Acronym's Bucket List Succession Game - sign-ups open!

[choxorn]

Wow, I'm really surprised that London only had 3 defensive units. The AI tends to take better care of its core cities than that.

 

[Lanzelot]

Well, it was building two wonders in a row. In such a case the city is usually only lightly defended. (The AI moves defenders from one town to another only "by accident"...)

 

[tjs282]

Hey guys, since we've just started a new page (at the standard '20 posts per page' setting, anyway)...

I thought I'd better mention that I just went back and edited my handover notes/ suggestions quite extensively, to consolidate/ clarify some things, and make them easier to read (I hope).

I may check in again later today or tomorrow (oh, who am I trying to kid...? Of course I will!), but I won't be posting anything substantial for the next 2 weeks.

MRG, you're up next, with Choxorn(?) on deck.

 

[choxorn]

MrRandomGuy, are you still busy? I was under the impression you'd be taking the next turnset.

 

[Lanzelot]

tsj and MrRandom swapped, so that would make the roster look like

1. Acronym <-- MIA
2. Lanzelot
3. MrRandomGuy <-- Up! (Because of swap)
4. tsj282 <-- Just Played
5. Choxorn <-- On Deck
6. CommandoBob

But MrRandomGuy hasn't reported back here since Aug. 6th, so I would say "last orders" and if he doesn't take it by tomorrow, you could take the next set?

 

[Acronym]

Hi all,

tjs kindly dropped me a message the other day, to remind me about the game. I'm really sorry for disappearing completely after the opening turns - I realise I've been a hopeless 'host'! I rapidly realised I had nowhere near the capacity to keep up with all the (fascinating!) discussions and am simply unable to participate (about all the Civ I can manage at the moment is one turn in the Age of Imperialism PBEM every 2 weeks!).

Someday when I get a bit more time I am really looking forward to reading through this thread and catching up on exactly what has been going on with our fledgling nation, and hopefully catching up before you finish.

However, in the meantime, I would like to formally hand over 'ownership' of the SG to one of the more active players, as tjs had mentioned others had asked to join, and those sort of decisions should absolutely be made by the people who have actually invested in the game!

I'll leave it to you guys to decide who to take on the mantel of ownership, but please take this as read that you can mess with the rules of the SG as much as you like without worrying about me - it's all yours!

Thanks for the ride, and I'm sorry not to have been able to commit more - maybe some other time! All the best, and may Germany flourish amongst the stars!

 

[choxorn]

I think I speak for all of us when I say that Lanzelot should be the replacement leader if you're leaving.

On another note, since there's still no word from MrRandom, so it looks like I'm taking the next turnset. Will look over the save now, play later.

 

[choxorn]

Pre-Flight Notes:

Military:

-We have 7 Pikemen, 1 Horse, 4 Knights, a Galley, and 11 MDI's, 4 of which are in an Army.
-Military Builds: 2 cities building Knights, 4 building MDI's, 1 building Pikemen. I think we should have more of them building Knights.
-Strong compared to Korea, China, and Scandinavia, Average compared to Japan, Weak compared to England, Mongols, and India.
-To be sure: The plan is to keep fighting England for a few more turns, but keep the stack close to London, then DOW Ragnar and take London a turn or two before Copernicus is built. Is this correct?

Domestic:

-Most of our third-ring cities are building Courthouses. I could easily cash-rush all of them, and considering they're third-ring, they could really use Courthouses. Should I?
-While I'm at it, should I cash-rush harbors in Walstadt and Aarhus?
-Munchen is starving, but I can't really do anything about that until some of the wetlands around Bergen are cleared.
-Tjs in his notes mentioned that he tried to build a Barracks in Goldstadt and screwed it up and now there's an MDI there that will be built as a regular- would a Trebuchet or a University be a better option?
-You also mentioned getting Walls in some of our cities since we won't have free Walls from the Great Wall for a while- it should probably also be noted that since we're so close to Metallurgy, we won't be keeping those free Walls for very long. I'll consider rushing Walls there, but I'm not yet sure if it's worth it.
-Should I be joining any workers to any of our cities?
-Is that worker outside Wilhelmshaven supposed to be planting a Forest? I can't really tell what purpose that serves.
-More generally, the worker plan is: Clear the wetlands in the south and build roads/mines/irrigation there?

