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

:( Please, guys, saying "Panzers" is like saying "informations". I always cringe, when I see it.
The plural form of Panzer is just Panzer.
I've edited mine too -- sorry Teach.... Bitte, nehm' Sie ein Äpfeln* :mischief:

*
Spoiler :
(=Please, have an appleses)
 
I think we just ICS everything a pay a little attention not to found on grassland, when there is a hill next to it.
I said that already! But Choxorn was the third of 3 (much more competent than me) players who asked for one, so I wondered if maybe I was just being too blasé about it...
 
Ok, who is up currently? If I counted correctly, myself, Elephantium and Choxorn now played their 4th turnset, while MrRandomGuy, tjs282 and CommandoBob still didn't. Anyone got time to take the next set?

Edit: ah sorry, never mind, I missed this post:
I've got the save, I'll take a look at it in detail later today or tomorrow and post the Pre-Flight notes.

So let's fix the roster now as follows:

1. Lanzelot
2. Elephantium
3. Choxorn --> just played
4. MrRandomGuy --> up
5. tjs281 --> on deck
6. CommandoBob

Sounds ok?
 
That looks more or less right.
 
Pre-Flight Turn Notes

We are at peace with every civilization we know and very recently signed a peace treaty with England. The focus now will be less on offensive units and more on city improvements to help our empire expand further down the technology tree.

Electronics is due to be researched in 4 turns. A Hoover Dam prebuild is currently located in our capitol. I'll take care to ensure that the Universal Suffrage is NOT built before we discover electronics and switch it over to Hoover. From there The Corporation would be the best logical choice to choose to research next. After that I will select Refining so that we can get oil as soon as possible.

Do we want to build TOE? Koingsberg seems the most logical choice to put it in, as it would only take 12 turns to complete.

Is someone making a map of where to place the cities? I see one good spot northwest of Exeter one tile southwest of the mountain tile. Beyond that I'm not sure where to best place the other cities to fill in the gaps.

Rails, rails and more rails. A lot of our core is railed but we still have a lot of railing to do. I'll see if I can make more workers to help.
 
I think we want to hold off on building TOE as long as possible, to get more expensive free techs.
 
Pre-Flight Turn Notes
We are at peace with every civilization we know and very recently signed a peace treaty with England. The focus now will be less on offensive units and more on city improvements to help our empire expand further down the technology tree.
The English PT was a treaty of convenience to reduce the WW we'd built up during the last 30 turnsets (and acquire some more GPT to fund research), and will not be renewed when it expires in ~15T. At that point, the last English cities (including any that flip back to them in the meantime) are scheduled for German acquisition so (depending on how much hardware we've got left at the moment) be cautious about slacking off on building military.

Re. infrastructure:
All core-cities need a University and a Factory, if they haven't already got one. All 2nd-ring cities should be brought to Pop12 (add native Workers at Pop7+), so will need Courthouses, ('Ducts,) Markets, and Libs (and then maybe Unis, and/or Barracks + Factories), 3rd-ring cities that can't get bigger than Pop6 really only need Courthouses and maybe Libs (and coastal cities might need Harbours). NO cities need Hospitals, Happy-buildings, or Powerplants; and if Sci% + Lux% = 80-100%, Banks aren't worth building either. Some high-shield core cities will need to start prebuilding Wonders soon, if they haven't already (see below).
Electronics is due to be researched in 4 turns. A Hoover Dam prebuild is currently located in our capitol. I'll take care to ensure that the Universal Suffrage is NOT built before we discover electronics and switch it over to Hoover.
If you can get Electronics sooner than that without breaking the bank, go ahead and do it. Better to get Hoovers sooner than later.
From there The Corporation would be the best logical choice to choose to research next. After that I will select Refining so that we can get oil as soon as possible.
Sounds good. Our research priorities have already been discussed at length.
Do we want to build TOE? Königsberg seems the most logical choice to put it in, as it would only take 12 turns to complete.
This question suggests to me that you have not been paying much attention to this thread. We've had literally pages of discussion about building this and other Wonders. The answer is Yes, but NOT in any city which will complete a ToE build before we finish researching Flight. The plan is to get ToE 1-2T after we enter the Mod-Age, and then choose Computers and Miniaturization as our 2 free ToE-techs (if we don't get Comps as the new-age freebie tech for being Scientific). We then want to build SETI almost immediately in Kolossusstadt to replace the lost Colossus commerce-bonus (so it should start on a Palace (1000s?)-prebuild right after finishing its Factory, so that it already has nearly 1000s in the bank when we get Flight).

