SGOTM 21 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

Suggested PPP

Diplo Policies
If an AI asks us to Stop Trading with their Worst Enemy, tell that AI "no"

Refuse requests to switch Civics/Religions

Refurse Demands/Requests for these techs:
Monarchy
Machinery
Education
Feudalism (if we get it)
Engineering (if we get it)

Spoiler :

Only Catherine might be lacking Monarchy, but if we meet her and she asks for Alphabet, she can have Alphabet as she can already trade with any other AI that she meets due to the fact that only 1 player needs to know Alphabet in order to enable trading

If an AI Demands/Requests a tech which is not in the above list, give that other tech to that AI

If an AI Demands a Resource, give the AI that Resource

If an AI Demands/Requests Gold:
less than 100 Gold = give it
more than 100 Gold = don't give it

If a tech trade comes available, stop play to discuss the opportunity

If Mansa is researching a tech that we already know which is not Education, sell/gift it to him. Do not sell/gift Education to Mansa if he starts to tech Education (he is allowed to get all other techs from us if he starts to research them)

If an AI Demands/Requests our World Map, say "no"
Do not sell our World Map to any AI

On every turn, check the F4 TECHS screen to see if there are AIs who we are not at war with who have 50+ Gold available.
Sell "older and cheap" techs to any AI who has 50+ Gold to trade to us, as long as we are not at war with that AI (i.e. don't accidentally make Peace with Willem). Here is a suggested order:
Polytheism
Monotheism
Aesthetics
Literature


T118, 75 AD

Set Research to Liberalism

Set Espionage Slider to 0% (we're at 10% right now) so that we're making 100% Gold

Trade:
Drama + 150 Gold + World Map from Mansa <-> Optics

Spoiler :

Yes, Mansa will start meeting the other AIs, but 150 Gold is too big of a sum to pass up

Try begging:
90 Gold from Elizabeth (Could you spare this for a good friend?)

Spoiler :

Now is probably the last time in the game that we can try begging from her, so we might as well give it a shot. When we're getting close to finishing off Willem, we won't want 10 turns of enforced Peace with Elizabeth, and after we defeat Elizabeth in a war, she will be unlikely to ever have a large enough sum worthy of begging... plus, at the end of the war, we may simply Cease Fire her, gift her the boat, then redeclare war and capture her last remaining City, which would again mean not wanting 10 turns of enforced Peace

If the begging failed, don't sell Compass to Elizabeth (she could go for Optics for yucky Caravels and she could sell Compass to Willem who could also then go for Optics)

City 4: Click on the Library in the build queue to remove it so that the build queue shows Forge -> Catapult as the first 2 build items

Hippos: Shift + click a Horse Archer
Hippos: Shift + click a Work Boat so that the build queue shows War Elephant -> Catapult -> Horse Archer -> Work Boat

Spoiler :

That Catapult should head toward Willem's 2 Scouts so that when it arrives, one of the Catapults that is there can head westward with its City Raider III Promotion

We can work the Fur at Size 5 so that we'll have time to sneak in a Horse Archer before building our Work Boat... our Work Boat isn't necessary to get right away if we don't yet need to work the Whale square

Sleepy Sheep: Shift + click another Galley into the build queue

Wake up Worker 8 (on the "FORT?" square) and skip his turn so that we can give him a new duty next turn

Wake up Spearman 1 (on Willem's Deer) and move him 1SW G For Riv (1SE of Utrecht) to allow Subutai to move this turn

Wake up Subutai on the G For Riv (1SE of Utrecht) and move him 1NE G Deer and then attack the Horse Archer 1N of there which is guarding the Settler

Wake up Spy 2 and move him 1NE, to make it easier to get back on our Galley next turn using Willem's Roads

Queen Elizabeth Galley does NOT move this turn (we want to see what Willem's boats will do... if they stay inside of Amsterdam, we can dare to stay on this square next turn, too)

Spoiler :

If our Galley does get chased, we should probably abandon the plan to drop off the Spy, but do recall that the Spy could also be dropped off on Willem's Pig (1E of Amsterdam) instead of directly on the Horse (1N of Amsterdam)... doing so would delay our Sabotage Mission but if doing so means keeping our Galley safe, then we would at least be able to send in our Spy while keeping our Galley out of battle. If Willem's boats don't leave his Cities, though, we should be able to drop off our Spy on Willem's Horse Resource directly and still have enough movement points to retreat our Galley

Be careful here to only select one Warrior at a time from X-ops:
Wake up Warrior 9 in X-ops and move him toward Gems City (2NW for now)

Wake up Warrior 11 in X-ops and move him toward Surfin' Turf (2NW for now)

Wake up Warrior 1 in Gems City and move him 1N Gems, 1NW Gems (SE + S of City 4)... be sure that he doesn't attack the Scouts on the way to City 4

Wake up Warior 6 in City 4 and move him 1NW G Corn, Promote him to Combat II, and then upgrade him to a Spearman

Wake up Warrior 3 (on the GH For Road that is NW + NW + W of our G Cow), move him 1SE GH Road, and upgrade him to a Spearman


T119, 100 AD

Check if AIs other than Willem have 50+ Gold available to give us for our "older and cheap" techs

Assuming that your plan is to move War Elephant 2 and War Elephant 3 1N to attack the Horse Archers on the G Riv For that are 1S of Utrecht this turn, then I would suggest that we do not Bombard with our Catapults that are 1SE of Utrecht but instead move the stack that is 1SE of Utrecht to 1S of Utrecht to join the 2nd War Elephant (or to kill off the second Horse Archer if we lost one of the two battles)

War Elephant 4 (Promote to Combat I), Chariot 3, Cat 5, and Cat 1 can then form a new "mini stack" 1SE of Utrecht

Catapult 7 (one of the Cats attacking the Scouts) can take the City Raider I Promotion to partially heal himself so as to be able to continue attacking a Scout

Catapult from Gems City: Move toward the GH Riv Mine that is 2S of City 4... once Catapult 8 has 10 XP, Catapult 8 can head westward and this new Catapult can start attacking a Scout

Worker 4: Move 1E G Riv Horse and complete the Road

War Elephant from Hippos: Before he moves, have Worker 4 complete the Road on the Horse first, to give our War Elephant a free movement point in his march to the north-west

Warrior 1: Move 1NW GH Riv Mine (1S of City 4)

Warrior 9: Move into Gems City, where he can stay

Warrior 11: Move into Surfin' Turf, where he can stay

Caravel 1: Make our way to Niani, but be sure to end each turn in an Ocean square

X-ops: Switch to building the Forge
X-ops: 1-pop-whip the Forge
X-ops: Ensure that the build queue shows Forge -> Crossbowman (I don't mind if you remove the other build items from the build queue to make this step easier)
X-ops: Merchant -> GH Riv Mine (I'm assuming that whipping will consume the 2nd Merchant, but if whipping consumes a Cottage instead, switch the other Merchant to that Cottage)

Gems: Build the University (very important)
Gems: Make sure that the build queue shows University -> Odeon
Gems: Focus on growth here, so work the 2 Gems + 2 Farms at Size 4

Surfin' Turf: 2-pop-whip the Library
Surfin' Turf: Focus on growth, so keep working Farms

City 4: Switch to building the Library
City 4: 2-pop-whip the Library
City 4: Build queue should should Library -> Catapult
City 4: Focus on growth, so work the Corn + Farm at Size 2

Athens: Nothing to do here as long we have 4 Hammers in our University already

Piscatorium: Build the University (very important)

Workers:

Spoiler :

mostly doing what we'd already planned, with changes to Worker 4, Worker 5, and Worker 8

W1: Mine the GH Road (1W of the G Corn) -> Move 2E G (1N of City 4) and Farm -> Move 1SW GH (1NW of City 4) and Windmill

W2: Camp the TH Riv Fur -> Road the TH Riv Fur -> Move 2NE to the G and Farm it

Spoiler :

We will get the Fur as soon as it gets Camped, since it is on a River, so look for trading opportunities... perhaps we can sell it to Mao if Mao still has his Wine available
That said, we still want a Road here as the Road leads toward Shaka's City for help with a future war

W3: partial Road the GH For that is 2W of the G Corn and STOP!!! -> On T120 we must Chop this Forest into City 4's University on the turn after we completed City 4's Library -> complete the Road on this GH (now Forestless) square -> Move 1W G For (3W of the G Corn) -> Chop that G For

W4: Move 1 E G Riv Horse and complete the Road -> Move 1NW TH For (1NW of the Horse) -> Road that TH For (1NW of the Horse) -> If it is safe to do so, keep Roading toward Utrecht from the Hippos area

W5: Move 1SW P Riv and partial Watermill -> if New Amsterdam only has 1 unit, move 1NW G Riv Cot (1SW of New Amsterdam) and partial Road -> complete the Road on the next turn if there is still only 1 unit in New Amsterdam, otherwise move 1SE and continue Watermilling the P Riv (2S of New Amsterdam) -> If we completed the G Riv Cot Road, move 1SE and continue Watermilling the P Riv (2S of New Amsterdam)

Spoiler :

We could use the +1 Commerce from working a G Riv Farm in place of a G Farm and we've already put 1 turn into Farming the G Riv square, so we might as well complete the Farm for now. Later, we can replace that Farm (the one 2N of Surfin' Turf) with a Watermill, which will be a powerful square under State Property, but for the short term, growing our Cities is important

W6: Camp the TH Riv Fur -> Road the TH Riv Fur -> Move 2NE to the G and Farm it

W7: Farm the G Riv that is 2N of Surfin' Turf -> Move to the GH Road that is 1SW of Gems City and Windmill

W8 (the captured Worker who is on the "FORT?" square): Last turn, we should have woken him up, so send him to the GH Riv For that is 3W of City 4 and Chop it -> We might as well complete this Chop at the same time as Worker 3's Chop -> If it is safe to do so (due to us having Spearmen nearby), move to the GH For that is 1SE of Willem's Deer -> Road that GH For square; otherwise, move 1W G Riv For (SW + W + W of the G Corn) -> Chop that G Riv For


