6 grams: C3C - Diety, with AI Armies (Maybe)

[Kaiser_Berger]

Preturn- This is scary stuff. I unleash the horses on the knights and the first one kills the first knight losing 2hp, we manage to wound the second one, thats good enough to make it run.

IT- Sumeria comes down with three knights, we lose a spear.

T1 360

Move some troops around, waiting for our force to heal up.

IT- we lose a couple spears and a horse.

T2 370

Move our force into position to make a run towards Erech next turn.

IT- I come to the sad realization that we stand no realistic chance of getting to the iron as we get slaughtered by Sumerian knights. Netherlands declares on Egypt.

T3 380

The war whiners require us to up the lux and hire some clowns.

I withdraw our troops to Shimonseki. I think we’re looking at peace and a broken alliance in a few turns just to survive.

IT- We fend off one knight, Egyptian town fends off a couple. Dutch start Newton’s and are fully Industrial.

T4 390

It takes plenty of horses, but I manage to kill the incoming stack of muskets and knights Sumeria threw at us. In fact we shed so much blood lux needs to be raised again.

IT- And just when I thought we might be able to prolong this war, Sumeria sends 16 knights to our border. So much for that. Also, they have already plopped a new town down to reclaim their land.

T5 400

Well, time for peace it is, broken alliance or not. It won’t take Sumeria more than 13 turns to end our existence. Of course, it would work a lot better if they would acknowledge our envoy. Yikes. Withdraw and hope they will talk next turn.

IT- Sumeria takes Asyut and attacks us. We lose several horses.

T6 410

Sumeria will talk and take peace straight up. However, I deal for Engineering, getting it for 239g and 20gpt.

I put us back into full builder mode for now, starting some libraries. I lower lux back to 10%, allowing us to research Feudalism in 8 turns.

Some good news. Sumeria, Greece and Portugal all have spare iron. I think we should research to Chivalry, get that iron, uprade our remaining horses and build some Sammys and go after Sumeria for real.

IT- France declares on Egypt. Sumeria completes Smith’s.

T7 420

Nothing much to do. Nice and quiet for a change.

IT- Portugal declares on Egypt. Dutch complete Newton’s.

T8 430

Fairly quiet turn again.

IT- zzz

T9 440

All quiet yet again.

IT- zzz

T10 450

Nothing new.



Summary

We are in a builder mode now, with several Libraries near completion. I would advocate cheap Cathedrals after that for happiness help. Right by the time we are finishing those up, we should be quite close to Chivalry and Samurai. We now have iron available, so we should have no trouble building them. Hopefully our trashed rep won’t hurt us there.

The workers in the southwest are trying to get water hooked up to the are so we can irrigate and have some specialist farms, as the cities are completely corrupt.

I have a settler in place to form a squeezed city by Asyut. It’s a close fit, but it won’t cause a declaration since it only overlaps one of Asyut’s nine starting tiles.

 

[Tone]

That sounded tough! I cannot look at it until this evening as I'm late for work already. I'm sure that I'll have some questions this evening though.

 

[grahamiam]

well, that was always a possibility. next, it'll be sami's vs rifles. might as well get some rock chuckers built as well. also, sounds like a WW vs Egypt atm. that's not good either recommend we buy iron from someone other than Sumeria. no need pumping that monster with more gold.

Roster:
Kaiser Berger
Tone -> UP
M60A3TTS -> on deck
Mailman
Wotan
grahamiam

 

[Tone]

Got it. Looks straightforward. (Looks like we can get iron when we want it for around 15gpt.) Happiness, cats and horses-correct? I'll play tomorrow.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

I like stacks of Samurai and trebs against rifles a lot better than a stack of horses against muskets. The countering knights were just brutal. At least with Samurai we stand a chance on defense.

 

[Tone]

Sorry, didn't get around to playing Sat biut can play today.

Just one question before I start: will the price of iron get more expensive when we get Fued and even more expensive when we get Chiv or is it only when you have a use for it that the price goes up but additional applications for the resource add no additional value?

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

I've never heard of it getting more expenisve with new tech. All I know is that its based on your size.

 

[grahamiam]

i know that oil gets more expensive once you learn combustion, but I don't know if it gets more expensive as you learn MT and Flight. I assume it's the same for iron, but once you learn IW, you can build iron-based units. Anyways, to be safe, let's buy it 1T before we learn chivalry.

 

[LKendter]

I've never heard of it getting more expenisve with new tech. All I know is that its based on your size.

lurker's comment: There are cases where new tech changes price. For example Oil is considered to have no value with refining. However, once you get a tech with military units that use oil the price changes.

EDIT: Looks like I cross posted the same fact...

 

[Tone]

Yes, it was the oil example that got me thinking about this. Normally I wouldn't worry too much but as it's an SG and we're in a tricky situation, I thought I'd better ask before it was too late. I'll carry on and post later this evening.

 

[Tone]

There could be another reason but the price of iron has shot up. I've only played 6 turns so far-see end of post.

turn 0 (450)
everything fine-press enter

IBT
Izumi: worker>worker. Gr dec war on Egypt.

turn 1 (460)
Squeeze in Kozuke (temple)

IBT
I wasn't on the ball as a lux deal runs out. Kyoto riots but I scroll through the rest.
Osaka: lib>cath, Shimonoseki: court>lib, Toyama: worker>worker.

turn 2 (470)
I can't find a reference to any lux deals in the posts but I could be as blind as a bat. Edu and Tokyo are starving (switch builds from libs to caths as growth will cause probs even with lux in these food-poor cities) and we have stacks of specialists in the North where we need them working tiles so I buy Incence from Greece for WM and 13gpt.
Workers move to get water in the south flowing for specialist factories.

