Buce 02 - The Son's Of Ghengis Khan

I see capturing the GLib as more of the fruits of our successful conquest, rather than doing research, so I'm ok with taking it.
 
Capturing the GL is perfectly within the spirit of the game; this is not strictly a zero science game, more a remaining-faithful-to-the-Mongol-way kind of game. We have no scientists, libraries, universities because they had none.
But Ghengis Khan was a shrewd man who learned much from his enemies; he would certainly not have been averse to capturing the GL, had they existed in the same era.

I'm ambivalent regarding the Army; Phaedo and Othniel make a good case for a Horse Army - my thoughts on pillaging as a strategy are well documented.

A Sword Army is so much more versatile, and will remain useful for longer though.

I think I agree with Othniel's final analysis; if we can get a Horse Army up significantly before a Sword Army, then we should probably do so.
 
I plan on playing in a couple of hours. Based on Phaedo and Buce's agreement, if we can get 3 horseman within, oh, 4-5 turns, I think I'll make a Horse army. Also, I'll play with the possibility of capturing the GLib in mind. If there are any further thoughts or disagreements, you have a couple of hours to stop me. :)
 
Sorry, but one more day's delay for my turnset. I just built myself a new desktop to replace my laptop that I'm loaning another person on an extended borrow. Unfortunately, I've never had experience trying to adapt C3C to play on a 20-inch widescreen LCD when Conquests natively runs in 1024 x 768 res. I just found out that you have to edit the conquests.ini file to make it work; otherwise the game looks terrible and is nigh unplayable. Anyhow, enough of the gory details that I'm sure no one cares about. ;)

Sooo.... I'll play and post tonight. :D

Oh, I did manage to stomach the horrible graphics enough to glance around the save. Notably, getting a horse tile roaded will take a minimum of 4 turns. Add to that 2 more turns for horse pre-builds to complete and the earliest I anticipate getting a horse army is 6 turns. Is that soon enough to justify the horse army? I think Iron is still around ~20 turns from being hooked up.
 
Are we going to need a horse army in 6 turns? Can we work on iron and horses simultaneously, or will getting horses prolong our wait for iron?

If we can do both in parallel, I'm all for hooking up the horses and then taking a 'wait and see' approach until iron is available.
 
Turnset is done

Summary:
- Played 11 turns to even out the turn numbers
- Founded two more cities
- Met Persia and spotted yellow borders, but our suicide curraghs all sank
- Hooked up horses and built some horseman, but no horse army because...
- Discovered we didn't have enough cities at the start for another army. Finally built an empty army on turn 9
- Russia declared war on us after I refused a demand
- Russia is in the MA and has Feudalism
- Iron will be hooked up in 1 turn and a sword army should be in 3-4 turns
- Nearly lost the spear army to a stupid, greedy play on my part :blush:

Because we didn't get enough cities for an army until very recently, I left the army empty to be filled with swords. We have Iron in 1 turn, so many of the horse builds can be changed to swords

On turn 9, I decided to attack a reg spear/settler pair with our army. The reg spear was sitting on a tile I wanted to pillaged, I figured our army attacked at 1.5, so we'd at most lost 3-4 hp, kill the settler, and pillage an important tile. As soon as I clicked, I had buyer's regret and realized what a stupid, greedy move that was. :wallbash: Our army ended up red-lined --only taking 1 hp off the spear-- so I was forced to retreat it to safety. It can heal for a turn, but does have some Chinese units in pursuit. Sorry guys, for my foolish play.

China landed a sword on our west coast near Almarikh. I moved a spear/horse combo into that city for defense. We really, really need swords to start improving the kill ratio. I wasn't able to move forward offensively.

We're now at war with Russia but haven't seen much of a response.

We have quite a bit of gpt now that Russia gave back our gpt by declaring. We can make a deal with someone for techs, but I wasn't sure what techs we'd want, nor with whom to deal. We could wait for more contacts to deal, or we could just trade now. The team should discuss this.

