ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

[TRJS]

skull is known barb units iirc.

also, @sis, why oh why do your best potential allies also have to be your closest targets... that makes it so hard to choose who to pick on.

Oh.. thanks. Never noticed it before.

Also you might find the more desirable targets are not that far away. The world is round after all, remember you know this now!

 

[Leventis]

Can someone explain to me the reason for switching to HR and then back to rep when the swordsmen quest was about to be completed? Sorry if I missed something here or misinterpreted what he's done, but I've not seen this before.

 

[KMadCandy]

okay, i think i know why Kerkouane is city #1. likely no one else cares, but i was really puzzled! i scrolled the log, and there have been 2 great artists born. one went to Hammurabi for music, and i bet the other was Hannibal's and he bombed Kerk with it. i once bombed a totally crappy city in an RB event, to steal resources from Peter. that city was on the top 5 list for thousands of years, and it was about the crappiest city you have ever seen. culture counts for a lot on that list, so i'm pretty sure that's how Kerk got to #1 with no wonders and being founded so late. you can see how close it is to Munich, which is bis's second city, so he was probably feeling pressured. Kerk is Hannibal's fifth i think, but its cultural borders go farther into the water than Munich's do, so the guy did something!

Bis only has 3 cities to trade, while Hannibal has 7 cities listed and that's after splitting off a colony. we can't even tell how many cities Izzy has. they never have been to war, but i think Hannibal must have Bis tucked into a corner over there. they don't have close border tension penalties yet, but those only show up when you start stealing tiles from BFCs, and they're probably spaced far enough away so far. they're pleased with each other right now, but my crystal-ball gazing is that Bis is going to want more land and he won't find it unless he learns to swim or he goes thru Hannibal. naturally, i want to see the map and see what actually happens.

Which means there must be one more civ out there unless somebody wiped them out, which I rather doubt (I don't remember seeing a lot of Great General announcements).

yeah, F7 says 7 rivals remaining, you've met 6. there's still a mystery contestant out there.

the info screen is funny. everybody (but you) is in HR and OR, but for once neither is anybody's favorite civic. well, HR is Ragnar's, but he's ignoring that this game. and seeing isabella at this late date with no religion is priceless! what a fun colony to get.

good luck up north there dude. do not let cyrus get the beaver again this game, or you will be in a lot of trouble with me buster! especially because he's not even invited to this game as far as we know *gigglefest*.

Hammurabi and Mehmed don't have too many resources to offer me, though Hammy does have a few choice techs I'd love to get at. They're further away, and therefore possibly more troublesome targets. Both of them, however--Mehmed especially--are slippery, back-stabbing scum.

they're both full members of the AP too. if AP religion spreads to you, you might have to face "stop the fighting" votes. Hannibal is a voting member, with only 13 votes, so Kerk must be his only city with it. "stop the fighting" is only an option if a full member is fighting any other member, so as a non-member you can fight whoever, the only issue would be if a full member is in the war and than a voting or full member joins the other side. the obnoxious part is that you can trigger that yourself, by becoming a voting member when capturing an islamic city during a war against Mehmed or Hammy.

along with that can come the oh-so-annoying "assign city to its rightful owner" resolution, if they decide a city you fought hard to capture should be handed back just because they said so. yuck. i'm not trying to be pessimistic, this is just stuff to keep in mind, both when picking the order to demolish people in, and in how you approach the wars. the actual combat, and troops, and all that messy stuff, i'll butt out for that part .

Bis has the statue of zeus. F9 doesn't say where it is, but if you zoom in on berlin you can see it there. if my whole Bis in a corner theory is right, you'd likely face a culture battle with hannibal if you go for Bis before Hannibal. i want to see the map of course. OneMoreThing, when looking at what cities might have to fight for culture so you have to capture the neighboring cities quickly too, remember that Hannibal and Izzy give a false picture. he gets control of all tiles in shared BFCs because he's her master. if you took over his cities, the culture she's built up there that she's not getting credit for would show up and you'd have to fight it. i think we saw some of that in the second game where you were Isabella herself, actually.

i love how you zoomed for the circumnavigation bonus and to meet everybody. it makes perfect sense, but it still made me giggle. "oh there's america's borders. no time to go sight-seeing, i can come back later to visit." i couldn't even find it on the map until i went to the culture view.

sidenote: did you try out the BUG mod? i'd been afraid to, since i'll be using the HoF mod when it comes out of Beta, and didn't want to get addicted to BUG and have to abandon it. but i got sick of going cold turkey, so i tried it. i am in love!!!!!! it even tells me how much overflow i'll get if i whip this turn. that and other lovely stuff, it is truly a thing of beauty.