T120, 125 AD

Check if AIs other than Willem have 50+ Gold available to give us for our "older and cheap" techs

Our Great Merchant can then check Mansa's larger-sized Cities this turn or next turn to see which one will give us the best Trade Mission value, probably comparing these Cities:
Kumbi Saleh
Djenne
Timbuktu
Walata
Awdaghost


Warrior 1: Move 1N into City 4, where he can stay

Catapult from Hippos: Head toward the Scouts at City 4

Warrior 2: Should be healed by this turn, so if you want, we can move him 1 square along a Road (in whichever direction he will be most needed) and then promote him to a Spearman

X-ops: Switch to building the War Elephant
X-ops: 2-pop-whip the War Elephant
X-ops: Ensure that the build queue shows War Elephant -> Crossbowman

Surfin' Turf: Build the University (very important)

City 4: Build the University (very important)
City 4: We should receive the GH For Chop from Worker 3 (2W of the G Corn) this turn
City 4: Focus on growth at Size 3 (Corn + 2 Farms) so that we'll grow to Size 4 this turn (as per the earlier calculations)
City 4: The build queue should show University -> Catapult

Piscatorium: Switch to building the Forge
Piscatorium: 3-pop-whip the Forge


T121, 150 AD

Check if AIs other than Willem have 50+ Gold available to give us for our "older and cheap" techs


X-ops: Switch to building the University
X-ops: 3-pop-whip the University
X-ops: Ensure that the build queue shows University -> Crossbowman

Gems: 2-pop-whip the University
Gems: Work 1N Gems + G Riv Farm

Surfin' Turf: 2-pop-whip the University

City 4: 1-pop-whip the University
City 4: Ensure that University -> Catapult is in the build queue
City 4: Steal the G Riv Gems Mine from Gems City and work it

Athens: 3-pop-whip the University

Piscatorium: 2-pop-whip the University

Hippos: We should have Camped the Fur by this turn, so work the Fur

Ensure that all 6 Universities will get completed this turn!!!


T122, 175 AD

Set Science Rate to 100% on Liberalism, now that we have our Universities

Check if AIs other than Willem have 50+ Gold available to give us for our "older and cheap" techs

Now would be a turn on which we could risk begging from Mansa again

X-ops: Switch to building Oxford
X-ops: Work 2 Mines instead of 2 Cottages this turn

Gems: Build a Confucian Missionary

Spoiler :

We're soon going to want to be building a lot of Confucian Missionaries, such that we're building them nearly non-stop

Surfin' Turf: Build Barracks (hopefully we'll come close to completing it without fully completing it so that it can be whipped next turn for overflow Hammers going into the Heroic Epic)

Piscatorium: Build Moai Statues to catpure the overflow Hammers

 

[Cactus Pete]

In terms of BtS AIs, we know that the Settler will retreat next turn and that the units standing next with him will remain in place, since that's how AI Settler Parties are coded in BtS. Then why did the party move into harms way initially if so coded?

Willem wants to settle where we have the "FORT?" sign, anyway, which isn't a helpful settling location (we know that from where he parked his Chariot earlier). Sure, it could save us a Settler, if we're willing to let Willem own that City for about 9 turns before it grows to Size 2 and we can capture it, during which time he could be streaming Horse Archers through that area. Follow that. But let's suppose the settler doesn't retreat and the party continues east (even though we don't remove all threats) and we allow it to settle there, would the HA and chariot remain in the city, not go pillaging for example, until we raze the city with newly upgraded spearmen?

As for Elizabeth, we could first try begging that 90 Gold from her and then could sell her Compass for all of her Gold if she refuses the beg, not taking Drama. Concur with the begging but wondering if we shouldn't wait on trading Compass to her. Does her offer of Drama + 25 gold indicate that she is researching Compass now?

In BtS, Chariots cannot be upgraded to Horse Archers. AIs build Chariots because Chariots get a +100% bonus against Axemen in BtS, so a Chariot hurts an Axeman more than a Horse Archer would hurt an Axeman, for less Hammers. Think I knew that once, but had forgotten it. Thanks.

The Spy could land there, or the Spy could head westward to give us visibility of The Hague and to find out where Willem is hiding his Workers.

Willem has a partial Forest Chop on the G For Road that is 1S of The Hague which wasn't there before, so he's actively Choppping a Forest there. (How can I tell? Hover your mouse over the square that is 1S of The Hague and you will see that it says "Chop Down a Forest: 2 Turns.") There's also a Forest missing from 1W of The Hague. So, maybe we don't care as much about seeing his Workers, as we know what they are up to already. Mouse also reveals worker actions 2N and 1N1NE of Ondini, but there are no workers there. Would seem that most of the Dutch workforce is idle and/or hiding in the Hague.

I'm okay with you trying to drop the Spy off on the Horse Resource, but be smart about it... our Galley CANNOT move toward our Spy this turn (without us risking being attacked and us messing up our Elizabeth Quest royally), so we'll have to pick up the Spy next turn and then retreat the Galley 3 squares away from all of Willem's boats, probably to the same square where you have our Galley positioned now, assuming that Willem's boats stay inside of Amsterdam. If Willem's boats chase us, we'll have to abandon the plan, as we can't dare to risk our Queen Elizabeth Galley in battle... there's no way that we'll be able to beat TSR and PD if we have to go for Elizabeth #3, as they are both ahead of us in warring. Our best hope of defeating them is surgically warring only as much as we need to, in order to complete our quests and have an easy AP Cheese Victory. Am aware of all that.


If anything, Willem is preparing an amphibious attacking party that will consist of 3 Galleys, which is why 2 of his Galleys are stationed in his capital... those Galleys probably have a "transport units" Mission type, rather than an "attack nearby boats" Mission type. So, if a third galley appears in Amsterdam, expect a counterattack from the sea, rather than most of those units defending Amsterdam?

Well, to your earlier point, Mao temptingly offers:
Wine + Spice from Mao <-> Horse

There aren't many spots from which we could build a Horse Archer soon, but if we're going to try to Sabotage Willem's Horse Resource, Willem will be more likely to build more Cats, so it does seem to make sense to hang onto our Horse Resource, especially since while we might not build Horse Archers over the next couple of turns, we'll probably want to build a couple within the next 10 turns, so I'd avoid making that trade, as tempting as it looks. Didn't look tempting, just reported the option.

We asked for and received Gold from Mansa on T92. I think that the general rule is that you should wait 30 turns after you receive something from an AI, meaning that we'd beg again on T122. If he still has some Gold at that point, we should probably try begging it from him then. Understood. Should revisit on T122.

The question now becomes... is it worth it to give Optics to Mansa for 150 Gold? That's roughly 500 Flasks' worth of Research for us, so I think that we have to say "yes."

In fact, we should probably have a more liberal tech-trading policy with all of the AIs.

Shaka has Monarchy, so I would say that if he gets 50 or more Gold, sell Polytheism to Shaka.

If Louis, Mao, or Toku gets 50 or more Gold, sell Monotheism to said AI.

If Isabella gets more than 50 or more Gold, sell her Aesthetics.

This decision could end up seriously impacting our end game date, so let's be on the ball with grabbing AI Gold with older techs that we don't care about them getting (they all have Monarchy, so holding onto Monotheism doesn't help us anymore). Okay, will trade Optics for 150 gold this turn and look for other 50 gold trades.


Techs:

Also, do we want Free Market or will it be better to go for Communism for State Property? Grabbing Liberalism with Astronomy puts us only 3 techs away from Communism: Printing Press -> Scientific Method -> Communism

Additional Trade Routes from Free Market will probably be Domestic ones, especially as we start to capture more AI Cities, so Free Market is worth roughly +2 Commerce per City, but it also has a higher Civic Maintenance Cost than we pay now. We'll soon earn more than +3 Gold per City (currently, and even more later, as we capture more Cities) from State Property, and State Property gives us +10 Hammers everywhere, unlocks The Kremlin, and improves Workshops and Watermills. State Property is a very strong Civic.

State Property will be worth it, especially as we start to capture more Cities and if we don't build Courthouses, so Communism is definitely a tech to target. Follow that.

Thus, on the whole, I'd say that I'm okay with continuing to enable Mansa, and I'm okay with selling some really old techs to the other AIs, but we probably won't benefit more than it could cost us to enable the other AIs


So, our tech path may go something like the following:
Liberalism (we can probably wait to get a few Universities before learning it) ->
Take Astronomy with Liberalism (there's no real immediate benefit to Astronomy with us only having 1 Galley and already having a ton of overseas Foreign Trade Routes, which is why I think that we can wait a bit to get Astronomy)So, change to researching Liberalism at 0% this turn? ->
Nationalism (for The Taj Mahal... maybe to be Chopped in one of Willem's Cities) ->
Constitution (for Representation) ->
Printing Press (a minor help in X-ops and required for Scientific Method) ->
Scientific Method ->
Communism (for State Property) ->

Military Units:
We could potentially do the following this turn:
Speaman 1 attacks the Horse Archer 1N... there is an 11% chance of us losing, though, so I'm okay if we also don't want to take that risk, as we don't have any units that would follow-up to make the kill Agreed.

But, what we probably should do instead is:
Speaman 1 move 1SW to guard our Cats along side of a War Elephant
Subutai moves 1NE to where the Spearman was then 1N to attack the Horse Archer that is guarding the Settler Rejected this as putting our cat stack in significantly greater jeopardy if W mass attacks it. Not confident in predicting BtS military actions, so chose not to take an uncertain risk that would jeopardize our the game. Certainly willing to if recommended though.


Catapults
Try to only take City Raider Promotions with all of our Catapults, then only start adding Drill Promotions after we get City Raider III.

