CONE1-diety 5CC modified

[denyd]

Nice trading Gozpel - we weren't going to win on the path we were heading for and now we have a chance.

Hopefully we can go 2-3 turn sets without any wars breaking out.

Once those trade deals expire, we should be ready to upgrade our knights/pikes to cavalry/muskets and then re-sell the saltpeter.

Ankka - I'm going to be out of town for the weekend, so we can either skip both of us or wait for you, I have no preference.

 

[grahamiam]

Originally posted by gozpel
Hehe, I knew the reaction would be "Ouch"

I like it! I've done similar trades before in my own games and as long as you feed the AI gpt and other beneficiary trades (for them) they usually leave you alone. But I admit I'm a bit nervous about the next couple of turnsets

sorry, but i didn't mean that I didn't like it. i agree that getting more than 5 or 6 tech's behind at this point is no good and your trading was definitely "genious stuff". i'm enjoying this twist. plus, it's been a while since i've been involved in a game this far along whose outcome is not decided

however, the big "if" in this game is what if the spanish don't wait for 10T of peace to expire?

 

[conehead234]

Good ideas to get money. We need all of the money we need.

 

[denyd]

Ankka - can you take it yet?

I'll be busy tonight with another SG. If Ankka needs the skip, maybe grahamiam can get his feet we and we'll jump in back in on the next time around.

 

[Ankka]

Well, It's again late, so you'd have to wait until tomorrow, but then I could play...

I'll take it tomorrow if noone else does.

 

[gozpel]

5 days and counting...

 

[grahamiam]

Originally posted by gozpel
5 days and counting...

i got time tonight if we want to get this thing rolling again...

 

[gozpel]

By all means, take it grahamian.

Ankka doesn't like me selling him short aka: putting him under pressure

Take the frigging save and do something!

 

[Ankka]

Whatever, I'm just hopeless in remembering if I'm up...

Please do go ahead, grahamiam, you'll anyway do better than I would...

 

[grahamiam]

hehe, you guys realize that i'm about 16hours behind the aussies and 6 or so behind the fin's, right? i didn't play last night since it got late with no response but will take the "friggin'" save tonight. hopefully "something" doesn't involve getting run over by Isabel or liz.

 

[denyd]

Yeah but you're about three hours ahead of me and I don't always get a chance to check in during the non 8-5 hours.

By all means let's get this moving again. Unless we can get the other continent into a war, we should shoot for a diplomacy win. We can probably take our on continent if we go with a take 3-4 cities go for peace type warfare on England & Spain. We don't have enough units or infrastructure (# of cities) for a sustained war with either. The other victory conditions seem very unlikely given that we are smaller and dumber (or should I say less technologically advanced ) than everyone on the other island.

Diplomacy is quite often considered a cheesy way to win, but I think considering the restrictions we were playing under (Diety & 5CC), any victory should be considered a quality one.

 

[Ankka]

I agree with denyd.

 

[grahamiam]

ok, finally able to get this rolling again.

here's the 590AD save

Preflight check: 38g +9gpt, research off (1 scientist) for printing press. Needs: gold, and some more gold. Preflight MM's to maximize gold: Uruk: 3 taxman causes -1fpt starvation, still 1spt, increase gpt to +12. Add 1 taxman @ Meridia; add 2 in Babylon, tax starve Zariqum to rid ourselves of Babylon blood, 2 taxman in Sameria(starve), 1 in Gloucester, Ashur. Treasury is 40g and gpt is up to +18. Just noticed the wonky snoopy graphics (pretty cool). Move army and 1 immortal out of Babylon in case of a flip.

Trades: China: WM for 2g, trade around to get 4 more gold. We are up ToG to England, Spain is way behind, all others are ahead.

T1: 500AD
Canterbury marketplace -> knight, Antioch worker -> courthouse (MM to get extra shield); switch Leeds to an Immortal (21T vs 41 for musket) now at +24gpt due to market growth.

Trades: WM all around for +4g (i did this every turn so I won't elaborate anymore); England knows ToG (damn)

IBT: Aztec's building Newton's

T2: 510AD
Persepolis bank -> knight, switch Canterbury over to bank from knight; Pasargadae market -> pike; we now make +38gpt thanks to the bank, market, and some MM. A stack of 4 Spanish MDI are in a forrest west of Shuruppak. Fire 1 taxman in Babylon to promote growth in 3T

Trades: WM all around for +6g; England has MT (how? she has no gold, ever)

IBT: China building smith's; Arabs building Newtons,

T3: 520AD
Oxford riots (damn); Fire taxman in Uruk to increase growth; experiment with Babylon cit's, making 2 clowns to get 4 happy people to see if we can get a WLTKD going.

IBT: Meridia flips to the Spanish, losing a precious elite immortal

T4: 530AD
Leeds riots due to growth (missed that on F1 check); WLTKD in Babylon results in 1 extra spt; MM Arabela to get bank in 17T vs 26T; Fire taxman in Uruk to try to spur more growth.

Tech notes: Spain is only down Astronomy now.

IBT: English building Newton's; Aztec building Smiths; English are clearly in the IA

T5: 540AD
Move a bunch of workers

Trades: Best WM trading yet, netting 14g total (10 from Spain)
Trying to ping everyone, desperately seeking Magnetism (will do this every turn till I get it)

T6: 550AD
Persepolis knight -> knight; Pasargadae pike -> pike; Zamora Library -> courthouse

IBT: Spain moves a pike north next to Babylon, WLTKD end due to growth.

T7: 560AD
Canterbury Knight -> Knight; Oxford worker -> worker; Richmond market -> aqueduct and MM to emphasize growth. Move knight up to Zariqum to give the Spanish no reason to bring that pike further north. Find 1 Spanish pike & 3 spears and 1 longbow near Cadiz. MM Babylon to get WLTKD back.

T8: 570AD
move some workers, nothing much

Trades: We are "close" to a deal with Egypt for Magnetism (53gpt & 305g with 0%lux) but not quite good enough.

IBT: Spain moves offending pike near Babylon north. If it was more than 1 unit i'd be worried.

T9: 580AD
Trades: China will take 46gpt & 343g for Magnetism and I do it! (this is with lux slider @ 0%, hope we get something good!) We get Nationalism, ugh! Trade Nationalism around: Arabs for 175gpt & 4g; English for MT, Econ, 62gpt & 80g; Egypt for 3gpt & 17g & Saltpeter (so we can upgrade the knights/pikes now that Spain is acting weird).

Warwick market -> immortal (should be changed by next player); Upgrade 1 knight to Cav; leave science @ 0% to gain some gold for upgrading units.

IBT: English Knight stations itself on mountain next to Arbela. Wonder what he wants?

T10: 590AD
Persopolis knight -> cav; MM a bunch of cities to relieve as many taxmen as possible; upgrade a couple of knights.

That's it, no war! However, both Spain and England are strong vs us. England owes us a ton of money so they could come after us just to get rid of the debt.

We need a FP (not sure if that's against the modified rules here). The corruption is terrible and we're never going to keep up like this. Also, next player may want to max out research to get PP as soon as possible (hopefully be fore the AI). Taking future expansion into consideration, Babylon is a good spot.
edit: sorry, just saw the conversation about Pas. being the FP location. i should have started that during my turns

edit2: forgot to add, please change the capitol build to a library. iirc, with some MM and lux slider play, it should be able to be completed in 2T.

 

[grahamiam]

visuals

 

[Ankka]

Looks like nice turns.

 

[denyd]

Very nice grahamiam - too bad about Meridia

Since we are weaker than Spain in military, we'll need to work fast before she can catch up on tech. If we can get 20 cavalry, there is probably about 4-5 cities we could grab in a quickly. Send the Immortals to retake Meridia, might as well use them up before they become completly useless. The cavalry can be split into 3 stacks of 6 should be able to snag the closest Spanish cities before Isabella can react. l counterattack can begin. It would be nice to get England to join us, that would protect our northern flank. I don't worry about the other AI, while we might lose some trade partners, across water attacks is an AI weakness.

I think Spain has already gotten her GA via wonders, otherwise beware the dreaded Conquistador . A fast, yet weak attacker, who doesn't defend very well, but can kick off the Spanish GA.

BTW, who is up?

 

[grahamiam]

thanks, but now that I think about it, I would probably like to take back that last trade with Egypt. I think we could have waited for some trades to end to get the salt back oh well, the dangers of playing into the wee hours...

re: attacking either spain or england... If we attack either, we should ally with the other. we definitely cannot handle 2 diety AI's at once with only 20 cav. and the handful of immortals that we have right now. i think England will have enough economic power to ally someone overseas so we might want to ally with Spain and China against England. Hopefully, this will get England to ally someone vs. China. of course, we are getting 62gpt from them right now so choosing when to do this may be tricky.

In 7T (when 107gpt becomes available) our economy is gonna really start smokin'. We should get ready with libraries/univ. or markets/banks wherever possible. We also need at least 2 (i prefer 4 but we can't have everything!) cities producing units.

Re: research. not sure, but the AI is probably going comm., espionage, then steam. that leave medicine for us to try to grab 1st.

 

[gozpel]

Great work with the trades and fixing up the economy.

I think Spain is our best bet for the next war and we should follow denyd's plan. As for them being "stronger" I'm not very concerned, they have lots of old units. But that war has to start before they learn MT.

 

[denyd]

I just went back and read my plan to see if I could add anything to it and realized I missed a couple of words in the middle

this
...before Isabella can react. l counterattack can begin. It would ...
should be this
... before Isabella can react. Have a couple of rifles (& cannons if available) ready to move to the old Babylon cites before the counterattack can begin. It would ...

I agree we should get this started before Spain gets to MT. Anyone know where Spain is getting her saltpeter from. As long as she doesn't have Nationalism, if we can cut off her SP, we might be able to take her out of the game or at least reduce her to a couple of tundra cities.

I probably should have made a bigger point of to Gozpel for the gutsy trading. It was the right thing, at the right time and will be the turning point if we win this.

As for research, I agree with Grahamiam, medicine is our best shot a monopoly. Then Scientific Method for the TOE slingshot. On that note, an FP in Pasagarde should be followed by a palace pre-build for TOE in that city. Hopefully the war will be winding down by then and we will be able to switch Persepolis to a Hoover pre-build. Normally I would go Atomic Theory & Electronics, but in this game I'm more inclined to go AT & Replacement Parts (for faster workers & Infantry) also so we don't get blackmailed into giving away Electronics before our pre-build is nearing completion.

If we can get TOE & Hoovers, we should be able to beat the AI to the modern age and have a good shot at the UN.

I think Conehead234 is up (Grahamiam just played) then on to Gozpel.

Good luck gents, keep the going

 

[conehead234]

Good turns. But can you skip me, I won't have time to play.