'Cause I'm the Taxman

[Rusten]

Nobody noticed that we haven't built the HE yet? This is definitely a blunder. Hard to say how useful it will be now, but it should be worth it still, no? If we target a VC involving military action then no doubt it's worth it, and I think we have to. I've always meant to put it in Bibracte.

Diplomatic victory is going to be a pain seeing as Suryavarman is always going to be the opposing candidate -- at least for the AP. In a standard game we could beeline Mass Media and gift it to Sitting Bull (have him become the other candidate), but that's not reliable here seeing as we won't be the first to reach techs.

What's the point of saving up 5k? Let's just get something. If not Astro, then at least Philo and Music.

I agree. Furthermore, the more techs we buy that can be popped from a hut the bigger the chance of getting Astronomy. I will target Philosophy, Drama and Music first (I think that only the last two can be popped -- and Astronomy of course). Printing Press doesn't do so much here so we might as well start moving towards Military Tradition.

If Joao takes another big dip in power or loses a big city I will stop the war.

Surely mercantilism is the better civic here?

 

[Rusten]

I agree that we should be building units. We're in theocracy for a reason.
I'll whip a granary in both of the Russian cities.
I'll get some settlers in the cities that are far away (islands). Better to get settlers now and postpone buildings until we're back in OR.

Also, it's better to run an engineer in Bibracte than a merchant (gets bureaucracy boost).

 

[Silu]

^ Checked the goody hut tech list, indeed poppables of what is up now are only Drama, Music and Astro. So with Drama and Music every tech we pop should be Astro.

PP isn't urgent but a bit later it's a necessary prereq both for Democracy and Scimeth.

Yeah I don't think we can trust too much in diplo win either, so with culture off the shelf that leaves just military pounding. I guess the preferred window is Arty/Inf since pretty much anything else is a pain at a tech disadvantage. That in mind I'm not sure MT is useful at all. Though with our current mindset a crapton of Cavalry vs Rifles or even Infantry doesn't feel quite as impossible Still, a lot harder than WE vs Musket/Cuir.

 

[Rusten]

I was thinking we'd have a go at Joao sooner than infantry. If we're going to wait that long and avoid MT there's no reason to get Music, it does nothing but unlock another dead-end tech.

I do think we should attack someone though. We will have promoted WEs after sending Stalin to the gulag, and they can be upgraded into cuirassiers or cavalry fairly cheap (even more so with this variant).

 

[Silu]

Well Joao we can eat up as a snack right after Stalin should we want that, and why not? We actually have a hefty military tech advantage (!) on him as we're up WEs and Muskets which should make mincemeat out of him (he's 2 techs from MT if he's going that way). To top that off we already currently have 0.9x his power so he should be very easy to smack down. EDIT: He has a boneheaded Silk<->Ivory trade with SB apparently after all still, I don't think he could put up that much resistance should we want to run over him

MT would make killing him a bit easier but also cost a wad of cash. With our production I don't think it's necessary esp. since he has WEs. I don't like waiting for Rifling since there's no telling when the idiot AIs (or AI) decide to tech it.

Only now I realize that Joao and Sury made peace 5 turns ago, was probably something worth mentioning in a report (unless I missed it there as well). He also has OB with KK and Stalin + Astro so theoretically he could piss in our cereal. Could just take the peace for now, redeclaring won't affect anything.

 

[babybluepants]

@Rusten, the plan looks good to me.

I'm not even gonna bother commenting on a Joao war, since I keep missing the mark on this topic. Once again, it seems impossible to me for now - mainly because any marginal gains would get swallowed up by enemy culture promptly, I would think. Unless we can completely massacre him right away...

The funny thing about Terra is that only about 50% of land mass is settled atm (something like 776 / 1465 - rival average 120, our land 156). I think colonization should be our primary objective for the next while. Without either corps or SP for a while, it might be a stretch to colonize a massive chunk of the NW, but it somehow seems more manageable given the variant (maybe that's an illusion). Our island cities have nothing better to do then build settlers anyway, IMHO, and we'll have Astro (hut or trade) very soon.

Edit: HE - I completely forgot about it at the end of my set. I guess EP could've built it during his, but a few more trebs would be more useful right now. It's almost overkill in Bibracte, though. Wouldn't really get useful until we start building something more expensive (not sure, though, haven't looked at any numbers). I think, build it when we have enough units to finish off Stalin.

 

[Rusten]

I would limit NW (new world) cities to the very best spots (3-4). We are going to have a hard time reaching SP.

