Deity of Random - Try 1

[Flo7]

I will be away from the 4th to 16th without access to the internet. So we should finish our discussion today or (latest Monday afternoon), that I can play on Monday evening and write the report on Tuesday. Hope that is okay.

In the following I compare the relevant criteria for war against either Hanni or SB.
Since most of us favor the war against SB, I will play advocatus diaboli now and write a bit in favor of a war against Han.

Han:
Pro
-Close distance, potential for a very quick war. We can use galleys as troop transporter.
- Easy prey (as Snaaty mentioned). I like to have a first war against an backwards AI. The war is quickly over and gives a boost to military infrastructure, since it will give us our first gg which we can use as a warlord. That unlocks WP and will give us a strong healer. Both big assets in the more difficult war against SB.
- Through Han we will have land access to Charles cities.

SB:
Contra:
-More dependent on logistics, we cannot use our galleys and need gallons to reach the easternmost island of SB. On that way we are exposed to SB's navy which will be (as normal for deity AIs) very strong.
-Higher Distance means more upkeep.

Pro:
-SB land is way better. Most of his cities will not expose us to cultural pressure.

Open for discussion:
- Is the aim to vassalize SB or take all his cities? When taking his first 3 cities (those on the island with Pericles and Zara) we will face enourmous pressure from Pericles and Zara. On the other hand we will be on the same island with Pericles and Zara...
- Bribe charles into war if the opportunity shows? this way we could negate his SD with Zara and attack Charles instead.
- Rifles or grens. Here we have to weight the danger through enemy cavalry (which we can counter easiest with rifles) and through eneny grens. All the AIs can research MS.
I would do the RR trade and go for rifles since our cannons should deal with potential grens.

 

[Snaaty]

Prefere the idea of attacking bull first, but also could live with han, could be really quick if done right... ...no matter whome we attack, most important is to be quick now, as long as we have a mil. techlead

Concerning our trade mission:
The benefit would be WAY bigger, if we would have a bigger capital (not sure about another city, bigger then capital), because the own capital (maybe also other city if bigger...) AND the goalcity-siye are included into the final calculation

 

[CellKu]

Our tech lead over SB is greater. So, one could make an argument for going after a more advanced AI (=Han) because we will very likely have a tech lead over SB even after such an attack. On the other hand, SB's land is better and he has probably more units - so if he advances and upgrades them, he will be more difficult than Han.

I don't think that "using galleys for Han" is a strong argument in favor of Han, since IMO we should upgrade the galleys to galleons anyhow - now that we have astro (even if we go for Han). A GG, on the other hand, would be nice indeed...
With regard to SB's fleet, the longer we wait to attack SB, the more impressive will be his fleet that could attack our galleons. However, your argument is important in that we should build some frigates to defend our galleons.

We could go for a 2-wave war. The first one with grens and a few first cannons (for Han?) and a second wave with rifles and cannons (against the same (if very strong) or a second AI = SB?). Thus, our teching towards grens wouldn't have been completely useless... (I know that is exaggerated. )

I would say if you can bribe Charles, do it!
We could vassalize SB. In that case we should go for cities that will not come under culture pressure by either Zara or Pericles. That way SB's remaining cities could work as a security buffer should we attack either of them. If we can vassalize him I would go for that, so that we could attack the next AI more quickly (and reduce our suffering from war weariness). However, before we vassalize him it might be worthwhile to take all (most of the) cities that are on (2-city-)islands other than his main island (colony upkeep!).

Snaaty, if I understand you correctly, there is not much sense in sending the GM further away. Is that correct? (I somehow thought that distance would also play a role, but it seems that I was mistaken. Since I usually save my GMs for sushi I don't have that much experience with trade missions.)

 

[Rusten]

I also prefer attacking SB first, it seems safer. We can finish off Hannibal even behind in techs due to his small and split up empire. SB on the other hand would be an incredible pain with a proper gunpowder army, we should take him out now while having the upper hand tech-wise.

CellKu; distance matters too IIRC, either way it says what conditions if you hover over the option.

Edit:

Thus, our teching towards grens wouldn't have been completely useless

MS unocks SoL too, not just grenadiers. Personally I'd get both as MS is cheap and we've already taken chemistry for cannons (but we can finish Rifling first for haste if we decide to get riflemen over grenadiers).

