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[Lanzelot]

BUT if I understood CAII's 'Economy' screen correctly, we do actually have a [M]arket there already

Hmm, that is indeed a valid reason for not building one there...

Wow, how did that shield-poor fishing village manage to build a Colossus, harbor, library, barracks (which we sold afterwards...) and a market already?!
A university pre-build would finish in 18 turns from now; there's no way we can have Education by then.
How about just collecting shields there, so we can then trigger our GA with any arbitrary wonder, once we have captured the Mausoleum and The Great Wall?

 

[Lanzelot]

I took a look at Oasenstadt. It is currently size 4 and growing with +5fpt. Did you read the description of how to operate it as a 3-turn settler factory? At size 4 it needs to use +10fpt to grow in one turn!

BTW, I just realize this now: why is Oasenstadt size 4 in the first place??? According to the 3-turn settler cycle that I outlined in post #241, it should never even fall below size 5!!

 

[tjs282]

Hmm, that is indeed a valid reason for not building one there...

Glad you agree

Wow, how did that shield-poor fishing village manage to build a Colossus, harbor, library, barracks (which we sold afterwards...) and a market already?!

Don't forget the rSpearman...

A university pre-build would finish in 18 turns from now; there's no way we can have Education by then. How about just collecting shields there, so we can then trigger our GA with any arbitrary wonder, once we have captured the Mausoleum and The Great Wall?

So, a Palace prebuild? Those can be converted to Wonders, can't they? (Or maybe just start on SunTzu -- or Leo's once we've got Invention? Unless getting one of those will trigger off our GA too early, before we've got Education to build our Unis?).

I haven't started playing yet, BTW -- not until the boys are in bed and wifey's out meeting a friend.

 

[tjs282]

I've just played 1T, and one of our eHorses gave us an MGL!

Since we're not ready to build our FP yet, shall I turn him into an Army?

Anyone who's watching, you have 30 mins to answer from the time of this post.

EDIT:
OK, time's long since up, and I built an Army.

Choxorn, we could junk the beakers we've put into Invention so far and switch to Chivalry, but I don't think that's sensible -- Sci% is currently at 0 anyway, to maximise Tax% for upgrade-gold.

The exposed vSword got killed on the IBT by the second of the two Archers visible in the savegame, so right now we only have 3 Maces so far and 2 are regs. So I'll put in 1 vet, 1 reg for a 7HP-Army for now, and try and get the other Mace promoted before adding it as well, for 11 HP (shouldn't be difficult if all I have to kill are Archers+Spears -- looks like all the Viking Swords are now dead). All foreseeable Mace builds will be vets as well, but I won't be able to build them very quickly for several turns yet -- and I want some more Horses first.

 

[choxorn]

How about just collecting shields there, so we can then trigger our GA with any arbitrary wonder, once we have captured the Mausoleum and The Great Wall?

As I've suggested multiple times, starting Sun Tzu's Art of War or Leonardo's Workshop there would be a good idea- they're both Militaristic and good wonders, so we wouldn't even need to capture the Great Wall to get a GA if we built one of them.

I've just played 1T, and one of our eHorses gave us an MGL!

Since we're not ready to build our FP yet, shall I turn him into an Army?

Anyone who is watching, you have 30 mins to answer from the time of this post

I agree, build an army. Load it with Medieval Infantry, unless you think we can somehow get Chivalry very quickly.

 

[robbus]

can someone post a recent save for a lurker please?

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, an Army.

I would prefer to start the GA with a cheaper wonder, e.g. Copernicus. Otherwise K'Stadt is blocked for too long. And Copernicus would have a very nice synergy effect with the Colossus! With lib, uni, Colossus and Copernicus, K'stadt would already generate over 100 beakers per turn (and 140 during GA)... Also Sun Tzu or Leonardo are not really useful in a space game. Most probably we are done with the Vikings and England, before we can finish one of these wonders, and we won't be doing much warring afterwards. (K'stadt will need a bit over 50 turns for Cope, while 600s would take around 80 turns.)

@robbus: what do you mean "recent save"... The 90 AD save is attached to one of the previous posts, and the game currently is at 100 AD. Isn't that recent enough...

 

[Lanzelot]

So I'll put in 1 vet, 1 reg for a 7HP-Army for now, and try and get the other Mace promoted before adding it as well, for 11 HP

Just add all the maces. They get promoted inside an Army just as they do outside. (Or even better, as they run less risk of dying...) A 7HP-Army might still get attacked by the AI, but a 10HP one should be save. (Nothing would be worse than losing that Army before we can build the Heroic Epic: we definitely need another MGL for the Forbidden Palace. It's the most important building in a space race.)

