Bz8 - 5CC AWE (small map)

[Mark1031]

Pre: Switch Neopolis to Galleon. Move Knight Army back toward core.

1475:zzzz

1480: Rome Cavà explorer. Can spit out explorers 1/turn. Move Frigiate out of Antium to scout.

1485: Spain lands Crusader, MI, rifle,Musk @ Cumae. All killed no losses.

1490: Spain lands 1 Cav and Mongols 2 Cav. All killed no losses.

IBT: loose a Frigate Moving from Neopolis

1495: Scout frigate reaches Spanish Capitol. Nice place to land for pillaging.

IT: Frigate attacked looses 2 HP

1500: Kill Spanish settler/AC pair. ToG comes in and we are in the IA. Spain/Mongols up all 1st level techs. Start steam due in 28 @break even research.

IT: Loose scout frigate

1505: Spain lands 2 mus, 2 MI, 2 cav at Rome. All killed no losses.

1510: Mongols land rifle/settler pair. They have about 600 gp so I let it found a city.

1515: Spain lands Rifle + cav at Rome. Killed both with no losses and we get a leader. Don’t know what to do with him. He’s fortified in Rome

1520: Destroy Mongol city but loose a cav. Net 13 gp. Frigate attacked promotes to elite

1525: Mongols land 4 Cavs. Spain 2 cavs and con. All at Rome. They are wiped out for the loss of 1 cav.

Summary: Sorry not a very good set of turns. We have plenty of arty to defend the home front with few losses but I made little progress in getting armies over. Shipping was heavily harassed just trying to rally in our home waters. We finally have a bit of a Navy which is ready to be loaded with either both armies or 1 army and 4 explorers. Good luck getting over.

 

[betazed]

Got it. I will try and ship over the armies.

Arizona_Steve
Mark1031 -----> Just Played
betazed -----> Up
Greebley ----> On Deck
jb1964

 

[betazed]

I did an entire write up and lost it.

Anyway, here are the key points again, and there are a ton of good news

(a) I have been able to plunder some gold from cities settled on our landmass. That gives us some money for research. Steam is now due in 6.
(b) Both armies are overseas. Knight army is pillaging Spanish lands.
(c) Cav army is headed towards Mongol lands.
(d) Knight army is to be joined by explorers under army cover. That should speed up pillaging
(e) And the big one, Spain and Mongols are at war. The blue ellipse is the war zone.

Things are looking up.

The save

 

[betazed]

Arizona_Steve
Mark1031
betazed -----> Just Played
Greebley -----> Up
jb1964 ----> On Deck

 

[betazed]

One more thing, Spain has lost its saltpeter and horse (I have pillaged them) and a lux. So they are about to be rolled over by the Mongols (I am guessing). So things should get easier from here.

@jb1964: Are you back?

 

[jb1964]

Back in town. Got it. Looking good.

Did some reading... I'm not sure how ya'll pulled off two armies but I'm more than a little impressed.

 

[jb1964]

1575AD - The cities look relatively happy. I can pull research back to 50% (-26gpt vs. –44gpt) and still get Steam in 6. Everyone is still royally pissed at us. We’re weak compared to both Spain and Mongolia. Glad they’re at each other’s throats. Looks like the Mongols have the advantage. Not sure if we weaken Spain or concentrate on Mongols? Well, the goal is elimination so we’ll make sure our explorers target Spanish territory.

Spain lands two crusaders and two muskets next to Cumae
Rome, Veii, Neapolis Calvary - Cavalry

Turn 1, 1580AD
Spanish landing party slaughtered. No losses.
Land explorers and cover with army. Army pillages and comes back to cover. Cav army moves into Mongol territory after witnessing Spanish and Mongol troops skirmishing.

IBT: No landings.

Turn 2, 1585AD
Pillage both Spain and Mongolia. Kill off a Spanish rifle sitting on top of a Mongolian iron. We’ll disconnect that next turn. (I left an explorer hanging as I figured the movement wrong.)

IBT: No landings. Army takes shots at enemy troops as they kill each other. Loose explorer. That will not happen again.

Turn 3, 1590AD
Pillage. No stupid moves this turn.
Madrid is almost unhooked. Pillaged Mongol iron and are headed for horses.

IBT: No landings. Cumae cannon – cavalry. Going to bring the fleet back and carry over some offense.

Turn 4, 1595AD
Pillage

IBT: No landings. A Mongol galleon, escorted by three frigates, crosses my naval path and continues heading for our shores. Fine. Rome cavalry – cavalry.

