Deity of Random - Try 1

[CellKu]

Well, I hope that was no misunderstanding, but Rusten proposed to lightbulb chemistry (and PP beforehand). So I wrote it in the summary of what I would research during this round.

I did not run any scientists in Kyoto since
1.) we wanted to get the TM asap and for sure,
2.) we agreed on working the incense instead of running a scientist,
3.) I was close to starving Kyoto anyhow.

I would still go for grens. Perhaps for the first war against backward Charles we don't need frigates. But for the next one certainly.

 

[Flo7]

Well, I hope that was no misunderstanding, but Rusten proposed to lightbulb chemistry (and PP beforehand). So I wrote it in the summary of what I would research during this round.

I did not run any scientists in Kyoto since
1.) we wanted to get the TM asap and for sure,
2.) we agreed on working the incense instead of running a scientist,
3.) I was close to starving Kyoto anyhow.

I would still go for grens. Perhaps for the first war against backward Charles we don't need frigates. But for the next one certainly.

No misunderstanding. I just had a look at the save and was wondering why we researched PP first, did not think about the bulping prio. Thanks to Rusten it is clear to me now

I agree regarding to chemistry and the attack plan on Charles. I think we can vasallize Charles quickly, if we plan our attack carefully.

 

[Rusten]

After reading back I see that Snaaty will return very soon so we might as well wait for him before moving on. There are some pretty big decisions to be made as to who to attack and which tech path to go for -- everyone should get to state their preference before making the irreversible move.

 

[Flo7]

Fine with me.
I will be travelling from the 22nd to the 25th without the chance of going online.

 

[Snaaty]

Reporting back for duty

...

will have time tonight to have a look at the saves and the discussion I have missed

...

Will make a short summary/report afterwards. Are we on track and I am up???

 

[CellKu]

Snaaty, good to see you returned safely.
We played one round each and then waited for you, because we have some serious decisions to make. So, yes, you are up! You will be able to play a 12 turn golden age and we hope that will enable us to make a big leap.

Right now, our idea was to get to grens and perhaps steel as quickly as possible to start a first attack - right now we think about Charles. A spy is on his way to him.

So, we are very interested to hear your opinion regarding our situation.

 

[Snaaty]

Quite some things have happende while I was away

And we are still doing quite well, despite this lousy map and leader... ...but now we really have reached a turning point and have to make some important decisions:

1. Our trade-route-economy is breaking down with one civ after the other switching into Merk

2. We have 9 cities, our strongest rivals (Zara and Perikles) are having someting like 15.

3. Our cities are tiny, the AI´s are huge in comparision

4. Hanni and Charly are week, with bad land and only few cities. It should be possible to break them with a rifles/cannon/grens war. No chance to wage ware against Zara/Perikles in the near future

5. To pick on Zara/Perikles, which have strong starting islands and cities, we need to have at least 1.5 the number of cities they have and still need to cope in tech. So we need to swallow Charly/Hanni fast and then concentrate on Zara/Perikles later

6. We still have some quite good spots to settle, I would focus on getting as many seafood as possible and keep the GM for sushi or try to get another GM later for Sushi. Sushi could be a game-winner here.

...

Some plans for war and settling:

Even with only internal trade-routes I would continue to settle agressively, because each city will start with 8 gold and we need the land/production...

city 1:
View attachment 177772

city 2&3:
View attachment 177773

city 4:
View attachment 177774

Like this, we could maintain a more or less close settling and keep our cities together (and prevent idiots from squeezing in) while still getting lots of seafood
...