 

[choxorn]

Ok, an Army.

I would prefer to start the GA with a cheaper wonder, e.g. Copernicus. Otherwise K'Stadt is blocked for too long. And Copernicus would have a very nice synergy effect with the Colossus! With lib, uni, Colossus and Copernicus, K'stadt would already generate over 100 beakers per turn (and 140 during GA)... Also Sun Tzu or Leonardo are not really useful in a space game. Most probably we are done with the Vikings and England, before we can finish one of these wonders, and we won't be doing much warring afterwards. (K'stadt will need a bit over 50 turns for Cope, while 600s would take around 80 turns.

Leonardo is useful in pretty much any game. Even in a space game, we still need to upgrade our units and keep a military strong enough to fight the AI, and it provides huge gold savings over time. And it might be easier to build it than it would be to take the Great Wall from England.

And there's no reason we can't also try to build Copernicus or Newton's, or both.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Making the army was a good choice. You never know when the RNG gods will grant us a MGL, so the best choice is to always use the first one to make an army.

 

[tjs282]

Hi folks -- my turnset's all but done, but I've still got to finish off a few things for my last turn, write them up in the turnlog, edit that down (it's too long again), and write the handover notes, such as they are. A (relatively!) short story is below (well it was short when I started, but it got... umm... longer than I'd intended)...

My war initially went well, and our win-loss ratio on this turnset was still better than 2-1 -- but it could have been more like 3-1, had I not had a few RNG-disasters, some unexpected, some self-inflicted...

I captured Copenhagen without loss, using our newly created 2-Mace Army* and a vHorse, but 2-3T later, while the Army was going after Bergen, Copenhagen back-flipped (no resistors had yet been quelled by our vPike, so I hadn't even had a chance to rush a Worker).

*I explain more fully why I did this in the turnlog (and the Army now has 9HP, BTW).
@Lanzelot

Spoiler :

Sorry, but I didn't see your post until after I'd already lost the third Mace -- which had just got promoted to vet as hoped/expected, but died on the IBT before I could join it to the Army. IIRC, it successfully defended against an attacking Archer, but then lost its remaining 3HP to an rSword, which came out of nowhere (are the Vikings buying Iron, or was that a last gasp?) and attacked uphill. *grrr*

I tried to get Copenhagen back the very next turn, using 2 vHorses against the Vikings' automagically-generated rSpear, to re-block their easy access to E'stadt and München -- but I lost both of them. With hindsight I should rather have ignored Copenhagen and sent the vHorses against Aarhus, as I'd originally intended before the flip -- but as I said before, that milk is now spilled, so there's no point ing.

And then on the next IBT, just to add insult to injury, the Vikings landed an Archer next to Hamburg, which was now completely unguarded, with no fast units in the vicinity (but only 1T short of building a vPike, maddeningly enough). Our remaining Horses were backing-up the Army next to Bergen (which had also been taken without loss), and 3 tiles too far away to kill the Archer before it captured Hamburg. I did get the city back the next turn with one of those Horses, but we lost the Barracks and 3 citizens (IIRC, it's now at Pop4, and rebuilding the Barracks).

Bergen is currently completely unguarded, and may well back-flip as well (all 5 citizens revolted from the start). Sending our Horses against Hamburg meant I didn't have enough free units to quell the resistance, nor did I want to lose our Army, so I took it outside the city to fortify/heal. It is still close enough to go back in and kill any automagically-appearing rSpears in the event of a flip (which would also reduce the Pop/resistance), but going after Trondheim would probably be more sensible.

Right now I'm re-arming to compensate for my losses/cockups. We are currently the richest Civ in the world (with ~360 gold), but Korea still won't share their monopoly on Invention (which I wanted finished so we can beeline for Education). So I'm debating whether to allow the next player to fund deficit-research spending (to reduce the purchase cost of Invention), or use that gold to cash-rush the vHorses/ vMaces which are currently being built, before I post the savegame.

(FTR: Rush-building units before they're needed is a habit I need to develop. I wouldn't have had nearly so many problems -- and the Vikings would have had a lot more of them! -- if I'd started doing it as soon as all our obsolete units were upgraded, 5T earlier).

Our single-unit assault forces (2 vMaces so far, plus potentially 3-4 more rush-built units) can attack Copenhagen almost immediately, and then back up (or add to) our Army for an attack on Trondheim within the next couple of turns.