Turn 5, 1600AD
Pillage. Steam in 1 turn. I belatedly start moving our fortified workers/slaves back to the homeland to rail.

IBT: Still no landings. Mongol “fleet” still skirting our shores.
Steam comes in and we fortify w/ a knight. We set to researching Electricity for Replaceable Parts next. Anything more than 10% is a negative number for 42 turns. 10% research it is for the time being.
Mongols get Universal Suffrage. They need it.


Turn 6, 1605AD
Move arty near Cumae over a tile to cover potential “near Rome” landing by Mongols.
We have a couple of coal deposits and colonize one.
Veii, Neapolis and Antium Cavalry – Cavalry
Santiago is cut off. We send the sailing cavalry to join the knight army and explorers for further pillaging power.

No Landings. Spain moves galleon next to shore between Cumae and Neapolis. Mongol galleon and escorts still heading NW along the northern coast.

Turn 7, 1610AD
Pillage, etc. Workers begin railing.

Mongols land two cavalry and a rifle and ask for peace. They’re up PPress, Music, Nav, Nationalism, Med, and Industry. Spain is up the same techs. Japan is just waiting to be killed. Maybe Medicine for population growth would have been a better idea. Didn’t consider that.
Spain lands a Cavalry. We snicker.

Turn 8, 1615AD
Invading forces wiped out w/ no loses.
Musket that landed w/ the 3 cavalry pillages. Cavs move along the mountains towards the Army.

Aside: All is very quite. I’m not seeing any rival battles or movement of troops towards our pillaging forces. We are now average in strength vs. both the Mongols and Spain. Our ships have not met w/ any resistance. At this point I don't see how we loose.
AI tech lead...
Med - Not much help w/o improved lands and investing in hospitals at this time just gets AI dead faster.
Industry - build factories and have countyside pillaged.
AI will not get to MTrans before it's far too late.
Nationalism - AI's biggest advantage and can be countered w/ Arty and Cav.
Nav, PPress & Music do little to counter our strategy.

IBT: Loose a cavalry to the Spanish. Rome cavalry – cavalry.

Turn 9, 1620AD
Pillage silks and choke point in Mongol territory.
Pillage in Spain. Retreat 2 cavalry to musket on Mountain in Spanish territory.

IBT: Zzzzzz

Turn 10, 1625AD
More pillaging. No retaliation. Cavalry army is set to pillage coal resources next turn.
My railroading has been haphazard. Still moving workers over roads to work within our boarders.

We’re back to being weak compared to the fascist Mongols. We’re still average compared to the communist Spaniards. There have been no attempts to pillage our resources outside our boarders.

Save

 

[betazed]

It was actually Greebley's turn to play but that is ok. Greebley can play now. Good turns except for 2 things.

(a) I would have gone for Industrialization first. We need factories more than infantries now
(b) I would never attack with the armies now. Their job is to just pllage.

Other than that, very good play.

Arizona_Steve ----> On Deck
Mark1031
betazed
Greebley -----> Up
jb1964

Do we have coal in our territory?

 

[betazed]

Looking at the save I have a couple of more points.

(a) We should definitely switch to Industrialization. We can get it in 25 turns at minimum loss. I am sure we will get it sooner. We do not want to research Electricity since we will be researching that at first price (neither mongols nor Spain has it).

(b) There are four workers fortified near the former American territories. I put them into RR'ing.

(c) I am not sure in the efficacy of shipping cavs over now without artillery support. In fact if we have enough cavs now to defend the homeground I was even thinking of switiching the cities to wealth production to get to Industiralization (we get it in 20 turns instead of 25) -> Medicine -> Sanitation -> Electricity -> RP sooner then build massive artillery and take out enemy cities one by one.

What does everyone think of this idea? Is that feasible.

 

[Greebley]

I don't know - giving up 20 or more turns of unit production seems harsh. Also you are giving up 20 turns of Production to produce 50% faster 5 turns early doesn't seem to work well. If I was going to switch to Industrialization (which seems a decent idea) then I want to continue to produce units and do damage.

It looks like the cities to the immediate SW of us might possibly be an island. If so, I might try to invade there and clear it.

I think the two options are to go with your wealth idea, or to use our units to destroy the enemy cities. I am slightly more in favor of the latter idea. The other reason for my favoring attacks now is that if Mongol and Spain are currently at war, then they are weakening each other which will make our attacks more successful.

If I start seeing cities defended by Infantry however, I may fall back on your plan Betazed. The only problem is that industrialization doesn't help us if we aren't building units. I think I would prefer going medicine-sanitation over industrialization as larger cities will increase our science rate by more. i.e.
Med - San.