We also want TheInternet, to give us free ResLabs in all our cities, for yet more beakers. Another prebuild is needed for this, in any convenient ~30-40 SPT city, but since the Palace will be needed for SETI in K'stadt, and (I believe?) the next biggest available Ind-Age prebuild will be UniSuff, which costs 'only' 800s, we will have to be careful. Ideally we should wait another 10-15T before we start it, so that it's at ~750s when we get Flight -- but the AI loves Wonders, UniSuff will cost them only 640s at Emp-level, and Industry/UniSuff comes early enough in the tree that the Mongols(?) could conceivably finish it before we can convert our prebuild (640s@20SPT = 32T, @25SPT = ~26T, @30SPT = ~22T) -- we might need to consider putting together a Wonder-busting Panzer invasion force, just in case...
Is someone making a map of where to place the cities? I see one good spot northwest of Exeter one tile southwest of the mountain tile. Beyond that I'm not sure where to best place the other cities to fill in the gaps.
This has also been discussed to some extent. Our core is far too well-developed and valuable to even consider moving our Palace, so for the very few remaining 2nd-/3rd-ring city sites (i.e. <90% corrupt) available in the former Viking/English territory, place cities at around CxxC so that they can eventually use 12 tiles (at 24 FPT with rails) and build a Courthouse/ Aqueduct (if needed). (NB You can use CAII's 'Territory' functions to plan city placement to see where the 90% corruption is going to kick in.)

The irretrivably 90% corrupt sites -- including the majority of the formerly English cities and surrounding lands -- should become ICS'd science-farms, with all surrounding tiles railed+irrigated for maximum FPT. I argued -- and Lanzelot agrees -- that a dotmap is not really necessary for this. Just fill in the potential coastal city-sites at CxxxC to start with, and then back-fill the coasts and inland to CxCxC wherever additional cities will fit. Obviously we should keep Wonder-cities such as London and Brighton, and other captured cities should also stay where they are wherever possible. I would only consider (Settler-) abandoning them if doing so allowed a more efficient CxC placement (e.g 3-4 cities in a 3x3 area instead of just 1-2).

We should also aim to use 1-FPT tiles (Hills, Deserts, Tundra) as city sites wherever feasible, to maximise FPT from the Plains/Grass tiles. For ultimate efficiency, before settling on a Forest tile, the trees should be chopped into a build in an adjacent 1-shield city. Jungles can be auto-cleared by Settlers, but it's not worth wasting Worker-turns clearing Marsh while there are still more important tasks for them in the core, and/or other ICS-sites still available. (And the AICivs won't clear/settle on Marsh anyway, so we don't need to prioritise them).

All foreign citizens in captured cities should be cash-rushed into Workers ASAP (to allow us to join our native Workers back to our Pop7+ cities, and reduce unit-maintenance costs) and then those cities and the new farms should be allowed to (re)grow to either Pop6 (if they don't have a 'Duct/ freshwater access) or Pop12 (if they do), with ~50% of the population then becoming specialists. Where forest-plants/chops aren't feasible, a CivEng may initially be useful to build any needed cheap improvements, e.g. Harbours (1 GPT maintenance) in coastal Desert/Tundra-cities. If necessary, the CivEng can then be converted to a Taxman to support up to 2 such improvements.

Being somewhat paranoid, I would also like to build Walls in Pop6 coastal cities (10s to build, 0 GPT maintenance), and garrison all coastal cities with at least one Inf for a 'ring of steel' -- although Lanzelot will probably disagree... ;)
Rails, rails and more rails. A lot of our core is railed but we still have a lot of railing to do. I'll see if I can make more workers to help.
No argument here -- but prioritise rails that will be useful, e.g. railing a shield-tile to get a city to an efficient 10/ 15/ 20 SPT makes sense, railing to get a wasteful 11/ 13/ 17/ 19 SPT doesn't.