There is some good news though.

O'stadt now has a Library, and is building a Market. One turn into the Lib build (from Pop5), I realised that I could easily set it up to produce MM-free 4T-Settlers, but the Lib/Market was the plan, so that's what I did. I figured it would be better to just build 2T-Workers to swamp the Viking civilians in captured cities. Once we capture Trondheim (and build our FP) though, it might be worth revisiting this idea, to build/expand our second core...

K'stadt's 2T MM-free Worker-pump is working fine -- so whoever goes next, please DON'T mess with it (and don't mine K'berg's BFC Hills near München, or you'll build the Workers too quickly). We now have an additional 7(?) Workers compared to when I started. They may not be doing the most appropriate thing right now, but you can all shout at me later, once you've seen the savegame and turnlog...

Spot12 was unfortunately lost to Warwick's border expansion, on the IBT before I could build a city there, so I founded 'Fischberg' on Spot13 instead (on a hill but unguarded -- someone might want to change that...). The original Spot12 Settler is now on the peninsula and can found 'Hinselmeer' by the lake (where it is now, IIRC) or 'Walbergdorf' ('Waldorfberg'?) on the whale-hill -- and there is a third Settler waiting for a ferry in W'haven.

(Our Galley is currently on its way to block Viking Galley-access to Hamburg, which was probably a mistake, and is almost certainly now not necessary -- but I'd had a couple of nasty shocks (and it was getting late -- or early, depending on which way you're looking at it), and maybe wasn't thinking very clearly. The Galley's not on a 'Goto' though, so the next player can turn it around -- and our Curraghs may also be able to make it home from their circumnavigation, if they're lucky, and can then be upgraded -- it's worth a shot).

 

[templar_x]

lurker's comment:
an "always" statement hardly ever holds true... but here i am really sure that neither Leo's proves to be a wonder to be worthwile in too many games, nor is building an army with your first MGL always the best strategy...
t_x

 

[Lanzelot]

lurker's comment:
an "always" statement hardly ever holds true...

I would even say: an "always statement" is always wrong...

On topic: I agree. In some games (space race or UN victory, especially on lower difficulty levels where one can beat down the AI easily without Armies) it may be better to use the first MGL for the Forbidden Palace.
In this game however, we still have some difficult fighting ahead of us, before we have enough room for a good core and some science farms, so the Army is quite useful. (Especially as it helps already from the first turn on, whereas the leader would have to sit iddle for another 20-30 turns before we'll have a decent site for a useful Forbidden Palace.)

Leonardo is a useful wonder in general, but (and that is really a "big but"):
- For our wars against the Vikings and the Brits it'll come too late (with 8spt, K'stadt would need 75 turns, and we don't have it at 8spt yet...) Our wars should be over by then.
- After these two wars we won't be doing much warfare anymore, so we'll have a small army, upgrades will only be a minor item in our budget.
- We don't have any productive city yet. Building a 600s wonder - in addition to the things we really need (like Copernicus, Universities, Newton) and in addition to leading two successful wars - is certainly beyond our capacity.
- And finally: what do we have the AI for? If we really want Leonardo, then just let the AI build it for us! templar has once formulated this in another thread nicely to the point: "don't view the AIs as enemies - view them as helpful guys to whom you can assign jobs which they can take over for you". I think this "mind-shift" has not yet been carried out by most of the team: the AI is our friend and we need to take the best possible advantage of them. They can found towns for us, they can build wonders for us and they can do some research for us. (Especially on the higher difficulty levels, where the AI can do things much faster than the human player.)

As we don't have the necessary resources to build all these nice wonders ourselves, let the AI build them for us. We only need to be careful that those wonders, which need to be in our core in order to be effective, are built by us. Therefore wonders like Copernicus and Newton, which would give no benefit if built in far away 99% corrupt towns, have to be our top priority. But wonders lilke Leonardo or Sun Tzu, which provide their benefit no matter where they are located, can be assigned to the AI and captured later, if we really need them.

(Of course we need to get a wee bit more efficient at warfare and avoid losing so many units...
When that lone archer appeared at Hamburg, couldn't you just make peace and perhaps even get Aarhus in the peace deal? From your description it looks like at that point we had already achieved most of our objectives except for Trondheim. And the War Happiness is now gone anyway after the loss of a city. So a peace deal would have been ok, followed by a short consolidation period and then a quick Blitzkrieg to finish them off. In that case we would even have gotten our WH back when re-declaring later, because these points don't diminish according to my experience!