Can someone explain to me the reason for switching to HR and then back to rep when the swordsmen quest was about to be completed? Sorry if I missed something here or misinterpreted what he's done, but I've not seen this before.

when i saw the quest in the log looking at the save (he didn't mention it in the report i don't think), i looked up the rewards and posted about it in #451. the reward is much better if you're in HR when you finish it. default reward is free city raider 1 on all swordsman forever. if you're in HR, you get free Drill1 on all melee units forever. units you've already built, and ones you build in the future, like berzerkers!

Spoiler cabert :

Kmad is right, as usual .

yay my favorite thing to quote!
i am so dying to tell you a story but i have to wait. it is killing me! i'll let you know ASAP. it may actually make even you, and other people around here, giggle! no, really!

 

[Leventis]

when i saw the quest in the log looking at the save (he didn't mention it in the report i don't think), i looked up the rewards and posted about it in #451. the reward is much better if you're in HR when you finish it. default reward is free city raider 1 on all swordsman forever. if you're in HR, you get free Drill1 on all melee units forever. units you've already built, and ones you build in the future

Thanks KMad, I had a feeling it was something like that -- definitely worth the anarchy, that's for sure.

 

[willybeer22]

Looking great Sis I can't wait to see those purple berserkers of doom start pouring into some poor victim that doesn't even have caravels yet

Conquest 4tw!!

-w

 

[KMadCandy]

Thanks KMad, I had a feeling it was something like that -- definitely worth the anarchy, that's for sure.

actually the thanks should go to ori, one of my heros, and a terrific source for quest and random event info. here's a link to the list of them all. the quests are in their own spoiler box in post #3, which lets you keep the events themselves a surprise if you want to, but still find out if the rewards for the quests are worth it. pretty cool set-up i think.

 

[Validator]

One thing I forgot to mention in my plan for early Astronomy is that it obsoleted Stonehenge. This means the free border pops in new cities are now gone. So you'll have to provide some sort of culture in the fur city to get the border expansions you need to get the additional furs. Hopefully a religion will spread there quickly.

Trading away military resources before you decide who you're going to be fighting (if anyone) is a bad move. If you end up going after Hannibal your berserkers will not fare well against any Carthaginian crossbows that are built with the iron you've so kindly provided. (Or maybe you think this game is turning out to be too easy and you're intentionally trying to make it harder for yourself? )

Exploration really needs to be your top priority right now. It really would have been better to finish Optics before the detour to Math and Calendar so that you would have had more time to explore before Astronomy, but that's water under the bridge now. I think you need to get a bunch of galleons out ASAP, which seems to be what you're doing. Also send some explorers to check out the AI civs since you have OB with them all. (You can actually drop your scout off in Mehmed's city right now.) While exploring try to pay attention to how well AI cities are defended as this is critical to deciding who would make a good victim.

Once we have the lay of the land we can discuss the best way to proceed. Peaceful expansion to unclaimed lands or berserker attacks on unsuspecting civs. I wonder which way most people are going to vote?

 

[Guardian_PL]

Great round Sis, keep it going
Archipelago? Financial? Tech-lead in sea areas? Steeeeeeeeel! Cannons! PRIVATEEEERS!!!! Aaaaarghh!!!

@KMadCandy
Your analysis of Sisiutil's game amazes me. Dozens interesting informations. Gotta learn that and take time to look on the map and info screen...