And this would be my idea for the first war:

Try to take the cities right of the impassable peak from Charly and vassalize him
View attachment 177775


Hope that Hanni settles these island spots there and then take the cities from him, after Charly is down (Hanni won´t be able to defend them, even with superiour tech...)
View attachment 177776

Then maybe vassalize Hanni right away (if possible) or take one more city from him (time is essential). Our main focus should be to run over the two weak civ´s quick, then try to compete with the bigones... ...somehow

 

[CellKu]

Snaaty, your suggestions sound fine. We might be able to get another city on the islands east of our capital island where we have already settled a city. However, IIRC there are no good resources (though, we might keep Pericles from settling there).
A question with regard to your suggestion for the location of city 4: We get a lot of tundra there, and the mountain. Is it primarily to prevent other civs from settling this island?


So if we take everything together, it appears that we all agree on our next objectives:
1.) Settle a few more cities (hopefully, the locations are still available when we reach them),
2.) Grow cities,
3.) Research towards grens, steel, rifling,
4.) Prepare for first war against Charles.

Btw, we should also build some Samurai (as, I think, Rusten suggested) and some more ships (right now galleys) to move our troops to Charle's islands.

 

[Snaaty]

@ CellKu:

Good then, I will have a look at the save again and will work out a more detailled plan and some goals for my turnset now the direction is set

Then I will wait for the team to approve it / tear it apart before executing it... ...because this turnset might be one of the decisive ones

 

[Snaaty]

Well, here comes my plan:

Trade with Zara and Charly for Guilds and Engineering + money (about 300 althogether)

Setting heaps of specialists to work to bulb something (getting two GS would be the plan)

Research Gunpowder at 100 % and then make an inbetween stop, informing you about our current GS situation and we then plan on how to go on (rifling versus milscience)

Try to get the 6 theatres together and then build the globe in Tokio

Build monuments in all cities (some are NOT producing any culture)

Continue work on the "shadow army": Starting units but not finishing them. But we have to remember in what turn we started this, because hammes on units start to decrease after 10 turns when NOT producing the unit

Settle like described above

Grow our cities so we can start drafting when the time is right

Will play this GA (=12 turns), but make a break after reaching GunP to discuss further research

...

Will wait for feedback from you (Flo should be back tomorrow, then will play first part of my set)


EDIT:

Shedule for next round:

Snaaty up (25 - 27.5)
Rusten next (28 - 30.5)
Flo waiting (31 - 2.6)
CellKu whatever (3 -5.6)

Remember, first 24 hrs are for discussing, next 48 are for playing and posting

 

[CellKu]

Snaaty, I like your plan. One thing, though, shouldn't we start/continue spreading religion to our cities?

 

[Flo7]

Welcome back, Snaaty

Some comments:
- I would switch to Caste (and pacifism) for maximum GS output.
- Agree with settling plan, except city 4, not worth the settler I think.
- Why would you take the right half of Charles empire, the left is much stronger. Is it about nor crippling Charles / maintenance / avoiding borders with Zara?
- Why not skip the monuments and build theaters immediately in our no-culture cities?

and Question
- Do you think it is possible to worsen the relations between Pericles and Zara somehow, trade embargos, religion... l
- Should we build a samurai army and upgrade them later or rely only on drafting? We have only a weak production infrastructure (cities are much more suitable for drafting) and no HE
- With which civis should we leave the GA, slavery and theocracy?

 

[Snaaty]

@ Flo:

Civics:

I plan to switch from slavery to cast and back during the GA

After the GA, I would prefere to stay in teo rather then in pacifism because of unit whipping

...

I would build 6-8 samurais with city raider 2 for upgrading (we need teo for that and have to switch into it when doing the final whip, requires some timing...)

About 6-8 trebs

And 6-8 spies

Also I would rely heavily on the whip for that but we need to start soon (I will start it, next player please continue it)

Charles:
You guessed right, the right half is worse, but
a) it should be easier and quicker to conquer
b) leaves Charles as a usefull vassall
c) less borderes with the others
d) closer to our territory
e) we can use Charls as buffer when declaring on Hanni

Skipping monuments in favour of theatres is a good point

Relation Pericles/Zara:
No idea, will have an eye at it when playing

City 4 secures bronze (not in BFC, but secure IF we pick mining inc later)

...

