Apocalypto

[Norvin_Green]

Not so much of a plan - Izzy has Elec already as she built Broadway - can we beat them to Computers for the Internet?

After Communism we can research Demo in 4 turns or break up our Bio monopoly. The catch 22 is we are everyone's worst enemy except Elizabeth. We can take Demo and Communism from her for Bio and 115 . After we switch to Free Religion we'll get a boost in relations with Eliz and WvO but lose favor with Joao. Not sure when anyone will be willing to trade with us.

What do we do with the GG in Hurrian?

Any ideas are appreciated!

 

[FiveRings]

Thanks for the detailled report, Cam! Looks like a very instructive game, from outside! Despite the latest events, there seems to be ample ground to win it, judging from the statistics. And from the lost fights, Sid definitely uses loaded dice...

It's very impressive that you, guys, have reached this status without chopping during the most important part of the game...

 

[vranasm]

hmm the other continent confirms my fears from beginning.

Didn't check the save, maybe will do later today, but from what I see in Cam's screenshots

Elisabeth has already Assembly Line

You need to finish the wars asap and turn on the research pedal, cavalries won't be enough.

Can you outtech the budh lovefest which was reinforced with military struggle now and reach the skies in time? I doubt it.

You have to form plan of invasion the other continent. I am no fun of nukes, but I put my bets that TMIT would say "nuke 'em out" on this one and I would partially agree with him.

Beware of Isabella UN victory. Maybe you're big enough to block it though already, not sure (you have 34% pop)

This one is tough.

 

[nocho]

I would say that with more than double the cities of anyone else, the situation is not as apocalyptical as some seem to think.

I'd buy peace with Izzy (somehow I think something between 300 and 400 in cash would do ), then most likely we can trade at least with WvO next turn. From him and liz I think we can get physics and steam for bio/steel. Switch to SP, FR and as vra says just go pump tech. If we beeline computers I think we have a fair chance of getting Al Gore's little toy.

 

[nocho]

double post

 

[Cam_H]

I agree with what nocho's suggesting - it'd be good to be able to settle peace with Spain imho, but I'm split on whether it'd be better to hand over or Steel. I'd complete Communism and self-research Democracy. Look for Physics and Steam Power out of the trades.

Personally I'd avoid trading away Biology to just one rival. If we hand over a monopoly tech', I'd like to see at least two good tech's back in return.

We could pick up Military Science as an after thought so that Great General can build a Military Academy in Hurrian - which is probably what I'd keep him for. Even if we don't get Military Science as a trade, we'll get it via the Internet (if all goes to plan), so we could build the Military Academy then. I'm hoping that we won't be fighting too many more wars after we clear up what 'we have on our hands' now, so I doubt we need to worry about creating a second super-medic. I guess we could attach him to a Cannon and give him Morale and Tactics, so he can move with the Cavalry while we finish off Sitting Bull.

Once we get Communism and Democracy, we can look at Medicine as another monopoly tech' that we can use to catch up if we put some turns into Assembly Line, Railroad, and Electricity. I agree that an Internet beeline seems feasible.

I know it's a mess in terms of our units' placement right now, but in total we have 8 Cannons and 40 Cavalry with still more Cavalry on the way. We should therefore be able to kill off Sitting Bull with all of that once they get into some form of organisation.

Those Courthouse builds in Tlaxcala and Chaco Canyon ... if you wanted to drop them in light of pending State Property, that's fine by me. The Barracks in Teotihuacan isn't a priority build either.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Once things settled down it seems as if we are going to be ok.

Make amends with Spain which cost us 400 but allows us to pick up Steam Power and Physics for Bio and a net 30 . We get to Communism and head towards Demo. Joao drops his army off near Calakmul which is quickly dispatched. We smoke the peace pipe with SB. A great artist sends us into a Golden Age and the following turn into Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation/State Property/Free Religion and our economy is booming. A surplus of bananas brings us cash and furs plus we sell Steel (he had 1 turn left) to WvO for some spare change. Joao makes a generous peace offering and we pay it forward to SB so that we can build a military academy in Hurrian. Medicine is complete and so is this turnset. Our Golden Age is still in process. I apologize ahead of time for my horrible worker management! Though at this point it seems irrelevant.

Screenies from in-game:

Spoiler :

End of set info:

Spoiler :

 

[lymond]

Nice round Norv. I think we are not in a bad position.

