The second Finnish succession game: struggle for immortality

[Robert FIN]

PPP:

I think I will go ahead and trade for Feud even though it costs over 400 g. Selfteching it would cost about 500g and it would be later. I want to be able to see immediately whether or not Stalin is willing to cap and thus decide where I'll move our units. I think we should capture Rostov since it puts cultural pressure on Moscow and I think Moscow will be our future Heroic epic site. My idea is that we don't keep killing Stalin even when we're going for dom (and get more pop and land for dom limits). Instead we use our advantage, big army, now and try to capitulate civs and keep rolling which will lead to dom or conq I don't really care which one.

Which bring us to the next question: who is the target (or if we should keep warring at all)? I think that we need more vassals to trade with. Almost all tech trades are now blocked by wfyabta which came in sooner than I thought. Everyone but Sully has longbows but that shouldn't be a surprise. I think we should attack Huana. He has been wonderspamming, although his wonders won't be that useful for us. Judging by what we can see his land seems good and is well cottaged and he doesn't have a big army.

There is also the question about what JC will do and how soon? As I said I think his most likely targets are inca and portugal so he might join our war. That means if we attacks inca we can't fool around but have cap inca asap to do it before JC does that. If he attacks Portugal that would be ideal. Joao has a vassal so he won't cap to Rome fast. I think we would be able to cap inca nad then maybe backstab Rome and kill his units in the open if he does attack Portugal.

Techpath will be towards engineering. After capping Stalin I'd trade for Aesth and then tech literature to unlock HE, since Moscow is a perfect site for HE(I think we should mostly settle our GGs there including the one we've got currently). I think we should bank gold until we have capped inca and then we can trade for MC and tech towards engineering.

Btw it's funny how Zara's workers are stuck surrounded by our borders. Would be easiest worker steal ever if we decided to attack Portugal.

Yes, excellent plan. I give you "the green light". So are we going to trade for feudalism because we want to cap Stalin soon? Will he capitulate now? Well, just play now and see what happens!

 

[sampsa]

Hi guys, I'm abroad until next Monday and can't contribute before that. I'm also having a period of disinterest for CivIV, but I'll help the team to finish the game.

 

[sinimusta]

I played until T137. I stopped just before I intended to start the war against inca.

Made this deal with Portugal:

Spoiler :

Also made some resource deals to get us more gold and swapped into vassalage and representation.

I was thinking about taking Rostov but decided against it. Stalin would already capitulate and it would have just taken too long to go to Rostov. Also Stalin sent a stack of spears towards us which made me decide that we we're ready to cap him:

Spoiler :

We could have handled these guys but would maybe lost some units or at least got our army wounded, and thus wasted time. Huana looks thinly defended (I know I keep saying this about AI players) and has good land + would be a great vassal for tech trade so I want him sooner rather than later.

So Stalin gave in:

Spoiler :

Pcs about our new cities, Novgorod which has nice shrine:

Spoiler :

Moscow, really needs that courthouse:

Spoiler :

I've been thinking if we really should put the HE there. Without stone quarry it has only two hills and the iron, we have better production in Aksum, the Ethiopian cap. Maybe put the HE there? I sent our last GG towards Aksum it already has 1 GG settled (another factor when considering HE site). Aksum would also be awesome NE site and GP farm but I'm not sure if we need one in this game.

Stalin was 1T away from Drama, so I let him reasearch that to trade for it:

Spoiler :

Both Currency and Monarchy are owned by most other AI civs.

"Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
Last turn JC let slip his dogs of war towards Huana Capac. I immeadiately moved our spy chariot towards roman-incan borders to see if we're in a race with Rome for incan cities. No Roman legions spotted yet. I had already decided to go for this war next turn. Here's the plan:

Spoiler :

I've splitted our stack, the healthy units went to Novgorod since they had to move further and so couldn't spend time healing, while wounded units healed with our general in St.Pete. Inca has some troops in the cap which will probably go towards Roman border. The idea is that southern stack will strike towards Ollantauambo and northern will take the nicely cottaged city of Tiwanaku and then press on towards the cap.

