aCK-3 The Cat with the Hat

[The Simple Mind]

If we are going to have two cities with stables I would pick Constantinople & Thessalonica. Both have decent production and long term these cities will probably produce the bulk of our military. We should probably settle the GG in one of them. I'd opt for Thessa to free the capital to do other tasks when required.

Berlin - the GG,

As I said, I’m not for settling the GG in Berlin as I think this should be our GP farm. We need to have scientists running here and will hopefully get a couple of great scientists for bulbing. I always forget that we’re spiritual so we can switch back and forward between slavery and caste whenever we want without losing any turns. I’m sure Pholtz previously suggested that in Berlin we could starve the city by hiring as many scientists to push for a GScientist. If we do this then we won’t be able to build much military and wastes the GG.

 

[IamJohn]

I'm not as convinced that Berlin should be our GP farm. True it has two corn, but that's it. It has some grassland but that's really it. Consider though that in addition to a copper mine it also has a bunch of hills, and grassland that could be eventually workshopped, which could work well with the corn farms. Right now Berlin is producing a sizeable chunck of hammers and I don't think that should be casually disreguarded.

 

[The Simple Mind]

I appreciate Berlin could be a production powerhouse but (there is always a but ) I think we need to get the GP farm is set up asap to improve our tech rate and get GScientists for bulbing. As I said, I think we should switch between slavery & caste. When in slavery we build & grow, when in caste we starve the city by running scientists. If we proceed like this then when in caste we won’t build much military in Berlin , so the GG would be wasted. I suppose we should decide which city will be our HE city and settle the GG there.

Another possible GP farm could be Adrianople, though this couldn’t support as many scientists as Berlin.

On the tech front we are well ahead of everyone (that we know) except Sury. If we were to push to get a GScientist we should be able to bulb Philo once we have maths (need to double check the bulbing options in strat article) which would be great for us as:

• Good trade bait to save us researching metal casting, machinery and feudalism.
• Allows pacifism for boosting GP generation
• On the Lib path. I know this is a long way down the road but we should try to set the wheels in motion.

Looked at the tech screen in post 116 again and just realized that Shaka has got construction . Considering he has elephants at uMg-unpronouncable, we ain’t going to be able to successfully attack him any time soon. His war elephants would tear our HAs to pieces. I’m not sure how well maces and ‘pults would fare against Shaka but I think they would struggle (I’m not particularly good at warring at this time without a tech advantage). If that is the case then we definitely need to get GS’s to bulb to steel / rifling.

So much for a quick reply. Excuse the rambling but (there it is again) once I start typing I keep thinking of other issues to discuss.

 

[IamJohn]

I looked around in game and played with the cities a bit and after thinking about it for awhile I agree, Berlin makes sense as a GP city. I was able to reduce the time to research mathematics by a sizeable amount, not to mention the longer term benefits.

As for war with Shaka, contruction will make it so we have to wait longer, but I don't think we'll have to wait till rifles, remember that elphants get crushed by pikes (engineering), and just throwing on more catapults fix all ills.

 

[pholtz]

I'm going to give this report without any pictures right now. I'll try to add pictures tomorrow.

25 AD: I took a look at the starting situation and did the following:
- sold Meditation to Shaka for 100
- sold Poly to Toku for 50
- made peace with Bismark
- whipped Courthouse in Thessa
- whipped Market in Berlin
- whipped Granary in Nicaea
- started Stable in Const

we now have 151 gold, at -7 per turn at 50%
I know some of the whips weren't optimal but thought I needed to get those buildings up as quickly as possible.

