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[Lanzelot]

Since we skipped all the optional MidAge techs (many of which allow building SWs/GWs), what could we use as the second prebuild? Now we've completed our FP, AFAIK we don't have any available SW/GW to pour prebuild shields into, and the AI doesn't like trading GW-techs (or at least, charges a premium price for them), especially if the GW hasn't yet been built. So how are we going to get hold of another 'prebuild' tech? How cheap/easy would it be to get e.g. MilTrad=MilAcad from someone (or have we got it already)?

That might indeed be a problem. I haven't taken a detailed look at the save yet, so don't know, what options are still available. For the next 15 turns or so, Oasenstadt will be busy with Newton anyway, so let's hope that by then MilTrad or Economics or something will appear on the market... industrial techs are 3 times the price of medevial techs, so we can buy anything without problem (and probably even get extra cash on top of it...), even if the tech still has an unfinished Wonder on it.

In that order? Doesn't that leave SciMeth rather late to complete ToE, especially if our research will not be as fast as you'd intended/hoped? And don't we want to get Industry sooner than that, so we can build factories in our Hill-towns, and then (pre)build ToE and Hoovers as quickly as possible?

Yes, in that order. Of course it would be preferable to do Industrialization earlier, but then we would have to do it ourselves, which of course destroys the chance that the AI does it for us... And I do think, that Replaceable Parts is even stronger than Industrialization: the doubled worker power is effective immediately (and as you see, with a completely railed core city you effectively double your shield output), while Factories first require an upfront investment of 240s a piece (that's almost half the ToE!!) and then add only 50% to the shield output.
So I think that we can get ToE even faster by going to RepPart first and skipping the factories for now.

And when you talk about 'gifting' techs, do you mean 'accept whatever they'll offer for it'? Seems a shame to just give away techs for nothing if we can get a trifle or two in return -- such as Industry and MilTrad (see above). We're not trying to win a popularity contest here...

Yep, if they have something worthwhile, we may as well take it... But compared to the heavy prices of an industrial age tech, everything the AI will have to offer at the moment is only peanuts. Se it as an "investment in the future": if we get the chance to trade for some heavy weights like Industrialization and/or Steel lateron, it will have payed off.

Or 3 shields if one of those 2 tiles is a BGrass (or 4 shields if they both are )...

No, it's always 2 extra shields...

Also, given that we will be starting our 'clear-the-continent' war against the English soon, how does everyone feel about using the 'Rail to city' Worker-automation at least to build our initial rail network?

I feel very bad about it... Automating workers never leads to anything good... The AI is just too stupid. Two examples:
- If we have 6 workers, the AI will send them to 6 different fields. So during turns 1-6 we will get no benefit at all, and then starting at turn 7 we will get +6 shields. (If all 6 tiles had a mine.) The human player will of course stack the workers on a single tile. So already at turn 2 we get +1 shields, at turn 3 +2 shields, ... at turn 6 +5 shields. That's an extra 15 shields for nothing!
- Of course the AI knows nothing about our "list of task priorities" given above.
- The AI will not pay attention to which cities actually benefit from a rail. It will just rail some tiles at random. But the human can take this things into account: even when your aim is to establish a rail link between two cities, there are several possible ways to do this. We can make sure, that the railway runs over exactly those tiles that at the same time give the most benefit for the two cities. E.g. it runs over two irrigated tiles of a size 7 city and then over two mined tiles of a size 12 city.
- If we have two cities, one currently doing 10spt and the other one doing 9spt, then of course it makes more sense to bring the second city from 9 to 10spt, so it can build its current project faster, than to bring the first city from 10 to 11spt, as the extra shield will be lost to overrun anyway... The automated worker will just randomly pick any tile.

And now Lanzelot is going to tell me that I have to learn these tricks -- and use them religiously -- if I ever want to win at Demigod or higher...

