Mediterranean Adventure

[Nizef]

So here we go:
T256-260: Building units and a few Research labs, while taking Hippo Diarrythus and Carthage.

T261-266: I took the liberty to play 11 turns, since raider only played 5. I had to defend Carthage and killed 2-4 units per turn, while also pushing further. Malaca fell on t266 but I saw no reason to continue the war: Dido was pushing both Sardinia and Sicily (and of course Carthage itself) and she was still willing to pay us for peace and we were loosing approx. 1 unit a turn due to Bombers&Battleships. We have 5 Battleships with logistics, each of them capable of killing ANY unit with their two shots (okay some Infantry with Cover 2 might need three).

Interim: We reached Railroad and Atomic Theory and are now researching Ballistics. I sold Hippo Diarrythus to Spain for 113 gpt (our DoF expired a few turns before and she took the liberty to denounce us immidiately). We are unhappy (-8) and I switched many cities to construct Colosseums/Zoos etc. There is a Workboat in Sicily waiting to be transferred to the Crabs outside Carthage. Alex hates our guts because I voted down his WC proposal (Authocracy as world ideology). Overall we have very few friends. I leave our empire in a dire state of war weariness and the cities need more intelligent micromanagement to tune in to our new path of friendly relations.

Given our current situation, I can´t see us winning a CV nor SV. DomV might be possible but highly unlikely, so I agree that a DipV is what we should be going for. We have 2 CS allies and a steady infleunce with 8-9 more, while in 5-6 we have almost no influence and Alex has huge influence in many CS.

 

[beetle]

Originally the idea was to allow lump sums, but I didn't think about selling cities at the time. How about a limit of 1000 gold? A drop in the bucket for the AI at this point, pretty significant but not game-changing for us.

I understood the idea was to avoid the temptation to abuse the AIs for free gold. The no-gpt-from-AIs shorthand encapsulated the idea.

For legitimate war spoils, taking whatever the AI is offering feels fair. Selling captured/surrendered cities for whatever is the default offering is, also feels fair.

Maybe for the next game we can try a softer version of the gpt rule and have a limit on total gpt received from other civilizations instead of an outright ban as well.

I would rather not have limits/totals. I think the two rules could/should be: No selling resources for gpt. No DOWing just to get gpt gifts after 5 turns. Are there other situations where the AIs can be tricked into giving gold away for nothing?

Probably Diplo at this point? It's the cheapest option tech-wise, there's a pretty good level 2 Freedom tenet for it, and we might be able to buy some AI votes as well. Could try to resurrect Enrico and Maria (and Ashur? he's dead right?) on the turn before the vote too.

It’s a Tier 3 Freedom Tenet, but yes. We should try and figure out the math. Even with recalling Enrico, Maria, and Ashurbanipal — we might still need WI. I do like that a Diplo VC here is not being lazy!

Given our current situation, I can’t see us winning a CV nor SV. DomV might be possible but highly unlikely, so I agree that a DipV is what we should be going for. We have 2 CS allies and a steady infleunce with 8-9 more, while in 5-6 we have almost no influence and Alex has huge influence in many CS.

It might be possible to get SV. I have won by SV when further behind than this. It always seems to come down to if I get Hubble or not. I actually think Diplo is going to be harder than SV because extra Civs, but no extra Spys/Diplomats, means that Globalization is not as strong as is usual.

 

[Nizef]

Well, I might have to reposition myself. SV is possible here but we have very much work to do in that case. We still lack RLs in many cities and we need to get our science up to 1300-1500 per turn to catch the AIs and at least Theodora has already built Apollo.

 

[vadalaz]

I see UN has been founded already and it says the next World Leader vote is in 30 turns, and 42 votes are needed for victory.

Each civ gets 4 votes by default, and I'm going to assume that those that civs we resurrect will automatically vote for us. We can bring back Portugal and Venice, as well as Morocco and the Ottomans who are about to be eliminated. Assyria is much more difficult because none of their former cities are coastal. That's 16 potential votes from resurrections, plus our default 4, 20 in total.