Edit: We have one problem: lack of siege. The southern stack will get a third cat from St.pete since I whipped it but that's still a bit low. Far from the 50% rule. Northern stack has about 1/3 siege so when advancing I would try to spare some cats to keep the offensive running.

Edit2: Added the save.

@Sampsa: Do you want to take turnsets or just give advice?

 

[Robert FIN]

OK, good job! However, here's the deal: I have not time to comment very good now but I'll be posting tomorrow. I post IU 101 tomorrow so I haven't got time to play until monday. Sampsa can if if he wants to. Let's plan properly now.

 

[Robert FIN]

Hi Sinimusta! I feel somehow extremely interested in Civ today and my weekend action what keeps me out of playing this at weekends is canceled today so I'd like to play a little! If you gimme a green light, I'll play until Ollantaytambo and Tiwanaku are on our control, or if I fail its max 5 turns. Turns of war are critical. I shouldn't need to know what's next in our tech list, I just run the slider at 0%. I try to whip Moscow for the Courthouse if possible. Tell me if you have some other special requirements. I wait for your judgement !

 

[Robert FIN]

...No answer. Well, I play monday !

 

[sinimusta]

Hi Sinimusta! I feel somehow extremely interested in Civ today and my weekend action what keeps me out of playing this at weekends is canceled today so I'd like to play a little! If you gimme a green light, I'll play until Ollantaytambo and Tiwanaku are on our control, or if I fail its max 5 turns. Turns of war are critical. I shouldn't need to know what's next in our tech list, I just run the slider at 0%. I try to whip Moscow for the Courthouse if possible. Tell me if you have some other special requirements. I wait for your judgement !

Was a bit busy today and didn't check this thread as it has been silent here lately. Moscow already has the courthouse . I mainly chose that picture to show that city for lurkers and to show how high maintenance is in our conquered cities, it will climb up as we press on. With rep 0% research is still worth some nice beakers, but you can keep researching literature for HE.

Most important thing about the coming war is to prevent inca from capping to Rome. That means we need to cap the inca immeadiately when they're ready to give up, so check for that (bug-mod should show it though) or risk inca vassaling to Rome. Of course if Rome has no war success against inca and we do have (like taking cities and killing a lot of units), then that risk should be low. Absolute Zero lost a game because of that(one of the main reasons anyway, interesting game with a low commerce start): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqyBKiHbM__FXto7Iz2t_RusO0klifF-C

Edit: we're low on siege so try to focus on building more. And I think you should not sacrifice all cats when attacking cities but save some for the next cities.

 

[Robert FIN]

620AD

Spoiler :

-In first turn I started war against HC. Moved the stacks into place 1.



-On the second turn I moved stacks to place 2. I see this terrible surprise:


Well, he'll bombard anyways, so let's see what happens.

-Ollan is taken.

It took two died WEs.

And meanwhile in Tiiwanaku, I see that JC will be useful to us. Check this army out:


-Lost 2 catas while sieging Tiwanaku. I ran out of units to capture it this turn, so let's hope that JC softens the city.

JC told us to convert Judaim but I refuce. Pleased -> Cautious.

-Tiwanaku taken with no losses/this turn.

Save:

 

[sinimusta]

Good that you got Tiwanaku before JC. But it was a huge risk to make an attempt for it and then notice that we can't take it this turn. How much units we're in tiwanaku when you had to stop attacking?

Some minor things, if you want to become better at civ: Check trade screens often. AIs shouldn't have gpt, that should be coming for you in exchange for resources. And AIs shouldn't have excess gold like 100g or like that if we can sell them old teches that more advanced civs have. Promotions! Our northern army group near tiwanaku has three medic promoted regiments. Medic doesn't stack meaning that it's no use haveing more than 1 medic1 unit per stack. We shouldn't promote our main fighters WEs to medic, but the weaker units like holkans or chariots or axes. Cats shouldn't use barrage but city raider if we're attacking cities.