Hand-off Notes:
- MM Ta-tu for 10spt, either to make units or settlers. Right now I MM’d it for more commerce this turn
- Consider making more settlers in Ta-tu. We really need more cities.
- Make sure the spear army doesn't die. It can heal for a turn and then should move
- The Chinese sword at Almarikh will probably attack, but in any event we have a spear/horse combo defending.
- Russia has been mostly non-responsive. Expect that to change
- Change Horse builds to Swords in 1 turn.
- I fortifed our Almarikh curragh to await the second curragh for suicider run stacking


<<Here's>> the save.

Turnlog:
Spoiler :
Pre-flight:
After getting the resolution adjusted and adapting to the now much wider view than I'm uses to...
Change some preference settings based on what I like.

Temp. change lux to 20% to raise more gpt.
Trade Catherine 11gpt + 1gp for HBR. By giving her more gpt, we incentivize her to not attack, and if she does attack, we get all that gpt back. Turn lux back to 40%. We're now losing 6gpt with 122gp in the coffers. Research, of course, is set to 0%.

Change around a few builds, mainly changing spears for more archers. Change build to settler in Ta-Tu. Getting more cities placed will really help us. Start a couple of horse pre-builds.
Good MM done by CivA. Not really anything to change around at the moment.

Send worker toward the southern horses. I think it best to road these horses and get the horse army in 6 turns. It will really let us grab the initiative. Unfortunately, roading toward the northern horses will take longer even though its on the way to the iron.

Unfortunately we don't have enough cities to make an army. :sad: That means no more MGL's until 2 more cities can be founded

Hit enter...

IBT
Chinese ask for an audience. Uh, no.
Fair amount of Chinese units on the move

Turn 1 --> 550BC

Attacking the Chinese stack:
e* archer vs reg sword, sword wins 1/3 and promotes.
vet archer vs reg sword, archer wins 3/4 and goes elite. Even got pinged by an archer free-shot to boot.
vet archer vs 2/3 reg sword, archer wins flawlessly and promote to elite. Two in a row. :yup:
4/5 e* archer vs 2/4 vet sword, archer wins flawlessly
Good RNG. No more swords in that stack, although there are 2 reg swords nearby.

arrhgh! Settler mis-clicked on movement. That'll delay the town by a couple of turns.
Move warriors to block spear pillager


IBT
Russians start ToA. Catherine, you wonder-addicted newbie. :p
Chinese on the move. A couple of northern archers move toward our worker stacks. No you don't...

CA2 tells me that Russia has entered the Middle Ages...I hope they didn't draw Feudalism!
China becomes a republic


Turn 2 --> 530
Karak Archer --> Temple (Horse pre-build)

vet archer vs reg archer, Chinese archer wins flawlessly.
e archer vs reg spear, archer wins 2/5
Fortifiy rest of stack to await a better kill opportunity next turn

Use spear army to pillage more tiles. Concetrating on making sure that even if Chinese Iron is re-hooked, it won't be accessed by the capital
Start roading horses
Curraghs ready next turn for their suicide run

IBT
Chinese archers move near Kazan
Surprisingly, a Chinese sword leaves a settler alone to advance next to our stack. The settler turns and retreats. I really thought the sword would fortify or move back. This might present a slight problem...

Japan completes the ToA
Egypt completes the GLib!
Russia starts on Sun Tzu's!! Well, we know what MA tech they got... :eek:

Turn 3 --> 510
Ta-tu Settler --> Temple (Horse pre-build)

Clearing Kazan...
vet archer vs vet archer, our archer wins 3/4
vet warrior vs reg archer, warrior wins 3/4. The warrior is exposed to a reg sword counterattack but that way Kazan is safe.

Move new settler east of Ta-tu toward a nice cxxc settling spot.
Move three curragh stack west of Russian coast. Here goes the suicide run!


IBT
Chinese sword suicides on our brave warrior! Our warrior goes to a special experience level...
A new Chinese stack approaches out of the eastern fog
Tat-tu riots. :confused: Weird, I didn't see anything when I MM. I wonder what happened.