Theodora is a friend and we can probably buy her votes. That's 4 more, 24 in total. If Darius survives, we'll likely be able to buy his votes too. Not sure about civs that don't like us (everyone else basically), they might want something stupid like 1000 gpt.

We have 2 CS allies and at least 5 more seem easy to overtake. We can also try to liberate Valencia from Spain to get one more CS ally. That's 16 more votes, 40 in total. Maybe we can get a couple more allies if we focus on gold.

Alex has proposed World religion: EO, which is what our majority religion. If it passes, that's another 2 votes for a total of 42.

Globalization adds another 5 votes, total of 47, although I don't know if we can get there in 30 turns without bulbing. I kind of want Radar for proper Bombers and Fighters, especially if we're liberating that many cities.

I didn't check who built Forbidden Palace, but that's another 2 votes if we manage to capture that wonder. Edit: Nevermind, it's in Mecca.

It’s a Tier 3 Freedom Tenet, but yes. We should try and figure out the math. Even with recalling Enrico, Maria, and Ashurbanipal — we might still need WI. I do like that a Diplo VC here is not being lazy!

I was thinking about the unit gifting tenet. In our situation the trade route one is easier to get though, it costs us one policy and the units one costs two.

Well, I might have to reposition myself. SV is possible here but we have very much work to do in that case. We still lack RLs in many cities and we need to get our science up to 1300-1500 per turn to catch the AIs and at least Theodora has already built Apollo.

Without bulbs I just don't see an SV happening in time here. Maybe if team up with Alex and take Constantinople, I don't know.

We need to decide what we're doing here. Science or Diplo? If Diplo, go for Globalization with Rationalism finisher or take the level 3 tenet for CS allies? We got Colossus from Dido, so we can have 9 trade routes to city-states here. We can also get DoWed and lose all those trade routes.

I don't know if we can afford to wait for the second WL vote or an AI is going to win before that, but it's in 54 turns I believe, 30+2 for this first vote, then a 10+2 normal session, then 10 turns until the second vote.

If we go for Science, do we cripple the tech leaders so they don't beat us in the space race or not?

 

[Nizef]

The DipV is more appealing to me. I have not tried it on a map with so many AIs before and I am quite unsure whether we can pull it off or not. To be clear: my vote goes to Diplo.

 

[beetle]

Thanks for running the number @vadalaz. Diplo looks to be more feasible than I was expecting!

I vote Diplo too, but I am happy to follow-up which ever way you lead. I don’t think you need to wait for @raider980’s vote, since I am pretty confident he is flexible as to VC. I also don’t mind waiting until Sunday/Monday for him to have his turn. So take your time with your turns!

So funny that I thought by “RL” @Nizef meant Rocket Launchers!

 

[vadalaz]

Diplo it is then. I'll play my turns tonight and try to set things up for a victory on the first world leader vote. I don't really think we have enough time to get the required number of votes, but I still want to try.

 

[beetle]

Very exciting! It is going to be close. And timings are tricky. I don’t think I have ever won Diplo without either Globalization or WI.

Theodora is a friend and we can probably buy her votes. That's 4 more, 24 in total. If Darius survives, we'll likely be able to buy his votes too. Not sure about civs that don't like us (everyone else basically), they might want something stupid like 1000 gpt.

AIs can only be bribed to vote for you if they think their vote won’t put you over. But I think we can start securing votes now, well before we start our liberation run. So that aspect works.

You have probably noticed, but once we liberate Portugal from Spain (and Venice from Alex) it should be many turns before Spain DoWs Portugal (and Alex DoWs Venice). I have used that quirk often, to provide a buffer between my units and the enemy civ. (This is in sharp contrast to the CS you liberate, which are then [typically] in immediate danger.) I am mentioning this because we might have time to recall a couple civs, make peace, and move diplomats. I think recalling sooner might be an easier path than recalling the turn before WL vote. Or we might want to use a mix of both strategies. (For example, liberate the four coastal civs ASAP, then see if we can’t liberate Ashurbanipal before the 30 turns are up.)

 

[vadalaz]

AIs can only be bribed to vote for you if they think their vote won’t put you over. But I think we can start securing votes now, well before we start our liberation run. So that aspect works.