 

[MrRandomGuy]

I'm here. It's slowed down now to somewhat normal levels.

Since choxorn already posted his assessment I think it's fair to let him do the next turnset then I'll take the one after that if that's ok with everyone.

 

[choxorn]

That's fine by me.

 

[choxorn]

Update: I'm 5 turns now, and the crap has totally hit the fan. Through a combination of terrible luck, underestimating the English, and some admittedly poor strategy on my part, I lost basically all of the stack, the army included- It went from 10 HP to 3 in one attack on a Pike and died shortly after. I still have 2 Pikes and a Knight and some workers and there's not a single defensive unit in London, so this might be salvagable, but it's looking really bad.

I did manage to capture Richmond with no losses and pillage the Saltpeter. I ended up giving it to the Vikings because it had a super-high flip chance and I was certain England would get it back if I didn't keep a few units in it, which I wasn't willing to risk doing.

So, uh, yeah. I kind of screwed the pooch on this one.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

That's mainly why I wanted to issue a land campaign to take London instead of using a ROP rape. I personally think you didn't screw anything up but that the whole idea of just going after London by itself was a bad one.

I propose we attempt to get England to sign a peace treaty as soon as possible, rebuild our units, and then strike again by land per the plans I had. I'm betting that both cities will culture flip by the time we build up our military so what we need to do is utilize my early war plan until we recapture London. Then from there determine where to best send our forces.

We don't need armies per say to conquer the English, but sheer strength in numbers. In a war campaign against an empire their size we should have MUCH more offensive units than we did when we started the war this last time.

We also are getting to the point where siege weapons will do sufficient damage. Yes, they take a few turns to get to the target city but a few extra turns will matter very little in the long run. It's time to slow down and patiently wait for the right moment to strike. We can't rush these things. With careful planning we will be able to conquer the English even if they have more advanced units like riflemen with little to no losses.

Patience and building more units than we need will result in quick cascading city losses for the English, especially when (if they're still around by the time we get to the tech) we have access to rails and can rail our way to the next city.

 

[choxorn]

That's sort of my plan- make peace with England as soon as I can and hope I still have enough left to grab London for a couple of turns and launch our GA.

I know it wasn't all my fault, and like I said, I had some bad RNG luck- in addition to the army losing 7 or 8 HP in one attack on a regular Pikemen (fortified in a city, I admit, but still!), I lost 2 Maces and a Knight trying to hit units in the countryside- I lost both of the Maces to an Archer and a Sword! (The Knight I lost to a Knight on a hill, but it was at 2 HP and my Knight was at 4).

That being said, it wasn't luck that I left the other two maces undefended in areas where I knew they could get killed after they successfully killed some units in the countryside, and it also wasn't luck that I sent the Mace Army to attack a city on its own (this was after all of the other units were dead). In my defense, and the lone remaining Knight was at 2 HP when I started my turn and I was using the Pikes to defend it and the Workers- I never expected the Army would be that fragile- Richmond and London were both easy to take. I figured I could have it at least take a shot at capturing one of the nearby cities (specifically, Canterbury- it was already in the area after killing a weakened Knight, and it seemed like Canterbury was exerting lots of cultural pressure on Richmond while being far enough away from all of England's nearby cities that it wouldn't be pressured much itself- I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to capture it and give it to the Vikings), and fall back if it got too hurt. Problem was, my threshhold for "too hurt" was about 7 HP- it went from 10 or 11 to 3 in a single battle.

On the bright side, I've held the line well at the border, and they haven't even tried to come for the peninsula yet. My plan is to keep holding the line, and pray to the Civ-Gods that England will start talking peace before Ragnar can build so much as a Spearman in London.

 

[Lanzelot]

That's mainly why I wanted to issue a land campaign to take London instead of using a ROP rape. I personally think you didn't screw anything up but that the whole idea of just going after London by itself was a bad one.

No, the idea was good. It only could not be expected to get bad RNG luck like this. And perhaps there was a slight mistake in "going after stray units in the countryside". When deep inside enemy territory like this without any chances to replace losses with reinforcements, one must always keep all his units under the shelter of the Army. The units in the countryside don't do you any harm, just ignore them, only go after the cities...