Ouch! We lost 2 of 3 sucide curraghs

Turn 4 --> 490
The riot was my fault. :blush: I moved around the MPs and didn't notice the happy issue

Change temple pre-builds to horsemen
Spot green and yellow borders 2 moves away with the curragh. If he can only hang on one more turn...

Prepare for incoming Chinese stack
MM for commerce in Karak


IBT
Chinese galley moves up in the tundra north\
Chinese settler pair moves south toward Shantung on our side of the choke point
Our last suicide galley...is lost at sea :cry: However, we know have contact with Persia


Turn 5 --> 470
Karak Horse --> Horse
Kazan Horse --> Horse
Almarikh Horse --> Curragh

Diplome with Persia. They are also up Masonry, Writing, and Myst. I don't see much point in attempting to buy a tech right now

Found Darhan east of Ta-tu, on the river.Build to Rax
Fortify tundra curragh in case Chinese galley attacks

Cleaning up Chinese stack...
e* archer vs reg sword, sword wins 1/3. Bummer, we red-lined the sword before it won 5 rounds in a row
e archer vs reg sword, sword wins 1/3
vet archer vs reg sword, sword wins 2/3. Man, come'on RNG
vet archer vs 2/3 reg sword, sword wins 1/4 and promotes. Arrgh.
4/5 e archer vs 2/4 ve sword, archer wins 3/5

Lost some archers there, but move up the horses to replace them. I'm plannning on building a sword army over a horse army because of the time lag.

MM cities. Karak can now make 2-turn horseman


IBT
Chinese on the move
NOTE: Chinese galley could be moving toward our core


Turn 6 --> 450
Tabriz Barracks --> Horseman

vet archer vs reg sword, arche wins 2/4
vet horse vs vet archer, horse wins 2/4
vet archer vs reg archer, horse wins 3/4
vet horse vs 2/4 ve sword, horse wins 2/4
3/5 e* sword vs 1/3 reg sword, archer wins flawlessly. The Chinese have no attack units visible.

Pillage some main route tiles in Chinese core. Their routes are in shambles now.


IBT
Ahh, it finally comes. Russia demands 25gp, we refuse...and RUSSIA DECLARES!
A few Chinese units move


Turn 7 --> 430
Karak Horse --> Horse
Ta-tu Spear --> Spear

vet horse vs reg spear, horse wins 2/4. No more Chinese pillager trying to snuff out our horses.

War happiness lets us turn lux to 30%


IBT
Chinese archer moves near Darhan. I'll let it attack the spear rather than attack. We have a warrior in there for backup
Settler pair moves right next to our horse stack. Gotta love the AI. They must know we're on a low-worker variant and want to give us a hand.


Turn 8 --> 410
vet warrior vs reg archer, warrior wins 2/4 and promotes to elite 3/5
vet horse vs reg spear, horse retreats and spear is 2/3
3/4 vet horse vs 2/3 reg spear, horse wins flawlessly and takes 2 slaves.


IBT
China moves around units
Still basically no Russian response. I'm sure that will change...
Our people love us so very much, they install a lawn on our rather run-down palace


Turn 9 --> 390
Karak Horse --> Horse
Ta-tu Spear --> Horse
Almarikh Curragh --> Curragh

Found Ore-yo near the Iron. (The native Mongolian name was nigh unpronouncable and untype-able). Build to rax
Build army but leave it empty. We'll have Iron in 3 turns

Decided to attack a reg spear guarding settler with our army, partially because that spear was on a strategic road piece. The army retreats red-lined and only draws one hit. Ack, bad, bad choice on my part. I hope the army survives.

e archer vs reg archer, Chinese archer wins. Acck, what is with these e archers losing?
vet horse vs 3/4 vet archer, horse retreats and doesn't draw a hit. Killer archer.
vet 3/4 horse vs 3/4 vet archer, horse wins 1/4. Finally...