IMPORTANT: If this hasn't already been set up, Kolossusstadt will need to steal railed shield-tiles from Hamburg (and W'haven?) in order to get 14-15 SPT unwasted -- its Factory + Hoover-Hydro will boost that to 28-30 SPT for the SETI-prebuild to complete in ~34-36T, which should coincide with when we're due to get Flight (if I've counted right, and we can do 4-5 T per tech).
 
tjs282, are you ready to substitute?

In addition to your post above, which is a neat precise summary of our current strategy & long-term plans, let me add one more point:
Some cities (second ring and the best third ring cities, perhaps) might also benefit from a Police Station. As we got Communism for free, we might as well take advantage of it. In a research game a while ago, I built them in high-commerce coastal cities by disbanding obsolete units. (Usually the normal shield production of these coastal towns is too low for getting Police Stations quick enough so that they actually make a difference. And cash-rushing isn't optimal either, as we should rather put the cash into techs directly. But we'll soon have lots of high-shield cities with nothing useful to do, and they can build units for disbanding in low-shield cities that still need improvements.)
With lib, uni (and soon research lab) a Police Station adds like 5-6 beakers per turn the cities science output, which is nothing to be sneezed at. ;)

However, we should indeed make sure to keep a decent "Wonder-busting Panzer invasion force". It's quite likely, that otherwise we won't be able to complete our wonder plans as lined out above.

Ring of Steel? Why not, we don't have anything else to do for some time anyway... :D Although it's probably not necessary: I have never so far seen the AI use amphibious warfare... In one Demigod game I even observed the following: I was at war with the Vikings and had left one quite productive size 10 coastal city unguarded. In the interturn a Scandinavian Caravel came out of the fog and unloaded a Berzerk next to the city!! The Berzerk could as well have marched right into the undefended city, but no, they unloaded it on the square next to the city... :lmao:
 
Yeah, I've been wondering what happened to MRG as well. I was hoping he would have posted on or before last Friday, and then I could have played my set over the weekend. I can certainly download Choxorn's savegame and start playing tonight, if MRG doesn't show up/ post his before then (if he does, then I could grab his save instead).

However, we are driving down to the Harz for the long weekend, leaving straight after work tomorrow evening, so I wouldn't be able to post a save/log until Sunday evening at the earliest -- and that's only if I('m allowed to) take the lappie with me, and finish playing my turnset over the next couple of days :please: This plan may not be popular with the Kleine Frauchen... :nono:

Otherwise, the earliest I would be able to post would likely be Monday or Tuesday evening next week -- in which case it would make more sense for me to wait until Sunday before grabbing MRG's save (assuming it arrives by then). If the rest of you don't want to wait that much longer, then C-Bob would be up next...

(Besides, I was kind of looking forward to squashing Lizzy -- again!)

:band: 'The boys are back in town, the boys are back in town...' :rockon:
 
However, we are driving down to the Harz for the long weekend, leaving straight after work tomorrow evening

Wow, what a coincidence! :eek: Where exactly? I'll be travelling to my parents' place tomorrow, who live in Bad Lauterberg (Harz)!
Unfortunately staying only for one day (dropping off the kids for a weekend at their grandparents and then heading further on to the German Civ-LAN in the morning... :D), otherwise we could perhaps have met for a cup of tea... :coffee:
 
OK, I have official :queen: permission to take the laptop with us :clap: so I've DL'd Chox's savegame. It's pretty late now, so I'll start playing tomorrow (if I'm not too tired) or Friday.

EDIT:
Realised earlier today that I brainfarted re. the putative invasion force to protect our prebuild(s). Once we've got MotorTransp, we'll only be 5T from Flight anyway, which probably wouldn't leave us enough time to build Panzer ;) (1-2T?), get them across the ocean (2-3T?) and then mount an invasion (1-2T), especially if we also need to fight our way inland to get to the target city (???T) (no-one's going to give us another RoP any time soon, are they...?).

So any Wonder-busting that needs doing, would have to be done with Cav-Armies instead, maybe backed up by an Inf-Army covering a Gaggle'o'Guns. We'd need at least 5 or 6 Transports to get that lot across to the next continent (1 per Army, plus 2 or 3 full of Arty), so I might also see about building some (more?), if e.g. Aarhus or W'haven have nothing better to do. (Awkward that all our core cities are on our west coast -- hope the Mongols don't start anything on their west coast...)