I got the game and have time to play. My current plan is to attack for now and if I see infantry, to re-evaluate. I will wait before starting to see if I get any opinions. If I simply lose all the attack units, well then we have less unit support and can up science (and will again re-evaluate).

This post is pretty muddled: Let me see if I can enumerate the options.
Units:
1) Produce units and use them
2) Switch to wealth

Science:
a) Industrialization first
b) Medicine, sanitation first
c) Electricity, Replaceable Parts first.

My current favorite plan is 1a, I think I like 2b and 2c over 2a for my reasons listed above. We are currently going for 1b.

 

[betazed]

Greebley,

On more thought I think I like your idea of going Industrialization and producing units and doing damage as we go along.

So 1a for me too.

 

[jb1964]

Thanks for the input. Good stuff.

With the lower cost of going after Industrialization switching's a good move. Also, having limited production facilities it make sense to make them as robust as we can.

We have two coals in the territories to the South. One is colonized.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Switch to Industrialization. Upgrade our Trebuchets.

Early: Build workers when towns are size 12. Realize we are still missing granaries so build them in towns without (the workers I build can be merged into towns after Sanitation and in the meantime build rails. Finish up our Infra builds (colloseum) so we don't have more units taking up our gold.

I do lots of pillaging

Mid: Land on SW Mongol lands in the mountains. The Mongols take a spanish city. I take a small risk and attack the cavalry now guarding the town with the knight army. I raze the town and move the army onto a mountain to heal next turn.

I spot a Mongol Saltpeter. I may be able to stop the Cav?

It is looking more and more like there are islands. We may be able to clear those which would hurt the mongols

Late:
Mongols take another Spanish town (it is nice seeing so many Cav die doing so. The town is guarded only by injured Cav so I again use the army to attack and raze it.

I attack and raze the first town on the suspected Mongol island.

I pillage the Saltpeter and check Diplo. The Mongols don't have it anymore! Success.
Send a Cav to check if the Spanish have reconnected their Saltpeter. I jump him from mountain to mountain (the cav are not being attacked on mountains) so it takes longer.

Confirm that the mongols do have islands. This will make it easier. We should be able to clear the islands before Rep Parts I think

I bring over a fairly massive force to the Mongol island. It leaves us thin at home so the next troops will probably defend. We have had no landings recently. The AI has enough to worry about in its own lands it seems. We should be able to clear the island with what we got (13 cannon, 9 Cav, 1 Elite knight, 3 Muskets). Note that I just used our leader on a colloseum so we can now get another.

I think both armies should pillage the Mongols. They seem the bigger threat.

We have a bunch of injured units in the Spanish territory. They are simply doing as much as they can before they die - mostly by killing longbows and keepin the area pillaged. General Harrassment. We have gotten our "moneys worth" from them so shipping them across was not a bad idea.

The spanish are attacking units on mountains with their longbows.

The Mongols have probably reconnected their iron. Also they will probably work on reconnecting the Saltpeter. You want to check on those regularly as you cannot see the road after you leave the area.

I would continue to build workers when towns reach size 12. We can merge them back in when we get Sanitation.

Research on Industrialization has been going slowly. I think it is a tossup between Sanitation (Size 20 towns and the Much needed Battlefield Med) and RP (artillery and Infantry).

We now have the final infra - colosseums and granaries in most towns.

 

[Greebley]

Here is a picture of our pillaging units. It also shows the island nature of Mongol territory. Hopefully in the next two turns we can clear the 1 or two islands of cities.

One thing I meant to do but forgot:

Send out some of the Frigates to explore and find all the islands and cities.

 

[Greebley]

I will be travelling from this wednesday thru Monday. If my next turn comes up before Tuesday of next week (6/29), then I will probably need a swap or skip.

If I can play, I will post a statement to that effect before my normal turn.

 

[betazed]

Arizona_Steve ----> Up
Mark1031 ----> On Deck
betazed
Greebley -----> Just Played
jb1964

Good job Greebley on finding those islands. Yes we should clean them out. I would say after Industrialization we should go the Medicine -> Sanitation way. We need size 20 towns fast.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

Got it. I will probably play tomorrow as I am also up in LotR13.

 

[Arizona_Steve]

(0) 1675AD
Nice to see the Mongols and the Spanish getting pillaged to death. The Mongols are still somewhat viable, so I'll leave the Cavalry army over there to pillage, and assign the Knight army to the Spanish.
Man, we unloaded a ton of units onto Mongol territory last turn. I count 24 units in all, including 13 cannon. I think I'll be having some fun this turn.