IIRC it's even worse and they check if their vote plus four puts you over.

The turns I played were quite uneventful:

• Started working almost all specialist slots for happiness, gold and science. I'm not working some of the GWAM specialist slots deliberately to lower our culture, trying to time Rationalism finisher for Globalization
• Sold Malaca back to Carthage for 28 gpt. Happiness went up, tech costs went down
• Grew the cities a little bit then stagnated, built RLs, cargo ships and army
• Voted Alex for UN host and gifted him 7 gpt. Just trying to appease him so we don't have to deal with him earlier than we're ready
  
• A large number of city-states want Jewelry or Porcelain. I put our level 1 spies in Samarkand and Zurich
  
• Built a railroad connection to Antium. Other cities got their railroad bonus from Harbors
• RAs with Spain and Persia complete
• Alex gets nukes and DoWs Theodora

I believe we can get Telecommunications in 8 turns, and the next policy is in 8 turns as well if we don't get any additional culture. So getting Globalization with Rationalism finisher is an option here.

Noone wants to finish off Suleiman and Ahmad for some reason, so I guess we'll be sending diplomats to them to secure votes instead of reviving them.

The cities we definitely want to liberate are Valencia, Salona and one of the Portuguese cities. If Suleiman dies, we can liberate the city he settled in southern Italy, and if Ahmad dies, Marrakech is right next to Portugal anyway. So we need two strong armies, one for Greece and one for Spain. I don't know whether what we can get in 20 more turns is enough or not. I was thinking about spamming planes, then upgrading at Radar, then attacking.

An even bigger problem is our lack of CS allies and Alex being very successful with Gunboat Diplomacy. If we can't secure enough CS allies in time for the first vote, getting Rationalism finisher before Treaty Organization makes little sense.

So there are two paths:
1) Rationalism first and play for a first-vote win, relying mainly on AI votes
2) Treaty Organization first and play for a second-vote win. Ignore Globalization for a while, work all culture tiles again etc. I've been sending trade routes to CSs in case we do go Treaty Org first.

I'm pretty confident we can make the Freedom path work, but that's a ~T320 win. Is that fast enough to beat the AIs? I don't have enough experience to tell. Three AIs already had Apollo on T267.

 

[beetle]

Please play a few more turns and post T280 or T281 for me to pick up for tens turns. I know @raider980 couldn’t finish his set, but I had expected the cycle to have gotten back to round numbers by my turn!

I think we should aim for 2nd WL vote. If the AIs win before that, good for them. But ~T320 should be good enough. AIs hitting Apollo on T267 does not mean much. You all finish your games so early, you don’t have much experience with how long the AIs take to win!

 

[vadalaz]

Alright, I played three more turns:

• Change of plan, aiming for 2nd vote now. Radar next instead of Telecommunications, less focus on science, more on culture, gold and production
• Our happiness jumps way up because Theodora reached Popular influence on us, and we're now content with our ideology. Not for long, I'd imagine.
• Stopped working scientist slots in Neapolis because I want the next great person to be an engineer from Rome. There's a GE quest, plus we might be able to rush Neuschwanstein or Sydney Opera House
• I give Ur 1500 gold which I think should secure ally status with them (we're about 90 influence ahead of Theodora now), especially after we rig elections and connect Porcelain.

Notes:

• If happiness drops, we'll have to start working all specialist slots again for Universal Suffrage to kick in
• There's an almost-finished Artillery in Venice, I delayed it to get an Armory first

Overall things are looking fairly good, only possible complications are Dido and/or Alex declaring war on us before we're ready.

 

[beetle]

Thanks for smoothing this out a bit for me! It will be ~12 hours before I can take my turn.

Now that we are aiming for 2nd WL vote, and without yet opening the file, my plan is liberate Portugal ASAP and Venice later. I have no ideas for the others.

Our rule for No White Peace abuse makes me think we will be at war with Alex for the rest of the game. Also, at some point right after CS elections, I want to move Diplomats around to get us a sense of how much WL bribes are going to cost us.