I'm going to tell you even more...: if you want to win at Demigod, you not only need to do some serious MM and use short-rushing and magic numbers, you also need to think quite deep about how best to deploy your workers, plan ahead so that they build the improvements you need in such a way that they will always end up in an area where they are needed next, etc. Because as you know "the number of workers is always too low - in every game"... The AI has a 30% discount on everything, but it doesn't optimize anything. A lot of these 30% simply goes waste. By optimizing everything, the human player can overcome that 30% discount and achieve even more with the 70% available to him, than the AI achieves with its 100%. That is basically the secret to success on the higher levels. (And on Sid you need one more thing: a big portion of "luck"... )

(But of course, if we spend 160 shields on a bank, then all the above doesn't matter anymore... Why spend a lot of effort on MM and planning our worker tasks to gain some extra shields here and there, if these shields are then flushed down the drain... ) (Sorry, can't help it: I'm still shaking my head about this -- even a week later... )

 

[Lanzelot]

I..., and Mongolia's big enough to do research but also big enough to be scary.

It's not worth it to squander our tech lead just to hope that the AI will speed up our research by a few turns. If they'll give us decent prices for our late-MA/early-IA techs in trade, sure, but I don't think we should give them away. Our tech lead is an advantage, we might as well use that advantage.

That point is quite valid. At the moment it is indeed only Mongolia that appears capable of being of any real help. But also strong enough to pose a certain risk.

If we decide to keep our tech lead, then I would say we should even go one step further and try to keep the AI so backward, that we can savely keep ToE for the mentioned Computer/Miniaturization slingshot.
The other AIs pose no problem, and for Mongolia we can make a RoP, keep good relations with them and a decently size expedition corps on their continent, and also keep an eye on their progress towards Scientific Method. If they do happen to get it before we finish the indutrial age and start ToE in a productive city, we just capture it a few turns before it finishes ToE (and possibly 1-2 other towns that accumulated a decent amount of shields in other wonders, in order to prevent a cascade).
A limited campaign on the other continent like this should be no problem, once we have taken over our continent.

But this is a major decision that we need to make as a team: use ToE for Hoover or keep it for the Internet?

 

[choxorn]

On non-required Late MA techs: I say that those are the things we should be getting in return for trading our required Late MA techs whenever the AI gets around to researching them.

On your suggestions for Mongolia: How can we get an RoP with them? We completely demolished our reputation by declaring war with an RoP so we could capture London and Richmond.

Twice.

On what to use the ToE for: I'd say we can figure that out when we see how big of a tech lead we have. If it's doable, we could start it as a prebuild for Hoover, then research Atomic Theory and Electronics and switch it to Hoover, then build ToE later.

If the AI is starting to catch up to us and becomes a threat to actually build it at that point, then we can just build it.

On the next turnset: CommandoBob still hasn't been heard from and he hasn't posted anywhere in the past couple of weeks- should we consider him MIA? Should someone else take the next set?

 

[Lanzelot]

On your suggestions for Mongolia: How can we get an RoP with them? We completely demolished our reputation by declaring war with an RoP so we could capture London and Richmond.

Twice.

Ahem, oh, really? Who the heck recommended that nonsense...?

Yes, staying flexible with regard to ToE is probably the best option. We can always change the plan, once we see it becomes too risky.

If we skip Bob, I would be the next in the roster, I guess. I can post an action plan tomorrow.

PS: just opened the save and checked a few things. We can still get a RoP with the Mongols, if we throw in Physics. No need to do it now, but good to know that it is still possible, if we need it!

 

[tjs282]

CommandoBob still hasn't been heard from and he hasn't posted anywhere in the past couple of weeks- should we consider him MIA?

According to his activity log, he was on CFC yesterday evening (or early this morning, CET)...

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, here is what I propose to do in the next turnset. Let's discuss it for a day or so. If CommandoBob turns up till then, he can take over, otherwise I'll take the set on Friday.