Understood, but wondering why all the drill promotions to begin with.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I do like your idea.

How about we upgrade one of our "Heroes of the stories," Warrior 3, who also conveniently has a Combat I Promotion on him, by moving him 1SE and upgrading him this turn. Will do.

Also, since Warrior 6 indulged himself a bit much on Scout-slaughtering, we might as well have him join the party, too.Will move him west but wait on upgrade and promotions.

So, we could do something like the following:
Wake up Warriors 9 and 11 in X-ops... Warrior 9 heads to Gems City while Warrior 11 heads to Surfin' Turf

Warrior 9 will replace Gems City's Military Police unit, while Warrior 11 can act as an emergency-upgradeable Warrior inside of Surfin' Turf that will at least have Combat I on it (the Warrior inside of Surfin' Turf, Warrior 15, has 0 XP)

Warrior 1 (in Gems City) will wake up and move 1N + 1NW, then 1NW, then move into City 4

Doing so frees up Warrior 6 to leave City 4 by going NW and then upgrading to a Spearman... I'd give him Combat II

Once Warrior 2 heals (the Woodsman I Warrior that is 1N of Hippos) in 2 turns' time, he can also upgrade to a Spearman

Hopefully, these additions to our Military ranks will help to alleviate the fact that we're going to be busy building Universities for a few turns

I'll capture these moves in the PPP, so that we will have all of our ideas documented in one place Okay, but this is straight forward.


Great Merchant's Trade Mission
Do you know how to check which City will give us the best us the most Gold for our Trade Mission? Had no clue this was possible. Wondering why we need to sail so far east. Can't I do this in Nani and recover the caravel sooner to deal with W's galleys. Along that line, thinking we should put a trireme at the top of the queue in Sleepy Sheep and whip it in two turns.

Once our Great Merchant is inside of Kumbi Saleh, we must press the Shift key and keep the Shift key held down. Then, with the Shift key held down, we left click on a different City of Mansa's, release the click but keep the Shift key held down, we move our mouse down to hover over top of the Trade Mission icon in the Great Merchant's list of actions, then we press the Backspace <-- key (the Spacebar key doesn't seem to work in this case) to cancel the movement, then we release the Shift key once that movement has been cancelled (if we keep holding the Shift key down at this point, sometimes the game's interface "forgets" that the Shift key is held down and then the next Shift + right click will actually move the unit)

Then, we repeat the procedure starting from pressing and holding down the Shift key again.

If you really don't want to perform this task, you can upload the saved game on the relevant turn (Turn 121) and someone else can help you to check which City will give us the best Trade Mission value out of Mansa's Cities

What's the worst that can happen?

 

[Cactus Pete]

Appreciate the plan. Couple of things . . .

Suggested PPP


T118, 75 AD

Try begging:
90 Gold from Elizabeth (Could you spare this for a good friend?)

If the begging failed, trade:
90 Gold from Elizabeth <-> Compass Are you sure about this?

Sleepy Sheep: Shift + click another Galley into the build queue Have to give me a good reason not to switch to a trireme and whip it instead.

T119, 100 AD

Assuming that your plan is to move War Elephant 2 and War Elephant 3 1N to attack the Horse Archers on the G Riv For that are 1S of Utrecht this turn, then I would suggest that we do not Bombard with our Catapults that are 1SE of Utrecht but instead move the stack that is 1SE of Utrecht to 1S of Utrecht to join the 2nd War Elephant (or to kill off the second Horse Archer if we lost one of the two battles) I'd be greatly surprised if those two HAs are still in place, but would follow the gist of your plan if they are, assuming W hasn't brought his cats into play, in which case I will limit consolidation of units.

War Elephant 4 (Promote to Combat I), Chariot 3, Cat 5, and Cat 1 can then form a new "mini stack" 1SE of Utrecht You're confident such a stack would not be attacked with multiple HAs and perhaps a cat?

Caravel 1: Make our way to Kumbi Saleh Going into Nani instead, unless there's a great reason not to.

X-ops: Ensure that the build queue shows Forge -> Crossbowman (I don't mind if you remove the other build items from the build queue to make this step easier) I can handle queue manipulations.

W4: Move 1 E G Riv Horse and complete the Road -> Move 1NW TH For (1NW of the Horse) -> Road that TH For (1NW of the Horse) -> If it is safe to do so, keep Roading toward Utrecht from the Hippos area Might be preferable to road toward Utrecht via the plain/hill/forest 1SE of W's deer.

W7: Farm the G Riv that is 2N of Surfin' Turf -> Move to the GH Road that is 1SW of Gems City and Windmill If war going well, may want to send toward Utrecht.

Will delay playing until get response to my questions here and above.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Then why did the party move into harms way initially if so coded?

There are a number of players who claim that many aspects of BtS were not properly play-tested or thought-out. Also, a number of players claim that many important bugs (such as bugs with selecting your units in a stack) were not fixed and instead some silly features were introduced.

Well, here's one such example of the bad code that got introduced.

Follow that. But let's suppose the settler doesn't retreat and the party continues east

The only way that would happen is if we moved all of our units who can reach the Settler (excluding by using Woodsman II Promotions) this turn... such that our units got moved far enough away that our units could not "reach" Willem's Settler anymore.

Unfortunately, that's not possible, since Horatio Nelson and War Elephant 5 have already moved adjacent to the square where the Settler stands and adjacent to the square where the Settler would move next turn, so the Settler will be forced to retreat.

would the HA and chariot remain in the city, not go pillaging for example, until we raze the city with newly upgraded spearmen?

But, let's assume a Vanilla AI (it won't happen) where the Settler Party ignores nearby units and continues forward and settles... the City, being a non-capital City, will get 1 City defender, while the other unit will be free to roam our territory.

In addition, our current strength is being able to attack Horse Archers inside of Forests for a 99% chance of winning using our Woodsmen III units. Our odds of winning go significantly down if we fight lone Horse Archers inside of a new AI City where a Forest won't exist to give us teh 50% attack bonus and where we won't be first using Catapults to softed up the City defenders... in Utrecht, we'll first be using our Catapults to wound the defenders once we have enough units within range of killing the defenders... you're such a famous player with using Catapults that I assume that you'd naturally use this time-proven approach for catpuring Utrecht.

Indeed, "suicidal" Catapults have an even greater chance of surviving in BtS, since Catapults will retreat if the defender gets brought down to I believe it is somewhere between 30% and 50% of its Health.

Concur with the begging but wondering if we shouldn't wait on trading Compass to her. Does her offer of Drama + 25 gold indicate that she is researching Compass now?

Good question.

I am going to say "probably not."

On T115, 1 AD, Elizabeth was willing to make this trade, but at that time, Compass was worth more, since we hadn't traded Compass to Mansa:
Drama + 50 Gold from Elizabeth <-> Compass

It is expected that the amount that she would be willing to offer would go down since that time, as we'd sold Compass to Mansa after that point.

You're in the best position to answer the question conclusively: if you have a saved game after we traded Compass to Mansa and if you are very careful, you can load up that saved game, press the Pause key, make sure that the game is paused, talk to Elizabeth, remember how much of a lump sum amount of Gold that she has, put Drama and Compass on the trading table, then ask her "What would make this deal work?"

Once you find out the answer, exit the trading window and exit to the main menu.

If she has 30 or more Gold available for trade but she only shows 25 Gold, then we know for sure that she is not researching Compass.

Mouse also reveals worker actions 2N and 1N1NE of Ondini, but there are no workers there.

If there are no Workers there then likely we scared them off at some point, perhaps earlier with Subutai, or perhaps a Barb unit scared those Workers off.

Would seem that most of the Dutch workforce is idle and/or hiding in the Hague.

I assure you with certainty that Willem's Worker for is busily working away. That's a fundamental difference from Vanilla.

On Turn 115, 1 AD, there is a G For Road 1W of The Hague. There is also a G For Road 1S of The Hague. Neither Forest has any Chopping turns invested in them.

On Turn 118, 75 AD, the Forest that was 1W of The Hague is missing (Random Events are not enabled, so it must have been Chopped by Willem's Worker). Also, there is 1 Forest Chop turn invested into the G For Road that is 1S of The Hague.

Willem had these turns on which to perform Worker actions:
- End of T115
- End of T116
- End of T117
So, 3 turns, to perform those 4 Worker actions, which means that at least 2 of his Workers are busy in that area.

Those are the Worker actions that we know about. Other Worker actions could have occurred, such as a Road being completed.

So, if a third galley appears in Amsterdam, expect a counterattack from the sea, rather than most of those units defending Amsterdam?

Only if:
1. The third Galley is assigned the correct Mission type. If, for example, Willem builds a 3rd Galley and it gets assigned the UNITAI_ASSAULT_SEA Mission type (as per the World Builder's name for it), then that boat won't be used to load Military Units into it
AND
2. Willem has sufficient Military Units inside of Amsterdam to load up 3 Galleys without leaving Amsterdam too poorly-defended
AND
3. The existing 2 boats aren't boats with a different type of Mission, such as UNITAI_SETTLER_SEA

It's pretty hard for an AI to build up enough of the right types of units to actually create an amphibious raiding party, but it's possible to happen. If it does happen, that event would be a good time to stop play and get some feedback.

In fact, if anything really weird or unexpected happens, that's also a good time to stop play and get some feedback.

Understood. Should revisit on T122.

I'll add that point to the PPP.

So, change to researching Liberalism at 0% this turn?

Yes. Once we have our 6 Universities, our Science Rate will have gone up, although we'll be out of our Golden Age at that point, and we'll have whipped a bunch, so relative to the current turn, we'll be making less raw Commerce... it's just that the lower amount of Commerce will be more efficiently multiplied by Science Building multipliers (a couple of more Libraries and 6 more Universities).