 

[beetle]

T280 Alex builds Pentagon. I look around to try and figure more about what is going on:

• Science is 1200bpt, so that’s good.
• Economy rolling 3K banked, 400 gpt.
• CS standing is merely okay. We have 3 allies and Alex has 11, and we would need 300+ influence to wrest most from him. CS Elections in 5 turns, and we have four spies, but our two (recruit) spies have 0% chance for coups in Samarkand and La Coruna. Give Belgrade POP since they have easy quest.
• I ask around for OB pricing, and find that most everyone hates us. Order Civs (Carthage and Songhai) facing pretty heavy Ideology pressure, but I think they will flip to Autocracy, not Freedom. On the war front, Isabella is at war with Askia (good for us) and Suleiman (irrelevant). Darius (Freedom) is at war with Nebuchadnezzar, and has lost Persepolis. But Gordium is screened by mountains and our ally Yervan, so I think he will survive. Alexander would DOW Dido or Isabella for cheap, but that is against our rules. I ask Alex if he will DOW any of the Autocracy or Order Civs, but he declines.

T281 I am moving ships into position to DOW Isabella, as soon as Radar unlocks. I am hoping we can finish war w/ Isabella before DOWing Alex to liberate Enrico.

T282/3 Just idling, workers start building rails all the way down Italy, since if Venice is blockaded, I don’t want to loose RR production bonus.

T284 Radar unlocked, upgrade air, and start researching Combustion because I would rather be running Caravans to CS rather than Cargo Ships, where there is choice. LOL, Isabella pulls her archeologist off a dig spot, now that our Rifleman is right there. Adopt Treaty Org. GE born, bulb Sydney. Cumae starts working on Disney. I buy an inquisitor in Sicily for Carthage.

T285 Unlock Universal Healthcare (from SOH) for +5 happy. DOW Isabella, sinking three Destroyers, prizing two, and a bunch of Frigates. Neapolis starts on Submarine.

T286 Theodora asks for DOF, but I decline, hoping to delay war w/ Alex a few turns. Isabella has a fleet near Monaco. Elections work, but coup chance still zero. I buy out Zurich (La Cornua) for Porcelain (which a few CS want), then gift a prized Frigate. That might have been a mistake, but every tile had a unit, so I thought she looked strong enough to hold up against Spain.

I convert all spies to diplomats. Novice spies as diplomats to Order caps already suffering the most from Civil Unrest. Dido and Askia (I think it was). The veteran spies I send as diplomats to Theodora and Alex, to get figures for the lowest and highest WL bribe costs.

T287 Alex Build GFW. GMu born. Zurich (La Coruna) already having a hard time. I kill so many ships I loose track. No losses.

T288 Combustion unlocked, upgrade Privateers. Isabella brings in fleet from east I was not expecting, so a few ships peal off to deal with that. Start researching Telecommunications. Switch specialist back for more science. I presume rationalism finisher will be used for Globalization, and the timings seem okay to me.

T289 Nebuchadnezzar words backed by nuclear weapons. Theodora builds SS Booster. Alex’s borders expand near Megara, so now FLeas cannot walk to France.

T290 Capture Salamanca (which I puppet). We have several veteran Battleships, so should be pretty straightforward to keep it.

Interstitial: Submarine dies to three Destroyers which came out of the fog. Alexander builds SS Booster. Nebuchadnezzar builds Apollo.

GW and GA on deck. GMu waiting for Information Age so he can theme SOH. EO passed as WR.

 

[vadalaz]

Start researching Telecommunications. Switch specialist back for more science. I presume rationalism finisher will be used for Globalization, and the timings seem okay to me.

We only need Globalization for the second WL vote, so I believe we can afford to take Arsenal of Democracy as our next policy and either hard-tech Globalization or use Rationalism finisher for it later. We have an RA with Theodora that finishes on turn 295, so that'll bring a good bit of science as well. Lancers are cheap units we can spam for CS influence once we don't need any more units for our actual army.

I don't think growth or science are important anymore. We just need lots of gold and production.

 

[beetle]

Sounds good to me! Without Mercenary Army, I was not clear how the CS-gifting tenet was going to be of much use.