 

[Flo7]

Summary of the things to do

- Prepare for war against SB that means: move troop east
- Trade for RR and switch to rifling, therafter go for MS
- Wipe out barbarian city in the east
- move spy to the east ( I feel bad attacking without having information about the target garrison etc)
- Production focus will be on cannons mostly, we have about 8-10 samurai and the rest we will draft, mostly in Tokyo
- finishing the GT and start drafting (drafting in other cities could get problematic, since we are close to the happines gap due to whiping). We have some potential in trading for happines resources, though.

What should be the size of our army?
Here my suggestions, please post your opinions/suggenstions
- We should be save with about 15-20 riflemen (10 of them upgraded riflemen)
- 8 cannons
- that would mean 9 galleons (8 more to whip build)
- how many frigates ?

Move our GM to another capital ? If yes which one?

Did I forget anything

 

[Snaaty]

I would move our troops in 2 innitial waves, therefore 4 gallons should be enough... ...but I would build at least 2 fregattes, to make sure they arrive where there are heading

Armysize:

As big as possible, but what you mentioned will be alright to start with... ...but we simply should go on producing, once we have about 40 rifles/grens and 20 cannons we can take on more or less everybody and trim the mighty (hopefully) a little

 

[Flo7]

Is there consensus on the points I mentioned ?
Due to my holiday I am running out of time

 

[Rusten]

Yea, it looks good. SotL are better than frigates, but I guess we won't finish MS in time for the first wave. Better to make extra frigs/SotL than too few, even if survival is easy they can shave a lot of turns off the war by bombarding cultural defense.

 

[Flo7]

Last open point would then what to do with the GM...

 

[CellKu]

@ Flo: Your summary looks good. As I stated earlier I am also in favor of a two wave war meaning we need less Galleons. For the first (surprise) wave I agree with Snaaty that 2 frigates seem to be enough. But for the second wave we will probably need more - unless SB keeps his fleet in a city that you are able to take over...
Regarding the GM: I would move him only if you have enough time for moving him and returning the galley so that you could use it for our troops. Otherwise perform the trade mission in Charles' city.
One more thought: If we have so much money, why don't we upgrade the galleys as well?

@Rusten, you are right with the distance. I didn't mention it as SB is quite close to us and I thought we should take as many cities as possible. And if we vassalize him we should let him have the cities at the border with Zara and Pericles - the ones that are further away. My comment regarding MS not being useful was completely exaggerated... I just wanted to provoke some comments on that. And I agree with the SotL - I must admit that I have never built them, so that is something I overlooked. Thanks for that tip.

 

[Flo7]

State of army

Ready for duty (being built)

Galleons 4 (0)
Frigates:2 (1)
Riflemen: 0
Samurai 14 (0) Thereof 2 CR III, two lacking 1xp and two lacking 2xp to level 3
Cannons 9 (5)
SoL (1)

Short summary of round:
- Traded RR for steel to Pericles (he now has steam engine ) felt bad about it, bad he is so advanced that he could not trade it to anybody. Also asked for the world map, and switching to HR, he switched back to US but at least it cost him 2 turns of anarchy, slowing him down a bit.
- Just finished military science. 1300 gold left from trade mission to Athen (1500). Economy is at 497 backers at 100% and I think nearly all cities have the basic infrastructure by now. I would go for more gold now to upgrade all samurais 14 * 140 gold = 1960 gold.
s)
-Whipped massively infrastructure, barracks, harbors and courthouses mainly. But also two drydocks in Osaka and Nara, the only cities producing naval units.
Whipped also chariots, cannons, 2 more galleons and upgraded one galley to galleon.
- Canceled the marble deal with Han, we needed it for the HE,
- Canceled gems deal with Charles and sold them to Zara for 16 gold/turn
- Sold World map to Ramses for 160 gold. and a +4 modifier. ( he would have paid up to 400 gold) but did not want to take the risk him spending all his money in some trade.
- SB does not have MT yet, so no currass. with flanking on our cannons. Charles and Zara have it, tho.
- Nobody has rifling or MS yet (Zara is not willing to go to war for that tech

Most cities are close to happy cap, here nationhood will also help, due to the happy bonus through baracks.

Stopped playing here since there are some major changes to do
- Revolt to nationhood.
- Decide about upgrade (rifles or grens)
- Decide about further research (democracy-,assembly line-path ...
- War with SB
So far I kept Vassalage to give our army some basic xp. Tokyo is size 10 growing every 1,5 turns. So we can nearly draft every turn as soon as we switch to nationhod. Happyness is also more an issue than food, so whipping seemed more effective ( and cannons cannot be drafted)


A well guarded capital...