"But, what we probably should do instead is:
Speaman 1 move 1SW to guard our Cats along side of a War Elephant
Subutai moves 1NE to where the Spearman was then 1N to attack the Horse Archer that is guarding the Settler Rejected this as putting our cat stack in significantly greater jeopardy if W mass attacks it."

Not confident in predicting BtS military actions, so chose not to take an uncertain risk that would jeopardize our the game. Certainly willing to if recommended though.

Our Spearman's strength is defending from a Forest.

Our Woodsman III's strengths are attacking Forested quares and healing our stack.

From an odds perspective, our Spearman defends our stack quite well inside of a Forest. An attacking Combat I Horse Archer gets less than 10% odds of winning... Shaka might attack under those circumstances, but Willem is highly unlikely to take those odds, and we'd rather that he suicide his units this way than have to keep killing his units off one-at-a-time by us attacking his units.

So, yes, I do recommend that we use the Spearman to defend our Catapult stack and have Subutai make the 99% attack on Willem's Horse Archer.

Understood, but wondering why all the drill promotions to begin with.

When we first declared war on Willem, we had no Horse, no metal, 1 Archer, and some Cats.

Willem had Chariots.

We had no intention of attacking Willem's Cities for quite some time.

Our Catapults were our strongest units, so Drill Promotions gave us the best odds and in fact were helpful in allowing our Archer and Warrior to kill off a few of Willem's Chariots.

At the time, City Raider Promotions weren't helping us.


RE: Warrior 6

Will move him west but wait on upgrade and promotions.

We should either upgrade Warrior 6 this turn or next turn, otherwise we'll lose a turn of movement in upgrading him.

If he moved: NW, W; SW, SW; then he'd be at the edge of our Cultral Borders and would have to upgrade without first moving. On the following turn, he'd move SW, SW. On the next turn, he'd be out of Roads and would move 1NW.

If he instead upgrades this turn (or next turn), he moves: NW, upgrade. W, SW. SW, SW. SW, NW.

So, by upgrading now (or next turn), he gains 1 movement and arrives on the battle field one turn sooner.

Thus, I'd suggest that we upgrade him on this turn after moving him NW to gain that turn of movement.

"I'll capture these moves in the PPP, so that we will have all of our ideas documented in one place"

Okay, but this is straight forward.

I don't know about you, but personally, when it comes to having to wake up units, I find that it's easy to forget in the heat of the moment. If the unit is already awake, it's easy enough to remember what to do with the unit, but I find that it's a lot harder to remember to interact with units that have already moved for the turn or which are Fortified.

Wondering why we need to sail so far east. Can't I do this in Nani and recover the caravel sooner to deal with W's galleys.

Sure, we could unload in Niani instead. I was fearful of Barb units in Mansa's territory, but Mansa has REXed so well that this fear is probably unfounded.

Also, I thought that there wasn't a Road between Naini and Mansa's other Cities, but looking closer, we can see that there is a portion of a Road that heads east out of Niani and a portion of a Road that heads west from the G Pig that is 2E of Niani, so a Road must exist on the G For between those squares, even though we can't currently see that Road.

It will be nice to have our Caravel ready sooner to ship out a Missionary to Toku's capital.

Along that line, thinking we should put a trireme at the top of the queue in Sleepy Sheep and whip it in two turns.

A couple of points here:
Sleepy Sheep is not a great City in which to whip, as it takes such a long time for the population point to regrow.

We're going to want several Galleys being upgraded to Galleons in order launch a war against Elizabeth as soon as possible after dealing with Willem.

Caravels won't help us in shipping troops over to Elizabeth's area.


"Then, we repeat the procedure starting from pressing and holding down the Shift key again..."

What's the worst that can happen?

We lose turns by having the Great Merchant move when you didn't expect him to move. As long as there are no Barb units inside of Mansa's territory, there's no real problem.


"If the begging failed, trade:
90 Gold from Elizabeth <-> Compass"

Are you sure about this?

To be honest, I wasn't sure about that point. You seemed insistent about that 90 Gold, so I put it in, but I am fearful of Elizabeth going for Optics, or her trading Compass to Willem and him going for Optics. It would be dangerous for either of them to get Caravels. I have changed this point in the PPP.

Have to give me a good reason not to switch to a trireme and whip it instead.

Unlike a City with high Food, this City takes several turns to regrow a whipped population point.

We'll have Astronomy by the time that we've captured Willem's 3rd core City and are ready to set sail for Elizabeth's lands. Galleys can upgrade to Galleons (3 spaces for Military Units), while Triremes can only upgrade to Caravels (0 spaces for Military Units).

I'd be greatly surprised if those two HAs are still in place,

Good point.

but would follow the gist of your plan if they are, assuming W hasn't brought his cats into play, in which case I will limit consolidation of units.

In BtS, our Catapults are immune to Collateral Damage, but our Catapults are valid "targets" for Collateral Damage. So, the more Catapults that we have in a stack that gets attacked by an enemy Catault, the less Collateral Damage, on average, our stack will suffer.

The main point, though, is to get as many of our Catapults to the G Riv For square that is 1S of Utrecht as possible, so that our Catapults won't be attacking across of a River when attacking his City.

We're, unfortunately, only going to have 2 City Raider III Catapults (Catapult 4, who has yet to upgrade, and Catault 5, who is lagging behind by 1 turn), which would be the first 2 Catapults used in an attack on the City, so the greater our odds of attacking, the better. If we had, say, 5 City Raider III Catapults, we could even dare to attack across of the River and risk losing a couple, so as to get the City capture underway sooner, but we lack the firepower to throw away our units by attacking across of a River with our Catapults and our initial other attackers (if our Woodsmen units or our Chariot attack the last couple of defenders from across of a River, that fact won't matter as those defenders will be likely to have only 1 or 2 Health remaining to them anyway).

You're confident such a stack would not be attacked with multiple HAs and perhaps a cat?

No, but it would be strong enough to withstand such an attack, and the more units that attack us where we win the fights, the easier it will be to capture Utrecht.

You can win 100 fights on defence with one Drill IV Machine Gun (assuming that the attackers aren't Horse Archers, who are immune to First Strikes), but you'd need 100 attackers on that same turn to defeat the enemy if the enemy only defended.

Going into Nani instead, unless there's a great reason not to.

That's fine.

Might be preferable to road toward Utrecht via the plain/hill/forest 1SE of W's deer.

I think that it's worth doing both, so Worker 8 will build that other Road.


"W7: Farm the G Riv that is 2N of Surfin' Turf -> Move to the GH Road that is 1SW of Gems City and Windmill"

If war going well, may want to send toward Utrecht.

It would be nice to have a Worker near to cap for building Windmills there a bit later.

Hopefully, after capturing Utrecht, we'll have a chance to capture some of Willem's Workers using our 2 Woodsmen units.

 

[Cactus Pete]

In addition, our current strength is being able to attack Horse Archers inside of Forests for a 99% chance of winning using our Woodsmen III units. Our odds of winning go significantly down if we fight lone Horse Archers inside of a new AI City where a Forest won't exist to give us teh 50% attack bonus and where we won't be first using Catapults to softed up the City defenders... My thinking was that we wouldn't have to waste movement turns or the health of the units already advancing on Hague by attacking his settler party, but would deal with them as new city defenders with upgraded spears.

It's pretty hard for an AI to build up enough of the right types of units to actually create an amphibious raiding party, but it's possible to happen. He only needs one more unit and one more properly commissioned galley. Three loaded galleys headed east would be trouble and foul us up far more than whipping a trireme (to possibly sink at least one of those galleys) in SSleep. You seem to think that such an invasion is so unlikely as not to justify using up a citizen in SS. You know the AI behavior far better than I, so I will reluctantly go along.

It will be nice to have our Caravel ready sooner to ship out a Missionary to Toku's capital.
I want it to mitigate an invasion by sea.

Playing . . .

 

[Dhoomstriker]

My thinking was that we wouldn't have to waste movement turns or the health of the units already advancing on Hague by attacking his settler party, but would deal with them as new city defenders with upgraded spears.

Regardless of whether we attack with Subutai or not, and for 99% odds to get rid of one, we might as well, what will happen is that the Settler will run away and the Horse Archer (if we don't kill it) and Chariot will be "paralized" for one turn, then they'll move on the following turn.

I want it to mitigate an invasion by sea.

Understood. We won't have a Confucian Missionary for a bit yet, anyway, so it's a decent use of our existing Caravel.

If you really want to build and whip a Trireme out of Sleepy Sheep for that reason, I'm okay with it. My understanding was that you just wanted another Caravel for shipping around units, but if it's for the war, be my guest.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Another thought: instead of sending a Spy to Shaka, we could send two Spies over to Elizabeth... one to her Copper and one to find her Iron, which she presumably must have since she doesn't want our Iron in trade.

If we can spare a Warrior from somewhere, we could even send a Warrior over to her to explore her area... a Spy can auto-die in an AI's territory, but a Warrior won't die when exploring her territory.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Played to the end of T122 -- Trust in the stupidity of the AI again proves to be a wise strategy. We have Utrecht without suffering further losses. Xopolis is building Oxford, and we're a wealthy civ.

Notes:

T118:
Trade Optics with Mansa for drama and 150 gold
Beg 90 gold from E (who is now at war with Shaka)
Implement plan

IBT:
Just as Dhoom predicted, settler retreated and chariot stayed in place; moreover, W did not take advantage of our weaknesses
W now has 3 galleys in capital but he is not going to load cats into them, as they are 1W of Utrecht now

T119:
Trade Mono to Louis for 60 gold and map
Trade Aesthetics to Isa for 50 gold and map
Trade Poly to Shaka for 80 gold
Kill two exposed HAs
Execute plan

IBT:
Wkbt north of China sunk by barb galley coming round a corner
Louis gets a GM
3 cats attack our big stack SE of Utrecht, but there is no follow up with HAs
Trireme appears in Amsterdam

T120:
Trade Louis Lit for 60g
Get 1100 from GM trade route (all cities yielded same amount)
U of Sankore built far away

IBT:
Refuse E's request to join her in war against Shaka, and she is now only Pleased with us
GE born far away
Amsterdam trireme sails towards our galley, and notice that there is now an additional trireme in both Amsterdam and Utrecht

T121:
Can't pop-whip university in City4, as last turn's chops have completed it
Capture Utrecht
Decide not to pillage horses with spy, as his potential intel seems more valuable now that W has given us the initiative

IBT:
Isa gets a GM
Galley and 2 HAs disappear from inside Amsterdam

T122:
Spy finds 4 Dutch laborers

Do we want to trade fur with Isa or Mao?