 

[Nizef]

Let´s see now:
T291: Started Hydro in Rome. Many units healing. Killed the spanish fleet outside Salamanca (4).
T292: Started Hydro in Venice and Manhattan in Antium (in case we need to scare somebody with Nukes). Killed 5 units (including a GAdmiral) and hijacked one Destroyer. The idea is that I will try to bypass the cities on the islands and focus on the iberian peninsula to liberate Braga at some point in time.
T293: Prizing another Destroyer, killing 5 units and starting the bombardment of Cordoba.
T294: Killed another 6 units including 3 RAs. I could have taken Cordoba already this turn but there is too much "traffic" around the city. Started to build two cargoships to replace pillaged ones.
T295: Took Cordoba. Not sure it was good play. Killed another 5 units. Alex took Constantinople. We have no visibility of their new capital.
T296: We are very unhappy (-10) due to pressure from Order. We can´t get more happiness anywhere so I assign some specialists and come to -6. I switch some cities to build Zoos. Spain retook Cordoba, we killed 5 units.
T297: Arabia influencial over Egypt. We kill 6 units.
T298: Kill 5 units and retake Cordoba. I sell the city to Persia for 2 gpt (they allow OB and are not at war with Spain). Bought Incense from Greece for 1 lux + 28 gpt. Alex is still hostile.
T299: Move in on Valencia. Navigating is tricky. Kill 3 units. We vote for ourselves in the WL vote. Alex turn around and is extremely friendly with mostly green modifiers??? Sent one spy to Egypt. They are also friendly.
T300: Theodora is on 73 techs, Greece and Babylon on 71 and Dido on 70. Nobody won the WL vote. Alex finishes Stasis Chamber. This game will probably not go on for 20 more turns. Pick Globalization with the Rationalism finisher. Lost a unit at the end of the turn.

 

[vadalaz]

Greece is friendly because the denouncements from 50 turns ago are no longer relevant.

Very slow turns, don't know if I can finish them today. Things look okay to me for a 2nd vote victory, although Alex might win sooner. We'll nuke him either way.

 

[beetle]

Hmm. I think Alex is fake-friendly and about to DOW us. Do we know how much WL bribe votes are going to cost us?

@raider980 are you back online? Do you want T311-320?

 

[raider980]

Its looking good! Better than I expected.

@raider980 are you back online? Do you want T311-320?

No go ahead. I am terrible at the micromanagement needed to pull off a close win like this, especially with managing the votes for a DipV.

 

[vadalaz]

T301:

• Moved planes out of Salamanca and sold the city to Alex for 56 gpt, bought the Salt back from him for 9 gpt
• Started moving our fleet towards Portugal and La Coruna. We can get Valencia with reinforcements coming from the core of our empire
• Started a Golden Age, focusing on gold and production, building some trading posts
• Moved spies to Gordum and Istanbul
• Manhattan in two turns, so I buy some Uranium from our good friend Alexander the Great

T302: Conquered Vitoria, puppet for now, need a base for bombers
T303: Manhattan finished, started building nukes. Neuschwanstein finished as well.
T304: Conquered Santiago and sold it to Darius for 50 gpt. Isabella has 6 Uranium, we see 4 in Meknes but not the other 2.
T305: Alex finishes Hubble. Isabella finishes Manhattan and her Uranium goes down from 6 to 1 instantly.
T306: Liberated Meknes. Started gifting Lancers to CSs, as we'll hit the next SP in two turns.
T307: Shooting Santander and keeping Valencia on 0 hp. Reached Portugal with the veteran fleet.
T308: New SP: Arsenal of Democracy. Razed Santander. Alex has completed 5 out of 6 spaceship parts. This will be close.
T309: More of the same. Gifting Lancers, killing units, shooting cities.
T310: Isabella has 4 nukes in Braga. The good news? We take the city this turn and revive Portugal. Maybe after losing 4 nukes Isabella will consider peace. I'm growing tired of our Destroyers getting teleported upon city capture.

Notes:

- We can buy world leader votes now, UN countdown just started
- I've been gifting Lancers to Leptis Magna, Cyrene, Caesaria and Jerusalem
- Happiness fell again, World Ideology: Autocracy got passed. Whatever, we're still in the green and there are more specialist slots we can work if we need to