40 AD (1):
- settled our GG in Thessa and started an HA
- started courthouse in Berlin
- started courthouse in Nicaea
- whipped Stable in Const

55 AD (2):
I didn't see any whipping to be done for at least 5 turns, so switched to caste system

70 AD (3):
- our relation with Shaka took a hit, he asked us to join the war against HC, and I refused.
- started lighthouse in Adria
- some pirate ships sailing off our coasts, chasing Shaka workboats. One nice thing about not working any sea resources is not having to worry about pirates.
- we are now even at 50% research with no cities working on wealth

85 AD (4): watching our great empire grow (kinda like watching grass grow )

100 AD (5): ditto

115 AD (6): our first Horse Archer. I like the gray horses we have

130 AD (7): took advantage of caste and had Berlin employ a couple of scientists in addition to the merchant

145 AD (8): Nicaea is doing better, both the horse and cows now have pastures. I was a bit hard on John as I realized that there were several workers on the road moving towards Nicaea only when I started the turnset. We have plenty of workers.
Our great spy seems to have reached the end of the continent.

160 & 175 AD (9 and 10)

190 AD (11): Horrible news. Hamburg's culture expanded, taking over both of Berlin's wheat tiles and cutting the road. I'm going to have to go after Hamburg as soon as possible. A couple more HA's are due in a few turns. I've lost sight of Hamburg but at last look no change, still 4 Archers.

205 & 220 AD (12 and 13): Trying to prepare for war as much as I can by positioning the troops

235 AD (14): I don't think I have any choice, I switch back into Slavery so I can quickly whip out a couple more HA's before I attack.

250 AD (15): Berlin's courthouse is done, switched Berlin to Barracks and had some work done on that from a while ago. So I whipped the Barracks. Nicaea whipped a courthouse.

I made a double tech trade with HC, Alphabet and Monarchy for Construction and Monotheism and some money. Not sure if it was a good trade, but I thought we NEEDED Construction badly. I had enough wits to notice that we didn't have a monopoly on Alphabet anymore.

265 AD (16): I can't delay any longer. I pray that I am successful in this war or all could be lost. I declare on Germany. Some HA's quickly move to the pigs and surprise and take a worker. Still 4 archers in the city. My stack of axemen start trekking though the woods. I also bring Lionus along.

280 AD (17): The ground troops move next to the city, I try placing Lionus and a worker in a separate tile to entice some of the defenders out. It won't work. Perhaps if I had used a lone worker?

295 AD (18): Our army assaults the city. I have 5 HA's in position, they attack first. I promote one to Flanking II and one to Combat II to see the difference. It seems like Flanking II is almost as good as Combat II, and the survival rate will be bigger. One unit with Flanking II goes in and does absolutely no damage. Oh boy. I promote the rest to Combat II as I have to make sure I do some damage.

After the 4 remaining HA's attack, things are looking better. One archer is destroyed, the other three are hurt. I lose all but one of the HA's. Now it is time for the Axemen.

1st Axe dies but does some more damage. Now suddenly the chance of attack for the remaining Axemen are 70% or better. The next three attacks kill their archers and Germany is no more. .

Three Axemen hang their heads in shame as they didn't even get bloodied.

I stopped there, as my relief at not totally ruining the game made it hard to continue. I admit I probably panicked a bit when Hamburg's culture expanded, which may account for the lack of enough pictures when I add them tomorrow.

I took one last look at our cites. I had three cities, Adria, Berlin and Const producing military units which now weren't quite so important. Research was at 60% at a profit of 1 gold. To experiment I set all three of the builds to wealth and I was able to set research to 90% at a loss of only 1 gpt. I'm not sure if that's the way to go or not, I'll let the next player look at it. But I left Thessa building a catapult as it has the GG and the cats there can be built with increased bombardment damage.

No one had Aesthetics so I've started researching that. Only 9 turns at 90% with the cities making wealth. I'm hoping that it will be a good trading tech.

The tech situation doesn't look quite as good, as our tech lead diminished against most of our opponents and Suya is still ahead of everyone.

Some good news, we'll have some wine shortly, enough for trades.

Going to post this then have to switch computers to post the save.

View attachment aCK-3 AD-0295 end of turnset.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[The Simple Mind]

Excellent news on the destruction of Germany .

 

[IamJohn]

Very nice job!