In any case: in such a critical situation it would be good to pause playing and ask the team for help. Perhaps someone else still has an idea on how to avoid disaster. Especially as you sound like you've been playing late at night and were quite tired?! In such a situation one usually makes things worse than they have to be... )

 

[Lanzelot]

And there's no reason we can't also try to build Copernicus or Newton's, or both.

Hmm, does "lack of shields" qualify as a valid reason...?
It is already 270 AD and we haven't built a single university yet. (Just a little reminder: in the HoF tables the fastest spaceship launch on Emperor, standard size map, is 1130 AD... Admittedly we only had an "average" start position, but a 1400 AD lauch date should have been possible from that start.) Our towns are making between 5 - 10 spt, we still have two tough wars ahead of us, quite a bit of basic infrastructure (libs, markets, aqueducts, harbors) is still missing, and you think we can afford spending 1400 shields on wonders?

We are currently the richest Civ in the world (with ~360 gold), but Korea still won't share their monopoly on Invention (which I wanted finished so we can beeline for Education). So I'm debating whether to allow the next player to fund deficit-research spending (to reduce the purchase cost of Invention), or use that gold to cash-rush the vHorses/ vMaces which are currently being built, before I post the savegame.

Here is a third idea: just abandon Invention now and switch to Theology immediately. How many beakers have we currently invested into Invention? Probably around 300. Anyway, let's just "write them off" as the price we payed for a (hopefully) well-learned lesson... We have already wasted so much gold in this game, these 300b don't matter much anymore... In any case, it doesn't make sense to sink more beakers into a tech that is already known. (And which more AIs are currently researching.)

With O'stadt and K'stadt now growing quickly and making good use of their libs, we can do Theology hopefully in ~10 turns and then trade for Invention. (And even if Korea and all other civs that might have Invention, get Theology before us, we'll get Invention for Education, because no AI will beat us to that tech: they usually favor Chivalry and the lower branch techs.)

 

[Lanzelot]

Current roster:
1. Acronym <-- MIA
2. Lanzelot
3. MrRandomGuy
4. tsj282 <-- Just Played
5. Choxorn <-- Up!
6. CommandoBob <-- On Deck

 

[tjs282]

Of course we need to get a wee bit more efficient at warfare and avoid losing so many units...

No argument from me there

When that lone archer appeared at Hamburg, couldn't you just make peace and perhaps even get Aarhus in the peace deal?

I didn't try. Maybe I should have -- although how likely would Ragnar have been to give us a piddly little city of his when he (thought he) was about to take a big fat juicy one of ours (and/or the Worker next to it) without a fight?

From your description it looks like at that point we had already achieved most of our objectives except for Trondheim.

Depends how you define our objectives. The Vikings are now panicking and sending Archers against us as soon as they get built -- they do not appear to have any Swords left, or anything in reserve. But neither do we, really -- although as I say, I've started working on that. As far as cities go, we had/have Bergen, and it was/is giving us 'nothing' (except the Silks, of course... ). But that's all. Copenhagen was/is still Viking, and we still didn't/don't yet have the units to make a move on Trondheim, partly because of my knee-jerk attack on Copenhagen with the Horses, but compounded with some unlucky RNG-rolls (although probably not as many as I would like to be able to claim!)

And the War Happiness is now gone anyway after the loss of a city.

I know roughly how WW works, but -- not being a habitual warmonger -- WH is something that I have never really experienced in my games (or at least, never really noticed). I assume it's like WW in reverse -- i.e. your people get happy if you're fighting and winning on your own turf, especially if the other guy started it... (as opposed to starting a war beyond your borders -- and then losing it)?

In any case: in such a critical situation it would be good to pause playing and ask the team for help.

Which is what I did when I got the MGL on my FIRST turn, and got all of one response (Choxorn's) over the following 1h 30mins. (My wife came home from her evening out during that half-hour deadline I set, and we chatted for an hour or so, before she went to bed -- saying, "And don't stay up all night!" Yeah, as if... ). Pausing for advice does not make for a short playtime/ quick turnaround on turnsets, and somewhat derails my train of thought (even more than logging the turns). Plus, if we n00bs start asking advice/permission for every major thing we do, this game will never get finished -- that's kind of the point of posting a preflight, no...?

Especially as you sound like you've been playing late at night and were quite tired?! In such a situation one usually makes things worse than they have to be...

As I wrote when I first signed up for this SG, (late at) night is pretty much the only time I get to play anything during the week (and often weekends too), because, well, work+family.