The japanese army is gathering near Izume, and more troops are shipped in.

Note:
There is one galley going for the two southern island. It is supposed to transport drafted/whipped units from Osaga and Nagoya to the Tokyo island. There a road is being started where these units can move the eastermost place of the island until they are picked up there and shipped to the main island.

Open points / to be done:
- we could also revolt to Theocracy in the same turn. Trade for it with Ramses he has also 180 gold which we could really use for upgrading. 2 civic changes cost only 1 turn of revolt and main production cities have hinduism. Unfortunately it did not spread to Tokyo.
- lower the slider and generate some money, to upgrade all samurai (they will be killer troops )
- nearly all AIs are pleased, we could go begging again. I do not know that meachnism in detail, but I assume there is some counter which may be have been reset... as I said we need money
- Zara offered a defensice pact, I declined. But could we do it and declare on charles without Zara then declaring on us that would be nice
- Start drafting in Tokyo
- Check for happy resouce trades
- start the war

View attachment SG-Deity AD-1320.CivBeyondSwordSave
How do you create that nice frame for uploaded data?

As I said I will be on holiday tomorrow evening. So please test the save-file and check whether you have any questions, otherwise you would have to wait 1,5 weeks

 

[Snaaty]

Well, I would have revolted to Nat. immediately after rifling was through and started drafting, but I just can repeat myself:

Our standing is still surprisingly strong, despite the fact that four captains steer a little in four different directions we are doing amazingly well

...

Concerning next steps:

I agree with Flo here,
- Revolt Nat + Theo
- Go war with Bull ASAP
- Start drafting like mad in GlobeCity (and all other cities where it is possible/reasonable, 2 times sounds good when dont skyrocket too much)
- Make trade money + Theo
- Upgrade all samurais (I would go half rifles, half grens)
- Stop deficit research, gather money to upgrade samurais if needed...
No idea about research

...

But I have taken some time and came up with a pretty detailed plan for the war against bull:

1. Trade for his worldmap to see all his cities. There seem to be some decent spots left (silk, crab, fish, south of his main island, and fish, crab on the island west of his main island, with the stone and the barb city). If Bull has settled there, these are also cities to conquer and keep.

2. Divide army in two groups, one big, one small

3. Send small group to the islands near our land, there are two good/great cities to take and keep: 1. Kitu, 2. Eto. The other cities on crappy islands I would leave to Bull (we will vassalize him anyways).Two gallons for innitial attack on nearest island, then one ship is enough to transport unit on to second target. Do this ASAP (first turn upgrade toops, second turn start shipping them)

4. Send big group direct towards Bulls main island and keep shipping troops there. First wave should start with 3 gallons (more would obviously be better, but we cant wait longer...). For that we need to whip two more gallons ASAP (one in Itzumo, one in Matsu...) and bring them near shipping point. Then we onlz have to wait untill first gallon from small group is back, so this attack can set sails only 3-4 turns later. Here we should conquer: 1. Snake, 2. Mound, 3 Anh, 4/5 Mesa/Nanik, 6 Chako and hopfully some more nice islands bull has settled for us. The rest I would ignore and vassalise bull after we have those cities. Build some more gallons and keep the reinforcement lines open and secured...

DRAFTING:

A quick look on our cities revealed the following situation:

We can draft once in Kioto, Osaka, Nara and Nago (some of these cities will grow within the next 1-3 turns into drafting size) and twice in Yako. We then can repeat that after 10 turns. Remember to draft every single turne in Tokio...

After our successfull war against bull (lets simply hope for that...) we need to build the ForbiddenP in Snake and we should be fine (reduces colonial to a degree, that we can live with with onlz 3 cities on one conti. Besides distance will be the main cost factor here and there the FP is...)

...

A good turnset to start this war would be untill we have taken the two targets from the small group + taken Snake (or one of the other 2 cities we want to have on bulls main conti) and established a solid foodhold there...

...

Open point:
Research...

EDIT:
Feel free to critisize or tear appart what I have written above... ...I'm open for any better/other plan

...