 

[pholtz]

Here are some promised pictures and further comments on my turn. I thought about inserting them into my previous post but decided it was too late for that

First Shaka begging us to help him

As I said I refused him, as I don't think we can afford to make enemies of HC right now. Also I noticed that the minor penalty of refusal has seemed to go away by the end of my turnset.

A loving picture of our first Horse Archer. I just love the Appaloosa look.

Here's a picture of our spy at the end of the continent.

Notice the orange culture border under the fog? Is that Hannibal? Japan's area is huge, it is no wonder that he is number 1 in this game.

Here is the trade I made, after Hamburg's borders expanded and I went into panic mode. Don't know if it was a good trade or not. I realize that I forgot to mention that we researched Math the slow way. Sury was willing to trade it for currency plus some money for us. I didn't think it was a good deal. When I checked later, he asked for more money so was apparently researching currency himself, faster than we were researching Math.

Here is a picture in the middle of the big battle. All the Horse Archers have attacked, the sole surviver is south of Hamburg. I've pasted the cities occupant list to the right showing the status of the archers after all the HA's attacked.

You can also see the dire straights Berlin is in. Both wheat fields lost, the road cut. One worker is building a bypass road though the woods.

Finally a picture of the score during the battle, so close to the end.

Notice everyone else has embraced the Buddha. HC will be getting sooo much income from this. It will make him unstoppable if the game goes on too long. Our score isn't as good as it was, but the computer puts too much emphasis on the population size and none on the buildings. Most of our cities now have the buildings they need and can build. The next important core building is the forge which we can't build yet.

Notice Toku's and Sury's land area. We have to expand or fall behind. I'm glad HC attacked Shaka, as now they won't be best of friends and we should be able to attack Shaka without HC interfering. I'm not sure we can wait for pikemen to take down Shaka, but we need iron. We probably need to found a sixth city now to get the iron, and maybe even a seventh. I'll post some ideas on how we could succeed in a Shaka war soon.

I"m also going to take another look at the end situation, especially in regard to builds and research. Is it better to build wealth and increase the main research slider or to build research? Should we be building something else in the three cities now building wealth? a settler?

Sorry for the dearth of pictures and the missing info. I'll try to do better next time.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Looked at the save and some rambling thoughts:

Diplo

Unfortunately, we are the only civ not in Buhhdism and all the civs like us the least. I’m surprised we haven’t had any religion spread to us. Obviously, if we do get Buhhdism, we should convert immediately.

HC - is willing to open borders with us. We should accept and hope he sends a missionary our way. We’re in hereditary rule, so hopefully he will swap to HR soon and give our diplo another boost.

Toku - won’t open borders at present. It we gift him a tech, say mono, would this change? Do we want / need OBs with him?

Sury – his favourite civic is OR but he is currently in paganism. We should swap to OR when he does (even if we don’t have a state religion) for the diplo boost.

Shaka – not much we can do to boost diplo. Pholtz, I’m keen to hear how you think we should take him down.

Tech

I think we are ok. The two techs we don’t have that have been researched are calendar (Shaka + Sury) and metal casting (Shaka) both of which allow wonders. I assume we won’t be able to trade for these until the associated wonders have been built. Do we want to research either of these?

Calender would allow us access to three additional happy resources and the MoM. The MoM is a good wonder to have and we are the only civ that could have access to marble to speed it up. Though we would need to settle a city with marble in the initial bfc to have any hope of getting it.

Metal casting allows workshops, our UB the Mint, the colossus and can research machinery. All our cities would benefit from the colossus but I think Shaka has had too big a head start on it though he doesn’t have any bronze.

I don’t normally research these techs. Why should we?

I’d rather invest beakers in aesthetics -> literature -> CS then trade for these two plus machinery.

Cities

Changing Berlin’s worked tiles allows us to get a settler out in 6 turns. I would suggest settling the pig / iron city next and settle 1NE of the iron to get iron in initial bfc.