I didn't know Joao and Sury had signed peace either. Definitely sign peace with Joao then.

I don't see why cultural pressure would be a problem for Joao's cities -- obviously we would aim to wipe him off the map.

Probably playing tonight.

 

[Rusten]

Playing now so if there is anything you wish to add now is the time.

And I'm so happy to have the honour of adopting mercantilism and removing all the spy specialists.

 

[Rusten]

[Had to remake this post after a browser crash so I'm cutting it a little short and may have forgotten some things]

Got carried away and played 13 turns -- sorry. This game/variant is a little slower than usual so I failed to notice.

Get banks before markets. They're much better assuming happiness is OK. Resumed those with a lot of hammers invested in them.

Popped 6 or so huts but no astronomy. Only more barbs and some gold. Should've left this part to RRRaskolnikov.
We've finished Rifling, HE and taken Moscow.
Did another burst of OR after having made trebs/muskets. Maybe it's time to go theo again (considering Rifling and Joao situation). I started on buildings once we had enough to destroy Stalin (with some Athens+Bibracte help).

Turn 205:
Peace with Joao.
Buy music, drama and philosophy.
Adopt mercantilism.
Issue an order for 8-10 trebs.

Turn 206:
Whip 8-10 trebs

Turn 207:
Start on a IMO obvious bank in St. P and postpone the barracks.
Cancel gems -> <- furs with KK and give him something less rare

Turn 210:
Revolt in both Russian cities.

Turn 211:
Gems -> Sury for 25 (!) GPT.

Turn 213:
Capture Moscow. Lost all the siege due to unlucky rolls, but reinforcements have arrived. Colossus gives a great boost to our GPT.

Currently turn 218 and Stalin became Joao's vassal IBT. I was going to strongly advocate attacking Joao, but 'strongly' shouldn't be necessary here.

I went for the rifling line seeing as Joao went for scientific method (still no RP!!). We have a nice edge in military techs and even if he goes for it next (currently on physics) we will at least have parity. I see this as a good time because I don't want to "waste" infantry on him -- we will want to act swiftly and take out Sury then.

Sury just went WHEOOH so we should get some help attacking Joao. Ideally Sury will trim down his SoD (if he still has one) and we'll stop the war before he can take any cities. We can follow up by taking Sitting Bull's land once we're done with Joao. It's grassland, it's full of matured cottages and only one of his cities are on a hill. it will also reduce cultural pressure. The New World is nice and all, but I'd rathe rhave these cities with no colonial maintenance and completed wonders/infrastructure.

We lost a luxury deal after Joao DoW so some cities are unhappy. We also had our copper sabotaged, but there's a worker on it.
I started on a galley in Camulodonum but don't finish it -- the idea is to have it turn into a galleon in the queue when we have astronomy.
We popped a GE in Athens. I left it idle for now (rush wonder or GA surely).

With RRRaskolnikov away ungy is up.

 

[ungy]

Got it--I'll post up a plan tomorrow.
Very impressive to get rifling

 

[Silu]

Wee, very lucky to get Rifling straight off the bat.

Our GPT is through the roof, WTH Colossus is paying in dividends. Actually we should screw Astro for now, the Lolossus is giving us over 100(!) gpt (80 plus modifiers, probably missed a couple of tiles too), two-to-three times more than the Hinduist shrine(!). Sick. We can skip it easily for now since we got the filed barrels to bash some faces in on our continent for centuries now. Until curtains, if we don't run into ninja-Infantry or something. I fail to see how a couple of maintenance-hogging resource cities in the new world would help us that much. IMO only take it if we get it in a hut or need it for Physics later or SciMethod before we get Chemistry.

I agree we could save the GE for a bit, best case scenario looks to be the Kremlin if Sury goes that way before the others. Other semi-decent uses would include the Mining Inc., Ironworks, ½Pentagon and ½SoL. Any of these should be better than settling at this point.

Plan looks to be to finish Stalin and start working on Joao. Should defend our capital area in case Joao's SoD is arriving from the sea, and be wary about the northern way if he decides to come through KK&Stalin's land.

For tl;dr people: IMO ignore Astro unless need badly as prereq, bash Stalin, bash Joao.

EDIT: Ignore all unhappiness for now IMO, battling it is kinda futile since in a couple of turns Stalin is gone. The WW shouldn't rack up to these proportions for the remainder of the game, barring the eventual showdown with SoZ-Sury.

 

[Silu]

Small micro musings:

Since we recently "acquired" the Great Beehive, should swap a lot of Engineers to Priests, at least in the cities that aren't going to pop a GP (read: anything that isn't Bibracte or Athens and has a temple).