• If I raise the science rate to 100%, we can do Steam Power in 4 turns at -30gpt. So let's do it. Our bank account is currently over 1500g.
• Sell the two Banks in order to save maintenance. (Yes, we have already two banks... I noticed only one so far...)
• Switch Oasenstadt to Newton's University immediately. It says it will finish in 12 turns, but as we have only 8 turns of Golden Age left, it'll be more like 16 turns.
• Switch Hamburg from Bank to University immediately. It wastes 40 shields, but that's the lesser evil.
• Why is Königsberg still building workers? Didn't I already say 10 turns ago, that during Golden Age we should let it grow and use the GA-shields to build library, market and university? Now more than half the GA already passed by, and a very productive first-ring city and potential powerhouse is still small and has no multiplyer buildings at all.
• Reykjavik and Stavanger are currently building a library. According to our dotmap, they need to be settler-disbanded to make room for the planed ring around our Forbidden Palace. I just checked with Civassist: moving Reykjavik as indicated in the dotmap reduces corruption there from 51% to 45%, so it is definitely worth it. (We still have half the game ahead of us.) However, moving Stavanger only reduces corruption from 56% to 54%. I don't think that's worth it. Also by keeping Stavanger in its place, we have access to 3 additional coast tiles, which definitely outweighs the little corruption-reduction.
  So I would switch Reykjavik to settler and rush it now, but leave Stavanger. I don't want to wait until the settler completes normally, because it would be nice to use at least the final 6 turns of the GA to get perhaps a library done in the new town.
• Trondheim is currently producing 23spt, but needs only 6s to finish its University. How did that happen?! There must have been an appropriate short-rush target somewhere down the line to avoid this huge shield-overrun? (All I can do now is to at least optimize it for food so it can grow in 2 turns.)
• Eisenstadt is producing 22spt, but needs only 4s to finish its Knight. Holy Cow. Ok, here I can switch to University and make good use of the otherwise wasted shields.
• Neu-Osloh is currently using two swamp tiles?! But it has fully improved grassland tiles available, so I use them.
• Bananenbucht could use an Aqueduct before the University.
• Switch London and Richmond from Wealth to Settler and let them grow back. We'll need lots of settlers later on in order to ICS that area for science farms.
• Mop up Scandinavia and then start preparing our final assault on England.
• Keep the AI backwards for now. We have tons of cash, so no need for selling any of our tech lead, and perhaps we can pull off the Internet trick after all... It may require cutting Mongolia down to size later on, but by the time they get close to Scientific Method, we'll be a superpower anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. (May be a good opportunity to play around with the famous German Panzer, while biding our time until spaceship parts can finally be built... We need to do something till then to avoid boredom, don't we... )

 

[choxorn]

According to his activity log, he was on CFC yesterday evening (or early this morning, CET)...

He's been online, yes, but he hasn't actually posted anything, here or anywhere else, in a few weeks.

 

[tjs282]

Ok, here is what I propose to do in the next turnset. Let's discuss it for a day or so. If CommandoBob turns up till then, he can take over, otherwise I'll take the set on Friday.

If I raise the science rate to 100%, we can do Steam Power in 4 turns at -30gpt. So let's do it. Our bank account is currently over 1500g.

Yes, do it. The sooner we can start getting railed the better.

Sell the two Banks in order to save maintenance. (Yes, we have already two banks... I noticed only one so far...)

@MRG:
Sorry, but this is getting to be a little annoying. IIRC, this will now be the third time that we've had to immediately sell off (pointless) city improvements that you built/finished during your turnset. Please could you start reading the thread posts and following the overall strategy a little more carefully? And please also remember to post a plan (and wait for feedback) every time before playing (you've only actually done this once so far).

Why is Königsberg still building workers? Didn't I already say 10 turns ago, that during Golden Age we should let it grow and use the GA-shields to build library, market and university?

Erk. That should have been switched as soon as our GA started. As I posted a couple of days ago, K'berg would have ceased being useful as a Worker-pump during the GA anyway, because of the bonus shields (unfortunately I didn't think about that when I wrote my handover notes -- in fact I specifically said to leave it alone. So at least partly my bad there...)

Also by keeping Stavanger in its place, we have access to 3 additional coast tiles, which definitely outweighs the little corruption-reduction. So I would switch Reykjavik to settler and rush it now, but leave Stavanger. I don't want to wait until the settler completes normally, because it would be nice to use at least the final 6 turns of the GA to get perhaps a library done in the new town.

No argument with either of these either.

Eisenstadt is producing 22spt, but needs only 4s to finish its Knight. Holy Cow. Ok, here I can switch to University and make good use of the otherwise wasted shields.

After the Uni is done, can we MM it to 20 SPT and do 3T short-rushed Knights (to Settler on Turn1 for 40g), like we did for O'stadt in the earlier turns? Or get it up to 24SPT for 3T, zero-MM Knights (and 2s wastage on Turn3). If not, and we're stuck with 22SPT for a while, we could still do short-rushed 3T Knights (for 32g on Turn1 and 4s waste on Turn3 -- but that's preferable to building 4T-Knights with 18s overrun, right...?) We're going to want plenty of Knights (to upgrade to Cavs?)* for wiping out the English...