If we go for a 7th city, do we settle to the south of the cap to claim a combination of the clams/iron/marble/dyes or NW of the cows to the west of the cap?

Regarding changing city builds, by changing the worked tiles we could make the following changes:

Existing
C Wealth
T Catapult (14 turns)
B Wealth
A Wealth
N Lighthouse (10 turns)
Aesthetics 9 turns
Income -1 / turn

Change 1
C Wealth
T Catapult (9 turns)
B Settler (6 turns)
A Wealth
N Lighthouse (10 turns)
Aesthetics 10 turns
Income 0 / turn

Change 2
C Catapult (11 turns)
T Catapult (9 turns)
B Settler (6 turns)
A Wealth
N Lighthouse (10 turns)
Aesthetics 10 turns
Income -7 / turn

Photz, you asked about building wealth compared to building research. I always prefer to build wealth as I feel that using the slider has a greater benefit to the economy / research than building research. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just my experience from previous games.

 

[pholtz]

First, the way the tiles are assigned now and the builds are NOT the way I think they should be. It was more of an experiment, concentrating on food/commerce, to see what we could get our research rate up to at one extreme. Please change the tiles worked to something better . I like your option one. 10 turns for Aesthetics is very fast at epic speed. We should be able to get a monopoly on it (at least I hope so).

I like the idea of opening borders back up with HC. I should have done it when the HC - Shaka war ended... another detail I failed to mention in my report

Notice that while we are the only civ not Buddhist, there is very little spread of Buddhism beyond HC. Shaka may have as little as one city that is Buddhist. If we managed to start another religion, active spread of that religion could change the religious picture dramatically. Not saying we should do this, but it is a possible option.

I don't think we should gift Toku anything, I don't see why we need open borders with him. The only time I've ever gotten on Toku's good side was by sharing wars with him.

As far as taking down Shaka, you need to look at his resources. His only iron is at the northern border, and his Ivory is on the coast. An amphibious strike against his ivory combined with a capture/destuction of his iron city, and he will be reduced to archers/mounted for the rest of the war. An amphibious strike against his horses is possible but not as important. I'll try to post some maps with arrows and such when I'm back on my computer. Remember if you are technically even with the AI, you SHOULD be able to beat him in a war as they do stupid things . That city near the ivory, no access to the game now so don't know the name, has a couple of nice forests next to it for our units to fortify in. I think I've removed all the forests adjacent to our cities near the border. If I haven't, continue to do so.

Forces necessary for a war? We probably have enough axe. We would need 4 more spear, 8 cats, 4 of them with a double promotion, 4 swords and 4 more HA's... to start, with production continuing as long as the war lasts, especially of cats. The amphibious strike against the Ivory should be at least 4 units, HA/Axe/Spear, with another Axe or Spear depending on how many mounted/elephants compared to axe/sword shaka has. So we would need at least two galleys. We have a chariot now in his country he should remain there and keep spying around, getting up to the minute information which might change the initial make up of the army. For example if he doesn't have any Elephant and we take down the ivory, we only need a few spear.

 

[IamJohn]

First of all I'm fine with our current research path, I'm quite happy with where we're going (just be careful with our builds- if we decide to go wonder happy we're going to starve for other things later, imo most of the wonders we could possibly build just wouldn't do us enough good to be worth it.).

I don’t normally research these techs. Why should we?

I usually wait awhile to get Aesthetics unless I'm planning on building one of the wonders or attempting to use it for trade bait. MC is good for the forges, which if you play it right can get you a)the colossus, which I've seen do amazing things if you build it early enough and b)an engineer, which can be really useful if planned right. Neither of these things is terribly important, and forges are pretty expensive, though the hammer boost would be nice. I don't think it would be useful enough to research it atm, but it could be worth it to trade for it.

As for MoM, I'm not really amazed at the thought of building it, yes, we could be the only civ with marble, which gives us a decent chance at getting it, but we'd need to invest a lot to get a doubtful bonus, I've never really seen a huge effect on war weariness on the AI when go to the effort of building it. IMO we simply need too many other things atm.