It is getting very late here, so I did not try to get a hint from W, as that would take me some time to do correctly. I cannot play any more for about 20 hours, so would hope someone else would download the save and take care of that for me.

Save from Central posted here: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_AD0175_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nice work!

E (who is now at war with Shaka)

Ohhh, that's really bad. We don't want her building Military Units. We're going to want to pay off Shaka to stop that war, as any units that either side builds will just end up fighting against us.

Just as Dhoom predicted, settler retreated and chariot stayed in place

The earlier Settler which you killed did the exact same thing at least 3 times while I was playing. It's definitely a weakness of the BtS AIs.

W now has 3 galleys in capital but he is not going to load cats into them, as they are 1W of Utrecht now

In Vanilla, you can see when units are on boats. In BtS, you can no longer see if units are on boats. That's one nice change about BtS in that the human player can actually get scared due to not knowing if there's anything on a boat.

Wkbt north of China sunk by barb galley coming round a corner

Well, he served his purpose. The reports that I have heard say that the Work Boat Captain and his crew washed ashore and have fell in love with some Chinese locals and decided to stay there...

Can't pop-whip university in City4, as last turn's chops have completed it

My heart jumped a couple of beats reading the first part of that sentence, but I'm glad that it all worked out. =)

Isa gets a GM

With these two AI Great Merchants, I wonder if we'll be able to get more Gold out of her and Louis over time?

Galley and 2 HAs disappear from inside Amsterdam

Do you think that the Horse Archers boarded the Galley and the Galley set sail?

Do we want to trade fur with Isa or Mao?

I won't have time to look at the game until later, and it's hard to tell without seeing the full F4 RESOURCES picture.

It is getting very late here, so I did not try to get a hint from W, as that would take me some time to do correctly.

This comment confuses me. You haven't already captured Amsterdam, have you? If not, then we're going to have to stay at war with Willem, and we can't get hints from him while we're at war with him.

 

[Cactus Pete]

In Vanilla, you can see when units are on boats. In BtS, you can no longer see if units are on boats. That's one nice change about BtS in that the human player can actually get scared due to not knowing if there's anything on a boat. Understand that, so am keeping an eye on what disappears from cities when boats move out.

Well, he served his purpose. The reports that I have heard say that the Work Boat Captain and his crew washed ashore and have fell in love with some Chinese locals and decided to stay there... Well, that makes me feel much better.

My heart jumped a couple of beats reading the first part of that sentence, but I'm glad that it all worked out. =) Just trying to make it a little less dry in the reading.

Do you think that the Horse Archers boarded the Galley and the Galley set sail? Yes. There's almost no alternative. Probably a good thing as long as more units don't follow.

This comment confuses me. You haven't already captured Amsterdam, have you? If not, then we're going to have to stay at war with Willem, and we can't get hints from him while we're at war with him.

Didn't know that. Saw that he would now talk to us (we can get Peace and New Amsterdam), and your plan seemed to suggest doing this at the end of T122.

Thinking spy in NAm may not have a good mission and should be reserved to be sailed to England.

As W will give us a city for peace, doesn't that mean we could get Engineering instead? If so, perhaps we should consider peace instead of a cease fire after capturing his two remaining major cities.

Drawing on your knowledge of worker deletions: Can I plan to take The Hague and on the same turn send chariots and whatever else is available to capture workers? In particular, how much can I threaten the Hague on the turn preceding capture without spooking W into deleting them?

 

[leif erikson]

Looking good CP!

Concerning this:

So, I think that we'll want to focus on:
1. Getting Oxford
2. Capturing Willem's core Cities
3. Spreading Confucianism widely around the world, starting with the capitals of Japan, China, and France, then possibly spreading to other large-sized Cities of theirs so that they stay in Confucianism
4. Warring with Elizabeth to capture the Apostolic Palace and probably most of her Cities (optionally warring with Shaka first if our forces aren't yet ready to take on Elizabeth)
5. Preparing for a war against Catherine where we swarm her with Galleons filled with War Elephants, Maces, and Cats
6. Spreading Hinduism to small AI Cities around the world, if it hasn't auto-spread itself by then
7. Unlocking Tanks, building Tanks, and sending them to Catherine's new capital that exists on our continent
8. Getting 3 Great People to Isabella, or else satisfying a different task for her
9. Winning via an AP Cheese Victory (where no player is running Hinduism but we own the Apostolic Palace)

Nice to have items would be:
i. Capturing Shaka's Cities, if we have the time and the means to do so
ii. Building The Taj Mahal

Wouldn't taking Shaka's cities and gifting a couple to Lizzie and Catherine be in our interest?

We could gift kwaDukuza to Lizzie and Ondini to Catherine. Raze Nobamba and mMgungundlova while keeping Bulawayo, Ulundi and Nongoma as coastal cities benefit from Great Lighthouse? The only question is time and Shaka getting Feudalism...

 

[Cactus Pete]

Wouldn't taking Shaka's cities and gifting a couple to Lizzie and Catherine be in our interest?

We could gift kwaDukuza to Lizzie and Ondini to Catherine. Raze Nobamba and mMgungundlova while keeping Bulawayo, Ulundi and Nongoma as coastal cities benefit from Great Lighthouse? The only question is time and Shaka getting Feudalism...

Should be considered. Will send spy into his territory next turn to see how difficult he is likely to be.


Planning for next turn or two:

Checked and found that Shaka wanted over 1,100 gold for peace with E, but suspect he would take Aesthetics, so plan to offer him that deal or something like it this turn.

Dutch war:

This turn
Add 2 drill cats to WE6 SW of Utrecht and move warrior 11 north, looking to upgrade to a spear if landing party arrives on grass 5W of City4 (caravel should prevent any further coastal incursion).

Next turn
Make sure a 2-move unit isn&#8217;t built in NewAm.
Move WE7 (now in S&T) north to deal with possible landing party.
Assuming W does not naval blockade Utrecht and his units in the two cities haven&#8217;t changed significantly, use galley to unload spear on hill SW of Amsterdam, thereby blocking reinforcements between cities, and to put the mace out on the forest NE of the Hague.
Re-load the galley with a cat to go with the mace and a WE to go with the spear
Advance a stack of healed units by land toward The Hague, which will be next target (along with the workers), leaving sufficient forces in U to thwart any counterattack

Following turn
Add a drill cat or two to the spear and WE besieging Amsterdam to proceed with preparatory bombardment

Other intentions:

Move spy3 out of NewAm so that he doesn&#8217;t get outed before we can send him to deal with one of E&#8217;s metals.

Have worker1 road the mined hill 1S of City4 to facilitate internal movement

Xopolis: next turn switch build to crossbow and 2-popwhip, putting mace next in queue but putting overflow the following turn into Oxford
Gems: next turn put a citizen back on 2nd gems (still get growth in 2 turns)
S&T: whip barracks into HE and look for workers available to mine some of the hills there

Questions:
Where/when do we build a settler for city to be gifted to W?
What do we do with the GG that will be coming very soon?
Don't we need to use the first or one of the first confu missionaries on Utrecht, if we're going to build the NE there?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'd like to see us have our end game fully planned before we play any further turns.

Now is the stage of the game that generally separates the top teams from the rest of the pack.

We need to be asking ourselves what are the minimum things that we need to do in order to accomplish our tasks and our Victory Condition. We also need to look at what our competitive advantages and disadvantages are and play to our advantages.

Otherwise, we'll just be meandering forward without clear goals and we'll finish 30 to 40 turns later than the top teams without a good reason or explanation as to why that happened.

The whole team needs to be on board with and aligned with our goals. Without having these goals aligned and in place, playing forward for the sake of playing forward can and will end up costing us even more turns than the amount of turns that we push forward, further delaying our victory and making the later turns even more tedious.


Let's start brain-storming and then pick the ideas that make the most sense, then make a plan that aligns with our decided-upon goals.