*Do we actually want MilTrad for Cavs? Will we need them to clean up the English, or will Knights suffice?

Bananenbucht could use an Aqueduct before the University.

A uni in a second(/third?)-ring city? Is that worth it? And didn't I start a 'Duct there already (or at least suggest it)...?

Switch London and Richmond from Wealth to Settler and let them grow back. We'll need lots of settlers later on in order to ICS that area for science farms.

How fast are they going to build Settlers? Has the FP de-corrupted them at all, or are they still 1SPT-cities...?

Mop up Scandinavia and then start preparing our final assault on England.

Have fun with that

Keep the AI backwards for now. We have tons of cash, so no need for selling any of our tech lead, and perhaps we can pull off the Internet trick after all...

I agree with this. With Korea dead, we're the only Sci civ left now, so we should use that advantage. It might also solve the 'prebuild problem' I mentioned earlier, if we don't get a suitable tech (e.g. MilTrad or Econ) soon enough. If we use a Palace-->Hoover prebuild while we're researching to Electronics, we should be able to simply start building ToE as soon as we get SciMeth, and time its completion for just after we get the last of the IndAge required-techs. And that shouldn't be too difficult if we can trade e.g. our SciMeth/AtomThe/Electronics monopoly for most/all of them 1-2T before we finish Hoovers -- so long as the AIs (well, the Mongols+Indians) don't have any 'prebuilds' going at the time...

I also have a few strategic questions:

If we are lucky enough to get Computers as our 'new age' freebie, we will obviously take Miniaturization as our first 'ToE' freebie, but what should we take as our second?

• Ecol is on the 'SynthFib' branch, which always seem to take awhile to research (and will give us SolarPlants to use as Spaceship prebuilds)
• Rocketry is on the 'Space' branch, which is obviously our goal, but it gives no useful prebuilds itself (although I do enjoy watching enemy Bombers get shot down by my SAMs...)
• Fission will let us build UN (as a prebuild**) and Manhattan (which +SpaceFlight will allow TacNukes, either as prebuilds for the Spaceship parts -- or to one-shot-kill Mongol naval invasion convoys at sea, with no fallout/pollution ).

How do the Research tech-costs stack up (my C3C cheat-sheet doesn't say)? 'Cos otherwise I'm torn...

**Anyone else winning Diplo is now looking increasingly unlikely, since there are only likely to be 2-3 other Civs left by that point -- and the Indians+Japs aren't going to vote for the Mongols if they're getting beat up by them at the time...

And re. the Internet -- does it really put a ResLab in every settlement, or only in every city (Pop7+?), or only in Uni-cities (since Uni is prereq for ResLab)? I mean, Hoover puts Hydro-plants in every settlement, whether or not it's on a river/has a Factory -- but it seems like it would be incredibly polluting if every single two-bit town on the continent got a free ResLab, especially where we've ICS'd the cities. Assuming that (where terrain allows) the science farms will be laid out as follows:
CxCxC
xxxxx
CxCxC
xxxxx
CxCxC etc.
...that means that every science farm tile will be in 4-6 BFCs, so would have its 'pollution probability' calculated 4-6 times per turn, increasing the opportunity for a bad pRNG-roll.

Also, SETI is (now) pretty much useless in C3C, right? Seems like the Internet/ science-farming make it a complete waste of shields?

 

[choxorn]

For the most part, I agree with tjs. Some comments:

*Do we actually want MilTrad for Cavs? Will we need them to clean up the English, or will Knights suffice?

I'm not sure if we need them, but they'd be a huge help. I'm all in favor of picking up Military Tradition as soon as the AI decides to get around to researching it.

The English still don't have Saltpeter, which makes our lives a lot easier. BTW: To ensure they don't easily get Saltpeter by taking Richmond the moment we declare war on them, anyone in favor of giving London and Richmond to China (or maybe the Vikings if we don't kill them or maybe Japan), then declaring war on China/Vikings/Japan to get them back once we've dealt with England?

And, on another note: Should we completely destroy the Vikings, or leave them with a city or two?