As for researching calender I think that it might be worth it to trade for it, but we arn't really hurting for happiness are we? I don't see enough benefit to spend the time researching it.

As for religious spread, if I remember my civ theory right, we need to have open borders with the civ that has the holy city to have a chance of having it spread to us. Is this true for us?

Other than that we look good.

 

[The Simple Mind]

IamJohn, re MoM – I think you might be getting mixed up with SoZ. The MoM gives a 50% extension to golden ages, a nice bonus to have. I agree that building wonders isn’t the path we should take. Better to let the other civs (hopefully Shaka) build them and we’ll take them from their cold dead fingers .

we need to have open borders with the civ that has the holy city to have a chance of having it spread to us. Is this true for us?

I don’t think you have to have open borders with a religion’s founder to get it. You just need open borders with a civ with a religion to allow them to spread it. In our situation, since HC and Shaka were at war, HC wasn’t able to send any missionaries our way. Shaka would’ve only got Buddhism once the peace was declared. As Pholtz says, he only has it in one city. Therefore, he is more likely to spread it to his own cities before spreading it to us.

If we managed to start another religion, active spread of that religion could change the religious picture dramatically.

Philo bulb for Taoism? The quickest way would be to run scientist in Berlin and hope we get a great scientist. IamJohn, you expressed concern about turning Berlin into a GP farm. My concern about Berlin would be the great spy pollution. We can’t guarantee getting a great scientist even by starving the city by running scientists and we don’t need another great spy. If we want to bulb philo, I think we should turn Adrianople into the GP farm as it will have a cleaner GP pool to guarantee getting a great scientist. Lots to consider (and yet another about turn ).

Do we agree with settling the pig / iron city 1NE of the iron to access the iron asap? If so, this can be settled soon as Berlin can make a settler in 6 turns.

Re Shaka attack, I like the two pronged attack idea. We’ll need a bit of time to build up the necessary forces. If we keep the GSpy / chariot in Shaka’s land we’ll be able to keep tabs on his forces and assess the viability of our attack. Hopefully, he is building either MoM or Colossus (or both).

That city near the ivory, no access to the game now so don't know the name.

Even if you could remember it, it is totally unpronounable and guaranteed to be spelt wrong .

 

[The Simple Mind]

I meant to say that I’ve got it and hoping to play & post by Sunday 11th October.

My aims for this set:

• Open borders with HC.
• Adopt buddhism when available & OR if Sury switches.
• Build 6th city at pig / iron.
• Strengthen our military with catapults, swords & galleys
• Tech aesthetics

What tech to research next - Literature or Civil Service? Literature allows the heroic epic, nat’l epic + GL whereas CS allows macemen (assuming we can trade for machinery). I think we would benefit more from getting the HE up & running asap to pump out units to smack Shaka with.

From memory, the GG was settled in Thessa. If so, the HE should be built there.

 

[pholtz]

Sounds good, I would add grow the cites. I had to do a couple of emergency whips which hurt, Thessa especially, badly.

Remember with galleys, you don't want to send them out alone, always have them in pairs. Any combat is a tossup, but if you have two you can at least come out even.

We do need to build our military. All the civilization we have met have a chance of declaring war, even at pleased. Right now only HC and Toku don't have a chance to go to war with each other. Another war will probably start up, either against us or between two AI's, so we need to build up to be ready to take advantage or defend ourselves. I did move some units away from the Shaka front and coastal cities to fight Germany, so we need to defend those locations again, or have a fast reaction force. If our workers don't have anything else to do have them build roads everywhere.

Also remember that Shaka has those fast Impi's. They are a threat to any horse, but fall easily to Axe. Any horses will have to remain stacked with Axe and probably Spear as long as Shaka has access to iron. I have never thought about having a Great Spy, spying for us during a war. Could be fun!