 

[willybeer22]

This seems like a game where colony creation is going to be necessary to avoid crippling your economy. This is still new to me and I'm not sure at what point it becomes beneficial (or if it is even useful at all, and if anyone has any links to posts on this, I'd really appreciate it), but I'm definetly excited to see the discussion on this.

-w

 

[cabert]

Once we have the lay of the land we can discuss the best way to proceed. Peaceful expansion to unclaimed lands or berserker attacks on unsuspecting civs. I wonder which way most people are going to vote?

peaceful rampage of berserkers into american land for a start is the way to go IMHO.

May I suggest going for nationalism soon? (for berserker drafting)
May I suggest delaying rifling long enough (I'm not worried, since you don't have CS yet ) to be able to draft berserkers in large numbers?

edit : for those who like a good read about berserkers, go into the SGOTM 4 threads.
Some teams, including the trash team where I played with some fine players (to only manage a ridiculous time loss), tried to bring gandhi to space while being at war with him.

 

[oldsaxon]

This seems like a game where colony creation is going to be necessary to avoid crippling your economy. This is still new to me and I'm not sure at what point it becomes beneficial (or if it is even useful at all, and if anyone has any links to posts on this, I'd really appreciate it), but I'm definetly excited to see the discussion on this.

-w

I haven't really used it myself, but as I understand it it's only really necessary when you have a lot of cities on the same landmass. So, we'll only need to make colonies on the 'core landmasses' of the other civilisations, and when we do we can (hopefully) keep the best cities and release the bad ones if we go about it carefully.

 

[Jet]

If you do anything with Berserkers I think you should decide soon and commit your builds to it: skip the Courthouses, limit the Settlers, whip the units.

One thing you could do is take a couple Carthaginian cities (maybe with spies moved in from Germany) and hold or raze them until he accepts peace, then conquer Germany during the treaty. Bismark only has 4 cities. That would take more units than your comments suggested you had in mind, but it would leverage your fast ships and Berserkers, hurt the score leader, and finish the easiest AI.

No matter what, I'd pass up Bureaucracy for Vassalage, assuming you want Domination. Even if you don't do a full buildup, you should at least build a steady stream. You'd also get a +diplo from Mehmed. I suggest putting off Caste System until you're done building whatever army you want to use before Frigates.

Haithabu would be good for the Moai. You don't want them in a specialist city, and Haithabu is good enough and well set up for production. Speaking of which, since you're way under your health and happy caps, you should work fewer mines and more coasts, and grow and whip.

 

[Hawe Hawe]

Even if you haven't met the last rival yet, there are some informations about the unknown person you can get from the screenshot of the religious overview. He will be Buddhist and founder of this religion. 10% of the world are buddhist, but Sisisutil hasn't seen a single city with this faith yet. Buddhism has nearly same influence as Roosevelts Christianity, but was the second religion founded at all and hasn't spread far. So there is an rather small isolated heathen out there and probably nobody likes him. He sounds like a good candidate for your first Berserker-Experiences!

 

[Munch]

Round 4: 25 AD to 730 AD (47 turns), Part 2

What happened between turns 211 and 212 that more than doubled your science output and also put your economy into the green (technically the black)? You didn't have Astronomy until a few turns later, so I'm curious where that commerce came from...

Also, those healthiness resources you got for Iron look particularly nice, and would work well with Hereditary Rule's unlimited happiness cap. Or, just keep trading for some luxuries too and reap the benefits of running specialists and Representation.

Longbowmen might be problematic for your Berserkers but hey, why not just give a few of them the anti-archery promotion? Sure, it's a promotion that will become useless in the gunpowder eras, but just give it to your 'suicide' Berserkers who attack first, and then let the ones you want to keep mop up the survivors and give them more useful City Raider promotions. Don't forget to keep significant medic-promoted units with your vast invasion stack. Also, the potential prevalence of Longbowmen is all the more reason to attack the yanks (notice how Roosevelt hasn't met anyone else yet!) or whoever the remaining and probably isolated AI player is. There's a lot of fog south of your pseudo-British Isles, the last AI could be located perfectly for attacking.