And our forces were quite sufficient for our campaign, and despite the losses I would say that all major objectives were achieved: saltpeter taken, Great Wall taken and 3 core towns (including the all important capital) captured. England is severely hurt now! They'll be an easy target for a future war.

Now all that remains to do is sign peace at the earliest opportunity and keep the surviving units in London territory for the "retake". Do we have a RoP with the Vikings? If not, we might be forced to dow Scandinavia earlier than would be convenient, because we can't afford our units to be kicked out before London is retaken: we would never be able to get any forces back to London, because for obvious reasons the Brits won't give us another RoP...
So it's also advisable to start strengthening the Viking border already, especially Trondheim.

 

[choxorn]

2 cities, not 3. We only got London and Richmond- luckily, those were the two most important cities to take.

 

[choxorn]

Triumph! Thankfully, England decided to leave my Pike/Pike/Knight stack alone after I fortified it on a hill with some rivers, and they thankfully decided to sign peace 2 turns before Copernicus was due to finish. So, I signed peace, positioned the stack a bit better, and then gave Ragnar the finger, took back London and Richmond, and now we have a Golden Age!

Turnlog to follow shortly.

 

[choxorn]

Spoiler 670-770 :

670 AD (Turn 0):
-Switch the MDI in Goldstadt to a University, and the MDI in Eisenstadt to a Knight.
-Wake up the Worker outside of Wilhelmshaven planting a forest- it doesn’t seem like it was doing that intentionally. Have it instead clear Jungle outside of Catan.
-Switch Aarhus from Aqueduct to Harbor (complete in 1 turn)- Eisenstadt and Hamburg need most of the irrigated plains in the area and the tiles to its Northeast aren’t improved, there’s no way it can get enough food to grow past size 6 without a Harbor anyway.
-I look at Walstadt, consider switching to a Harbor there, see that that would waste a few shields, and decide not to, and instead end up rushing the Library in it for 28 gold.
-Rush Courthouses in Fischberg (248 gold), Neu-Osloh (188 gold), and Bananenbucht (232 gold). I also rush a Library in Hareid (157 gold)- our cities in the ex-Viking core need some culture expansion to get enough tiles to work and alleviate the cramping there a bit.

IBT:
-A couple of English units move past our stack near Richmond, and the Sword and Archer near Bananenbucht enter our territory, a Knight shows up, and an Archer shows up outside Neu-Oslo.
-Oasenstadt: Knight->Knight
-Aarhus: Harbor->Aqueduct
-Munchen: Knight->Knight
-Catan: MDI->MDI
-Neu-Osloh: Courthouse->Walls
-Wilhelmshaven: Pike->MDI
-Walstadt: Library->Harbor
-Hareid: Library->Courthouse
-Bananenbucht: Courthouse->Walls
-Fischberg: Courthouse->Aqueduct

680 AD (Turn 1):
-For some reason, the FP slowed down from 15 turns to 18. Some tile reassignment gets it back to 16, but I’m still not sure what happened there.
-Join a Worker to Eisenstadt.
-Send newly created units Southward, Galley takes the new Pike in Wilhelmshaven to the peninsula to defend the chokepoint.
-Near Bananenbucht: vKnight kills rSword, takes 1 damage but promotes to Elite, eHorse kills rArcher, vKnight dies to rKnight but redlines it, vMdi kills redlined rKnight, takes 1 damage (3-1)
-@Richmond: Barbarossa’s Battlers (MDI Army) kills an rPike and an rSpear, captures the city and a worker! (5-1) There’s a Sword to the west of the city escorting a few Workers. Not for long…
-Near Richmond: MDI dies to Archer, MDI kills Archer, Knight kills LBM, MDI dies to Sword, MDI kills Sword, captures the workers (8-3)

IBT:
-Mongolia captures Pyongsong, and destroys Korea, which rather unfortunately costs us a bit of gold- they were paying us 22 gpt for the next 4 turns.
-English units keep moving- two of their rKnights kill two of our injured MDI’s near Richmond (8-5)
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker

690 AD (Turn 2):
-The AI’s all seem to have researched Printing Press, and India has Banking.
-Richmond has an insane flip chance, so I decide not to leave any units in it.
-Near Richmond: vKnight dies to 2/3 Knight, takes it down to 1/3 but it promotes… grr… Well since that failed, if I don’t leave anything in Richmond it’s going to get recaptured next turn, so to avoid WW from losing it I just gift it to the Vikings after taking all of our units out of it and pillaging the Saltpeter.
-The Army also kills a 1/3 Knight and captures a Worker near Canterbury. (9-6)
-Decide I might as well spend 30 gold upgrading the Galley to a Caravel.
-Can’t do much near Bananenbucht right now, fortify some Knights to cover an MDI and wait for the English to come at us.

IBT:
-English rKnight kills our vKnight, English rKnight dies to our vKnight (10-7)
-And here comes a lot of English units… well, crap.

700 AD (Turn 3):
Near Bananenbucht: vMDI makes rKnight retreat, eMDI kills rSword, vMDI makes 2/4 Knight retreat, eKnight kills rLBM (12-7)
-Rush the University in Goldstadt for 228 gold and the Aqueduct in Fischberg for 384 gold.
@Canterbury: Army kills Pike, then kills another one… but falls from 10 hp to 3. *Swears loudly* (14-7)

IBT:
-India request a trade of Chemistry for Printing Press. I decide to see what else he has. He’ll trade Banking and Printing Press and some gold for it. I decide to wait a few turns for our gpt deal to run out and see if he’ll trade some of that for it then.
-English vKnight retreats to our MDI near Bananenbucht, then an LBM attacks the Army… and it survives with 1 hp! (15-7)
-China’s down to 1 city, the one they have on our continent (Shantung).
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Eisenstadt: Knight->Knight
-Goldstadt: University->Barracks
-Fischberg: Aqueduct->Library

710 AD (Turn 4):
-The MDI Army flees into the forest Southwest of Richmond. I leave a three of our captured English workers near Canterbury (one of which was doomed anyway, having been under the Army) in the hopes that the English find them a more appealing target than our Army.
-Luckily, the Vikings haven’t yet managed to build any defensive units in either Richmond or London- I could capture both without a fight if I wished to. I’ll wait a few turns for Copernicus to get closer to completion… I think.
-Near Bananenbucht: eKnight kills 1/3 (or was it 4?) Knight (16-7)

IBT:
-The “Give away Slave workers” gambit fails- A Sword kills the Army, and all three of the workers I tried to use as decoys are lost anyway. On the bright side, an English Knight died to one of our Pikes- and revealed that England has an ROP with the Vikings in the process (17-8(+3)).
-Oasenstadt: Knight->Knight

720 AD (Turn 5):
-Our gpt just took a big hit- it looks like some of our deals with the AI ended.
-Trade Chemistry to India for Banking, Printing Press, 3 gold, and 24 gpt. Sadly, Mongolia doesn’t seem to have any gpt, so all I can get from them for Chemistry is 6 gold and Spices.
-The addition of spices means I don’t have to raise the luxury rate to fight the WW that just hit us.
-Sci down to 70 %, Physics still in 1.
-Near Bananenbucht: vKnight kills rSword, eHorse kills rLBM (19-8(+3)).
-vCaravel sinks an rGalley near Walstadt. (20-8(+3)).
-MM Kolossusstadt and Oasenstadt to prevent Oasenstadt from starving, while keeping Copernicus’Observatory due in 4.
-Rush a Harbor in Walstadt (104 gold)

IBT:
-Our RoP with India ends.
-Near Bananenbucht: English rKnight kills our vKnight, English vKnight dies to our 2/4 Knight (becomes 2/5 Knight), which is then killed by an English rArcher (21-10(+3))
-Finish research on Physics: Start Theory of Gravity, due in 6 turns at 80% science
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Hamburg: MDI->MDI
-Munchen: Knight->Knight
-Catan: MDI->Knight
-Neu-Osloh: Walls->Barracks
-Walstadt: Harbor->Pike
-Bananenbucht: Walls->Barracks

730 AD (Turn 6):
-Somehow, Mongolia managed to get Banking, Astronomy, and a crapton of gold over the IBT. Still no gpt, though.
-Near Neu-Osloh: vKnight kills rArcher (promotes to elite!) vMDI kills rSword (23-10(+3))
-Near Bananenbucht: vKnight kills 2/4 Knight (24-10(+3))
-Still no units in London (I imagine it must be too corrupt for more than 1 or 2 spt), England still won’t talk. 3 turns until Copernicus…

IBT:
-English units approach, no attacks.
-Goldstadt: Barracks->Knight
-Mongols building Copernicus. Good luck with that, Temujin.