IBT
Renew RoP with Egypt getting 1gpt.
Kyoto: cath>treb. Edu:cath>lib. Bizen: settler>settler.

turn 3 (480)
zzz

IBT
Fued>Chiv (in 7)
Tokyo: cath>lib.

turn 4 (490)
Build Sado (temple)

IBT
Sum and Egypt sign PT
Kyoto: treb>treb

turn 5 (500)
zzz

IBT
Kogoshima: Lib>cath

turn 6 (510)
A lux that we've been selling is up for renewal. We have Chiv in 4-5 turns so I investigate buying it and iron. Can get Chiv from the Greeks for our WM, 17gpt and 224g. Iron though is a different matter. Portugal will trade for silks and 93gpt and the Greeks want WM and 100gpt!

It's clear that we will have to research Chiv but the price for iron has gone up just a bit so we will not be able to upgrade many horses in our 20 turns . Perhaps research should be turned down a bit to build up some cash reserves? Currently can get Chiv in 5 turns @ -24gpt although the lux will bring in some cash.

I cannot play on until this evening and I realise that I've dragged this out too long. RL issues, sorry!. I attach the save if the next player wants to pick it up and run with it-just post a got it if this happens so I know not to continue with it. NB the lux needs to be sold though.

 

[grahamiam]

our survival depends on the iron. if we want to get it cheaper, try renegociating peace while buying it. i suspect our rep is a bit tarnished by signing peace with Sumeria before our MA with Egypt ran out.

Tone, if you want to finish this tonight, I suspect you have time before M60 can look at it. Either way, post a "got it" so we don't have any confusion.

Roster:
Kaiser Berger
Tone
M60A3TTS -> UP
Mailman -> on deck
Wotan
grahamiam

 

[Tone]

I looked at the possibility of buying iron after KB had finished and it was available for 15gpt (go back about 10 posts) so it cannot be our rep as we'd already broken the alliances by then.

I won't be home until late this evening as I have a 7.30pm meeting but I will play it when I get home unless M60 gets there first. I shall continue to research and buy the iron with one turn of research left. M60 will then play with virtually no gpt to play with so we've really got to get that iron source from Sumeria on our next attack.

 

[M60A3TTS]

You've got it Tone, so finish it up. I'll take what I get.

 

[Tone]

Right. I'm finally at home so I can finish my set now. Expect a post soon.

 

[Tone]

turn 6 continued
Dutch give us just short of 300g and wm for silks.

IBT
Kyoto: Treb>Treb. Satsuma: Lib>Cath. Suo: market>Aqueduct.

turn 7 (520)
zzz

IBT
The Dutch make a demand for 43g. They have cavs so fine, take the cash.

turn 8 (530)
zzz

IBT
Kyoto: treb>treb.

turn 9 (540)
One turn from Chiv so I check out the iron situation. Portugal want 100gpt but if we give them our horses it reduces the gpt to 73. Still expensive but better and we don't need the horses anymore, do we?! We then run research at a deficit for one turn and we have Sams in production. Change treb build to horseman beforehand and convert lib builds next turn and we get some Sams started early. What do you think? I'm not sure about renegotiating peace though they are already at war so it may pay off. I'll leave that to you M60 and I'll stop a turn short just in case you don't like the idea but I can't see anything better. (Research is off to enable the iron deal!)

 

[grahamiam]

nahh, reneg peace is a bad idea, actually. if the iron route gets cutoff, we'd be at war. nice headsup on the prebuilds

M60 up (for sure now)
Mailman on deck

 

[Tone]

Well the 'prebuilds' weren't actually prebuilds; they were me in builder mode following on from KB thinking that we could pick up iron for around 15gpt. I just think that libs are a luxury at the moment as we now just need stacks of military to get to the iron if we are to stand a chance of turning this game around. I haven't seen any Sum cavs yet BTW so it's not all bad.

Our PT with Sum will be up half-way through M60s turn set. As there was gpt involved, will they automatically ask for a renewal or is it only if they pay us gpt in a PT when this happens? (And if it is going to happen what should our response be?)

 

[M60A3TTS]

A couple things.

Did the iron deal. Doing turn 3 at the moment, and we have a few samurai. It costs 120 gold to upgrade a horse. As cash starved as we are, I could only upgrade two horses. I'm thinking of sending most of the rest to the glue factory for 7 shields each to expedite samurai production. They just won't be much good in the next battle. Understand we don't want to get too low, so I only would do it when we have like 7-14 shields to go in a city for a samurai. The idea is to squeeze out every last samurai before the iron deal expires.

The other thing is the western zone is almost totally corrupted, and building a lot of roads/mines isn't adding anything to the bottom line. Rather than crank out more workers and settlers that add to our support costs, my thought is to merge most workers into the towns to get them to pop 6 with a couple taxmen in each. That will add to the cash flow considerably, and allow some small rush buys, again squeezing out more samurai.

Also, the Dutch have cav, so you can be pretty sure the Sumerians do as well.

 

[Tone]

Sounds reasonable IMO if we are using horses to produce Sams as we are not getting any weaker by doing it and, as you say, we can then squeeze every last drop out of the iron deal. I guess there will be a time when we will be at war without iron (hopefully not too long) when we could produce horses for upgrading again.

The settlers and workers were to go flooded ICS in the SW and then merge the workers back to the towns again to produce specialist farms (KB's suggestion). Have we got enough now?

I saw some Dutch cavs as well but although there was plenty of the usual pointless movement for Sum units around the borders (plus a SoD heading for an Egyptian town just before they signed a PT), I never saw any cavs. I know that doesn't mean they haven't got them but if the majority of their forces are knights we stand a slightly better chance. Perhaps I'm just trying to hold onto any glimmer of hope that comes our way