@Lanzelot:
Wifey's rented a holiday-apartment in Altenau, apparently near the Therme and/or the dry-bobsled track. That's the best information I have at this stage, but GoogleMaps knows where it is, if the not-very-smartphone's Navi fails... :badcomp: Altenau's a pretty long way from Kassel though, just for a cup of tea! Interestingly, one of Wifey's friends will also be in Bad Lauterberg this weekend, visiting her parents -- it's their 50th anniversary, so her sister and her kids will also be there. Don't suppose that's your wife, though -- that really would be a weird coincidence...!

Will look in tomorrow noon-ish to see if there are any new developments; otherwise, speak to you all on Sunday...
 
I played a few turns, but stopped when a wrench got thrown at me.

One of our trade deals with another country (India I believe) expired. He wanted Medicine and a couple of other luxuries for the luxury we were getting from him.

I didn't take the deal. The result was a large cascade of our core cities revolting all at once. Ever since that I've been attempting to see if it is possible to micromanage the cities without having to trade with India. I haven't had much luck. I really don't want them to get closer to SM by giving them medicine.

I can finish the turnset by the end of this week or tj can take it now if he wants to and I'll go ahead and go after him, whichever the group thinks is best. I haven't gotten very far into it, maybe 3 or 4 turns or so I believe.
 
Oh dear.

I did wonder if maybe something unexpected had happened in the game and you'd felt too embarrassed to tell us about it. But as Lanzelot pointed out to me after the Hamburg debacle, you could have just come on here straight away and asked for some advice... That's what an SG-team is for, right?

Soo... Is the situation salvageable? Rather than MM-ing every city, would it not be more effective to simply up the Lux% for a couple of turns to compensate? I realise that doing this would slow our research -- but would that be a disaster? If you were already a couple of turns in before Gandhi monkey-wrenched you, we can't now be more than 1 or 2T from Electronics anyway -- and we/you could presumably also slow down the UniSuff/ Hoover prebuild for a couple of turns after the revolts are quelled if necessary?

But that's only a short-term fix: we really do need that Lux back if we want to max. our Sci%. I agree that we don't want to give Gandhi Med if we can avoid it, since he will certainly immediately sell it around, putting him and Temujin (and the English, though that's less of a concern) that much closer to SciMeth -- so is there anything else that we could offer him instead? Another tech? Gold? GPT? All of the above? If not, we may just have to bite the bullet, swallow our pride and sell Med to everyone ourselves. At least that way we'll get the returns on all our hard work, instead of Gandhi -- but we will also then definitely need to begin some serious preparation on Wonder-busting expeditions...

(Haven't looked at the save yet, but is there anywhere on or near the other continent where we could plant a pre-emptive beachhead and/or city without causing war? If so, shipping some units/ Armies over there ASAP would give us a much bigger response window later...)

How about you post the latest save for Lanzelot and the others to have a look at, get their advice, finish your turns, and I'll start the next turnset on Sunday after all?
 
Bahaha,

Sometimes I make things harder than they should be and overlook the simplest solution. By lowering science slider by 1 and raising the luxury slider by 1 it solves everything and we still get Electronics on time.

Still, I'm glad that I first tried to solve the problem myself then asked for advice instead of just playing through and hoping for the best.

Edit:

This is the save before my adjustments. Even though I've fixed the problem by lowering SCI by 1 and raising LUX by 1 I still want to ensure there's nothing I'm missing.
 

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No need to give Gandhiji a tech. Simple solution: Ivory + 9gpt for Wines + Dyes + Silks.
That way we even make a profit...!

If everyone who plays the game, just makes sure that in the "Preferences" screen the check-box "Always Renegotiate Deals" is de-activated, that deal should hopefully last for the rest of the game, avoiding unpleasant surprises like the above. (Unless the Indians lose their ivory source.)

Sooner or later, when we get bored, we might send a few tanks and "secure" that ivory source ourselves... :mischief: Especially if Delhi manages to finish Bach's Cathedral for us... (Currently two cities are building Bach's: Delhi and a Mongol city. Can't currently locate Pusan on the map, but Delhi being a capital with approx. 20spt should have a good chance at finishing it mit-term.)

We should make that deal right-away, before India sells their ivory to someone else.