740 AD (Turn 7):
-England is finally willing to talk. I decide to engage in a last bit of leader-fishing before going to the table, as they have some units near Bananenbucht:
-eMDI kills rLBM, vKnight kills rLBM and promotes, 3/5 Horse kills 2/3 Archer (27-10(+3))
-Go talk to England. They’ll give either 13gpt and 6 gold or one of three crappy size 2 cities and no gold. Since the size 2 cities all appear pretty much worthless and impossible to defend, I end up going for the gold.
-Since England’s current unit placement prevents me from reaching Richmond this turn, and Copernicus is still 2 turns out, I decide it would be a good idea to wait a turn before betraying Scandinavia. Just to make sure, I spend 102 gold investigating London to make sure it’s more than 1 turn away from building a defensive unit. My investigation reveals that it is 8 shields and 8 turns away form a Spearman. I think I’m safe waiting one turn.
-Use that 1 turn to send some of our units towards the Vikings.

IBT:
-India and China sign peace- I guess China isn’t going to die after all.
-England is mad that some of our units are still in their territory near Warwick/Bananenbucht. I tell Elizabeth that they’ll leave.
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-England and India building Copernicus. Lol.

750 AD (Turn 8):
-With Copernicus 1 turn out, it’s time. I take the opportunity to move a Knight outside of Reykjavik before doing so, but I dial up Ragnar and tell him that it’s War. I immediately take back London and Richmond- and no resistors in either one, probably because all of the citizens were English! Awesome! Decide to turn everyone in both cities into Tax Collectors and starve out the native English a bit.
-Set Lux down to 0%, thank you Mongolian Spices, and wonder why I forgot to do that last turn.

IBT:
-Oasenstadt: Knight->Bank
-Kolossusstadt finishes Copernicus, and we get our Golden Age!
-Kolossusstadt: Copernicus -> Bank
-Eisenstadt: Knight->Knight
-Wilhelmshaven: MDI->Bank

760 AD (Turn 9):
-In the hopes of lowering their high flip chances, I rush Libraries in London and Richmond. I elect not to have the remaining English workers hook up the Saltpeter- at least until Richmond’s flip chance drops a bit. I don’t want to just give England some Saltpeter.
-eKnight kills an rArcher outside Reykjavik (28-10(+3))

IBT:
-A few Viking Archers head towards Aarhus.
-London: Library->Wealth
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Richmond: Library->Wealth

770 AD (Turn 10):
-vKnight kills rArcher and promotes, vKnight kills rArcher and promotes, vMDI kills rArcher (31-10(+3))
-Advance units towards Reykjavik and Stavanger.

Hand-off Notes:

-Keep having the workers clear the jungle and Marsh in the South for now, either irrigate or mine the cleared land depending on whether or not the nearby cities need food.
-You might be able to tinker with tile alignments a bit with the boosts we've gotten from our GA and get some more efficiency out of our cities.
-Konigsberg needs to stay at under 10 spt to keep the Worker factory running, and that's actually difficult to do at the moment with the GA.
-Keep an eye on the Aqueduct build in Aarhus- rush it if it doesn't look like it will finish before it has the food to reach size 7.
-The FP is 4 turns out at the moment. When it finishes, check and see what effect it has on Corruption in Trondheim and the cities around it, like tjs said.
-I'd build a few more military units to fight the Vikings and leave a few in the South just in case England gets any funny ideas, but we can probably take them easily. I suggest continuing to fight the Vikings at least until we've taken their Saltpeter source- the one by Richmond isn't one we can rely on hanging on to.
-Speaking of which, I suggest not hooking that one up, in case Richmond flips back to England.
-Theory of Gravity comes in next turn- Magnetism or Metallurgy->Mil Trad next?