Fission will let us build UN (as a prebuild**)
**Anyone else winning Diplo is now looking increasingly unlikely, since there are only likely to be 2-3 other Civs left by that point -- and the Indians+Japs aren't going to vote for the Mongols if they're getting beat up by them at the time...

I'd still be more comfortable owning it- although we'll see when we get to that point. We might have enough of a tech lead to make anyone else building it not something we need to worry about.

Also, SETI is (now) pretty much useless in C3C, right? Seems like the Internet/ science-farming make it a complete waste of shields?

Still fairly useful if you can get it in a high-gold town, especially if that town has one of the other Science-Doubling wonders in it.

 

[Lanzelot]

I agree with everything choxorn said. A few additions:

- If none of the AIs comes up with Military Tradition: no big deal. We are only like 12-14 turns away from Replacable Parts now, and if we can't get MilTrad before our English war, we just use Infantry! Sure, it's not as fast as Cavalry, but we are in no hurry. With a railway line to the front, they'll arrive there as fast as Cavalries would, and then they take 2-3 extra turns to attack the targets. But they have two great advantages:
a) at the moment, the AI is completely helpless against them. With defence 10, we don't need to worry about any counter attacks. (Best attacker available to the AI atm: 4. And it'll stay like this for a while, unless they do manage to get Cavalry. Which is still no match for an Infantry on a hill... and in which case we'll hopefully get Cavs, too...)
b) and it's an investment into the future: Cavs are a "dead end" and won't be of much use, if we have to go to war against the Mongols in the future. Already against Riflemen, which the Mongols will definitely have by then, perhaps even Infantry, Cavs are not that useful any more. But Infantry can be upgraded to MechInf, which is a very useful unit as an attacker (if we run out of tanks and there are still a few crap units left in a target city) as well as a defender. (Tanks in the battlefield are quite vulnerable. If there is resitance to be expected from the enemy, I like to cover the Tanks with 1-2 MechInfs.)

- I see no reason to keep the Vikings alive. Better remove any last remote chance of an annoying culture flip.

- Giving Richmond (and London!) temporarily away to a third party before our assault on England is definitely worth considering. The defences should be sufficient for surviving the first turn of war (perhaps rush a musket rifleman there before the war), and then we can evaluate the situation. If there are huge stacks approaching these cities, we gift them to a common friend, (which does not have a RoP with England...) Then these stacks are stuck for another turn and don't defend the cities on our border...

- With a courthouse, a second-ring city is definitely worthwhile getting a university. (Especially if the university is only 100s!) The game is still long. It'll pay off big time. (But not while the city is still a town... So we need an aqueduct first.)

- London and Richmond will probably stay at 1spt for the rest of the game. But with 3 irrigated grasslands and a fistful of dollars they can spit out settlers reasonably fast. (Like a settler every 8 turns.) But of course only after the war.

- The question of research strategy is still quite in the future. We can deal with it, once we know our freebie. And in general I think it doesn't matter that much. All first and second tier techs are required (except for Recycling) and the order doesn't matter.
BTW: for killing AI invasion fleets, tactical nukes are overkill... And all AIs will declare war on us (without providing war happiness, by the way!), if we are the first to use nukes. A dozen bombers can do the same, much earlier, and we don't even need to spend shields on the Manhatten Project. (Bombers are absolutely deadly against ships... I have used them in PBEMs with devastating effect... On of my most memorable attacks killed like a battleship, a cruiser, a carrier with 4 bombers and two transports with 8 marines in one turn. And I even think, none of my bombers got shot down. ~2100 shields sent to the bottom of the sea...)

- Yes, the Internet provides a research lab in every settlement on the same continent. No library/university required. And contrary to the Hoover-provided hydro-plants, which don't have any effect on the shield output until a factory exists, these research labs even have an effect on the beaker output. (Of course it is not noticable in those towns which have only 1gpt, but in those with 2gpt it already is.)

 

[choxorn]

If we rush Rifles (or Infantry, should we get to that point) in Richmond and London, 2 or 3 would be better than 1, just to be sure that they can't get them before we can give them away.

 

[Lanzelot]

I got an MGL in 910AD. ("Richtoffen". Oh my goodness, did any of these bone-headed fireaxis programmers learn to spell right? They probably mean Freiher Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron?!)