I've always been kind of a night-owl anyway, and I can usually still function well after only 4-5 hours' sleep, so long as I don't have too many such nights back-to-back. Also, although it was a shock, I knew that (so long as it didn't get razed), I could get Hamburg back if I did it straight away, without interrupting the kicking.

And lastly... our master strategist wasn't online at 2:30 am, anyway... or were you...?

 

[Lanzelot]

I didn't try. Maybe I should have -- although how likely would Ragnar have been to give us a piddly little city of his when he (thought he) was about to take a big fat juicy one of ours (and/or the Worker next to it) without a fight?

The AI does not "think" or "evaluate things" before making a "decision". It is only a set of (very crude) algorithms that get number-crunched whenever a "decision" is to be made. In my experience, the only factors in that algorithm that determines whether to accept a peace deal or not, are: a) some kind of loss ratio (their destroyed units and lost towns vs ours) and b) our peace deal reputation (if they know that we broke a peace deal before the 20 turns are up, they are not likely to pay for peace, even when losing badly) and perhaps c) the ratio of current military strength. The loss ratio was pretty much in our favor, 2 captured towns to 0 and we probably destroyed twice as many units as they did. So I think they might have given something in a peace deal.
In one of my games I had a similar case: suddenly an AI landed a single unit next to my undefended capital with several wonders etc. They could have done some really bad damage to me and were at that moment not really in any serious danger. But I had captured quite a few towns of theirs in the past, so they were glad to pay for a peace deal...

I remember even reading about the following trick in one of the old SGOTM games: it was a continents game and the AI did not yet have access to the human continent (pre-Astronomy). It was Deity, so the AI was around 5 times as strong as the human party in terms of production/military/everything. The human team wanted a stronghold on the AI continent, but didn't have the ability yet to ship any troops over (only one suicide-galley had made contact so far). And if they had been able to ship any troops, these would have been beaten badly anyway.
So what they did: they planted 10 crap towns somewhere in the tundra of their own continent and waited until they had grown to size 2. (To prevent auto-raze.) Then they positioned a warrior next to each of these towns, gifted these towns to the AI, then declared war and immediately re-captured the 10 towns with the warriors.
Then they only had to wait for a couple of turns until the AI was willing to talk, and indeed got a couple of towns on the AI's home continent in the peace deal... Because it was only looking at some numbers in a certain variable, the AI was "thinking" it was losing that war badly, and didn't even realize, that the human player was much weaker and was not even able to attack because of the ocean separating the two nations...

I know roughly how WW works, but -- not being a habitual warmonger -- WH is something that I have never really experienced in my games (or at least, never really noticed). I assume it's like WW in reverse -- i.e. your people get happy if you're fighting and winning on your own turf, especially if the other guy started it... (as opposed to starting a war beyond your borders -- and then losing it)?

The simplified version:
For each AI there is a "war weariness counter".
When that counter is negative, 25% of the people in each town are changed from unhappy to content or from content to happy. (Depending on some complicated other factors.)
When the counter is between 0 and 30, nothing happens.
At 31, 61, 91 and 121 points, a new level of war weariness kicks in.
(What happens at these levels, depends on the government. Under Republic/Feudalism, certain percentages of the people become unhappy at each level. Under Democracy these percentages are much higher, and at level 3 you even go into Anarchy.)

At the start of the game, the counter is set to 0.
When an AI attacks you, 30 is subtracted from the counter.
When losing a unit or being attacked (even if defender wins), 2 is added to the counter.
When losing a town, 16-17 is added to the counter (depending on town size).
There are also some other minor factors that play a role here, like pillaging a tile, capturing a worker, bombardment, having units in enemy territory.

So in our case we started at -30, meaning war happiness. Hamburg and 7 lost units would already add 17 + 14 points and put us at +1, meaning WH is over then. How many units have we lost by now? 8 in MRG's turn set and about as many in yours? Then we would be at ~19 points. So 6 more lost units and war weariness will kick in.

Which is what I did when I got the MGL on my FIRST turn, and got all of one response (Choxorn's) over the following 1h 30mins.

Come on, you got to give us more time than just 1:30h Don't forget we have team members in different time zones! When I say "pause the game", it means at least 24h. Important decisions like how to use an MGL or how to prevent the loss of an important city deserve input from the entire team...

Plus, if we n00bs start asking advice/permission for every major thing we do, this game will never get finished

Well, I think quite the opposite: it might get finished much faster... (Like in 1400 AD instead of 1800 AD... )

And lastly... our master strategist wasn't online at 2:30 am, anyway... or were you...?