Can't locate Pusan on the map
That reminds me: we should build 2-3 explorers and send them on the other continent. (As long as we don't have any military units in their territory, explorers should not get the boot.) I want to see,
  • where all the cities are, in case we need to go wonder-busting
  • where Temujin's gems are... :D
  • and we may well need to go looking for oil, uranium and aluminium. It's quite possible, that one of these resources is not available on our continent. If we start exploring the map only after discovering that we have no oil, it'll be too late. We should do it now.

Establishing a beach head and starting to ship some Infs and empty Armies over is an excellent idea, tjs282! :goodjob: I noticed exactly one tile not yet inside the cultural borders of any AI: N-NE of the Mongol town Hyangsan. Our Galleons can reach that spot in 8 turns. So I suggest we rush a settler in Leeds (in 2-3 turns), load it into the Galleys in the harbor of Walstadt (has a rail link to Leeds) and drop the units of at that spot, hopefully before Hyangsan culture-expands...

Trondheim is building a worker for 40s?! :eek: Let it build Armies. (And then one of the wonder pre-builds, when the time comes.)
 
Wow, the AI finally researched Music Theory! Maybe they'll also research Navigation and we can finally trade World Maps with them!
 
1 - 1265 AD

IBT

Notification of Indians building JS Bach

2 - 1270 AD

Hannover is founded near the mountain tile I previously mentioned three tiles northwest of Exeter.

IBT

We lose our supply of Ivory and the Indians want Medicine as well as other luxuries for it. I decide not to take the deal. The result is at least 9 cities revolt on me.

Notification of Mongols buildng JS Bach

3 - 1275 AD

Taking Lanzelot's advice we are now getting Ivory and 9 gpt from India for wines, dyes and silks.

Also switched production to Army in Trondheim.

IBT

Electronics has been researched. Refining will be researched in 4 turns.

4 - 1280 AD

Universal Sufferage switched to Hoover.

IBT

Newcastle flips back to England. Joy.

5 - 1285 AD

IBT

Hoover is built.

Mongols are building Universal Suff

6 - 1290 AD

Bremen is founded a little north of Berwik and west of Exeter.

7 - 1295 AD

IBT

Corporation has been researched. Refining is set next due in 6 turns.

Indians are building Universal Sufferage

Handoff Notes:

There are two settlers that I left active. With Newcastle once again under England control that brought a huge chunk of territory back in their power and shrunk most of the gaps. Because of this I wasn't sure if there would be any good places for other cities. I've left them active in case the next person can easily spot a city. If not then once we destroy the English these settlers can be used to fill in the gaps later.

Due to a couple of instances of pollution some workers are not synched up like they normally would be. This isn't a major issue but is somewhat annoying. I also misclicked this last turn and sent a worker to an unworked mountain tile. I made the best of the misclick by ordering a few more workers over to that tile to ensure it'll at least get roaded the next turn.

Most of the core cities and cities around the FP have just about every tile railroaded and mine/irrigated. There may still be just a few more to do, but I think I got most of them. We still have quite a ways to go before our entire territory is railroaded though.

Aside from towns revolting and a city flipping back to England this was a pretty quiet turnset.
 

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OK, glad you got things sorted out, MRG -- I assume you didn't finish your full 10 turns because you wanted to get the save posted? [EDIT: Oh yeah, I didn't notice that the last turnlog date was several turns earlier than the savegame date] If so, consider this my gottit. I have Monday and Tuesday evenings to play, so I should be able to post the save and turnlog on Wednesday at the latest.

I've looked at the save in CAII, and (in addition to what I posted earlier on, in response to MRG's plan) my general action plan is as follows:

If we already have a spare Settler + Inf available, and maybe 2 Cavs, I'm thinking I should send at least one Galleon-full over immediately to found the beachhead near Hyang-san (if the site's still available :please: ). With both the Mongols and Indians having just got Industrialization and begun building UniSuff, and assuming that we still want to keep US free as an Internet-prebuild(?), we are going to need our Wonder-busters in place sooner rather than later. The beachhead-town ('Brückenkopfhafen'?) should probably rush a Lib for some instant culture, then a Courthouse to increase flip-resistance -- or vice versa?

