ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

I think that as long as a war vs Sury doesn't take too long, it's the way to go. The bigger Sisiutil's industrial base, the more units he can spam, and the quicker Hannibal will go down. However, the key is in oldsaxon's assumption that "Nobody's had time to reach Artilery or Modern Armour" before the Viking onslaught begins. Grens vs Rifles is what we want. Grens vs Infantry is a much less attractive proposition.

So: if Sisiutil thinks he can swallow Sury and get Sury's cities stabilised and garrisoned without significantly delaying the war with Hannibal, then he should do so. If it's going to cost an extra 20 turns to do, then it's a much riskier proposition. Every turn lost is potentially a turn closer to Hannibal having Infantry.
 
take Hannibal first. he is the fastest techer from the looks of things and has much better land than sury or roosevelt. just my two cents
 
Sisiutil said:
Yep, Hammurabi is the first AI leader to obtain both Astronomy and Chemistry. Nevertheless, my Privateers had done considerable damage to Hannibal, pillaging all of his seafood, sinking most of his ships, and blockading almost all of his coastal cities. But it looks like these guys are headed towards the Privateers I have in Carthaginian waters, so they may have to return to port until they can be upgraded to Destroyers later on. (Good news in that area: I have no less than three sources of oil on the main two Viking land masses.)

This is not to say I still can't get some use out of the Privateers. Once Frigates appear, I just duck the Privateers into my coastal cities. If a Caravel or Galleon happens to wander too close to that city, however, it gets the wrong end of a hit-and-run attack.
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Nooooo!!!!! Please don't do this. Either use your military units or disband them. Upgrading units costs 3 gold per hammer. Unless you're upgrading something extraordinary (like CR II and CR III amphibious Berserkers to Grenadiers which can't take the CR promotion), upgrading troops is a very bad bargain.

You could disband the Privateers or you could mothball them in your ports, but that would miss out on an outstanding opportunity. You could go hunting across the globe for vulnerable ships and resource tiles. Hammurabi has Frigates. No one else does yet. Even when Mehmed gets them, Suri and the American's won't have them. Privateers have a much longer life than people would believe... as long as you use them against the right targets.

You'll lose all of your Privateers eventually, but it's really not that much work to build new Destroyers and you're better off paying for CRII Amphibious Grens anyway! :) Use the Privateers the way that they were meant to be used. As Pirates destroying and pillaging the economies of the weak and vulnerable.



AAARGHHH!
 
tycoonist said:
take Hannibal first. he is the fastest techer from the looks of things and has much better land than sury or roosevelt. just my two cents
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DANGER! DANGER!

Unfortunately, he also has land that already contains 4 newly-Vikingized cities. Put any more cities there and the colonial maintenance will go through the roof. As long as you switch to State Property (and actively go into the city screen to make sure that there is no colonial maintenance in those cities), you can declare on Hannibal if you choose.

In absolutely no case can you declare war on Hannibal before switching to State Property or at least building Versailles or Forbidden City.
 
I must agree with Popejubal...
Send your Privateers south to harrass potential targets, weakening their cities through starvation, blockade, and naval losses...
 
You don't need to worry about colonial maintenance: it caps off after 3-4 cities IIRC. Conquering the whole land mass in one go seems the most logical thing to do as you won't have to deal with cultural pressure for long. However, you can afford to wait because Grenadiers. properly promoted, make short work of Riflemen.
 
Comunism is already teched, so he can switch to SP at any time he deems convinient. No point switching to SP "just in case". It is well possible that free markets +1 trade routes will outweight the colonial maintenance for quite some time, as many cities - including most planed conqiered cities - are coastal and will get good intercontinental trade income.

And no @Cookie colonial Expense is not caped after 3 or 4 cities. It does becomes worse with more cities. It is not the Armageddon-Scenario that red lined "Danger" shouts imply however.
 
Cookie Crumbs said:
You don't need to worry about colonial maintenance: it caps off after 3-4 cities IIRC. Conquering the whole land mass in one go seems the most logical thing to do as you won't have to deal with cultural pressure for long. However, you can afford to wait because Grenadiers. properly promoted, make short work of Riflemen.
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NO! Do not listen to these lies!

...in a normal off line game, I wouldn't worry about it since you can just reload from 20 turns ago before you started the war, but that would be seriously frowned upon in an ALC.

Colonial Maintenance increases exponentially as your number of cities on another continent grows.

With 2-3 cities, it's hardly noticable.

With 4 cities, you recongnize that it exists, but it's not a worry.

With 7 cities, it takes a significant bite out of the value of even a mature city with a courthouse.

With 20+ cities, you could be looking at well over 50 to 100 gold PER TURN in Colonial Maintenance costs alone.

...Also, never believe someone who says you can afford to wait to go to war. That just means they're trying to get their expatriated assets out of the country before the invasion. :)


EDIT: as for the Danger! Danger! bit in my previous post, I don't think it's completely unwarranted. I just went into worldbuilder and gave myself a pile of modern armor to see what things would look like under Free Market if Sisiutil did take over the entire continent. Here's what I got...

Sis goes from his current +21 gold per turn to -369 gold per turn at the same science rate after the cities come out of revolt. Because some of the cities have courthouses, they are only losing about 24-28 gold per turn in maintenance, but the typical city on that island that doesn't have a couthouse is losing about 57 gold per turn. I'd say that qualifies. Even when it's capped at double the distance from palace cost, colonial maintenance is a nightmare. When it wasn't capped (pre 3.13 IIRC), those cities could have paid 50 gold per turn in colonial maintenance alone without even counting the number of cities and distance costs. I'm not saying that the sky is falling. What I am saying is that the sky can fall if you let yourself be taken unaware.

Just remember to switch to State Property before the golden age ends so that you don't have to suffer Anarchy to keep your empire from collapsing.
 
Yes, sure, just no point revolting, before it is actually needed.
 
Oh, I see. I checked in the Wordlbuilder it does continue to increase, but it never goes beyond twice the distance maintenance, which increase with city size.
 
I don't think there's any risk of Surya or Washington ever catching up, even if Sisiutil does nonstop war. I think Hannibal should be the priority. He is the only obstacle to victory at this point. Hammurabi or Mehmed would have to kill the other to pose a threat and I don't think either of them will do so..
 
You already picked one easy target before onto Hannibal. And with your science rate, I doubt you can pull ahead in tech compared to Hannibal.

Just smash 2-3 important cities to stop him and do it now.
 
Since domination is the goal, and hannibal doesn't have enough land to prevent victory, I would go for all the rest before hitting him.
In fact there is no need to attack him at all.
 
Go for the leader. That's most often the tech-leader, except when there's a backwards Shaka that has a million troops and a shared border. With no such neighbour on this map, I'd say eat Hannibal and the game is won.

With the most production and almost the same amount of power as him this should not be as hard as some people make it out to be.

If we were lagging in either or both, then perhaps going for the low-hanging fruit would have merit.

Now, we don't want to win a mere domination or conquest win - we want Ragnar to win a Terrify Entire World win!! :)
 
Ignore Hammurrabi at your peril. He's got naval tach parity and is going for physics. There's a GP in the form of a GS to the winner of that race and nice shiny airships. You've Ships of the Line, so go kill him. That way your privateers can have several more years plundering Hannibal and Mehmed. You want to keep privateers around as they can destroy caravels carrying Great Spies, Spies or Merchants without penalty.

You might try trading Communism to Mehmed for all of his gold. I would rush the Kremlin with the GE and not wait for IW. Chances are you'll have another GE before then.

Win the Physics race. Then go into revolt for SP and US and go for commerce.
 
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