I don't know about our master strategist, but I definitely wasn't...

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Sidenote: I'm not used to war weariness because I always use Monarchy as my government since I typically go for a conquest victory.

 

[tjs282]

Acronym's Emperor Space Race SG

Turnlog 90-270 AD

NB Spoiler'd to reduce post area. And this is the 'edited' version...

Spoiler :

Turn 132 -- 90 AD Preplay

Switch Tax.Sci.Lux to 7.0.3
MM K'berg's Gran-build for 9 shields (1T to complete) and temporary 0fpt
MM Catan for growth in 5T, switch Lib-build to Horse (6T)
Switch Rax-build to Galley in K'stadt and MM for 3T build (at +1fpt)
Reprime settler-pump in O'stadt -- Pop5 in 1T
Switch Lib-build in E'stadt to Pike (2T)
Upgrade 2 Swords in München for 60 gold
eHorse moved from Goldstadt to München

2 Viking Archers (1r, 1v) waiting outside München, and will most likely attack the injured vSword (3 HP) on the hill during the IBT

IBT:
Viking Archers attack exposed vSword: rArcher killed, vArcher kills vSword (1-1), 2HP vArcher now on hill outside München
2 more Archers appear in view, 1 from Trondheim, 1 from R'vik
Third rArcher landed next to Hamburg(!) from Galley (from Aarhus?).
K'berg builds Gran --> MM for Worker on growth to Pop7 (wastes shields but Worker-pump then ready to go)
O'stadt --> Pop5, set for 1T-growth

Turn 133 -- 110 AD

Send Archer+Settler towards Spot12
E'stadt's vHorse attacks rArcher near Hamburg, retreats at 1HP

vHorse from kills 2HP rArcher outside Hamburg, vHorse promoted (2-1)
eHorse from München avenges our lost Sword by killing the 2HP vArcher, spawns Barbarossa! (3-1)
Rename Bremen --> Bananenbucht
Warrior and Curraghs continue exploration
Army ('Barbarossa's Battlers') built after (OK, OK, too brief! ) CFC consultation, loaded with 2 Maces, and moves onto Copenhagen's Hill

There are several Archers heading our way, so I keep one rMace free to allow 3 Moves in different directions (Army M=2, Mace M=1) on next turn

IBT
rArcher kills Barbarossa's 4HP eHorse (3-2) on Hill. Damn, I hoped it would retreat.
Worker finished Hill-mine before K'berg's growth phase, allowing it to build its Worker 1T sooner than expected. Happy. Now I can start the 2T Worker-pump
Eisenstadt builds vPike --> vHorse in 6T
W'haven builds Harbour --> Barracks in 6T (or can be switched to Lib later)

Turn 134 -- 130 AD
vSpear upgraded to Pike in München
1HP vHorse fortified to heal in E'stadt
rMace kills 1HP Archer near München (4-2) -- no promotion this time, but there is another rArcher coming in from the Mountain 1SE of C'hagen...
eSpear from E'stadt fortified on Iron mountain
Victorious eHorse attacks Copenhagen (defended by 2Spears + Archer), and dies (4-3)
Right then, I'm sending in the Army! First assault kills 3HP rSpear (5-3) and gets promotion, 2nd assault kills 2HP rSpear (6-3), vHorse from München kills rArcher (7-3)
... and Copenhagen is ours!!! eSpear moved in and fortified, production set to slave Worker (5T)

IBT
rArcher attacks rMace and dies, Mace promoted (8-3)
rSword runs in from Trondheim and kills 3HP vMace (8-4). Damn, I thought Ragnar had shot his Sword-wad already -- has someone sold them Iron...?
1HP rSword outside München joined by rArcher
K'stadt builds Galley --> SunTzu

Turn 135 -- 150 AD
Mystery English city borders pop, just before Settler+Archer could build town -- Spot12 is now no longer available without causing war! Oh well, off to the peninsula it is...
3HP vHorse attacks Viking Archer+Sword stack, kills Archer (9-4) and is promoted, but only 2HP left -- retreats to München to heal
Army kills 1HP rSword (10-4)
Galley arrives outside W'haven and Settler boards
vPike in München and eSpear in C'hagen swapped -- Spear upgraded
Sci% 'raised' to 10%, to get research moving again (still making +32 gpt), treasury at 68 gold