Getting extra chummy with the confucian block sounds like the best of the two religion choices. Hannibal is clearly a tough opponent, and will be advancing in tech while you train troops thanks to his Financial trait-boosted sea tiles. Also, the Apostolic Palace was built in Islamic lands, and surely that's a wonder worth destroying?

 

[reknaw]

With +2 naval movement, I would be looking to see how soon I could get Chemisty.

Bismark has Philosophy, and Isabella and Hannibal both have Engineering, although all three are unwilling to trade at the moment.

If you can grab both of those techs in trades (unlikely I know due them both unlocking wonders) you can use Civil Service ~> Paper ~> Education ~> Gunpowder ~> Liberalism to nab a Chemisty for free and start spitting out ultra fast Privateers centuries before anyone else has a chance to counter them.

I would dearly love to see a GG lead privateer with Blitz, but that would mean teching Military Science which is rather expensive.

EDIT: Having examined the save, it appears Hammurabi already has Paper (can trade World Map with him)

 

[kniteowl]

There are so many different ways to go from here, But Going for CS and Ultimately Liberalism is probably the next Choice.

Paper should be pretty important so you can get the Maps from your Opponents.

The Nationalism Idea is pretty Nice for Drafting beserkers but probably requires you to be in constant War.

The Chemistry Idea for Privateers is also a very good Idea to deny Opponents their Trade routes while you benefit form increased treasury but since you're at war anyways, where do Privateers Fit in? Probably depends on which Side you decide to ally with. Although You'll probably get more gold from Hannibal because of his UB allowing him an extra trade route.

If I Was playing Peaceful and I was in a Situation where I pulled off a very early Astronomy slingshot then I'd Worry about Banking and Mercantilsm Civic, your economy will crash if the AI's decide to switch to that civic so Maybe an Economics Slingshot with Liberalism but it's difficult to pull off on Emperor. Plus that extra trade route never hurts and if you trade it to Hannibal and become his friend it's extra Diplo points.

My 2 cents.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Whats with the excess Caps?

 

[DrJambo]

If it's a choice between Islam and Confucianism I'd definitely go Islam. The followers of Islam are further away and therefore more troublesome to attack in the immediate future. More importantly, Islam is also the religion of the Apostolic Palace and therefore adopting that religion means +2 for each religious building; not something to be knocked back in an archipelago map! Plus, that way you'll potentially avoid any untoward religious crusades coming your way...

 

[Chrispy]

Wow. Couldn't expect Astronomy in the 600s. I think we have a new preferred slingshot for isolation thanks to Validator. Bypassing Meditation and Theology to get Astronomy before Civil Service seems like a great move.

With Astronomy and TGL, it's time to leverage those trade routes for all they are worth. That means Harbors (which you are building) and perhaps Engineering for Castles if you are planning on going for Liberalism instead of Economics. Castles will also help the espionage, which is needed. Plus you have stone, which will make it faster.

Economics would be a good goal as well, and a good consolation prize if you miss on Liberalism. Not only will Free Market be a big help (and need to be traded to others to help your economy!) but Customs Houses will help a lot.

I know the plan will be to go to war with Berserkers and catapults/trebs now, but I thought a mention of economic plans was worthwhile.

 

[Turinturambar]

Results of my shadow game:

Spoiler :

I chose another path to astronomy in my shadow game. Basically I beelined to civil service to make Nidaros a supercity with moai statues/oxford, lots of wonders/ settled specialists, then I got astronomy in 950 AD from liberalism without bulbing stuff, so I still have lots of settled GSs, which really boost research. Nidaros alone is making 650 beakers/turn at 80% science in 1415 AD, at which point I´m already researching railroads. The game was basically over in the 1500s where I could build infantry and easily conquer Survayman and Roosevelt, which were still stuck in the middle ages. I got a gamebreaking "waiting for other players" bug in 1745, where I already have tanks vs riflemen and research rocketry for an easy space race win.

I fear the lost turns due to civic changes really hurt. I think I lost only two turn to civic changes, the rest were done in my two golden ages so far. In my opinion another mistake was not building the moai statues in Nidaros. The location is just perfect for them and the production boost especially with an earlier civil service means earlier wonders/ earlier cities etc.