IBT
Chinese archer suicides on our hurt army. We can now build the Epic
Chinese galley moves into view on our west coast, could be on a drop run


Turn 10 --> 370
Kazan Horse --> Horse

Move army out of harm's way to heal. I'm just really, really glad we didn't lose it to my bad choice.

Move spear to help against a possible Chinese landing.


IBT
China indeed lands a reg sword next to Almarikh
China chases the red-lined army with a few units. We can heal for a turn and then run away. Really bad choice by me...


Turn 11 --> 380 -->Played to even out turns
Karak Horse --> Horse

3/4 vet horse vs reg archer, horse retreats without drawing a hit. Oh, the RNG pain
vet horse vs reg spear, spear wins 1/3
vet archer vs reg spear, archer wins 1/4
vet horse vs reg archer, horse wins flawlessly

vet horse vs Russian warrior, horse wins 3/4

MM cities and make room for next player.

Some screenies: (sorry for the tiny graphics, best I could do with my new monitor)

The Current Situation
The_Core_350BC.jpg


Russia_DoW.jpg

The_Orphaned_Army.jpg
 
Goals:

Long - Conquer the world
Medium - Cow our neighbors and meet the rest of our victims.
Short - Keep China and Russia at bay, meet Japan, the Ottomans, and the Koreans

Cities:

Karakorum (7) grows in 9, Horse in 2.
Ta-tu (7) grows in 8, Horse in 1.
Kazan (5) grows in 10, Horse in 4.
Almarikh (4) grows in 4, Curragh in 1.
Tabriz (2) grows in 4, Horse in 3.
Ulaanbaatar (2) grows in 7, Barracks in 1.
Darhan (1) grows in 4, Barracks in 4.
Oreo (1) grows in 8, Barracks in 18.


Military:

5 Workers
5 Warriors
3 Archers
8 Spearmen
6 Horsemen
2 Army
2 Curragh

0 support

Economy:

218 gold
+25 gpt
30% lux.

Diplomacy:

China (14 cities) - war (will offer Masonry, Writing, and Mysticism for peace)
Russia (19? cities) - war
Persia (23 cities) - peace.

Discussion and questions:

China is willing to make a fairly good peace offer (all the techs we're currently down). I'm tempted to buy Masonry or Writing from Persia, then take another look at what China will offer for peace. We should get Mathematics ASAP.

* Should I buy Masonry (8gpt+15 gold) or Writing (15gpt+3 gold) -- or both, we can afford it -- from Persia before I sign peace with China?
* Should I sign peace with China immediately, or should I strive to raze another of their towns before the ceasefire?
* Other than Math, what's our highest priority in terms of techs? I'd rate Mapmaking, then CoL, and then Philosophy as being most important at this point.
 
I kind of hate to make peace with China yet, even with a fine offer on the table. They're running out of swords fast and with our own sword army coming soon, we're poised to start wrapping them up.

If Russia starts coming in masse, then we'll probably want peace with China. Otherwise, I'm leaning toward continuing the war until we really hurt China.
 
OK, I've had a look at the save, and I don't think that we are in a position to be fighting on two fronts. In fact, just the Russian front will be hairy enough until we can get some Swords there.

And I don't think we'll get a better offer from China, now that we are dogpiled.

IMO, we should buy Writing from Persia to open the gateway to some second tier techs from China; I suspect that we will still get three second tier techs, though maybe we'll need to add a little gpt to sweeten the deal.

Of course, this commits us to 20 turns of war with Cathy, but that's likely anyway since we can't pay for peace.

It might be worthwhile trying to get the Worker that Mao has for trade - that would further lessen the likelihood of them re-hooking the Iron.

Cathy has 4 or 5 AC's atm, and it's likely that we'll see them first; I can't see Horses or Iron in Russian territory, so it should be Archers/Warriors to follow - just more leader fodder.

I would leave the Spear Army more or less where it is; it needs to heal, and it has too far to travel to be of any use in the Russian conflict, and we will be at war with China again relatively soon.