I don't think there is any other use for it at the moment besides forming an Army, but I'll pause now for a moment to give you guys a chance to provide more ideas.

The only useful small wonders for us would be Military Academy and Apollo Program, but we need an Army first, before we can build the Academy, and Apollo is still so far ahead in the future, we probably get more leaders till then, and if not, there's no problem building it by hand.
An Infantry Army in the English war, on the other hand, would be quite awesome...

PS: also the British got Military Tradition meanwhile. Do we want to buy it? They are not willing to trade it for Physics, so we probably would have to gift them Physics and then trade it for Gravity or Magnetism. But these are two techs less in our tech lead, and there is a certain risk, that they trade these around, before we are able to kill them...

 

[Elephantium]

lurker's comment:

I'd trade for it. Cavalry will be useful in the short-term, and England will die before they can erode your tech lead too much.

 

[choxorn]

I got an MGL in 910AD. ("Richtoffen". Oh my goodness, did any of these bone-headed fireaxis programmers learn to spell right? They probably mean Freiher Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron?!)

I don't think there is any other use for it at the moment besides forming an Army, but I'll pause now for a moment to give you guys a chance to provide more ideas.

The only useful small wonders for us would be Military Academy and Apollo Program, but we need an Army first, before we can build the Academy, and Apollo is still so far ahead in the future, we probably get more leaders till then, and if not, there's no problem building it by hand.
An Infantry Army in the English war, on the other hand, would be quite awesome...

PS: also the British got Military Tradition meanwhile. Do we want to buy it? They are not willing to trade it for Physics, so we probably would have to gift them Physics and then trade it for Gravity or Magnetism. But these are two techs less in our tech lead, and there is a certain risk, that they trade these around, before we are able to kill them...

I'd also say build an army, put either Cavalry or Infantry in it depending on how long we have to wait for the war to start.

How about wait a bit for the trade, see if anyone else researches Mil Trad and the price goes down?

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes, if we trade, we can wait until one turn before the war.

 

[Lanzelot]

Spoiler :

Pre-flight:
Re-assign MM and build projects of some cities as described in the action plan. Some short-rushing to even out shields.
Science to 100%
Sell two banks...

T203, 880AD:
Trondheim: University -> Rifleman
Reykjavik: Settler, abandons
Eisenstadt: University -> Rifleman
Neu-Osloh: Library -> Marketplace
Wilhelmshaven: University -> Rifleman
Molde: Worker -> Worker

Darn, there are units on auto-move... One Knight just moved into the place, where Reykjavik used to be a minute ago and which is now just a hill without road. Two full turns lost for that Knight: one to get onto the hill and another one to get back onto the road network.


Knight kills a Berzerk near Karasjok (1:0).
Attack at Birka: two Knights kill 2 spears, one promotion, Birka captured. Set production to a Galleon. Not sure what else to build there and whether it is close enough to Trondheim for a courthouse to pay off. At the moment it looks like, but we'll have to see after the GA.

T204, 890AD:
Goldstadt: Knight -> Rifleman

eKnight kills archer and captures a settler. What are the Vikings thinking, running a settler right into the path of our offensive?!

Brandenburg founded, starts Courthouse

England has Military Tradition.

T205, 900AD:
Bergen: Library -> Marketplace

Attack on Karajok: 2 Knights kill 2 spears, one promotion, 3 workers and Karajok captured, starts worker.

Reduce science to 40%. (The 3 new universities and 2 libraries already show good effect.)

T206, 910AD:
Steam Power -> Electricity
Kolossusstadt: University -> Courthouse. Now isn't she a beauty:

180 beaker per turn...

Stockholm: settler -> Courthouse.
München: University -> Courthouse

Science to 100%. We need 1050 bpt to do Electronics in 4, but we currently only have 960. We need 90 additional bpt.
The University in Catan will finish next turn and provide an extra 10bpt. A University in Hamburg would yield 15bpt, but it still has 4 turns. Hmm, if I shortrush it and another library here or there, and let some more cities grow quickly now (we have coal already connected, so I can start railing right away), we might make it.

Shortrush university in Hamburg and Neu-Osloh and rush it in Aarhus.

Attack on Bodo: 3 Knights kill 2 spears and a berzerk, one promotion, one MGL. Bodo and 3 workers captured, start worker.