IBT
Lizz asks us to stop 'menacing' Warwick (with our Archer 3 tiles away, presumably). OK, OK, we were leaving already...
Just out of curiosity I offer Literature, for which she will give 3 gold (her treasury) + 6 gpt -- great until she runs out of cash... Straight RoP would be 'insulting' according to Ambassador F4, but she'll give it to us for Literature. I don't think so...
O'stadt builds Settler --> Lib (7T)
K'stadt builds Worker --> Worker (2T). Now we're cookin'...
Hamburg builds Aqueduct --> Horse (4T)
Neu Oslo builds Worker --> Worker (10T)

Turn 136 -- 170 AD
Settler --> W'haven
Galley drops off first Settler, moves to collect 'Spot12' Settler+Archer
CAII says Vikings are willing to negotiate. I just bet they are, but I'm not.
Healed vHorse moves to Hill next to E'stadt -- Aarhus is down to Pop1, guarded by rSpear(s?)
Army moves towards Bergen
Goldstadt's Horse moved towards Bergen
NeuOslo's Workers go to road/clear the Dyes -- at last!

IBT
Mongols (annoyed) complain about our Curragh -- just passing through, Temmi... Gift him 10 gold, but it doesn't help his mood...
Hamburg --> Pop7
Jungle tile cleared near Catan
Catan builds Horse --> Horse (15T, before growth)
2 rArchers approach Hamburg/Copenhagen from Aarhus and R'vik

Turn 137 -- 190 AD
Found 'Fischberg' on Spot 13 --> Harbour (30T)
Move eHorse from München towards Bergen
Move vHorse next to Bergen
Army kills first rSpear in Bergen (11-4) -- now down to 4HP... oh what the hell, decide to risk it... AND WE WIN! (12-4) Bergen's Silks are ours! At least for the moment, the entire population (all 5 of them) are resisting our righteous rule...
vHorse defeats Aarhus' Archer (13-4) with no HP loss, retreats to join second vHorse from Catan -- I'll invade next turn...

Just noticed that from Pop5, O'stadt can easily build MM-free 4T-Settlers -- but the plan was for growth plus a Lib and Market, so I probably ought to do that instead...

IBT
rArcher approaches C'hagen from Trondheim
K'berg builds Worker --> Worker
O'stadt --> Pop6
Copenhagen flips, taking our vPike with it!

Turn 138 -- 210 AD
vHorses sent to retake Copenhagen -- both are defeated and killed by rSpear (13-6), which gets promoted to Vet with 2HP. Godsdammit... All Barracks set to build Maces. I'm not gonna take it anymore...
Last 2 Horses arrive in Bergen for quelling resistance

IBT
Ohcrapohcrapohcrap -- another rArcher lands outside Hamburg. Horses in Bergen are too far away to get there in 1T. We're going to lose the city
Mongols DoW Koreans
China allies with Korea

Turn 139 -- 230 AD
Catan's Workers reassigned to build 2T Hill-roads to B'bucht
Horses sent towards Hamburg anyway -- I just hope it doesn't get razed before I can recapture it, but I bet all the improvements will be gone...
Army fortified outside Bergen, because I now have no free units to quell resistance/ reduce flip risk.

IBT
Hamburg captured by a measly Archer -- 9 gold stolen. He's gonna die.
K'berg builds Worker --> Worker
W'haven builds Barracks. Good thing too. --> Horse (6T)
B'bucht builds Worker --> Worker (10T)

Turn 140 -- 250 AD
Galley drops off 'Spot12' Settler in Fischberg, and arrives in W'haven: Archer unloaded and sent to K'stadt, Galley carries on towards Hamburg to block the Vikings' landing point
K'stadt -- SunTzu switched to Heroic Epic for (hopefully) more leaders.

IBT
Mao 'politely' offers Monarchy for Engineering, (and will even throw in 120 Gold) but if I sell it to him on the IBT, he'll sell it to everyone else... Try to offer an RoP for good relations, but he'll only give it with Engineering. Maybe I should just sell this tech on my turn for whatever I can get...
Archers cross our borders from Copenhagen and Aarhus
O'stadt builds Lib --> Market (10T)
München builds vMace --> Horse (6T)
Koreans begin SunTzu
Hamburg now down to Pop4
Curragh outside Taejon can almost see K'stadt! (~6 tiles away)

Turn 141 -- 260 AD
eHorse kills rArcher in Hamburg (14-6). The city is ours again, and still has the Harbour, but not the Barracks, so this will be rebuilt (4T)
rHorse attacks rArcher from Aarhus, but retreats at 1HP (Archer still has 2HP)
vMace from München kills other Archer (15-6), gets promoted.