Speaking of which, I hope everyone has digested the lesson learned almost so painfully by Othniel. The strength of a SG is the power of several minds working together - deviating from agreed strategy seldom has favourable results.

This is a relatively tricky situation, so we need all heads on this guys.
 
Right, I just finished my set in Own's 5BC game, so I'll play tomorrow. I'll buy Writing from Persia, then gouge some techs out of China in exchange for peace. Meanwhile, I'll direct our troops towards the Russian front(s). I'll try to line up a chance to raze Russia's tundra city N of our core, but I suspect we'll need most of our troops to the south.

Oh, one more thing. The Japanese, the Ottomans, and the Koreans all have cities founded at the southern tip of our continent. How eager should I be to send a horseman down there to make contact?
 
Right, I just finished my set in Own's 5BC game, so I'll play tomorrow. I'll buy Writing from Persia, then gouge some techs out of China in exchange for peace. Meanwhile, I'll direct our troops towards the Russian front(s). I'll try to line up a chance to raze Russia's tundra city N of our core, but I suspect we'll need most of our troops to the south.

I'm sure you'll need all you can muster in the South.

Oh, one more thing. The Japanese, the Ottomans, and the Koreans all have cities founded at the southern tip of our continent. How eager should I be to send a horseman down there to make contact?

Very eager!


Any thoughts from anyone else?
 
Tusker:

Bear in mind that you have three horse builds almost complete; if you switch the builds to Swords, you can have a Sword Army in about three turns. IMO, that would be your most potent weapon against AC's - just remember not to use it as a defender.

CivA & Phaedo:

If you have the time to look at this, we could really do with an opinion; Othniel has a different view of things, and it's only right that due consideration should be given to his thoughts.
 
Wow! Cathy has expanded a lot eh? That's definitely going to be a tough front.

As much as I'd like to have Macao, it seems that a quick peace with Mao is in order. We could get both Masonry and writing from Persia for 218 + 15gpt (I didn't dicker at all). It would still leave us with 10 gpt and we could get some useful techs from China.

That's all I can come up with that hasn't been said. I would agree that the sword army for Cathy's ACs is the best call. As much as I would really love to take another city or so from Mao, I think we will be able to do it more effectively once we take the first wave from Cathy. We'll need a great defence against her and 10-20 turns should be enough to do it and get ready for another poke at Mao.

I also fully endorse making those southern contacts. That curragh might be able to do it safely if it goes the long way around. Send a horse too though.

Good luck Tusker:)
 
I'm going to wait on CivA and Phaedo to weigh in before I actually play. I don't feel like we have anything even close to a consensus on the Chinese War, and I'm not going to be playing my best tonight anyway - I'm kind of worn out from all the stuff I did today.

Edit: Pokey crosspost with Phaedo. I'll end the war when I play my set tomorrow night.
 
Just looking at the posts and not the save, as soon as I saw the Russians declared I thought we now needed to make peace with China.

I think we do a quick 20 turn war with Cathy, then return our attention back to Mao before he can build back up too much. To that end I'd rather not see us giving gpt to him in a treaty. We crippled his infrastructure for a reason.

Get techs from Persia and see if there is any brokering opportunity before making the peace deal.

Get a horse down south ASAP to make contacts.
 
To that end I'd rather not see us giving gpt to him in a treaty. We crippled his infrastructure for a reason..

That's a valid point; however, much depends on which techs are on offer, and if there is a brokering opportunity with Persia. To my mind, it would be unwise to miss out on an extra tradeable tech for the sake of a few gpt to Mao. Having a few extra coins for research isn't going to help him much in the long term.
 
That's a valid point; however, much depends on which techs are on offer, and if there is a brokering opportunity with Persia. To my mind, it would be unwise to miss out on an extra tradeable tech for the sake of a few gpt to Mao. Having a few extra coins for research isn't going to help him much in the long term.
True. I suppose it all depends what's out there and how much.
 
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