeps dying, though, and it's worse now against castles and longbows, so I've had to whip them from many cities near the front, which means at best they have 2 XP, but mostly none.

 

[Pangaea]

Nice! I just got something called the Crusade Quest, which looks to be pretty rare if 50/1000 in the War Academy Random Events list means it only occurs in 5% of games

Quest9:
Crusade
Prereq: State religion but you do not control the Holy City
Obsolete: None
Active/Weight: 50/1000
Aim:
Declare War on the owner of the Holy City, stay in war until you conquer the Holy City
Result:
1.get 0.5*default number of players for this world size+1 conscript units (4 for standard)
2.build the shrine for your state religion
3.spread your state religion to default number of players for this world size cities (7 for standard)

#2 would be very powerful, saving a great person, but Asoka has already shrined it. If conscripts mean missionaries or automatic city spread, for these settings it should be 6 I think, as 10 is the default number of players IIRC. #3 therefore looks best, as the religion should auto-spread to 10 cities, with no chance for fail.

This is the first Quest I've ever got, so no idea how this actually works. Is there a cost involved when you succeed, or is that it, and you can choose from the three rewards?

Normal events sometimes have costs involved. However, are they typically listed from worst/least good to best result chronologically when that screen pops up in the game? That seems to be the case with the famine event I've got twice now (once for Pericles and once for Peter), but earlier there was an event of (1) 460 to whatever I was teching (which was Civil Service, and this saved me 3 turns), or (2) +1 in the Library for a cost of 460. That sounded like a laughably bad deal to me, so it was a no-brainer, but earlier I had assumed the 'best' option would be listed last, which wasn't the case here.

This should make the war against Asoka more interesting If it doesn't actually time out at some point, I could still be able to first take out Frederick and deal with Asoka properly later (though I did snatch a small city, on a hill, which will prove a good defensive point if he tries to come back later).