IBT
One spanish longbow impales itself on a cavalry in the mountains, and gives us another elite cavalry.
The Mongols land a cavalry next to Cumae.

Veii - Worker -> Cavalry (citizens juggled around to get back to 20/turn - The city will still grow next turn).
Antium - Worker -> Worker (we need some mines here).
Cumae - Colloseum -> Cavalry

(1) 1680AD
Drop science to 10% for one turn to get some more gold.
Kill the Mongol cavalry. And get another elite Cavalry.
Bomb the Mongol fleet that landed the Cavalry.

IBT
Someone left a bunch of units in Spanish territory. There's not a lot I can do as a number of them are taken down by longbows and rifles. Still, a few Spanish units died trying.

Rome - Cavalry -> Worker
Antium - Worker -> Frigate
Neapolis - Colloseum -> Cavalry

(2) 1685AD
Frigates are moved to intercept the damaged Mongol landing fleet.
Science back to 20% for a few turns.

IBT
Only one elite cavalry remains in Spanish territory (apart from the army and explorers).
The Mongols move their two injured Frigates and injured Galleon right into my trap.
Spain lands a longbow next to Cumae. And leave their ships out there for our cannon to bombard.

(3) 1690AD
There are three fewer Mongol ships in the sea, and we have an Elite frigate.

IBT
Spain lands one longbow next to Cumae. Sadly, they don't leave their ships in range of our cannon.

(4) 1695AD
The Mongol city of Palma is bombarded and razed with the loss of an elite Cavalry (against a redlined Rifleman).

IBT
A bunch of injured Spanish ships slip by our frigates and move out of sight. They'll be located and killed next turn.

Veii - Cavalry -> Cavalry

(5) 1700AD
I manage to kill two out of three Spanish boats, but lose one frigate to poor RNG rolls.
I'm unable to move our cannon forward into Mongolia as there's Jungle in the way. I do kill a Japanese settler that landed last turn, so I'll use those workers to road the jungle.

IBT
Spain loses a frigate attempting to counter attack us.

Rome - Musketman -> Cavalry
Antium - Frigate -> Frigate
Neapolis - Cavalry -> Cavalry

(6) 1705AD
Yawn...

IBT
Cumae - Cavalry -> Cavalry

(7) 1710AD
More yawn. The most exciting thing I do is to switch Antium's build to a Worker.

IBT
Antium - Worker -> Worker

(8) 1715AD
I didn't even take a note of the name, but I attack the last Mongol city on the small island where all our cavalry are assembled. We get a lot of retreats taking out the two riflemen there, but destroy the city and clean out the island. I see green borders beyond. Maybe an opportunity to kill off the Japanese.

IBT
Spain loses another frigate attacking us. They also start Shakespeare's Theater.

Rome - Cavalry -> Worker
Veii - Cavalry -> Worker
Antium - Worker -> Frigate

(9) 1720AD
It looks like we've found the last Japanese city, defended by Pikemen. Troops are offloaded.

IBT
Rome - Worker -> Cavalry
Veii - Worker -> Cavalry
Neapolis - Cavalry -> Galleon

(10) 1725AD
Two pikemen and a Medieval Infantry are killed in the Japanese city (why do I keep forgetting to take a note of the names), and...

 

[Greebley]

Good turns. Nice to see the Japanese gone

FYI, the Cavalry in spanish lands were the ones dropped off and were purely for Harrassment purposes. they could sit out of range of speed one units, kill them and then retreat back again. This is how they survived so long.

By the time you got them though they were close to the end of their lifespan. Most were injured and the few on mountains were finally being attacked by Cavalry. Up until the end of my last turn there had been no rifles; only Longbow.

So not to worry that they died. They kept the spanish territory pillaged for 15 odd turns and killed their weight in Longbow.

Hopefully the next player can grab the units on the razed island and move on to the next island. I would keep 3-4 cavalry on the island to repulse future landings if we can spare them ( I am assuming there are two).

[Edit: Looking at the save I see we are already on island 2 and that there seem to be a whole lot of little islands to keep us busy.

We may want to chop the forests near the capitol - we may get BG's and will want to use all the squares when we get sanitation.

 

[betazed]

Good job steve on clearing out the Japs. Mark, I guess you should continue pillaging and clearing out the other islands.

Arizona_Steve ----> Just played
Mark1031 ----> Up
betazed ------> On Deck
Greebley -----> Skipped till 6/28 unless he reports otherwise
jb1964