ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar

[Detektyw]

Great game so far!

I think that attacking the Khmer is indeed a great idea. All their cities are coastal, so berserkers are huge, you can also deploy spies to forment unhappines in target's production cities, greatly reducing chances of a sudden military build-up after you have declared the war. Putting them into cities 5 turns before DoW will reduce cost of the mission. City defences will be taken down by galleons, therefore making it a quick job for 'zerks.

Wish you gl.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

hmm Surawhatshisface has nice land but not much resources and Rosey has nice resources but sucky land. Conquer Sury for the land then make Rosey a vassal and force him to hand over the resources and leave him to deal with the sucky land?

Kaytie

 

[kcmarkwell]

I am holding with the belief that taking out your biggest opponents vs AI (or even multiplayer) is the best strategy. I say build beserkers now, tech towards frigates. Build frigates, load beserkers, destroy hannibal.

 

[Florian]

Slaze,

The Forbidden Palace works on other landmasses to reduce the amount of maintenance you pay for distance from the capital. It just doesn't lessen colony expenses.

 

[Florian]

Sisiutil,

No way am I converting to that just so I can tick everybody else off.

Aw, come on. You're the VIKINGS! You're SUPPOSED to tick everybody else off! Are you going to let those degenerate landlubbers dictate religious policy to Ragnar Lodbrick?

 

[futurehermit]

I suggest taking the easy pickings first and try and cozy up to Hannibal for the tech trades. It's always nice to have some kind of tech trading partner. Once you own the rest of the world it won't be hard to out-produce and crush him.

 

[KMadCandy]

The Forbidden Palace works on other landmasses to reduce the amount of maintenance you pay for distance from the capital. It just doesn't lessen colony expenses.

it can. they're still colonies, but colony expenses are capped at twice the "distance from palace" cost of the maintenance of that city, and that cost, as you said, will go way down. i think maybe that's a change in 3.13.

 

[TheArchduke]

I am holding with the belief that taking out your biggest opponents vs AI (or even multiplayer) is the best strategy. I say build beserkers now, tech towards frigates. Build frigates, load beserkers, destroy hannibal.

Another vote for getting rid of your nastiest enemy right from the get-go.

 

[Andvare]

it can. they're still colonies, but colony expenses are capped at twice the "distance from palace" cost of the maintenance of that city, and that cost, as you said, will go way down. i think maybe that's a change in 3.13.

Yes, there were no cap before, which has, again, made SP too strong (especially on maps with heavy colony activity, which is almost all).

 

[futurehermit]

The consequence of doing so however can mean the lack of a good trading partner and thus a slower tech speed overall.

 

[LlamaCat]

Well, if the intention is to be ranked number 8 when one (i.e. Sisiutil in this case) has clearly got the best trade income vs outgoings ratio, then yes, I'd also say it's not a bug.

However, that's clearly bonkers. Sisiutil should be ranked number 1. Therefore, at the very least I'd consider it a bug, although more accurately it's probably just bad design. Unlike some of the other demographics, this information can actually be quite useful, particularly if one is considering a switch to Mercantilism....

He has no foreign trade route income - it is correctly showing as zero. Your own trade route income does not count. Remember he is isolated and grabbed Astronomy early, and the formula on this screen calculates the best RATIO, not the total income. His ratio is zero (0 divided by 132 = 0).

It may not be a particularly useful way to formulate it for this game, but there it is. In real world it's great for economics professors I'm sure, because exports show the strength of your economy as much as imports.

edit: wait, I'm wrong, he does has foreign trade routes by now as I see in one screenshot. What the heck, I guess that is a major bug although I'm not sure how. It seems he should have a positive number for both imports/exports (but he may not necessarily be listed first still, because it's only ranked based on best ratio of imports:exports)

 

[Florian]

Interesting, KMad. Thanks for the update.