Concerning shedule:

I dont have the time to play my set this week, so I would like to swap with Rusten, to keep the game going, and Flo is on holiday until the 16., which would end up in this:

CellKu up (4 -6.6))
Rusten next (7 - 9.5)
Snaaty waiting (10 - 12.6)
CellKu whatever (13 -15.6)
Flo whatever (16.18.6)

 

[Rusten]

Looking good. I agree concerning revolting to Nationhood now that our Globe Theatre is up.

A quick look at the tech screen shows that Hannibal is lacking Steel (most other AIs have it) so maybe we should make a trade for Scientific Method and slowly make our approach towards Communism. SP should prove really effective on this map removing all distance and colonial maintenance. It's only 1 tech from where we are now (assuming we make the trade).

PS. Swapping is fine by me.

 

[Flo7]

@ Snaaty:
Why would you go for half grens. They are only usefull as soon as SB has MS (and he is still some techs away). I would go mostly for rifles and spare some samurai for a later gren upgrade.
We have a drydock in Osaka and Nagasaki (IIRC). I would build/whip Naval units there instead of Izumo and Matsu

What do you mean with main island. The island he shares with Pericles and Zara and his first three cities on it. Or the one which is close to us with his capital on it?
Sorry, cant look at the save before I leave for holiday..

EDIT:
If you mean the former, why not leave these 3 cities to SB. They would be under enormous cultural pressure and thus not too much use for us. And if SB is our vassal we would still have a foothold on that continent when leaving him these cities. Or do you think he wont capitulate when we dont take one of these cities?
How does the AI decide when to capitulate? Does taking his capital has an effect (I assume so) or is it just lost units/cities ratio?

Resarch: Maybe Communism

 

[Snaaty]

@ Rusten:

Like your trading-plan, and your research path

...

@ Flo:

I mean the island with his capital, agree about leaving the cities on Zaras and Perikles conti to bull. Capturing the capital increases odds of capitualtion quite a bit btw...

I think speed is essential and the only cities ready for a whip and close enough to our starting point of naval invasion are Izumo and Matsu (both can whip within the next 2-3 turns when switching production right now). But I agree, besides this (emergency) whip I would also advise to build the rest of the navy (some more SotL, frigattes and gallons) in Osaka and Nagasaki

...

EDIT:

@ Flo:

Good point about the upgrading... ...you are right off course, better to upgrade 2/3 to rifles and leave the rest for later, then we can still choose which path to go down with them... ...besides, our money will be enough to do so and we can upgrade the rest then later with the money we get from the cities we capture...

 

[CellKu]

A few first thoughts from me after I looked at the save:

1.) I suggest we promote all Samurais to CR II right now and then upgrade as many of them as possible to Rifles. Right now, we have the money to upgrade 9 Samurais to Rifles.

2.) I would suggest we also promote the Galleons: I prefer +1 movement range if we have two promotions. What do you prefer?

3.) With regard to SB's cities:
SB has a number of cities close to our capital island. They are not that well developed. If I understand you correctly, we would go for them with a small army. I think we could take those cities that have at least one (or better two?) seafood. Especially Eto seems nice: close to our capital and two seafood.

I think we have to make a decision between starting a war quickly (within the next 3-4 turns when the galleons are in front of Snaketown) - in that case we can't do a two front attack - or preparing a two front attack (that was Snaaty's idea if I understood that correctly). However, in thr latter case we would have to wait longer with attacking.

Or do you want to go for Eto etc. first and then continue shipping the troops to SB's main islands? The reason why I favor attacking his capital island first, is that we can thereby break his neck and hen mop up a bit. The reason is that I see SB's main capital as the major threat because the other dispersed and mostly small cities won't have the production power to quickly produce an army. Actually, there are no other civs on that island. So we don't have to worry about other culture. I am also for leaving him all the cities on the shared (Zara+Pericles) island.
If we go for the small cities first, I fear SB has enough time to amass troops on his main island as it should be much better in production then the remaining small islands.
So, what do you think of sending the 9 Samurais (upgraded to Rifles) + 3 cannons that we have on our southeast island to SB's capital island as our first wave (for that we need one more galleon as transport) in the next turn. We will then send the galleons back and get the reinforcements. Depending on the SB's defense we will either reinforce our troops on SB's capital island of go after Eto etc.