Anyway good job on bringing Huana on his knees. He's now willing to capitulate and I think we should do that if we want to win fast. And our amount of siege looks better now.

So what next? I think we should cap Huana and trade for his teches. Then only JC, Sully and Joao are left. Sully is backwards and far away so we can deal with him later. JC has currently a sizable army but is techonologically backwards. Joao is best techer among those three. So basically JC is strong now but Joao will be strong later.

But Joao could bribe JC against us so we can't go on ignoring Rome. Basically what I think we should do is to get Rome's stack in a position preferably without defensive bonuses where we can hit it with collateral and kill it with WEs and stuff.

 

[Robert FIN]

Good that you got Tiwanaku before JC. But it was a huge risk to make an attempt for it and then notice that we can't take it this turn. How much units we're in tiwanaku when you had to stop attacking? Hehe , actually I planned it better than I let you understand. The situation was that I had too small amount of units to take the city down, but I left there so many defenders that JC cannot capture it next turn either. Winner is always us.

Some minor things, if you want to become better at civ: Check trade screens often. AIs shouldn't have gpt, that should be coming for you in exchange for resources. And AIs shouldn't have excess gold like 100g or like that if we can sell them old teches that more advanced civs have. Yeah, that's a zone where I must improve massively ! Promotions! Our northern army group near tiwanaku has three medic promoted regiments. Medic doesn't stack meaning that it's no use haveing more than 1 medic1 unit per stack. We shouldn't promote our main fighters WEs to medic, but the weaker units like holkans or chariots or axes. Cats shouldn't use barrage but city raider if we're attacking cities. Umm.. Yeah true. Actually it was a silly accident .

Anyway good job on bringing Huana on his knees. He's now willing to capitulate and I think we should do that if we want to win fast. And our amount of siege looks better now.

So what next? I think we should cap Huana and trade for his teches. Then only JC, Sully and Joao are left. Sully is backwards and far away so we can deal with him later. Yeah, Sully lost the game already. We decide when its his turn to get crushed. JC has currently a sizable army but is techonologically backwards. Joao is best techer among those three. So basically JC is strong now but Joao will be strong later. Let's kill JC's legion on the field, out from cities. JC is most dangerous now, IMO.

But Joao could bribe JC against us so we can't go on ignoring Rome. Basically what I think we should do is to get Rome's stack in a position preferably without defensive bonuses where we can hit it with collateral and kill it with WEs and stuff.

That's it .

 

[sinimusta]

Ok misunderstood that part about taking Tiwanaku. gj

 

[Robert FIN]

Ok misunderstood that part about taking Tiwanaku. gj

! NP, I really want to improve in this game ! I just found the idea of gambling if JC captures the city or not really funny ! By the way, I think that its your turn, so go ahead and tell me when would you like to play your turn and perhaps show me your rough PPP.

 

[sinimusta]

I think I'll play during Wednesday so you and possibly Sampsa have some time to comment.

First I'll accept Huana's capitulation. I'll gather our forces near Novgorod and I'll keep an eye on the Roman stack. It'll probably head towards Roman soil. I could play my turnset in 2 parts so I could make a more accurate battle plan when I know where the Roman army decides to stay. If the Romans come 2 tiles away from Novgorod I think we should temporarily sacrifice the city and kill the Roman stack when it takes the city. I think they'll head for Novgorod when I dow on Rome but they might go for our vassals too which would change that a bit.

I'll tech literature and then towards engineering. +1 road movement will speed up our win and trebs will be more effective than cats against cities. Also we'll soon get maces so I think then we can stop producing WEs.

 

[Robert FIN]

Green light to your plans !! Just be extremely careful about JC's stack. We don't want to kill them when they are covering behind their walls, we want to slay them in the plains.