 

[KMadCandy]

He has no foreign trade route income - it is correctly showing as zero. Your own trade route income does not count. Remember he is isolated and grabbed Astronomy early, and the formula on this screen calculates the best RATIO, not the total income. His ratio is zero (0 divided by 132 = 0).
...
edit: wait, I'm wrong, he does has foreign trade routes by now as I see in one screenshot. What the heck, I guess that is a major bug although I'm not sure how. It seems he should have a positive number for both imports/exports (but he may not necessarily be listed first still, because it's only ranked based on best ratio of imports:exports)

nono. one of the beautiful things of being first to astro is that you get across-ocean trade routes with the other civ's cities but their cities don't get the trade routes until they know astro themselves! they get trade routes between each other with sailing where that applies, but our cities are farther away and would likely be worth more in commerce.

so we're making commerce from their cities in trade (i dunno at this point whether that's importing or exporting ) but we're not providing them with a single darn bit of it. so one side really truly is zero, and it's the side we want to be zero - the bad guys.

go us!

 

[Honkoid]

I don't know if this would be reasonably fast, but since we want chemistry asap anyway, what about nabbing military science with liberalism? You'd have to research Engineering, Paper, Education, Gunpowder, Chemistry and Liberalism. I don't why you are researching Guilds currently other than pursuing gunpowder? Just switch to something else, preferably Education. You may be able to trade for Engineering by the time you finished Education.

To be sure you win the liberalism race you should research liberalism after Education and switch reseach when you have one turn left on liberalism. That way you can still grab liberalism if you see an AI with the necessary prerequesites and take something nice, although you would delay chemistry a bit and take the risk, that you have to choose something less interesting from Liberalism as e.g. Nationalism.

As I said, I don't know how reasonable this is, but upgraded Grens with Drill I, Combat I, Amphibiuos and CR I+II sound REALLY fearsome.

edit: btw, really nice series you got there

 

[DMOC]

Nice job in getting a decent map.

My advice: Do not waste your time going after Sury or Roosevelt. They are weak and still will be weak later when you really need to attack them (plus, no one will like them anyway with Sury a Buddhist and Roosy a Christian).

Hannibal-Isabella is likely the best choice to attack.

 

[LlamaCat]

nono. one of the beautiful things of being first to astro is that you get across-ocean trade routes with the other civ's cities but their cities don't get the trade routes until they know astro themselves! they get trade routes between each other with sailing where that applies, but our cities are farther away and would likely be worth more in commerce.

so we're making commerce from their cities in trade (i dunno at this point whether that's importing or exporting ) but we're not providing them with a single darn bit of it. so one side really truly is zero, and it's the side we want to be zero - the bad guys.

go us!

that's right, but I figured by now some others have researched Astronomy or he traded it? anyway, importing is us making the money. But the formula will still only rate according to best ratio, and if it truly is 132/0 (it's backwards as mentioned earlier) that means his ratio is defaulted to 1 and that's dead last. it's a dumb screen all around if you ask me

 

[absimiliard]

Oh bah.

Make some galleons. Load 'em up with berserkers. Make Freaky Yellow Martian-looking Dude wicked unhappy, then dead. If by then Roosevelt is still backwards enough eat some of him until he vassalizes.

If we take on one of the big guys he might well have castled long-bows by the time we get there.

Don't make it complicated. You spent a lot of effort to get here (berserk galleons) quickly, now use it.

K. I. S. S. (also as in "Kiss Suryavarman bye bye")

-abs

 

[Killroyan]

Another reason for Surey and Roosie is that you get a lot more experienced berserkers (up to CR3) that can then be upgraded to riflemen and then conquer Hannibal with these troops. Amphibious C1 DrI CR3 riflemen is for hannibal.

 

[Gooblah]

Do you have engineering? Trebuchets are going to be required for a very specific reason:
Yashodharapura is on a hill!
Longbows (is Suryavarman Protective?) on a hill need siege to be brought down. I suggest at least 4 Galleons full of just Siege.

 

[ori]

Do you have engineering? Trebuchets are going to be required for a very specific reason:
Yashodharapura is on a hill!
Longbows (is Suryavarman Protective?) on a hill need siege to be brought down. I suggest at least 4 Galleons full of just Siege.

you have to land siege weapons in order to use them (for bombarding) - so that would defeat the advantage of Berzerkers (amphibious) - apart from some suicide cats (which are better for collateral damage than trebs) I would rather go the spy route and cause unrest in the most difficult cities just before attacking...