As for my thought on Military Academies, I don't like placing them in HE cities. I find it redundant just like IW in HE city. A military academy allows for basically a second HE city or unit pump. A city like Calakmul would be great for it and allow for another naval station as well to get out ships fast if need. The returns on an MA in HE are very low. I would probably only do it if I had an abundance of GGs all over the place.


Other thoughts:

1) I'd like to pick of Elec quickly. A turn or two and we might be able to trade MS for it hopefully. It's an important tech. Otherwise, I'd like to get Ass next.

2) Anyone notice that Izzy's stack bump over to an uncultured tile near old Incan land. We need to keep an eye on that in case she gets feisty again.

3) We probably need minimal infra now and can rush buy key buildings like factories and maybe health buildings if need. Most cities should build wealth and research indefinitely. Hurrian can continue pumping units constantly.

4) Probably should have decent stacks near each coast NSEW. I think we have some vulnerable spots. I assume the inland stacks near SB are preventing revolts at the moment though.

5) I'd like to eventually resettle back on the pigs on that island. The city more than pays for itself in trade routes.

6) We should look to build windmills as much as possible

7) where to put IW? need to calculate best production city. maybe calakmul

8) We might consider going ahead and gifting/trading a bunch of techs to SB to put him in a position to tech something useful for us.

 

[nocho]

Yeah, looks like a good round, Norvin.

Lymond, you must be up if I read the roster right. Can agree with your musings.

 

[lymond]

Hey V...you wanna hop back in the game?

 

[vranasm]

Hey V...you wanna hop back in the game?

not really... bought Mass Effect 3 now ;-)

 

[Norvin_Green]

. . . Otherwise, I'd like to get Ass next . . .

Wouldn't we all

Not sure SB will be able to tech anything for us. Whatever he is researching now is what I told him to tech about 3 turns ago - if I recall it was going to take him 50+ turns to reach whatever it was.

I was more or less sending troops back to Mutal and 2 other cities (one up north and one out east).

It might be too late but Cahokia has 6 hills and is on a river for IW. It has hardly any infrastructure though. There is also an former Aztec city that might do as well.

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for the turnset Norvin.

Thanks also lymond for your input:

Great General

I still don't quite 'get' this thing about not improving the HE city with multipliers (I mean that I understand its reasoning - but it seems counter-intuitive), but nonetheless if Hurrian's out, I'd also look at the cities with three settled Great Generals; Cahokia and Tenochtitlan, as prospects - although both are quite 'hybrid-y'.

Tech'

Basically everything along that Computers bee-line is pretty handy, and both Electricity and Assembly Line have appeal. I would have hoped that Joao and Isabella might have been more forthcoming with trades than they are - our vassal is Isabella's worst enemy. If we can get Electricity for Military Science and , then good-o!

Spanish stack

Even if we run 10%-20%, the border pop in Machu Picchu will only bump that stack to a more northerly point on our continent. lymond's right in that we should watch it until we can at least get Sitting Bull into Free Religion so Isabella becomes more reasonable. I'd consider moving some of the units in Tenochtitlan, Chaco Canyon, and Texcoco to Machu Picchu in preparation for her possibly going WHEOOHRN.

Infrastructure

Most cities are fine, but there are a lot of cities missing quite useful buildings. For instance Tenochtitlan has; an Academy, a merged Scientist, a Library, plus six Towns, but no Observatory or Uni'. There are a few cities on winding rivers that don't have Levees. I'd just go through them and weigh up the cost-benefit, but again, 'yep' - most cities could look to building Wealth. It's a good opportunity to review the citizen allocation in each city.

Sitting Bull

Agree that we should gift him technology to get him up to speed - as per above, I'd gift Education and then Liberalism to him as a priority. Also, we should Open Borders to improve our trade route income with both Sitting Bull and Willem van Oranje.

Roster

lymond << Up
nocho << On Deck
Sengir
Cam
Norvin​

 

[lymond]

Yep, definitely gift SB Lib and get him into FR. Once he gets some of those techs, with the AI bonuses he should become a better techer, but yeah he may never do much for us.

Cam - Folks have done the math on the MA/HE thing as well as IW, I forget all the details. For one, you are not really getting the full returns from the MA. If you have a good HE setup then HE should be all you ever need there. Better to spread the wealth and setup another good unit pump city. yep, capture cities with GGs are a good option if they already have good hammers or can be made so. However, depending on map you may want a good coastal MA city for ship production. Not sure if we will ever try to attack overseas here or not.

