'Cause I'm the Taxman

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Silu: excellent round! I hadn't time to focus on civ lately with my relocation and christmas so apologies for not having a look earlier...

I agree on StPet -> Moscow -> Novgorod. i would skip the settler in Bibracte as well, no good islands left (only the crab site and the grasslands site near greece) to focus on troops

Cities have room under caps so we could grow them a bit (read stop every two turns )...

I agree with targeting banking before other techs too
GP: I don't think a Tao shrine is efficient either... GM are better now imo... we have already plenty of missionaries to spam!

Ras

edit: re Tao shrine, seeing as hindu shrine is up already, it may be worth it as St Pet will likely host our Wall Street... and Silu successfully brainwashed me

 

[Silu]

D'oh, only just realized I had forgotten about popping Vienne with the Caste dip even though it was discussed and ~agreed on. Oh well, it's at 499/500 now

Btw, "getting sent to the Celtic Copper mines" must be a punishment feared by criminals throughout the nation

Btw #2, not sure what's up with Tolosa's citizen placement but it certainly shouldn't/didn't look like that. *whistles* A rare sight there as well, AI-built Workshop on a FP. Stalin's specialty I guess.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

at the copper mine comment!

Btw #2, not sure what's up with Tolosa's citizen placement but it certainly shouldn't/didn't look like that. *whistles* A rare sight there as well, AI-built Workshop on a FP. Stalin's specialty I guess.

I wondered about that city as well, maybe russian troops were messing around last turn?

Before he has a watermill on that tile... AIs should use them more imo

 

[Silu]

I wondered about that city as well, maybe russian troops were messing around last turn?

Yeah I actually went back to check and that was it... He bombed an Ivory Camp, I was rebuilding it and the Workers drew some random Mace (a pain with no Xbows) to harass which messed the placement, it was killed on the FP tile the previous turn. So 1 turn of mismanagement there

It's good to play imperfect sets, how boring would it be if there was no room for improvement?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

There is always room for improvements!

To get ride of pillagers and MM nightmares: do like me, automate everything...

Spoiler :

the team -> <- me

 

[babybluepants]

Sorry about the wall of text...

Bibracte: keep growing, build trebuchets, maces and WE's (decide based on war progress)
Vienne: needs a harbor soon (+5gpt, 5t build); build trebs, then switch to harbor if it seems we have enough troops; it's at health limit, which would be helped by harbor, but maybe whip once or twice, to speed up military and not grow into unhealthiness, since no more 3-yield tiles available.
Tolosa: no whipping anymore; put the Russian FP workshop to use ; build trebs
Sparta: keep building units; I'd still crack the whip here, too, as no good tiles to work and high food and happy cap; harbor would be the next building, if it gets to that.
Athens: keep building units, no whip; start running some merchants or prophets(?) once it grows another pop or two.
Thebes: maybe it completes a catapult during my set, maybe not
Gergovia: whip grocer when possible; courthouse next.
Camulodunum: whip grocer; Buddhist temple next (for hammers)
Verlamion: whip grocer now;
Durnovaria: whip forge; harbor next.
Isca: work copper when growth to complete WB (send to new city), then get going on a forge
Durocortorum: whip harbor, then forge.
Bagacum: improve fish next turn, complete granary, 2-pop whip LH.
Corinth: how about a Buddhist temple before harbor? If I work the grass shop, it can complete in 2t, speeding up border pop by 3t (hopefully this immediately yields the spice and hill mine)
Nemetocenna: grow and whip granary and LH.
Yaroslavl': depends on how the conquest of St. Pete goes; as it is, would starve quickly, so I'd see if I can whip a forge, but more likely something cheaper, like barracks. Or should I just whip some units? That might be better. Once St. Pete is ours, re-evaluate and probably go forge > barracks, unless real need for a unit or two near the front.

Caravels: since the first one went south, I'd send the second one NW and try to circumnavigate during my set.
Workers: chop some forests around Isca and Bagacum; workshop remaining island tiles; I'd chop the two forests on the Khmer border for Sparta and Tolosa. Improving the iron seems tricky. Do we wanna send multiple WE's with a worker right now, or send everything we have to the front?

War: Move towards St. Pete now. We're a bit short on siege, but hopefully it's ok. I'll scope out the situation, and either take a turn to bombard or suicide immediately. I'm not sure I'll even get to Moscow in my set, as I don't wanna play more than 10t without discussion.

Tech: Banking > Gunpowder

I can play tmr morning (24 hrs), unless you guys think I should wait for everyone to re-appear post-holidays.

 

[Silu]

^ Whoa, you mean we are actually supposed to think when we choose builds when playing? Only thing that pops into my eye is whether the GP grind should be in Athens or Vienne; Athens might run out of sensible tiles to work though so maybe there. My vote is solid on a prophet but it might partly be due to Fancy Play Syndrome ("shrines are cool!111"). And yeah Corinth should be building a Bumple before Harbor.

Don't think you should spare current SoD WEs to the Iron as they're essential for stack defense (and very good on the attack), but if you build a couple of reinforcing ones those could escort the Ironmine builders. Then again Jumbos > Pikes here and Xbows are mostly a waste so maybe it's not a priority. Not sure if Knights are worth building, some 2-movers are nice to have but that alone might not be worth the trouble.

4 Treb 3 Cat should be aplenty for St. Pete and available already on the current turn. Pretty sure you can take your sweet time to bombard instead of bum rushing through % (if the garrison isn't ridiculously small), not like we're on a clock here - we can easily reinforce more than Stalin can build as defenders.