As far as tech, it depends on what trades we can get. I think we need MC badly, hopefully we can trade for it. CS so we can spread irrigation, and any tech to get a religion.

 

[pholtz]

Oh, as you produce units, have Thessa make 4 Cats first. Four cats with additional bombardment damage can make a big difference in any war. Then have it produce whatever is most needed, spear/axe/sword. Any city can produce the CRI cats used in suicide attacks.

 

[The Simple Mind]

IHT 295AD (0)

As discussed, change Berlin to a settler (6), change some tiles and open borders with HC.

310AD (1)

Sury adopts OR and so do we to get the diplo boost. Whip the settler in Berlin to claim the iron.

325AD (2)

Nothing

340AD (3)

Antioch founded and worker starts mining the iron. I have a chat with Toku and he offers:

I’m surprised he hasn’t got it from HC so I accept.

355AD (4)

Sury’s got philo and founds Taoism!

Hopefully he will spread it throughout his empire and break up the Buddhist lovefest.


370AD (5)

Lets crush some grapes and celebrate with a drink . We now have wine.

385AD (6)

And now we have iron. Time to start building some swords.

400AD (7)

Nothing

415AD (8)

Apparently we are the richest Cat in town.

430AD (9)

We research

As mentioned in previous post, I select Literature so that we can build the HE when we want.

Make a trade with HC

Unfortunately, we still can’t trade for calendar or metal casting.

445AD (10)

Shaka gets a GE from the pyramids.

460AD (11)

Shaka builds the ToA in Ulundi. It also has the Mids so a city we want to keep. Pity he never used it GE on the Colossus.

I ask HC what he wants for calendar:

That’s a 1/3 of our gold and we’re losing money per turn at present. We have no happiness issues so I decline the deal. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it from Shaka as part of a peace treaty.

475AD (12)

I don’t convert. Sury has Taoism in at least 2 cities but Buddhism in 3. So he is still Buddhist.

490AD (13)

Then we get the message we wanted :

I accept and our diplo gets a boost:

Though HC is no longer willing to trade calendar .

505AD (14)

HC founds Christianity.

Sury comes to me with this deal:

Again I decline.

520AD (15)

Complete research of

I select civil service.

535AD (16)

We can now see Shaka’s research. He has 22 turns to go on Engineering.

550AD (17)

A barb galley sinks our galley @?#! . Next galley out of Berlin in 2 turns. Sury and HC are now willing to trade metal casting. Unfortunately, we can only trade aesthetics with them and neither is willing to do a deal.

565AD (18) to 595AD (20)

Nothing but building troops and wealth.

610AD (21)

Injured barb galley attacks our galley. We win, hooray!

625AD (22)

Finally HC adopts hereditary rule

IBT Shaka comes with this deal:

Again I decline

640AD (23)

Another great spy is born in Berlin aaarrgghh!! The odds were over 50% scientist vs 37% spy. I stopped here to discuss how we should proceed from this point.

Overview and comments to follow.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Overview

Our empire:

Cities:

Spoiler :

Civics:

We are getting no significant production benefit from OR as only Nicaea has Buddhism. I did not build missionaries as I was hoping the other civs might send some our way (Sury sent a Taoist missionary) or we might have got a natural spread. Unfortunately, we got neither.

Diplo:

Sury, Shaka & HC are all pleased with us. Toku is still cautious. Looking at the sit-rep it appears as though we aren’t on anyone’s radar (or whatever the 640AD equivalent is) at the moment.

Adrianople’s border will pop next turn so we’ll probably start to get –ve diplo with Shaka for border tension. Though, as he is target no.1, what do we care.

Tech:

This is the most disappointing screen. We have fallen behind in techs. If we’re first to CS then we might be able fix this with trades. There is an obvious solution to get us back on par so see below.