I agree that some cities that can boost are tech rate with modifiers should get them. I will assess that closely in game. We need as many cities building wealth and research as we can though. Cities like Mutal can do this often since it's fairly set until things like Ass come in.

I'm fine with Computers, but I think we need to get our hands on AL and Elec first. Factories will boost our tech rate.

 

[Sengir]

About the MA in the HE city: a city can never produce more then 1upt; if your HE city is set up correctly, it should be producing 1upt, or close. Therefor, the extra multiplier from MA is a bit wasteful.

Anyway, I agree with most (all?) of lymonds points; get Elec and AL, run to Computers. Only build infra in cities that will have a decent payback time, the rest can build wealth/research (perhaps some culture near SB), except for HE city.

 

[vranasm]

edit xpost with sengir...seems like we understand it the same

the biggest issue of stacking MA with HE here is probably you will whip factory+CP in good heroic city and thus your units will be built very closely to 1/turn and you can't get more then 1 unit/turn from city, thus stacking another 50% will do basically nothing, otoh in some other unit pump those 50% can suplement those missing 100% from HE and bring you much closer to 1u/turn.

the same probably aplies to IW and there is another thing being with IW that IW is traditional main wonders/space ships pump if you go space race thus blocking HE from applying it's multiplier completely.

Well that's my understanding of it anyway.

I prefer to use GG's to settling in HE city eventually getting 10+ exp units out the gate. You could even use more GG medics (but in late era warfare tanks+flight it isn't that important, since you will spread a lot)

 

[Cam_H]

Likewise, I understand it, and I really would prefer not to make a federal case over the whole thing, but not to leave it hanging ...

The number crunching that I did would put Hurrian a little under one unit per turn for Infantry, Bombers and SAMs without a Military Academy, but with a Military Academy it will put us over for these units (assuming Factory, Power Plant, Railroaded Mines, Drydocks).

As for modern units, we're short on '1 unit per turn' on pretty well every case, so the Military Academy isn't wasted, but will contribute to larger overflow. All up, we'll get an extra unit every 10 turns or so from an extra 20/turn from the Military Academy when building units. Or in other words, due to overflow it's likely to 'skip' a turn (i.e. require two turns to build a unit) less often.

Anyway - it's moot - we have it built in Hurrian.

Best of luck lymond!

 

[lymond]

Cam - I still don't think that would jive with another powerhouse MA city producing units about every turn or so. I think you would end up with many more units in the long run. The issue is putting all your eggs in one basket. Now if you really don't have a good production city that can take advantage of that bonus then I could see it, although I'd rather settler the GG instead.

I'll play in the next day.

 

[Cam_H]

In hindsight I agree that the best option could well have been to merge him into a city - maybe Tenochtitlan so it could build 11XP units once we get a Barracks built there. It's unlikely to be a game-changer in light of our intent.

 

[lymond]

Ok...done.

Micro'd Elect and Ass in 4 turns without trading. Then a turn here or there of mad ninja rush buying. Lots of Factories are already in place all around, even a coal plant or two. Some cites will need some health - grocers are best but some need more. However, I'm balancing that some massive teching.

Railroad/Combustion are in. Industrialism in two. I have Computer Bee-line on. I think we need Radio and Plastics to get it.

Our friendly Senora de Espagna comes with this demand, which I agreed to because a) Bio was far from a monopoly at this point b) she could get it from Wilty c) it gets her off our back...we went up to Cautious.

Spoiler :

Got SB in FR, but we took some demerits with Iz on the trades.

Reworked tons of resources trades for and acquire new resources like Gems, Crabs, Hits.

Otherwise, TS was rather uneventful. Just pretty much buildin' infra, rush buyin' and buildin' wealth/research.

Oh...you may notice some new additions to the Maya empire.

Note: Micro'd this turn to get Ind in 2 turns, but the cash will fall in deficit next turn. However, several cities will finish current rush buys and can build wealth to make up for it.

I started IW in Calakmul. We may want to add Docks to Calakmul and Hurrian to speed and boost some ships for defense later. Hurrian has a factory/coal plant and is looking quite nice.

TECH

Spoiler :