IMO you can play already, not like we have difficult important decisions here:
1. Lay the smackdown on Stalin
2. Go to step 1

 

[babybluepants]

One thing I forgot was that we'll probably get Banking in the next few turns. I'll look into getting some banks up, too...

If I can broker Banking, what would we want to take? Aesthetics line?

 

[bestsss]

banking is around 1k gold.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Plan looks good... brokering aesthetics line looks like a good idea for the epics...
I think you shouldn't bother with the iron for now (maces are buildable with copper so no loses), and just keep on whipping Thebes for cats.

 

[babybluepants]

@bestsss, I meant trade it away for something + gold. Wrong choice of words.

@Team, I played a short set, writing report now.

 

[babybluepants]

I only played 4t, and I need a consult.

Started off by just moving the main stack towards St. Petersburg and micro-ing some cities. 2t in, I got the banking trade with Sury.

I traded it to SB.

The same turn, and annoying random event destroyed a farm near Sparta. Being fixed now. Also, got this random event:

So we got two more Buddhist cities. Also, this:

I came up on St. Petersburg, and Stalin had a couple of cuirassiers around. A decent stack in the city. Didn't seem like I could possibly take the city, so I bombarded it for a turn (which didn't make that much of a difference, only down to 103%). Hoped he wouldn't bring in too many reinforcements next turn, so I could bomb a few more and attack. That didn't work out...

Next turn:

I voted no, as we have some trades with him. This is Stalin's stack in St. Petersburg right now (he brought in a few more cuirassiers this IBT):

I don't quite know what to do here... We'd need a lot more firepower. A counter-attack could be devastating without defensive terrain. Whipping a dun in Yaroslavl' next turn might be an option?

Even if I could've somehow taken the city previous turn, the cuirassiers would've smoked the injured units now. What do you guys think? I don't usually fight wars with tech and numerical disadvantage...

Tech situation. We have WFYABTTA now.

 

[Silu]

Hahaha, seems I counted the man out a bit too early... How on earth he managed to conjure up such a stack so fast is beyond me. I suppose we were just lucky Moscow was busy with wonders up until now and now that he's not and is in a Golden Age...

IMO take peace and start the whole thing over, get defense in Yaroslavl on top of a fat, fat pile of WEs and/or Pikes. I don't see any way this offensive can continue with the now puny-looking amount of siege we have.

Sorry for grossly underestimating Stalin's military might

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

More WEs and more trebs is what we need, but peace first (our gpt isn't rising as it should be currently, and we need that to keep up with AIs, the war is too costly imo)... btw duns are useless against cuirassiers.
Would be great to have the save BBP, hard to say something meaningfull without it

Did someone see our captain?

 

[babybluepants]

btw duns are useless against cuirassiers.

ofc they are... I conveniently forget about technicalities when faced with a tough sitch.

Save's attached.

Ok, well, I'd take peace here, too. We can finish up some infra, too - mainly banks, but also some loose harbors and stuff. Just wanted to see what others think. Maybe wait for words of wisdom from our captain...

Another thing: if we get to Lit soon, where would we want NE? I don't see a clear site. Vienne might be ok, but in that case, I would farm over those two cottages (that gives us 7 specialists @ pop 13). Also, we could probably have Wall Street in Athens or Bibracte relatively soon. I'd vote for Athens. If we're not capturing St. Pete for some time, maybe that's worth it? Neither of these would come up during my set, though...

 

[Silu]

^ Another one of those technicalities is that Wall Street is unlocked by Corporation (which coincidentally obsoletes GLH) instead of Banking if that's what you were assuming.

NE in Vienne is good IMO, just farm over the buggers, they've done their task, which was to grow enough for working them to be better than working coast

Agree about peace being the only choice here, but also agree about waiting for christmas people (or person at least ) to come back to give their input about this situation and how to proceed after taking peace.

 

[babybluepants]

^ Another one of those technicalities is that Wall Street is unlocked by Corporation (which coincidentally obsoletes GLH) instead of Banking if that's what you were assuming.

Yes, that's exactly what I was assuming. It would only make sense... I should really check these things before I post.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Stalin will make peace giving us some gold, or maybe we can try to get litterature. We could use a couple of workers (whip some or bring them back from islands) near Tolosa and to farm those damn forests in Bibracte .

I don't think we can push any further, so a peacefull round, building up the economy (growing cities) seems in order.

My vote for NE is Athen (or some three seafood island but that's a longer shot), NE in Bibracte is counter-productive with bureaucracy and Maoi, we want to work tiles there

I agree we should wait for some more comments from Rusten, Stuge, TMIT and Emperor_Peter if they are around...

Happy new year team!

Ras

edit: no words of WS, because we are in no position to build that soon guys Stop champagne

 

[Rusten]

Did someone see our captain?

Did you miss me so soon? This must have been a hard week for you. (jk)

Okay, time to get back to it -- holiday should be over now. Everybody still around? I will have a look at the save and find out who's up today.

(No, I didn't read all the posts yet)

 

[Silu]

Making a sneak-peek here with a temporary cell phone conn (will be back on Wednesday); seems there's not much discussion though

No more workers IMO, there's just a couple of tiles to improve and the Copper-miners are heading back after having served their sentence.

NE in Athens is definitely good as well, though there's a strong-ish potential for production there which isn't present in Vienne (my first choice).