 

[Lanzelot]

Good job, you saved a quite critical situation! Golden Age, now we are in business...!

The usual comments...:

• I'm confused: from your turnlog it appears that Oasenstadt built a knight every 4 turns instead of every 3 turns. Did you let 10 shields go waste?
• What is the matter with London and Richmond?! They are starving but they don't need to. Never starve precious foreign population, cash-rush slaves instead! It's free worker power and the age of steam is not far away.
• We don't need any banks in a research game. Especially as we get half-priced universities. So Kolossusstadt should switch to university now (multiply the effect of Colossus + Copernicus + GA!), Wilhelmshaven as well, and Oasenstadt can prebuild for Newton. (Could already have done that earlier, but I didn't pay attention...) Hamburg can also make good use of a university. (We can research the last remaining middle age techs in 4 turns each, but in the industrial age tech prices more than double, and also our GA is going to end eventually. By that time our complete core ought to have universities.)
• The loss of Korea hurts pretty badly... Two free techs lost. We should have gifted them some crap town like Westenburgberg in order to keep them alive.

• For some reason, the FP slowed down from 15 turns to 18. Some tile reassignment gets it back to 16, but I&#8217;m still not sure what happened there.

  Probably lost the WLTKD effect. Did we already get war weariness from the British war at that point?!
• The Brits are willing to give 650g and 108gpt for Physics. I guess we should take that deal... BTW: for this reason it would have been better to take the two towns in the peace deal: we can always get their gold for techs, but we can't buy their towns... Even crap towns lower the unit upkeep (we will still be paying a lot for a while with the age of rail dawning) and can produce precious workers at 10 turns a piece.
• Arrgh, this explains the strange situation in London/Richmond:

  Decide to turn everyone in both cities into Tax Collectors and starve out the native English a bit.

  No, no, no, why voluntarily kill free workers??

• Konigsberg needs to stay at under 10 spt to keep the Worker factory running, and that's actually difficult to do at the moment with the GA.

  tjs282 (or someone else?!) already built workers at 18 shields a piece. Now in GA with the 2 shields on growth, we would actually be building them at 9+11 = 20 shields a piece... No way! I would say, now is the time to let Königsberg grow and use the lots of shields for a quick library and marketplace. During GA that first-ring town is now much to precious for worker-duty. We can build our workers now in crap towns like Walstadt and Westenburgberg and ship them home with our caravel. And also we can soon build workers in the captured Scandinavian towns.

• Theory of Gravity comes in next turn- Magnetism or Metallurgy->Mil Trad next?

  It probably doesn't matter much, but doing Magnetism first keeps our Great Wall alive for 4 more turns. Could help a bit in the Viking war.
• Speaking of which: I currently see 3 elite Knights lonely and undefended in Viking territory?!? Did you go after stray units again...? Killing stray units is a sure way to lose our own units, and losing elites hurts twice as much, as every lost elite means a lost chance for an MGL. Better keep the stack together and protect it with a cheap pike. (Killing stray units is allowed only if the Knight can go back into safety on the same turn. Or if you are 100% sure the opponent is already toast...)

 

[choxorn]

Wait, was there a way to make Oasenstadt get 3-turn Knights done? I couldn't see how to give it enough production to do that, at least before the GA.

The thing with London and Richmond is that they don't have enough food to avoid starving anyway, I figured I might as well get some money out of it. It probably would be a good idea to rush some workers, though, that's a mea culpa on me for not thinking of that.

As to the Knights in Viking territory- Yeah, I was having them hunt down Archers. Scandinavia doesn't have any resources and for some reason I haven't seen any Berzerks from them yet, so it didn't seem that risky, and they're just heading in the general direction of Reykjavik anyway to attack it.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

From what I can see of the save/turn log, there's not much to do other than continue the war on the Vikings while building up our infrastructure and creating units.

I don't think we have enough offensive units for the moment to do much damage. I'll plan on taking a city or two, but I don't think I can go beyond that with the current military we have.

I agree with the next tech. It may not make too much of a difference but might as well keep the advantage for as long as we can.