4.) The spy is not in any of SB's cities. Thus, if we attack fast we will not be able to make use of defense reducting actions by spies. Well, the are of no use anyhow since spy points are still diverted to Charles. Shouldn't we change this? Since we will hardly get enough spy points against SB in time, I suggest we switch them to our next potential target. Han? Or should we keep them for Charles?

5.) We could draft in Tokyo every turn. But what use would these troops have in our war right now? Tokyo is on the other side of the world (seen from our upcoming conflict zone) and we have not enough galleons to ship units. So I would suggest until that is remedied and we have enough galleons we draft modestly (every 2-3 turns, letting the city grow back).

6.) If we trade Theology with Ramses: should we offer him gunpowder (cheapest tech we have on him)?

7.) If we offer the SciMeth for Steel trade to Han, he also asks for RP. Isn't that a bit expensive? (I added Map + 200 gold on top of Steel, but no chance, always RP in addtion.)

What do you think?

 

[Rusten]

7.) If we offer the SciMeth for Steel trade to Han, he also asks for RP. Isn't that a bit expensive? (I added Map + 200 gold on top of Steel, but no chance, always RP in addtion.)

What do you think?

I'll answer the rest when I have more time, but this seems strange. When I talked to Hannibal I offered Steel and put SM from his research and "what would make this deal work?" -- he accepted for Steel and 200-ish gold.

Tried it again now and it still works.

 

[Snaaty]

@ CellKu:

I tried to make a list of bulls cities we should capture, the rest we should leave to him (only two near our borders for exemple)... ...and yes, I favour two groups but could be convinced to send in the wave for his capital first... ...still I would do the two whips for the next two gallons to speed things up a little (see previous post)

Your points:

1. Si, good
2. Si, good
3. See above and previous post (you might need a little fantasy/imaginacion to recognice ALL city names)
between 3 and 4. Plan sounds good. Go ASAP for bull with 3 (better 4 gallons, try to use the whip in the cities I mentioned in the post before, but if you decide against it or it somhow isnt possible better go with 3 then waiting)
4. Forget about the spy and the spypoints on bull. bull should be toast with our units (IF we manage to ship enough of them that is...)
5. DRAFT,DRAFT,DRAFT. Every turn. And in all other cities I mentioned, whenever possible. If we have too much troops and they are lacking jobs, we simply invade Hanni after whipping/building some more ships (that is at least what I would do, but I would like to hear Rustens opinion in that as well...)
6. Si, why not
7. Like Rusten said...

 

[Rusten]

1) Sure.
2) Yes, Galleons won't do any combat (hopefully), so movement is the way to go.
3) Think we should attack as soon as possible.
4) Nevermind spies. On a map like this bombarding with ships is a better means of removing cultural defense (they go down quickly). We have cannons too for other situations.
5) Nah, draft every turn that we're in Nationhood, there's no way we can get too many troops now. If we let it grow the food bar increases whereas at size 6/7 it will regrow every turn or so.
6) Sure.
7) Covered in the earlier post.

 

[CellKu]

Thanks for your answers!
@Snaaty: Okay, then I will draft like crazy... (well, I will abstain from crashing our cities into unhappiness... )

@Rusten: thanks for working out how much gold Han asks for. I tried it with exactly 200 gold and our map. It seems that Han values 15 gold more than our world map.

So, just to facilitate things for me I try to summarize the main points to consider during first 2-3 turns (I don't want to overlook any of the information you gave me, so please add whatever is necessary):
1st turn: I will promote the units as mentioned above, whip the needed galleons. Gather all units that are close on our southeast island. Do the tech trades. The 1 Frigate that is on its way to SB, sails to SB's main island to see which city is the best to attack first.
2nd turn: whipped galleons ready and sail towards southeast island. Now, revolt to Nat and Theo (1 turn anarchy). If all units are healthy, put them onto our 3 galleons that are around our southeast island and ship them to SB's main island (frigate = escort).
3rd turn: the two whipped galleons collect whatever fighting units (cannons+rifles) are left on our southeast island and bring them as reenforcements to SB's main island.

As soon as we are there with the first ships, DOW SB, frigates bombard cities, galleons go back to get more units. Next turn another bombarding (only with frigates), then start the main attack. Meanwhile our two additional galleons should be there as well.

I will put the research slider on zero research for a few turns to get enough money to upgrade the remaining Samurais. I will also ask Pericles for some money. He seems to be willing to give us 30 gold. Perhaps I can get some more gold to increase the slider again.

Anything else you want me to consider?