Here are some discussion topics to get us started:
1. How do we handle the Apostolic Palace? It's going to be a fundamental factor for any potential wars with Willem, Shaka, and Elizabeth. If you don't know how the Apostolic Palace works, there's a good guide in the War Academy that everyone playing turns should be familiar with... it's got some great info; study it, as the Apostolic Palace Resolutions can greatly affect any progress in a war and can even reverse said progress (giving away the Cities that we captured back to the original AI owners).
2. Who do we really need to fight and what gains will we see by fighting those players?
3. Which AIs might be leveraged as tech-trading partners and how do we go about getting techs from them (Friendly for AIs other than Mansa)?
4. Which AIs can we hit pre-Feudalism of the AIs that we want to target? If we can't hit them pre-Feudalism, is it advantageous to wait to hit them later?
5. Do we need Willem alive after we get his clues?
6. Should we be stopping the war between Shaka and Elizabeth or should we be leveraging it to our advantage Diplomatically?
7. Does it even make sense to attack Willem -> Catherine next, at a point where Catherine may be very behind in tech and may just have an army of vulnerable Archers and Swordsmen (just speculation, but if she truly is only Astronomy-reachable, then she won't have been trading with anyone and may be backward for now, but that status won't remain forever).
8. What's our Religious plan for the AP? Does it make sense to "cheap out" and make the world massively Hindu and just play roulette with the votes, trying to get several AIs to like us more than an AI with the second-largest amount of AP votes? If not, are we going to make the world Confucian? Are we going to play some AIs against each other, such as leaving Shaka Christian and trying to get others into a different Religion so that they won't be angered when we attack Shaka? Are we going to make the world simply be in ANY State Religion other then Hinduism and only care about making one or two AIs really Friendly toward us? For example, would it make sense to capture and whip Elizabeth's Cities and then Liberate them to her later when she has more Confucian Cities in total than Hindu ones, or first ensure that she only has a Confucian City and then Liberate Cities to her as they get Confucianism in them? How many AIs do we need to focus on getting Friendly and which ones can we afford to anger by declaring war on AIs toward whom they are Pleased or Friendly, such as Shaka? If some AIs have met Catherine, will we have Missionaries on Caravels or in Galleons who are ready to make Catherine become one Religions while the AIs that she has met become a different Religion within the span of a couple of turns, so that they won't get mad when we declare war on Catherine?
9. Do we all understand what the existing plans are? New Amsterdam is a City with our Culture in it, since we built the City, so Willem will gladly give it back easily. We don't want it back. Taking it back defeats the purpose of going to war with Willem, which was to move his capital closer to our empire. Maybe that goal wasn't the ideal one, but we're so far into the war now and so close to capturing his 2 core Cities that it makes sense to play it out... BUT, we need to keep all of the other factors in mind. Playing forward just to make progress in the Willem war but ignoring all of the other factors and not planning for them is not how one gets Gold or Silver, and might not even win us a Bronze.
10. Do we absolutely have to fight Catherine or would it be a better investment to make 50 Galleons and simply Galleon-chain our units to her empire with several series of Galleon chains? Does everyone even know how to make a Galleon chain work?

We really need answers before we push forward, and then we need to prioritise our goals.

For example:
a) Do we need Settlers ASAP?
b) Do we need Missionaries ASAP?
c) Do we need a massive army or just enough to take out Willem and then do we go hard-core on Science while only building a few Galleons?
d) Where and how will we get our Great People? For example, a small related detail is that we have "unspecified" GPP in Surfin' Turf until we intentionally or accidentally hire a Specialist or build a GPP-producing National Wonder there, at which point all of those GPP will become the GPP of the type of Specialist/Wonder that exists there. Do we want our Great People coming out at 100% odds? Are we heavily going to focus on getting The Taj Mahal? Should we delay Liberalism and go for Nationalism earlier or do we want Astronomy for a war against Elizabeth or Catherine?

If there are any questions where you're thinking "I don't know" or "I have some ideas, but I'm not sure that everyone is in agreement," then we really need to stop all turnsets and figure this stuff out so that we don't end up building things that go counter to our victory.

So, start thinking on these and any other subjects that you can come up with and post some thoughts... let's brainstorm and then pick the best set of ideas that bring it all together so that we can land this game effectively, not 50+ turns later than other teams simply because we played forward without really paying attention to where we were going.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Okay, will give long-range strategy some thought and try to post comments late tonight.

In the meantime, please comment regarding my questions at the end of posts 811 and 813, as well as leif's suggestion to take Shaka's cities and then gift the poor ones.

 

[Folket]

Hello everyone. I'm coming over my cold now and I will also look at our goal.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Good to have you healthy and back with us, Folket.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Promotions
We need to be aligned on Unit Promotions. I thought that we'd agreed early on that we want a Viking-like army of Amphibious Assault units.

Amphibious Assault is incredibly powerful on this map.

Consider:
You're in a Galley and you unload your units next to a City. You attack the City. You load up into a Galley. You heal. You unload adjacent to the next City. You attack. You load up into a Galley. You heal.

That process involves a lot of wasted turns on logistics, where we have powerful units but they're only attacking twice in eight turns.

Consider the alternative:
You're in a Galley and you amphibiously assault a City. You stay in the Galley since you weren't the last unit to attack the City. Next turn you heal since you have your full movement points available to you. You attack the same City or you attack the next City due to the Galley having sailed up to 6 squares in 2 turns, thanks to Circumnavigation. You heal. You attack. You heal. You attack. You heal.

That's four attacks in the span of eight turns. We essentially DOUBLED the size of our army! That's less Hammers, less Supply Costs, and more effectiveness all in the same amount of time.

But, it can only Happen if we promote our Units Combat I -> Combat II -> Amphibious Attack.

If we build a War Elephant or later a Mace out of a City with a Barracks, we start with 3 XP. We need to win enough battles to earn +7 XP and now we have doubled the power of our unit by promoting up to Amphibious Attack.

But, if we promote our Unit in ANY other way, we need an additional +10 XP just to get Amphibious Attack. That's a large amount of XP to earn. It's more XP required than just building a new Military Unit and it almost feels like threw away a good opportunity there.

So, we need to be in alignment here:
Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious Attack for almost all of our Units, be they War Elephants, Maces, Spearmen, Horse Archers, Chariots, etc

Exceptions include: Our Great Generals, and that's probably about it

For Catapults, nothing beats City Raider III. Promote that way for all Catapults.

Yes, I will take the full blame for the Drill Promotions. They seemed like a good idea at the time when we had Archers as our next-strongest Units and Catapults were the strongest Units in our army, but Drill I through Drill III suck... it's only when you get to Drill IV that it's a good Promotion.

Healers: We only need one. Not a Chariot, not a Catapult, but our Horatio Nelson. For now, Subutai is as good of a healer, but we should be promoting:

Horatio Nelson: Combat I + Medic I as his next 2 Promotions

Subutai: +30% retreat odds as his next Promotion


Willem War
Goals here:
- Gain XP for Elizabeth #1
- Capture Utrecht, The Hague, and Amsterdam so that Willem's capital will get relocated to his next-largest-sized City, which will likely be his only remaining City, of New Amsterdam. Doing so allows us to gift Workers to Willem at a location that is closer to our empire
- Gain Hindu Cities so that we can spread The Apostolic Palace Religion to our own Cities and to AI Cities
- Be able to Chop The Taj Mahal in Utrecht (sadly, likely without the Marble bonus). Owning Willem's other nearby Cities will take away his Cultural Borders, allowing us to Chop more


Willem War Execution
Every turn counts. He can build a Castle at any point and can also build a Military Unit per turn, per City. Now that Engineering is in his back pocket, Feudalism could be researched at any point by him, or might come in trade if another AI, such as Elizabeth who is Friendly toward him, researches Feudalism

Some thoughts said without having the game in front of me:
a) Subutai is slightly better at capturing Workers than Hortatio as Subutai gets +1 movement on any square, where as Horatio Nelson only gets +1 movement if he first moves into a Forest
b) Our Woodsmen III units are our Healers. Medic I Units are not helping us to heal. So, if units are staying behind to heal, so should one of our two Woodsmen III units should hang back, and since Subutai is better at capturing Workers, it should be Horatio Nelson
c) We need to push forward with wounded units. Let's say that Willem self-techs Feudalism. We'll want to attack his City that turn, since he'll upgrade his Archers to Longbowmen on the following turn. It's better to attack with some wounded units against Horse Archers as the top defenders than to attack with full-health units against Longbowmen as the top defenders

So, some comments made from memory:
Subutai and 2 War Elephants are healing south of Utrecht, but they are close to full health. We'll want to wake them up and move them this turn instead of healing.

Subutai could move along with the War Elephants or he could move 2 squares. I don't see a way for us to stop Willem from completing 1 Chop that I recall being somewhere to the west of The Hague, so we could move Subutai 1 square this turn and then plan to move him 2 squares next turn in order to capture one of the closer Workers. Since we'll be dropping off 2 units on the GH For between Willem's 2 Cities next turn, it is hoped that Subutai won't be attacked by enough of Willem's Units for Subutai to die. Yes, it would be ideal to have 2 Woodsmen III Units stealing Workers as a team, but we have to work with the hand that we were dealt and I think that going in with 1 Worker-stealer will have to be sufficient.

Catapults that are full-health or who can heal within the span of 1 turn in enemy territory (needs testing) with the help of a Woodsman III Unit should be marching out of Utrecht this turn, too, to join the War Elephant who has moved. The 2 War Elephants who are 1S of Utrecht will join those Cats and the first War Elephant.

Our Catapults which march out will later have the option of attacking The Hague without healing, if Willem gets Feudalism, or they can heal for 1 turn in the field... having the option to heal later gives us flexibility in when we attack his City. Also, arriving 1 turn sooner is critical if Willem builds a Castle.

A Castle starts off with 100% City Defence if you have put in 0 turns of Bombarind the City. But, if you have Bombarded the City's Defences down 50%, the Castle will only start off with 50% City Defence! It's critical that we get in those Bombarding turns ASAP, since, once a Castle gets up, you can only take off 2% City Defences per turn.

Horatio can unload from the Galley and instead we can load up a War Elephant who has 0 movement points and who is inside of Utrecht.

Horatio can load into the Galley next turn after we drop off the Spearman + a War Elephant on the GH For that is next to The Hague.

This way, the units who remain a turn in Utrecht will benefit from maximum healing due to Horatio sticking around for a turn.


Science is Key
The key to winning this game is Science. If we'd unlocked Tanks already, we'd be whipping Tanks for Catherine.

We're behind PD and TSR in terms of land captured, so we have to maximize the use of our existing land. There should be, for example, 0 turns where we don't work a Gems Mine.

So, we need it in the back of our minds the idea to ensure that we're working our Gems Mines, our Furs, and any other Commerce squares that we obtain, on every turn, as much as possible.


Setting up our next moves
Warring against Willem is a very small component of the turns ahead. We can ignore this fact and feel great about capturing each of his Cities, or we can recognize this fact and plan for a complete turnset that covers all critical aspects, so that we can feel excellent about both having success in warring and having success in achieving our overall game's goals.