 

[sinimusta]

Huana gave in:

Spoiler :

Here's an example how to get money from AIs:

Spoiler :

I sold asth to JC, HBR to Stalin (maybe he builds some HAs to help us as a bonus), aesth to Sully and aesth to Joao for all the money they had. With the money I teched us to Machinery and started banking gold for engineering. I think we could win with just unit spam and crashing our economy though, trebs are by no means mandatory.



Here's the resource trade screen. Note the AIs have no (edit: excess) gpt, it's all spent on our resources:

Spoiler :

I gathered our army in Novgorod and sent a couple of units to scout Caesar's land. Fantsu, now I've gotten us a sentry chariot for better intel, since Caesar is a more serious adversary. Our land is mostly building military, before the war we had more siege than WEs. I also added a couple of HAs since they get to the frontlines faster. As our enemies are further and further away I think we should focus on faster units in the future in our Ethiopian cities. I settled our GG in Moscow as it's by far our best hammer city since it got it's quarry and other tiles back from Russia.


Here's is my war plan:

Spoiler :

So the points 1 and 2 are where I think Romans will march after I declare on them. When they get to point 2 I'll hit them with collateral (about 6 cats, I don't want to spend all our cats) and then send the WEs in.


Romans marched as I predicted:

Spoiler :

The battle (doesn't show the deaths of 6 suicide cats, promoted to drill+barrage):

Spoiler :

So now I think it should be a bit easier to get Roman cities. I think we should heal for a turn in Novgorod, then start march towards Rome and then split and go for Neapolis and Antium.

 

[Robert FIN]

Great!! Excellent playing!! You owned his stack on flatland ! I remember you saying that you plan to play your turn in two sets. Are you still planning to do so, or what is on your mind? Whatever. I quess that your tactic about Rome/split is good for me. I agree to it .

 

[sinimusta]

I was planning to first stop before DoWing but I decided to go for the war anyway so yeah, no two parts.

 

[Robert FIN]

I was planning to first stop before DoWing but I decided to go for the war anyway so yeah, no two parts.

Fine. It means my turn unless someone isn't willing to play ! So I will bring the boys back from Rome to Moscow now for one turn, then return, capture Rome, split troops up, capture Antium and Neapolis and save. Ok? I keep on using/building siege machines hard. I'll post if I get in trouble. I'll play tomorrow or friday. Is it fine?

 

[sinimusta]

Fine. It means my turn unless someone isn't willing to play ! So I will bring the boys back from Rome to Moscow now for one turn, then return, capture Rome, split troops up, capture Antium and Neapolis and save. Ok? I keep on using/building siege machines hard. I'll post if I get in trouble. I'll play tomorrow or friday. Is it fine?

What? I hope you mean Novgorod, not Moscow, going back to Moscow would be HUGE waste of time. Our troops are currently in Novgorod, so just heal there 1T then go towards Rome. I didn't order them yet to start marching towards Rome.


Also you should check when JC is ready to capitulate, I think we should take his capitulation immediately when he's ready to give in. Also one thing I perhaps should have considered peacevassaling. JC may peacevassal to Joao.

 

[Robert FIN]

Spoiler :

(*= 1 turn.)

*Our troops heal in Novgorod (yup, no Moscow).

*Our army move towads Rome, nothing special on this turn again..

*Our army move towads Rome, nothing special on this turn again..

*Our army move towads Rome, nothing special on this turn again..

*We reach the port of Rome. We start to break the walls.

*We shoot again and now they've got only 8% advantage in defence. Next turn I destroy 'em.

*3 Catas died when we captured Rome. They had a lot of units there. Now I'll split up!


* All catas and about half of units are going to East. Western troops wait 1 turn for reinforcement catas.

*Eastern army moves, Western gathers up in Rome.

*Armies move, East reaches Neapolis.

*4 WEs and 3 catas died when capturing Neapolis, because I didn't bombard. Western stack moves.

Save: