cMM 1 - Deity 5CC Conquest

[Sir Len Taft]

IBT
Isabella threatens to declare war if we don't move, I apologise, not ready for that war yet. Byzants start Oracle.

(1) 2510 BC
A stack of Byzantines appear on the volcano to the east, 3 spears and 4 warriors. Hopefully they're not heading for us.

(2) 2470 BC


IBT
Neil losses to a barb.

(3) 2430 BC


(4) 2390 BC
Pasargadae: Warrior => Warrior, sent as MP in Persepolis.
Writing on minimum.

(5) 2350 BC
Arbela founded on the northern tobacco, the unknown tile to the north turns out to be a BG. Spain starts Oracle.

(6) 2310 BC
Meet the Aztecs, they know the same as the other AIs (i.e. WC, CB and Alpha), with four additional towns.

(7) 2270 BC


(8) 2230 BC


(9) 2190 BC
Pasargadae: Warrior => Worker

(10) 2150 BC


After Turn Report: Granary is due in one turn in Persepolis, but other than that I have no real comment. Doing good it seems.

SAVE

 

[Tarkeel]

 

[T_McC]

Well so far we have Iron claimed, and Horses are behind Perseopolis where no one else can get them.

We are not going to be able to claim Wines with the current location of Pasargadae, the Spanish have a city where the Wines Hill will fall in their 21.

I think we will eventually move Pasagardae, but not right away. It can supply workers for a while until we have a better place to go.

That region N of Arbela is tempting, but we need to be careful to place a city that can feed itself. The map I posted earlier (with Pasagardae moving 2 NW) had a city being founded on the River/Horse hill. That spot has access to the irrigated cow and a flood plain, so can use 6 Hills out of Despotism. Poaching those tiles has little effect on Pasagardae, it can just grab Flood Plains on the other side of the river. The River/Horse hill also dovetails very nicely with the location of Arbela, generating no overlap.

If we do found on the Horse Hill with an eye towards moving Pasagardae, we could have 4 cities producing vet Warriors for upgrade (60 gold per), and Pasagardae pushing workers.

Are we playing Continents or Pangaea? I think we need a coastal city regardless, but it's hard to pick a good spot in the SE. Maybe SW-SW of the Furs? We want to pick a spot that has zero overlap, but also minimizes the water tiles. The spot 2 SW probably maxes out at 13 land tiles.

To next player: Check the MM of Perseopolis, we can make another gold. We will likely build a settler next, it would be nice if it could be timed with growth to size 5.

Other Question: We are playing v.1.22, correct?

Dot-map below: Blue dot is one proposed city, and the 21 it claims. Pink dot is a first guess at a coastal city.

 

[Foresight]

I like your suggest map above, but I think Pasar should be moved soon. With the proposed settlements, that means we could have 3 luxuries, horses, and iron. Letting Pasar go for too long will mean cultural expansion from the AI.

 

[Aggie]

Blue dot looks great and pink dot too, without knowing more of the map. Let's use Pasargadae for workers for a while. We don't need to worry about overlap until we get hospitals. Which doesn't mean that we should wait this long to move it.

And yes, we are playing 1.22.

 

[Tarkeel]

Blue looks very good, but I'd scout the small peninsula (probably) in the south before deciding on pink.

We should also decide if we want to go for Monarchy or Republic, to focus on the right path. At first glance Monarchy might be best since we'll be doing some heavy Immortal warfare, but we do have enough lux'es to keep our people happy for some time I think. We should anyways try to get CB soon for some cultural expansions.

I think we need 2 workers pr city here, even though we are industrial.

 

[carlosMM]

yes, it is 1.22 we use!

I like the suggested city sites - dumb me, I should have pushed north with Pasar....

 

[carlosMM]

carlosMM
Tarkeel
Sir Len Taft - just played, on holiday
Codo Stejans - up now
T_McC - on deck
Foresight


aggie, shout out where to drop you back in!

 

[T_McC]

Short-term (before our 1st war): My inclination is to leave Pasagardae in place, for now. The city has enough food to provide workers for our empire, while the other 4 cities build Barracks and Warriors/Spears. If we intend to move Pas NW-NW (1st dotmap I posted), we can't claim the Wines without a cultural expansion, and we won't out-culture a size-3 city from a Religious AI. I have to believe they will build an early, 18-shield Temple. Maybe more on point, we don't have any cultural buildings to build.

Moving Pas NW-N puts the Wines in our initial 9, but the city location is not very good long-term. Too many Flood Plains for the city to ever be able to build anything.

Medium-term (during/slightly after our 1st war): We fight the Spanish and at minimum raze the 1 or 2 cities that would overlap with the location NW-NW of Pas. The Spanish are the likeliest Civ we will fight first, since we don't share borders with anyone else. We get tech for peace, and relocate Pasagardae.

