A Shadow of Emperor Quill

[pigswill]

A fairly short round and in general terms fairly straightforward.

Captured Liverpool in 1595 and razed it. Its the only source of coal nearby but its a pretty naff location. Started a settler to build a city that will grab the coal but pick up a bit of food as well. Monte sent a stack to Hastings (4 knights, 3 ele, treb,mace).

The following turn Monte's stack attacked Hastings (defended by 2 drill 3 rifles) and duly perished.

1625. Captured York and kept it. Lost a cat and a rifle. On capturing York I discovered a small stack of Chuck's lads looking wearied and battle-worn, obviously they'd been attacking in between turns (but I pinched the city first )

1635. Steel discovered. Bit of trading, picked up astronomy, DR, constitution and bits of cash. Upgraded a few trebs. Started researching corporation. My economy took a surprisingly small hit from losing Colossus largely because the AIs were coming out the other side of mercantilism (free markets or state property) so ocean trade routes opened up at the right time.

1650 Founded Haarlem north of Liverpool to claim the coal. Sury founded a city in the middle of my territory to grab the free oil tile on a three tundra tile site. Oil is going to be an issue in this game.

1655. Captured Dover, new city so auto-razed. It wasn't a bad site (copper, crab and fur with a bunch of ice) but I was in a hurry to disappear England so I wasn't going to wait a dozen turns for it to grow.

Sent a few units north to pinch a source of Monte's copper, defended by 3LBs in a fort but that didn't make much difference.

1665. Captured Warwick. England's last city so its Goodnight Elizabeth.

At the start of the round Monte was demanding a city for peace. He's beginning to adjust:

 

[pigswill]

I've wiped out England and picked up another four cities so that's good.

Decent relationships with most AIs so that's good:

Not falling too far behind in techs yet:

Power is picking up and doing ok for hammers, though commerce isn't so hot:

On the other hand I have unhappy citizens (emancipation and WW) so I'm running culture at 20% (nice thing about creative is the cheap theatres and coliseums which makes culture slider for happy a bit easier). This has put my research down to 50% which ain't so good.

Still at war with Monte who needs to be a bit crushed.

Techwise I think I still have got more fighting ahead so I'm debating whether to go for artillery (9300 beakers but needs physics) or AL (11700 and needs corporation).

I'll defnitely need oil which means taking it from someone (or founding the relevant corporation which I haven't checked out properly):

Overall I'm not doing too badly but there's a way to go before I really consider myself in the ascendant.

 

[pigswill]

Nothing very major happened this round.

1670. Decide to head for AL so start with corporation which no-one seems willing to trade in BtS, maybe they want corporations or something.

1695. Monte sent a small stack south (5 muskets, 4LB, 2 trebs) which disappeared quickly though cost me a rifle. I traded steam and steel to Sury for democracy, not a profitable deal but kept him happy, probably .

1700. Corporation is in. Start on AL. AP Resolution comes up:

I vote yes. If Monte gets Coventry I can capture it legitimately.

1702. Chuck defies AP. He gets unhappy citizens but I lose -2 diplo with him. He'd probably have defied it regardless of how I voted so that wasn't too smart of me .

I decide its time to have some anarchy and lose 'we demand emancipation' misery:

3 Turns of Anarchy!

1704. Khan's built the Kremlin. Monte's got airships which fly around being a dreadul nuisance but are otherwise ineffectual against my advancing stack. However Monte's now researching RP and is no doubt heading towards rifling.

1708. Capture Xochicolco without loss. Monte loses 4 airships he had parked there. Yup, he's heading towards rifling.

1714. Trade rifling with Sury for communism. Khan asks me to stop trading with Freddie. Not keen on this as once you stop trading it can take ages to start talking again. Decline. -2 diplo with Khan.