It will indeed be very useful to be able to estimate how long it might take the Indians and Mongols to finish all their current GW-builds. So I'll also build/switch some 1T-Explorers (since they only need Astro) out of some 10-20s cities and send them along with or just behind the beachhead-Settler. That should be cheaper/ more reliable than waiting/ hoping for someone to get Navi, and sell it to us along with their Maps... ;) Depending on how quickly Delhi(?) can get Bachs built (~20T would put it several turns into C-Bob's turnset, at around the same time as MRG's Ivory-deal ends), and when we are ready/ forced to bust the existing Suffragette-Cities, we may need to be ready to bust Pusan as well, to stop it from cascading from Bachs to US...

Of course, we shouldn't start any wars with the Indians and the Mongols while we're still getting stuff from them, so I won't be attacking them on my turnset. I'll be busy kicking Lizzy's butt instead (Choxorn's PT will expire 5T into my set, so I'll be watching CAII closely while I play...). Since 2 of those 3 cities are recent flips, they shouldn't yet be heavily garrisoned, so I don't expect the war to last more than 2T at most -- so I can probably risk starting to ship out offensive units to the beachhead before the English have gasped their last (although I need to build some more ships first...). But yes, having empty Armies already on-site that we can then pump up to 4-Cav killers or 2-Inf walking fortresses, that's a good idea. Trondheim will finish at least one of these on my set, so I'll send it over to the beachhead as well and start building another(s).

Production could do with some tweaking -- I'll look at each city individually during the preturn. We currently have nearly 50 Cavs (including those in the Armies), and we are intending to make them all obsolete soon, so why are we building more?!? And in 50-60SPT cities as well -- I think those should immediately be switched to Infs to minimise shield-overruns, and then decide what's best to build there next. Core cities will probably build more Inf, but we have 25-40% corruption in several 1st-and 2nd-ring cities that don't yet have Courthouses and/or Police stations, so maybe those first, e.g. Aarhus (~30% corrupt) can finish a CH in 2T, improving both its GPT and its SPT, so it can then build a Factory that much faster -- and pay for its upkeep afterwards). Coastal cities in the 90% corrupt zones should probably build a Harbour and then just Settlers/ Galleons/ Arty/ Wealth/ Workers(?).

That said, we still/ already have an awful lot of native Workers running around: since we have RepParts, slaves should be doing the terrain improvement work instead. IIRC, it was about 80 slaves and 40 natives in Chox's save, and we now have 151 Workers, of which 58 are natives! I think we would be better off joining as many of those natives as possible to core cities which are still at Pop7-11 (e.g. K'berg, Aarhus, Fischberg, Bananenbucht, Goldstadt, Neu Osloh etc...). We are (I believe?) already well over our free-unit limit, so for every native Worker who joins a decent-sized city we will save 2 GPT maintenance -- and those new core-city citizens will also generate some additional commerce, so we could actually make 3-4GPT more per joined Worker. Joining 10 Workers would therefore allow us to cash-rush 1 slave per turn at 1s+36g and still make more GPT than we are now...

Although our core development is now nearly finished :goodjob:, CAII says some of those cities are wasting food at Pop12, so those cities could still use more shields and less food (i.e. switch irrigation to mines). The English lands also still need a lot of (re)development -- irrigation and rails to feed the future Scientists+Taxmen -- so we still need lots more workers! I'll aim to enslave as many English citizens as I can during my set, which should also become significantly quicker once there's no further danger of losing those cities to back-flips (although the end of the English will also mean the end of the 17 GPT they were paying us for peace :( ). If everyone's OK with me spending the gold, I should be able to afford to cash-rush 1-2 slaves per turn (our current treasury would allow rushing at least 10 slaves just on this IBT).

Incidentally, I also think we should abandon Elastischestadt -- it's crowding a potentially de-corruptable Pop12 city-site, and I don't think we really need it any more to access the Rubber. I would therefore like to start shrinking it with a view to Settler-disbanding it, if that's OK? (Placing 1 or 2 slaves in the city the turn before it disappears would allow us to immediately colonise or road the tile, so we won't lose access to that Rubber if we need it).
 
OK, glad you got things sorted out, MRG -- I assume you didn't finish your full 10 turns because you wanted to get the save posted?

No I did finish. Nothing of interest happened the last 3 turns other than worker actions and cities finishing production.
 
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