I don't think we can get out of Despotism before our GA, if we want to do an Immortal rush. We are 3-4 techs from Monarchy (I think we have WC), and 5 techs from Republic. We are currently researching Alphabet at 10%, and making 4 gpt. I think we want to aim for Monarchy, I believe most of our research will come at the end of a sword, and no WW and 3 MP should let us run our 5 cities at high population without an oppressive lux tax.

I see two medium-term strategies: Continue min-sci until we accumulate about 600 gold to upgrade Warriors, then push research to finish Alphabet while staying around 600 gold. [We have a couple of deals on-going, I believe we get back 12 gpt in 8 turns.] Buy Writing for pure gpt from anyone but Spain, to open up the tech tree. Hook up the Iron, mass upgrade and charge. [We could hook up the Iron earlier, to build some Immortals from scratch, it's all just a balancing act between cash-for-upgrades and what we have to do to get Writing ASAP. Nothing in the rule book says we can't have 20 Vet Warriors and only horde enough cash to upgrade 10 of them at first.]

Or, we could hook up the Iron ASAP and spend our economy on buying techs so we can switch gov'ts before the Immortal rush. Run little/no research, keep little/no cash on hand, but build an attack force while we wait to revolt. Once we're out of Despotism, charge against the Spanish.

 

[carlosMM]

I agree on the pasargade wait - raze the Spanish town and then the wines are ours.

Also, my style usually is to have more warrior than money - that way the increased money during the GA insures a fast and steady streams of built + upgraded Immortals. For the first onslaught, 6 or 7 can do! We do NOT need more than 10 units to raze two cities and extort techs if we carefully plan the war!

 

[Codo Stejans]

got it, will play tonight

 

[T_McC]

6 or 7 Immortals may get the job done, but why not have 12-16 and send two independent stacks.

We won't have to wait long to build up a force, as Perseopolis will pull 10 spt once it gets off of settler duty and can settle in at size 6 (may even do it at size 5 with a little less food). Waiting a few turns to allow our 4 cities other than Pasagardae to grow will also net us a bit larger benefit to our GA.

We're not talking about a big difference in time, maybe as little as 5 turns. Two things can control the timing: cash accumulation, and how soon we can buy Writing. I think we can make >20 gpt while still running min Sci, so maybe about 30 turns from now we can go on the attack? We need about 12 more turns to build the final two settlers, then about 5 to get Barracks in Perseopolis, then we can do a vet Warrior/turn.

General plan seems agreed, we'll discuss further details after Codo's turn.

 

[Foresight]

Canada Day today. I won't be discussing too much tonight.

 

[carlosMM]

T_McC: if we really will be that rich I am very much in favor of using a much larger force. But the earlier we start the more time will we have not facing Pikemen. That means we can fight more short wars to net us techs. There is no point in fighting an AI longer than necessary to
- make them give us tech
- seriously hurt their growth

once we achieve that, we better make peace and turn our attention to the next AI!
and for that, usually, 10 units, 2 spears, 2 archers, 6 Immos, are sufficient!

 

[T_McC]

Since we are going to trigger our GA by attacking, I feel we should hold off until we have founded all 5 cities. I'm guessing about 15 turns to do that.

Then, I feel the trigger to attack would be when we could buy Writing. That way we can extort more expensive techs, and possibly get something to trade for the other, cheaper techs. If we went to break-even science, I think Alphabet is due in 22. We get some gpt back in about 8 turns so we'll either get Alphabet sooner, or have a few turns to accumulate cash. It may be that all things will be in place to attack with 6 Immortals, we'll see when we get there.

But we aren't looking to start a war in the next 10 turns.

 

[Codo Stejans]

Inherited 1250
Everything looks ok, do the diplomatic rounds, but we don't have any cash and from reading previous posts, I don't think we plan on using money directly to get techs. We'll use our money to build our immortals and let them do our research.

IBT

1) 2110 BC

Persepolis: Granary->settler
I move some warriors around to continue exploring.
The workner near Pas starts roading the forest. I think we want to wait a bit to hook up the iron.

IBT:
Spain starts the Pyramids and completes the Colossus in Madrid.

2) 2070 BC
zzzZZ, I do start to move a warrior to Arabela.

IBT
Byzantines start the Oracle. Byzantines start the pyramids.
Aztecs found a city in an open spot in the middle of spanish territory.

3) 2030 BC
stop warrior moving towards Arabela, because it will build a warrior same turn it grows. Leave it near the horses for the settler.