Tech-trades:
Sell Engineering to China for Monarchy and 70g. What's Mao just spent 50 gold on?
Sell Engineering to England for 60g
Sell Engineering to India for 5g -- these sales empty nearly their entire treasuries
Sell Maths to the Japs for 15 gold
We now have 366 gold, but Korea still won't sell us Invention
Sci% upped to 40% (Invention in 13T), Lux dropped to 20%, +11gpt

IBT
2HP rArcher kills our 1HP rHorse (15-7), and is now on our land with 1HP
Second Archer approaches Bergen
Third Archer approaches E'stadt
K'berg builds Worker --> Worker
E'stadt builds vMace --> Horse (5T)
München goes into disorder. Damn. I'll have to put the Lux% back up. Clown to Scientist for now

Turn 142 -- 270 AD
eHorse from Hamburg kills 1HP Archer (16-7)
7/9 HP Army succesfully intercepts rArcher approaching Bergen from Trondheim (17-7), then retreats back across river -- for now.

Our clouds are gathering for the next storm...

Handover summary

Cities:

• O'stadt building Market at high SPT, low FPT
• Hamburg rebuilding lost Barracks (1T so far), can be cash-rushed for 60g before 'End of Turn'
• K'berg functioning as 2T worker-pump. Tile assignment needs to stay as is
• K'stadt set to fast growth, low shields for more GPT -- those few shields are going into Heroic Epic as a placeholder/prebuild for Uni, or even Copernicus. Feel free to reassign build, or up SPT for faster build.
• E'stadt, W'haven and Catan building various 30s-units. Feel free to reassign all builds (to Horse/Mace?) and rush-build as you see fit
• München set to build another Mace, but is rioting right now (should be over on next turn), because of the dropped Lux% -- its flip risk is highest of all German-built cities, so C'hagen should be retaken ASAP to limit Viking influence
• Goldstadt still building Courthouse. That'll take awhile.
• Fischberg building Harbour for trade connection and more food -- until Jungle can be cleared, it will have to work Coast
• Bergen building slave Worker (10T), but may well flip soon -- can be retaken by nearby Army if that happens before you're ready to attack Trondheim.
• Neu Oslo and B'bucht building 10T workers until their 3x3 tiles start getting cleared/roaded (B'bucht has 'high' flip risk -- needs connection to our trade network)

Units available:

• 2 Settlers, one on peninsula ready to found a city, other waiting for a ferry in W'haven
• 18 Workers, mostly stack-building roads and mines through Hills right now. Once the roads are done, send them to clear more Jungle/Marsh around Catan, W'haven, Goldstadt and B-bucht (those priorities)
  
• 1 rWarrior, heading for B'bucht
• 1 vArcher in O'stadt, with a view to sending it München for the invasion
• 1 rSpear in Neu-Oslo
• 2 vPikes, one in München, one in E'stadt
• 1 eHorse in Hamburg. You can expect another Archer to be dropped off there in a couple of turns' time if you don't take Aarhus first
• 4 Maces -- 2 in Army, one each in München and E'stadt. Suggest to use the free Maces to take Copenhagen SOON.
• (2 Pikes, 1 Horse currently under construction)
• 2 Curraghs -- still exploring, but one can nearly see a short ocean route home -- do you feel lucky?
• 1 Galley -- send it back to W'haven for the Settler --> peninsula, don't need to guard Hamburg's ocean approaches while there's an eHorse garrisoned there.

Commerce/Trade:

• Tax.Sci.Lux = 4.4.2, +4GPT, Treasury = 378gold, Invention in 11T if the Koreans won't sell it to you first. But you will need to drop the Sci% for Lux%
• We are way ahead of the Japs, but they've (now) got nothing to give us in return
• Tech-parity with everyone else except Korea, which has a monopoly on Invention. This means the Vikings have Feudalism, so they MUST NOT get Iron (Pikes) or Invention (Berserkers)

 

[choxorn]

Just a thought- you probably should have just razed Copenhagen, with its awkward, cramped position it doesn't have much value to us. I know I'm almost certainly going to burn it.

I'll probably keep K'stadt building the Heroic Epic, it's fairly cheap and fairly valuable to have higher MGL chance.

As to the AI building Wonders, Sun Tzu's is only valuable to us if England or the Vikings build it- having free Barracks on a continent full of 1-spt cities isn't that helpful. So here's hoping England ends up building it for us.