Still should make a gpt trade to SB for either Incense or Spice (it only shows Spices (1) because our other spice is an import from Sury - alternatively could cancel that). While we're at it could renegotiate the KK trade.

Should make a couple of spies in anticipation of the campaign on Joao. We only have EP for 1-2 revolts but even that can save us 10 turns of war.

 

[ungy]

Ok things are definately looking good.

Plan--wipe Stalin then head over to Joao.
Sign OB with KK, trade for $ with SB.

Don't get astro my set--we're banking too much $ from the colosseus. Let the AI settle the new world if they want--we can later take cities either from them or barbs if necessary.

Upgrades--I'm generally not a big upgrader I think here we should upgrade our well promoted muskets/mace. Get some spies out and a chariot or two to watch for a Joao SOD.

I'll look to play tomorrow night

 

[Rusten]

Upgrades--I'm generally not a big upgrader I think here we should upgrade our well promoted muskets/mace.

Agree. Upgrading is better than usual too because our empire is set to transform commerce into gold.

 

[babybluepants]

Looking really, really good. Can't believe our gpt!
The plan looks good to me, ungy. It seems pretty straightforward atm.
I'll have to have a closer look at the save later, so I can actually try to contribute something.

 

[ungy]

OK-getting going (and I haven't played much civ in a while so there will surely be some weed this set!)

1540--OB with KK, trade incense to SB for 8 gpt, change engineers to priests.
I decide against building spies. Trouble is we've got a lot of territory to cross to get to Joao, and we'll lose a bunch of them. With rifles we won't have to sacrifice seige so we can give accuracy promo to seige and we should be able to reduce in 2t pretty easily.

1545-moving up, promote some units, whip a few buildings where we are unhappy.

1550 Yakusk is ours.

1555 more moving up, reducing Yekatinburg
We have scouting on Joao's corridor to reach us--nothing.

1560 Joao SOD inbound--15 units:

We won't be able to finish Stalin before it gets to us.

1565 Yekaterinberg is ours.
Somehow I don't see Joao's SOD--maybe it's turned back?

1570--no it's a turn ahead of where I thought it was and we're not well prepared--our forces are unfortunately split.

1575 we get most of Joao's stack w/o loss.

1580 we get the rest of the stack and start for Vladivostok.

1590 We take Vladivostok and get the bad news--Stalin has a city somewhere.

I'm thinking we may as well take peace as it'll be a while before we find it and get to it.
WW is about 70%.

Joao will give us some $ but also map which will locate Stalin for us:

Then we can get over there and redeclare in 10 turns.

 

[ungy]

save is here:

 

[bestsss]

i can bet my balls you will need astro to get to the last city

 

[Silu]

^ Looking nice, except the unexpected hidden russian city. I've played a lot of games, but this is the first time I dread to take Astro because of the Colossus obsoletes I'm for the proposed peace, it takes about 10 turns to reach Portugal anyway. If the russian city is only Astro-reachable (I don't see how it wouldn't), we should IMO take Astro immediately and send those Bibracte military polices or something to take care of it. I don't think we should reDoW until either we are in position to eliminate Stalin or he breaks free. He might well break free due to the less-than-50%-land-since-vassalship-started constraint. If he does we can obviously ignore him if it's any trouble to finish him off, similar to Pericles.

Joao is getting Cannons soon, this I guess will be pretty inconsequential. Should buy Chemistry at the first opportunity anyway (= this turn actually, there's cash for Astro+Chem immediately should we want them), for our few workshops if nothing else . Nationhood and Bureucracy are at the pivot point now, giving almost exactly the same amount of . After Portugal it's probably time for a Nat swap.

I notice you didn't swap back to Theo, this should probably be done now to get those Accuracy Trebs everywhere if nothing else. We have still a 2 diplo point buffer with Sury and Friendly without OR.

Complex preliminary plan:

1. Take peace, take Theo
2. Proceed to hunt down Stalin's last stand
3. War again after that
4. ???
5. Profit!

EDIT: Will also remove the spies from Corinth and Nemetocenna. The beaker counter is useful here as it reveals the existence of those pesky ninjaspies and ninja-artists from Merc and intermittent unhappiness/growth.

 

[bestsss]

hmm, what's wrong w/ vassalage, you won't lose much gold and some hammers (~12gold top and 15 hammers I think). But the new cities can whip infra efficiently while building accuracy trebuchets.

Setup draft city and kick the opposition out of the map although it might take some cav. action as well.