IBT
zzz

4) 1990BC

Pasargadae: worker->warrior. I don't want it to fall to size 1 yet. and we want some upgrade fodder

Nothing new on the tech front

IBT:
Persepolis riots when it grows. My fault.. I even looked at it in 1990BC and just spaced its happiness

5) 1950BC
Lux to 10%
Arabela: warrior->worker

IBT
Isabella comes demanding 20 gold. We aren't ready to fight her yet, but we're trying to save money, and if she comes calling every 5 turns asking for our savings, we aren't going to get much saved. We might want to consider hooking up our iron asap and preparing to change her tone from demanding to pleading for her life. Give her the 20 gold.
Volcano near Persepolis becomes active

6) 1910BC
Zzz, we will be able to lower lux tax next turn.

IBT
Persepolis: settler->settler
Ottomans start ToA

7) 1870BC
settler moves towards horse spot (blue dot)
workers road BG near Persopolis and road to the blue dot.
Lux back to 0

IBT
Zzz

8) 1830BC
Zzz

IBT
Pasargadae: warrior->worker

9) 1790BC
settler reaches blue dot

IBT
Arbela: worker->barracks. We'll want vets coming from somewhere and since this is my last turn, this can be overriden.
Spanish begin ToA

10) 1750BC
Found Antioch on the blue dot. We now have horses hooked up. Set build to spearman for now.

We have 43 gold in the bank, and make +15gpt. I think the next worker out of Pasargadae should hook up our iron and let us begin the age of the immortals.
Persepolis will build a settler in 2, perhaps for the pink dot

 

[T_McC]

Got it.

And playing ...

 

[T_McC]

cMM1 - 5CC of Pure Adrenaline!

1750 BC (0)
I'm a little disappointed we haven't further scouted the SE, but that'll get done.

Swap a couple of builds: Antioch to Barracks, Perseopolis from Settler to Barracks. No one should be able to beat us to a spot in the SE, and this way the capital won't drop to size 2.

I agree that we will have a hard time accumulating money, so I pump science to 90% to get Alphabet in 7. After that we can settle back to min-sci and buy Writing. Izzy should leave us in peace for a little while. We may not reciprocate the generosity.

I'm going to bring the vet Warrior back from scouting, and send a regular in his place. All vets should be available for upgrade.

1725 BC (1)
Perseopolis grows so lux goes to 10%, and we are running a 1 gpt deficit.

There is a civ we haven't met NE of Spain, sending Woody to crash the party for us.

1700 BC (2)
Ottomans complete the Oracle, and start the Pyramids.

1675 BC (3)
There is an Ottoman Spear/Warrior pair wandering around. No idea where they are going.

The Spanish have settled another city that impinges on the eventual location of Pasargadae. More to burn. :devil2:

Perseopolis: Barracks --> Settler. At size 5, Perseopolis can make 11 spt.
Pasargadea: Worker --> Worker

Warriors keep wandering. Found a Whale SE of Perseopolis, but not in a good location.

1650 BC (4)
Boy, I don't like the way the Ottoman pair is moving.

Bump lux tax to 20% to keep Perseopolis happy, and set tiles so growth and Settler are both due in 3.

1625 BC (5)
The mystery civ was the Ottomans, so Woody will go back to hacking west.

Haven't found anything else interesting in the SE, except for the anticipated fish.

Alphabet due in 1, and we can't lower the sliders.

1600 BC (6)
Osman gives us the boot.

Alphabet comes in, science to 0%. All the AI have the same techs (all visible). We make 16 gpt at 0% science.

It would take almost our entire economy to buy Writing, so I wait.

Southern scout sees Tundra, so nothing much more down that way. Pink Dot seems good.

1575 BC (7)
Perseopolis builds a Settler, falls back to size 4. Begins on a Spear, because we make an ugly 9 spt at size 4.

Lux back down to 10%, we now make +19 gpt.

1550 BC (8)
Pasargadae back to size 1 with another worker built. Having the FP's irrigated should allow us to get on a better schedule.

1525 BC (9)
Nothing interesting, just our Settler staying 1 step ahead of the Ottoman Spear/Warrior pair. They only appear to be out for a stroll.

1500 BC (10)
Persopolis grows, lux tax to 20%. Spear completes, begin 1-turn vet Warriors.

Shuffle units.

Final Notes:
We make 17 gpt, and aren't paying anyone. There is a Warrior near Perseopolis that is intended to go to Antioch as MP. Given that we have to run 20% lux to keep Perseopolis happy, we may not need the MP but it can't hurt.

After that FP is irrigated, there should be enough improved tiles so that Pasargadae can work entirely NW of the river and cede the tiles SE to Antioch.

Picture to follow.

 

[T_McC]

Picture of our SE.

Pink dot has already been proposed, and is not a bad site. Yellow dot is what I see as the maximum # of land tiles for us to claim, but will have a harder time getting started and has to build an Aqueduct.

 

[Foresight]

Got it. Re-Reading over the pages to make sure I know what everyone wants. Will wait a few hours before starting.