Attack on Alesund: two spears killed, one eKnight lost. Alesund captured. Start Galleon.

The Vikings are still alive, they have another town on the large island in the west, which I didn't notice so far. A Galleon is going to be equipped and will set sail soon.

I sell the Mongols the newly acquired Alesund dyes for 16gpt.

T207, 920AD:
Trondheim: rifleman -> rifleman
Aarhus: University -> Marketplace
Eisenstadt: rifleman -> rifleman
Catan: University -> Knight
Molde: worker -> worker

Japanese are building the Sistine Chapel.
Our deal for spices has run out, and we need to renew it. Raising the lux tax would cost us ~100bpt. But the Mongols want Physics for it. I think, now is the time to get MilTrad.
Sell Mongols Physics for spices, saltpeter, 1gpt and 40g.
Gift the English Physics, then I have the choice of buying MilTrad for Gravity + 380g or MilTrad+Democracy for Gravity+Magnetism. Oh well, the Mongols have nothing to give anymore, so I take the risk.
Sell India Physics for 67gpt and 28g.
Sell China Education for 7gpt and 13g.
We are now running 100% science at +15gpt...!

If we manage to eliminate England quickly, we have lost only Physics of our tech lead, which would have been researched by the AI eventually anyway.

Potsdam founded, starts courthouse.

Research is now up to 988bpt, still 62 more needed, and of course what we "missed" last turn.
For some reason I can now build the Military Academy?! We have an Army, but not yet a victorious one? So apparently it is enough to currently own an Army and once having had an Army victory...! Switch Trondheim to MilAc.

T208, 930AD:
Königsberg: Marketplace -> Library
Hamburg: University -> Cav
Neu-Osloh: University -> Marketplace
Goldstadt: Rifleman -> Cav
Bodo: worker -> worker
Karasjok: worker -> settler

The English are now building Shakespeare's Theater...!

We are now at 1029bpt, 2249 beakers left. So I guess we won't make it in the remaining two turns. If Königsberg already had lib+university and with Newton in our capital at this point, we would have easily made it.

T209, 940AD:
Alesund: Galleon -> harbor

Oxford has completed the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately not much use for us. Mongols are switching to Shakespeare.

T210, 950AD:
The peace treaty with the British has expired, and Elisabeth pops up to renew it. Hmm, if I say "accept" now, will it be a new deal for 20 turns? But I have no other chance, we are not yet prepared. Especially Richmond/London are not yet sufficiently defended.


Königsberg: Library -> University
München: Courthouse -> Cav
Wilhelmshaven: Cav -> Cav
Hareid: Courthouse -> Aqueduct
Weizenheim: Marketplace -> Library

The English are starting Newton's University. We have 5 turns left, now that the GA has ended. By building some more rails, I can press it down to 4 turns. So there should be no risk of losing Newton's.

186 beakers left on Electricity. I can lower science rate to 20% now (207 beakers), but I think there is a bug at the end of the GA: it is known that all cities still show the shield production of the GA, even though they will get only the non-GA production assigned to their shield-box. I think the same applies to the commerce output, so we might actually have less than 208 beakers. Therefore I play it save and set science to 30%. Rather waste 80g than a turn of research.

T211, 960AD:
Electricity -> Replaceable Parts
Going to F1, I see that indeed our science output is now displayed as 240 instead of the 300 something that it was at the end of last turn. Good that I played it safe.

Science back to 100%, RepParts due in 6 turns.

Bananenbucht: Aqueduct -> Marketplace

Suddenly war weariness is hurting us?! Is it because I have landed 4 Knights next to Tromsö? I wanted to wait with capturing it, until it had its first culture expansion, but that would mean I had to raise the lux slider now. No way, so I decide to end the war now:
Attack on Tromsö: two Knights kill two spears, Tromsö destroyed, the Viking nation is no more. The Knights are loaded back on the Galleon and sail home for the upcoming British campaign.

The peace treaty indeed started counting again from 20. Should be spoil our reputation even more and attack now, or let it run out? Everything would be ready now, once we rushed the two riflemen in London/Richmond. And last turn the British gave Magnetism to Mongolia and India. One of the two must have discovered Free Artistry and traded it around...
I'm prepared for attacking now.