We still need to figure out a lot of our goals, but here is a good example of an upcoming goal and how to best meet it:
1. As soon as we capture The Hague and Amsterdam, we will want to have these things in place:
a) 2, preferably 3 Spies in New Amsterdam, so that we can steal Engineering (unless you want to give away 5 Workers and not get them back by trying to get Engineering in a Peace Treaty, and other consequences of Willem staying alive for longer, such as trading away techs to other AIs)
AND
b) A couple of Confucian Missionaries so that we can spread Confucianism to New Amsterdam, to give us the 50% Holy City discount on the Engineering theft
AND
c) 5 Workers who are within range of New Amsterdam, so that they can be gifted to Willem
AND
d) Military Units who can capture New Amsterdam on the same turn that we gift our Workers to Willem so that Willem won't be able to disband those Workers
AND
e) Enough EPs to be able to steal Engineering

That's a lot of preparation work and if we don't do it up front, we'll delay when we get our Isabella and Catherine clues.

Optionally, we might also want this item in place:
f) Another City to gift to Willem, if we want to keep him alive

I'm starting to question whether we really want him alive. If we can set up the Engineering theft, then we won't have any real further use for Willem and Willem will be better off dead, so that he doesn't have a chance to keep trading away the techs that we've fed to him. So, I would scratch f) off from the list, as long as we can hit the a) through e) targets.


Shaka and Elizabeth
Elizabeth is great to have at Friendly, as she becomes another Mansa.

Unfortunately, we're back down to Pleased with her, with probably the only way to get her up to Friendly being to go to war with Shaka.

Yet, we're also going to get a -1 Diplo hit with Elizabeth when we redeclare war on Willem, so we would be dipping in and out of Friendly status with Elizabeth and that status might disappear if she and Shaka made Peace with each other.

Elizabeth could be useful as a trading partner if, say, she learned Nationalism on a turn where she's Friendly toward us and she trades us that tech before she starts to build The Taj Mahal herself, after which point she wouldn't trade that tech to us.

But, we eventually want to EITHER capture The Apostolic Palace from Elizabeth OR we remain at peace with her, we run Hinduism as our State Religion, we get more AP Votes than she has, become the AP Resident, and we get a bunch of AIs to vote for us without earning more total votes than us.

It's a potential landmine of a mess to let Elizabeth keep The Apostolic Palace.

But, we don't have to capture it right away, given how we'd handed her Macemen and about 5 turns of war preparations due to Shaka being at war with her for that time... what could have been 1 Archer + 1 Spearman in one City and 1 Archer + 1 Maceman in another City is now likely 3 or 4 Maces/Horse Archers per City.

Of course, if we leave her alive, she could also get Longbowmen and Knights.

To get her up to Friendly also means keeping her at war and thereby spamming more Military Units, building less Wonders for us to capture, and becoming harder and harder for us to attack.

If we don't fight Shaka for the Friendly bonus with Elizabeth, then fighting Shaka now is going to be a mistake and we should either fight Elizabeth or Catherine after Willem.

We have a limited amount of turns with warring and lacking a large amount of Amphibious Assault Units (we have 0 right now), we can't plan for a lot more warring in this game.

Cuirassiers will be an option, but by the time that we get them, every AI will have Longbowmen and many will have Knights, so we won't really be ahead of the game by waiting.


Gifting Shaka's Cities
How? Elizabeth and Catherine won't accept Cities unless they have 3 or less of their own, which won't happen unless we go to war with them first.

What purpose does this activity serve? We delay our next war and lose how many Units fighting Shaka to save 100 Hammers of a Settler, which will mostly come from 3-pop-whipping, which means roughly 3 * 13 Food = 39 Food plus 10 Hammers plus a bit of Commerce lost from whipping, so a cost less than 100 F + H + C in total... if we lose 2 Catapults against Shaka, we'll come out behind and we'll also have to fight against more-advanced Military Units when fighting against Elizabeth and Catherine.

If the goal is to get ourselves several Amphibious War Elephants and Maces and a side goal is to get Elizabeth up to Friendly status, we could go to war with Shaka while we build up boats for Catherine.

But, we'd anger several AIs by attacking Shaka, so we might never get their votes for the AP and we'd almost certainly have to make the world run non-Hindu State Religions... so, somewhere in there, we need to spam a ton of Missionaries, too, while also building up boats to go after Catherine.


Missionaries
There are a lot of inter-related pieces that we have to be aware of here for any single decision, such as to go to war with Shaka or not... who are our AP Votes coming from and what is our mitigation strategy if an AI switches into a Hindu State Religion?

Should we be spamming Judaism for, say, Mao, and Confucianism for, say, Toku, and Christianity for, say, Louis, so that we can create more Missionaries at any given time? We have a limit of 3 Missionaries of a given Religion that can exist at any one time.

How do we get Hinduism to Isabella? Should we be capturing the Barb City on her continent or sending her a Settler and a Hindu Missionary before her continent is filled with Cities? She's in Theocracy and she can't be bribed out of it, so we can only spread Hinduism to a City that we first own and then give to her, and she will not accept any City on our continent, be it Shaka's or ours, without her first being brought down to 3 or less Cities, which is something that we don't have the resources to pull off.

Will send spy into his territory next turn to see how difficult he is likely to be.

If we want Engineering from Willem, we should march that Spy to New Amsterdam.

Checked and found that Shaka wanted over 1,100 gold for peace with E, but suspect he would take Aesthetics, so plan to offer him that deal or something like it this turn.

AI wars are a key component here. We should have stopped play when war was first declared, but we'll just have to remember to do so in the future.

Before we decide what to do here, we need to determine what our overall strategy will be. Are we going to try to get Elizabeth to Friendly again? If yes, we'll have to fight more Maces from her eventually, but maybe that'll mean less Muskets from her, and slowing her tech pace so that she doesn't get to Cuirassiers or Redcoats if we delay attacking her.

Or, maybe it will be worth it to pay Shaka and Elizabeth to Cease Fire with each other if our plan is to go after Elizabeth next.

if landing party arrives on grass 5W of City4 (caravel should prevent any further coastal incursion).

That detail sounds pretty important, but I'm not really up-to-speed on the naval front. How do you know where Willem is likely to land?

use galley to unload spear on hill SW of Amsterdam, thereby blocking reinforcements between cities, and to put the mace out on the forest NE of the Hague.

Don't leave lone units where possible, as doing so just gets our units killed. Stacks of 2 at minimum, where possible, although Subutai is going to have to go in alone if we want Willem's Workers.

A War Elephant should replace Horatio and both of the Spearman and the War Elephant should land on the GH For square. If Willem wants to attack, make sure that we don't lose units in the process.

If he wants to stuff The Hague full of Horse Archers, let him do so, as then we'll kill more of his Units when attacking The Hague as our next target.

Re-load the galley with

We'll want to figure out which units can be loaded based on their ability to heal in enemy territory versus healing in Utrecht versus simply marching toward Utrecht with the land-based stack.

I don't have game access now, so I'll have to do some closer looking later to see which units are the best candidates for which approach.


Also, we should be detailing the approach vector toward The Hague, so that we maximize our Units' ability to push on to Amsterdam ASAP after capturing The Hague.

Move spy3 out of NewAm so that he doesn’t get outed before we can send him to deal with one of E’s metals.

We don't want to do that if we want Engineering.

Xopolis: next turn switch build to crossbow and 2-popwhip, putting mace next in queue but putting overflow the following turn into Oxford

We need a Harbour before the Crossbowman, and the Maceman before the Crossbowman. The reason for preventing the Hammers from decaying in the Crossbowman is to delay its completion.

A Harbour costs 80 final H, so we'd have to put less than 20 final H in it over the span of next turn so that it can be 2-pop-whipped.

What we should probably best do:
T0 (this turn) Build Oxford
T1 Put a small amount of Hammers into the Harbour (work the Cottages instead of the Mines)
T2 Whip the Mace with the Crossbowman 2nd in the build queue
T3 Whip the Harbour with the Crossbowman 2nd in the build queue
T4 Build Oxford
T5 Whip the Crossbowman
T6 Build Oxford

That Harbour is going to help us out a lot.

Gems: next turn put a citizen back on 2nd gems (still get growth in 2 turns)

Why isn't City 4 working the Gems? Someone needs to be on every turn.

Our whole early game strategy hinged upon us working Gems Mines every turn of the game in exchange for early REX. PD clearly went for early REX and every turn that we don't work a Gems Mine, we make our strategy fall behind theirs.

look for workers available to mine some of the hills there

It would be nice if we took the time to plan out the Worker actions in advance. It's easy to have the wrong Worker doing the wrong thing otherwise. Plus, we need to plan our Amsterdam capture date so that we can have 5 Workers within range of New Amsterdam 1 turn after Cease Firing with Willem, or on the same turn as Cease Firing with Willem if Mansa is Willem's Worst Enemy.

We'll need Miliary Units to capture New Amsterdam... our Horse Archer from Hippos is probably going to be one of them, but we'll probably want at least 2 non-Catapult Units in case Willem has a 2nd or 3rd City defender, as New Amsterdam must be captured after we Cease Fire, get Open Borders, steal Engineering, gift 5 Workers, and redeclare war on Willem, all on the same turn as each other.

Those details are a lot of plan out all in the span of one turn, so we'll want these actions planned out before playing.

Where/when do we build a settler for city to be gifted to W?

Maybe we won't need one, if we can plan to steal Engineering, but will we need a gift City for Elizabeth? Will we need a Settler for our canal City or will we delay it in favour of Chops going into Utrecht? Will we need a Settler for Willem's Gems Resource or will we delay it in favour of Chops going into Utrecht?

Basically, we'll have to count out Chops for The Taj before we figure out this info.

If not Settlers, will we be making Missionaries so that we can get started on the time-sensitive task of spreading Religions around?