1716. Looks like Monte will get to rifling before I can make significant inroads into his empire. I've been relying on a tech edge to compensate for fewer units. About to lose that tech edge and 20% culture is slowing down research. I'd like to get AL for infantry before Monte can build /draft /whip /upgrade too many rifles. Trade rifling+1000g to Khan for physics. Get Peace with Monte for 790g.

The empire is much happier now and research prospers (relatively). Lots of infrastructure being built.
Building Moia in Delft so I can turn it into my naval base (also needs drydock, westpoint and MI for Lvl4 units, fortunately I've got a GG lying around).
Rotterdam is building Nat Epic as my GP farm based on 3 seafood resources, no forests around for a National Park GP farm.
Amsterdam is building Ironworks and will then revert to being my main unit pump.

1732. Still don't have oil. I notice that Sury's oil-thief city is 2 tiles from the oil and hasn't expanded borders to third ring yet. Decide to have a culture fight for the oil resource (cheaper than starting a war) so get a new city founded:

(By 1740 its got a theatre, a library and a specialist artist. Sury and I are both creative and running free speech so I'll have to see how it goes. I can't use the oil until I've discovered combustion so its not an immediate concern.)

1734. AL is in. Start artillery. Don't really trust Monte.

1736. Trade RP to Hatty for miltrad.

1738. New city claiming copper and crabs (and plenty of ice) where I razed Dover. Peace deal with Monte expires.

1740. Stop here fairly arbitrarily. Spend a bit of cash upgrading lvl 3/4 rifles to infantry. I wonder if Monte will pick on Chuck or resume our feud. He's slowly rebuilding power:

Here's the diplomatic situation:

Been losing some amity but its doesn't appear serious yet.

Tech situation isn't too bad:

Demographics:

I've moved from bottom of the pile to middle of the pack. I think I'll go for a bunch of factories and coal plants to boost production. Health and growth will obviously suffer until I can build supermarkets. Not sure where to go techwise next.

Comments and suggestions remain welcome.

 

[pigswill]

Goodness, this thread slipped back to page 4 while I was busy playing some SGs. Anyway, another round up to 1814...

Very much a building round. Coalplants and factories and buildings to counter the unhealthiness of the industrial age. I was first to AL so I decided to have a go at building the Pentagon. Duly completed in 1790. I'm still working on national wonders.

Fred meanwhile seems to be going on a world wonder spree: SoL 1746, Broadway 1790 and Eiffel 1804. Maybe Sury saw his chances of an easy culture victory slipping away with each wonder but for whatever reason Sury declared on Fred in 1810. That should be interesting, Fred's on a fairly compact landmass and Sury will have to ship over a sizeable army to cause any serious damage.

Techwise I went Artillery (for artillery!), Biology (for bigger cities), Medicine (hospitals and trade fodder), electricity (ind pre-req). I picked up railroad, combustion and fascism in trade:

In other news I ran a golden age from 1794 to 1812. Picked up a GE in 1810, and I'm not totally sure what to do with him. Maybe I'll go for plastics after industrialisation and have a run at 3GD. I also picked up the Colliseum quest which I won the following round having previously built a bunch of them. I had a choice between +1 happy or +4 culture per colliseum and went for the culture thinking it could come in useful for border pops in captured cities. I've pretty much decided that its war against Monte starting next turn. He's recently gone and beelined radio, building Rock n' Roll in 1810 and he's only just started on chemistry. So if I declare soon I'll be facing rifles and trebs with infantry and artillery. I've only got one stack parked at Xochicalco. Despite having 1000culture pts Xochicalco is still seriously squeezed:

I used the golden age to swop civics and I'm now running police state, free speech, emancipation, state property and free religion which really is an odd mixture. I've also built jails in all my large cities and I'm building Mount Rushmore so hopefully WW won't become too horrendous.

So it's off to wipe out Monte (or die trying), the only AI I'd upset is Sury and he's busy atm anyway:

The demographics aren't too bad at the moment:

Half a dozen more cities would help however.