T212, 970AD:
The Chinese offer us a Mutual Protection Pact... Haha.

Disease strikes Bergen
Kolossusstadt: Courthouse -> Palace. I'll leave it up for team discussion, what to build here. Perhaps a prepuild for SETI, perhaps ships for an invasion of Mongolia?!
Eisenstadt: Cav -> Cav

Handover notes:

• The core has already a decent amount of rails. A few more (especially München and Königsberg to get them both to 20spt) and then we can concentrate a bit on Trondheim, which also has great potential.
• I like to build the Military Academy, especially as I think we'll have to go to war against Mongolia sooner or later. But if you don't like it, the MilAc build in Trondheim can also be used as a prebuild for the Hoover Dam, for example.
• Everything is ready for a strike against England. There is a lot of Horsepower assembled in Bananenbucht (including the Cav Army Richthofen), and our MIs are assembled in Neu-Osloh. There is jungle to the south of Neu-Osloh, so the MIs can advance there as fast as Cavs could, while our mounted troops advance on the road Bananenbucht -> Warwick -> Nottingham to bring relieve to the sieged London.
  
  The 4 pikes blocking the choke-point to our peninsula have been replaced by 2 rifles.
  
  A Galleon is ready at Wilhelmshaven to ship reinforcements over to Fischberg, in case the British should attack there.
  
  The rail line to the front is also ready, though we should probably assign one railway worker crew to lay rails in British territory to keep the advance rolling smoothly.
  
  So if we think "who cares for reputation", stop research for one turn, rush the two rifles and then lets march... We are already average compared to them, so they won't offer much resistance...
• At the moment, workers are railing also in smaller groups than 6. But as the rail network gets more and more connected, make sure to join smaller groups into bigger ones. A rail a turn gives the best benefit.
• Don't sell the silks to China or Mongolia, because it's near London, so will get disconnected from our road network once we declare war. We can trade it after the war.

 

[CommandoBob]

Sorry, guys, I've been AWOL. Stuff at work, August family events (anniversary, her birthday, my birthday, Skyping and watching our 1 year old grand-daughter) and job search/clothes shopping have been sucking my time away.

We've got plans for the rest of the day, and I am not caught up on how the game has progressed. I see that we started our GA, and it may have ended or be ready to end by now. I missed a turnset, too. And that is all that I was able to glean from just quickly skimming the thread.

 

[Lanzelot]

Sorry to hear that, CommandoBob.
Well, if you got some free time now and need some relaxation, just take the next set. We got a Cav Army for you and railways, too, so you should have some beating up the Brits...

 

[tjs282]

For some reason I can now build the Military Academy?! We have an Army, but not yet a victorious one? So apparently it is enough to currently own an Army and once having had an Army victory...!

Yes. Guess you just learned something new, huh?

I actually knew that already (unfortunately I wasn't online at all since yesterday lunchtime, to tell you...). It doesn't matter that Barbarossa's army is now dead, the fact that we won an 'army victory' at some point in our (glorious!) history is AFAIK enough in itself to allow building Heroic Epic, and MilAcad as soon as you get MilTrad... That is, I don't think you even need to form a new Army just for that purpose.

Not that I'm complaining, that's probably what I would have done, too -- unless you could have used Richthofen to rush the MilAcad in 1T.

But there may be another MGL or two coming our way shortly anyway...

 

[Lanzelot]

You are right, the Army doesn't need to be alive anymore! Did this change from PtW to C3C? Because I remember one 20K game in one of the early GOTMs I tried, where I finally got an MGL, formed an Army, so I can build HE, then lost it and wasn't able to build HE after all. Either I lost that Army before it had a victory (which is quite unlikely, as every Army should survive at least one attack, if the AI attacks it at all that is) or they really changed it in C3C.

Anyway, I did not have MilTrad yet, at that point, and I didn't want to keep the MGL on stock, as I still had around 5 eKnights ready to attack that turn and didn't want to "waste" elite attacks. And doesn't really matter whether you convert an MGL into an Army or into the MilAc: both are 400s. I fact, forming the Army is a bit better: if you form the Army and build the Academy brick by brick, the Army is already ready to go right away. If you rush the Academy and then build an Army brick by brick, you'll have to wait a while, before the Army is ready for action.