Military:

Ours

Shakas

Not long ago I did see a war elephant belonging to Shaka but it isn’t listed above. Would he have disbanded it? We are behind Shaka in power (0.8 strength) but a few units are due to complete soon. At the moment, Shaka has the following garrisons:

Ulundi – sword x 1, catapult x 2, axe x 1, impi x 2, archer x 1, settler x 1
Bulawayo – axe x 1, archer x 1
Nongoma - axe x 1, catapult x 1, archer x 1
UMg-unpronouncable – axe x 1, impi x 1, archer x 1, settler x 1

In the vicinity he has a crossbowman, an archer and a chariot. The two settlers have been stationed in the cities for at least 10 turns.

Before we attack, remember to leave an adequate force to dispose of the sword Shaka has south of Adrianople.

Going Forward

The obvious solution to the tech situation is we have two great spies. What about using them and stealing techs? One against Shaka (steal MC + calendar) and the other against Sury (steal philo +theo). The Shaka spy points could also be used for city revolts to make our conquest easier. If we were to proceed with this then we would need to start pumping out spies.

What experience do you guys have of Shaka giving techs for peace? If we captured at least 3 of the 4 cities mentioned above would he offer MC or calendar for peace?

I have sent all our attack force to Adrianople (except for some axes + a catapult in Nicaea) and no promotions have been allocated. All military on the roads are on a go to Adrianople. I know this isn’t good SG practice but as this is where we will be launching our invasion from I figured it was ok.
Cash

We have 150 gold and are losing 16 gold / turn at 80% research. Sury (80g), Toku (110g) and Shaka (70g) are willing to give us all their gold for aesthetics if require an emergency top up prior to the Zulu war. Aesthetics is no longer a monopoly, HC has it.

TSM

 

[IamJohn]

Some Quick Comments before I download the save (it's my turn now, correct?):

-What exactly do we want Calender for? Do we really need happiness? It's only going to get cheaper as time goes by, so it may be worth it to just wait, getting it for free by stealing or getting it as tribute would much cheaper.

-I definitely think we should try to steal techs with the spy, getting mc and maybe calendar would definitely be nice if we can pull it off.

-Are we still just slowly building forces, focusing on settling and building tech or focusing on building forces to attack Shaka?

 

[pholtz]

Looked at the turn, and looks good.

Good questions John, let me look at the turn a bit closer before I try to answer.

I think war with Shaka is a must if we are going to win this. But I'm afraid of the diplomatic penalties. What happens when we declare war with a Buddhist ally?

And yes, now that we have two great spies, one of them should settle. Probably in Suly's territory as he is most advanced.

 

[pholtz]

A closer look at it's not as good as I thought. Shaka has a crossbowman already. He has Metal Casting and Machinery on us and will have Engineering in 15 turns.

- I don't think we can research our way out of this. We need to steal some techs NOW.

- Since we are going to steal and get tech from war, lets stop trying to go half measures. Stop making wealth, reduce our research to where we are no longer at a loss.

- Either we go after Shaka NOW or we have to wait until we steal techs.

- If we go after him now... I think just a few turns to move troops then go for the iron city ignoring everything else. Use the forests. It doesn't look like he has much in the way of mounted or elephants, but we need to be making more spear reinforcements just in case. I am hoping we can take the iron city, then we'll have to ride out his counter attack. Our amphibious attack on his ivory will be late if it happens, we can't wait.

- If we wait, then we need money to upgrade our forces. Again stop with the negative income. I have very little experience in stealing techs. I guess we need to start making spies now, settle one great spy in Sury's area and be ready to settle the next one if we need more spy points.

- It might be best to do both. Get the Iron city NOW, steal techs, and have the money to upgrade our forces as soon as we have the techs. So we need all cities making military or spies.

- Any comments from any lurkers? Silver where are you?

- Looking at our cities, I think they ended up being too unfocused, my fault as much as anyone's. Thessa should be making military, not trying to get income. So it should be working farms and mines.

- again diplomatic side effects from declaring war? How do we minimize them? Can we get HC to join? He doesn't like us enough to declare, can we change this somehow?

- am I completely wrong? are things not as bad as I think?