Utrecht will need Confucianism, while Toku, Mao, and Louis will need some Religion that isn't Hinduism... Confucianism if we want them to like us, but then they may like each other and become Friendly and trade with each other, or perhaps 3 different Religions, but then some might become the Worst Enemies of others. Do we care if they like us? That's a question that we need to answer.

Or, perhaps we'll need another couple of Military Units to take down New Amsterdam. One Archer looks weak, but what if it becomes 2 or 3 Longbowmen? Will we be prepared for that?

Maybe we need to march a Catapult on New Amsterdam now and begin wounding the Archer so that if it upgrades to a Longbowman, we can keep it wounded with Catapult attacks.

What do we do with the GG that will be coming very soon?

It will join with a unit on the same square as our Queen Elizabeth Galley. That unit could be:
- Our second Galley to aid with shipping troops over to Elizabeth, if we decide to attack her
- A Warrior that will upgrade to a Maceman for free
- Our Caravel if we plan to go for Nationalism before Liberalism, to get a start on The Taj Mahal, so that we can have a speedy Missionary-delivering Caravel

As you can see "what" we do for each decision relies on what our bigger-picture strategy is going to be. Until we've resolved the bigger-picture strategy question, it's not clear as to what we should be doing in many cases.

Don't we need to use the first or one of the first confu missionaries on Utrecht, if we're going to build the NE there?

Who said anything about The National Epic in Utrecht? Utrecht is the only place that we could build The Taj Mahal without the use of a Great Engineer.

Amsterdam was the planned location for The National Epic, due to its high Food, but from where are we getting our Great People (for Isabella #1: a Great Prophet, a Great Artist, and a Great Scientist)?

Surfin' Turf? If yes, The Heroic Epic gives Great Artist GPP, so we'd need our Great Scientist to come from Amsterdam, so Amsterdam couldn't get The National Epic.

If not from Surfin' Turf, and we put The National Epic in Amsterdam, from where will we get our Great Scientist (for Isabella #1)? Will we resign ourselves to self-teching Physics? Does that fact mean not being able to let Mansa or Elizabeth tech Physics on our behalf instead, perhaps limiting the amount of help in teching that we can get from Mansa (and possibly from Elizabeth, if we choose to keep her teching on our behalf for a while by getting her back up to Friendly status)?

Every decision is inter-related in some way. Every turn that we "push the game forward" can mean further delaying some goals by even more turns than we play forward.

If we plan it all out effectively, we might have 50 to 80 less turns in the game to play overall. If we just push forward, we might have more turns where we're fighting against Grenadiers, Riflemen, and other big messes that happen as more turns go by without a solid plan in place.

As W will give us a city for peace, doesn't that mean we could get Engineering instead?

Getting Peace instead of a Cease Fire with Willem can cost us 5 Workers, and even if we get the Workers back eventually, costs us 50 Worker turns.

Or, it means delaying gifting him Workers for 10 turns, further delaying when we can potentially plan for a different Catherine or Isabella task.

Getting Peace with Willem is not a worthwhile cost to pay, so if we want Engineering, we'll have to plan to steal it.

perhaps we should consider peace instead of a cease fire after capturing his two remaining major cities.

We might as well throw the game away as lost if we do that. He'll vote for Utrecht back via the AP.

We have to time the AP votes with when we're not at war with Willem... either we do the Cease Fire and redeclaration all within the span of one turn, or else we have to be very cognizent of when AP Resolutions will be proposed so as not to be out of a war with Willem when a vote comes up, otherwise Willem's ex-City will automatically be voted back into his hands.

Drawing on your knowledge of worker deletions: Can I plan to take The Hague and on the same turn send chariots and whatever else is available to capture workers?

Theoretically, yes, but we'd have to plan for where Amsterdam's Culture will exist, and sometimes there are bugs with AI's Culture remaining even after you capture an AI City, so this approach might not work. I think that we're just going to have to push forward with Subutai.

In particular, how much can I threaten the Hague on the turn preceding capture without spooking W into deleting them?

Threaten The Hague all that you want. The Workers just want somewhere to go (north-west of The Hague) that they feel is "safe"... they incorrectly believe that 2 squares away from Subutai is safe.

They correctly believe that 2 squares away from a Chariot that has a flat-land square between them is not safe, so depending upon where we send our Chariots, we could scare them into suiciding.

 

[leif erikson]

How? Elizabeth and Catherine won't accept Cities unless they have 3 or less of their own, which won't happen unless we go to war with them first.

If this is true, then what good will building settlers be, if we cannot gift them cities anyway?

My concern is having our army on another continent and Shaka decides to us. He is a thorn in my side when I play.

It's a potential landmine of a mess to let Elizabeth keep The Apostolic Palace.

Agree with this. We need to take it from her.

The key to winning this game is Science.

Agree.
What science objectives do we need to meet besides beelining Combustion and Industrialism?
Would like to see that third option for Catherine...

I'm starting to question whether we really want him alive. If we can set up the Engineering theft, then we won't have any real further use for Willem and Willem will be better off dead, so that he doesn't have a chance to keep trading away the techs that we've fed to him. So, I would scratch f) off from the list, as long as we can hit the a) through e) targets.

Who are we going to ask about Catherine #3? At three times the price?

We have a limited amount of turns with warring and lacking a large amount of Amphibious Assault Units (we have 0 right now), we can't plan for a lot more warring in this game.

Can we create them via a war with Shaka?

With all the missionaries we seem to need to get set up for religious VC, how much longer do you think Domination might take?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If this is true, then what good will building settlers be, if we cannot gift them cities anyway?

We can gift Elizabeth a City that is within 9.5 or less squares away from one of her existing Cities. Diagonals count as 1.5 in terms of distance.


As for Catherine, the idea is that we either need a lot of Galleons so that we can send each Tank across of the map in a very efficient manner, although we're relying on not making misclicks when doing so...

Or, we capture enough of her Cities such that after Cease Firing with her, she will have 3 or less Cities and will accept a City anywhere on the map, at which point we gift her a City that is in our core area. We won't need this Settler for a long time, although it would be nice if we could reduce the length of "long time" to being shorter. One possible way is to go after Catherine directly after going after Willem.

EDIT: Note that after gifting her a City in our core area, it still would not be her capital, so we'd have to fight her a second time. If we wanted her votes, we'd have to Liberate her Cities to her and then re-capture them. Having time between capturing the Cities and needing to Liberate them would allow us to whip down those Cities so that they wouldn't be a pain to reconquer and we could replenish our lost troops from the first war. So, this point is a point in favour of going after Catherine when we're done with Willem.

My concern is having our army on another continent and Shaka decides to us.

That's a valid concern, but it depends upon what we decide to do.

If we let Shaka stay at war with Elizabeth, he won't be declaring war on us while he's still in a war.

If we produce a lot of Military Units ourselves and get a pretty high Power, we could potentially deter Shaka from ever attacking.

If Shaka makes a Demand/Request and we give in to it, we wouldn't be attacked for 10 turns.

The Apostolic Palace Resident could call for vote for a war to stop between us, since Shaka is a Full Member and we are a Member.

Basically, there are ways to prevent Shaka doing a lot of damage to us if he does declare war on us while our army is at sea.

What science objectives do we need to meet besides beelining Combustion and Industrialism?
Would like to see that third option for Catherine...

Technically, we don't need Combustion if an AI Researches it and connects up 2 Oil Resources, but the odds of that happening are low enough that we might as well say that we need Combustion.

Who are we going to ask about Catherine #3? At three times the price?

The lack of clarity on our plans is why we really need to document a plan that we can all understand. One thing for certain is that we'll get the 2 Isabella clues and the 1 Catherine clue that we don't yet know before eliminating Willem by way of capturing The Hague, capturing Amsterdam, leaving Willem with New Amsterdam, Cease Firing, getting the clues by gifting Workers in Willem's capital (which will have been relocated to New Amsterdam by way of capturing all of his other Cities), trying to steal Engineering, and only then capturing New Amsterdam, eliminating him from the game.

But, I realise how easy it is to get lost on the "ideas that may or may not come to pass" versus the "decided-upon plans," since we're not really documenting the difference anywhere.

Can we create them via a war with Shaka?

That is one of the options on the table. We were incredibly slow with our Willem war, though, so if we do go after Shaka, it would help if we had a way to do so efficiently, such as by using Galleons.

One downside to war with Shaka in the short term is that we may have to give up on Chopping The Taj Mahal, or would have to have extra guards for our Workers, as Impis can walk through Forests as though the Forests were flatland and thus Impis are one of the game's nastiest Worker-stealers, with Keshiks ranking a close second for a similar ability to ignore terrain movement costs.

With all the missionaries we seem to need to get set up for religious VC, how much longer do you think Domination might take?

Domination will take way longer because of our tech path. Lightbulbing Astronomy could have meant hitting AIs when they only had Archers. Now, we'll be lucky to finish the war against Willem before he gets Longbowmen, will be extremely lucky to even start our war against Elizabeth or Shaka before they get Longbowmen, and will probably face Longbowmen against Catherine unless we plan to attack her right after attacking Willem.

Domination on this map, even with early Astronomy, is non-trivial anyway, due to several factors, including a lack of Vassals and AIs being on their own landmasses, so you can't play one AI against another AI (except for Isabella and Mansa or Willem and Shaka, plus possibly Catherine and Toku, although likely Catherine is only reachable by Astronomy). I don't expect either of TSR or PD to go for Domination.

Catherine is only likely to be in one of two locations, unless she has a 3-City empire (in which case she would become trivially easy to conquer to the point that such a thing is not likely), those being west of Shaka and north-east of Isabella. Fortunately, from a geographical standpoint, both of those areas are reasonably close to each other such that if we don't find her at one of those locations, the other location is "somewhat close to the first location" in that both locations are roughly on the opposite end of the map from us.