Will wait for Rusten´s confirmation, then play

 

[Rusten]

Seems good to me, feel free to play.

- We have a lot of production, I'm not worried concerning that. Whipping is very effective with this much food. If we do some 3-pop whips later happiness won't be a big issue either. Also, every new city can contribute early with the whip as we have a half-price barracks.

- Keep in mind that we will need to research communism sooner or later before going to massive war. Colonial and distance expenses will skyrocket once we go for the 2nd AI. The advanced ships require Astronomy too.

- Keep an eye out for AIs having a lot of cash available (sell techs). I'm not sure if they get that to the same extent on a map like this though.

Going to war is certainly a pain on a map like this. We haven't been able to unlock the HE and need so many different techs and units.

PS. Don't forget that we have a great artist idling. This means we have the option of extending our GA for more GSs. I'm not sure it's the better move yet, but we can see about it later. Another GA would speed up the war preparations.

 

[Snaaty]

Well, I have played my set, but due to the fact, that I could trade GunP with Hanni, I didn´t make a break there (after one turn)... ...and after a longer look at our science output, I decided to go for Grens/Cannons, because it would have taken 32 turns to reach rifles... ...although beeing in a golden age... ...our science rate is pretty bad btw

Good news is that I was able to trade for engineering and guild (and 320 gold altogether) and we now have to two GS.

I also have switched science to 0 and have collected about 2000 gold so we can now REALLY sprint to Grens or cannons (9 or 12 turns at 100%)

We are now back in slavery and vassallthingy to get CR2 samurais, the first two are already on their way. We should build/whip about 10-15 of these guys when researching Grens, then upgrade them with the GM (remember to ship him in time).
When we go for cannons, we only need 6-8 samurais, but about 8-10 trebs which we upgrade to cannons

I sold marble for 4 gold... ...IF the globe needs marble, cancle the deal ASAP

There is a barb galley near Tokio... ...think we need to squeeze in a trireme and a WB there (no trireme near). Using the whip, it might even help with the Globe

I also settled two of the marked cities, the third got settled by barbs and the one near the copper I didn´t settle, because team was against it.

I opened borders with everybody (no sens in keeping them closed now we are done settling)

The globe is in production.

Some pictures:

City overview with new cities:
View attachment 178118

Capital:
View attachment 178120

Globe city:
View attachment 178119

Tech:
View attachment 178121

Oh, and Perikles settled another island near our home... ...the one with no tiles except desert (and one desert hill) and no seafood... ...this is making me nervous...

...

Tips for the next set:

Take the GA for the next GoldenAge (we desperately need that)
Produce samurais and/or tebs like crazy
Sent the GM on his mission
Pray for a wonder (best would be a war Perikles/Zara)

 

[Rusten]

Okay, we still have a fighting chance even though Pericles is really far ahead in the tech tree. Still, why are we not working the plains incense? Grrr! That's such a good tile, easily one of the best in the game, even more so in a golden age as it gets an extra hammer and commerce.

Does the Globe city have a barracks (can't tell due to spanish names )? Either way it will need it when it starts drafting, so I suggest we make one there and 2/3 pop whip samurai for overflow into the GT (after the work boat/trireme). This will give us more units and hardly slow down the GT at all. It's currently suffering from a lot of unhealth anyway.

Charlemagne has had enough on his hands since the turn I took over or even earlier, wonder what's up with him.

[insert frustrated rant on leader and map synergy again]

 

[Snaaty]

@ Rusten:

Your whipping idea n globe city seems fine, but squeeze in on or two galleys

Globe city has barracks

Was working the inscens, stopped only after switching to caste and forcing GW´s... ...so feel free to assign it again now

Stayed in pacifism, maybe we should even assign two more scientists to get an academy for capital (we need the science)

you are up btw

 

[CellKu]

Some thoughts after looking at the save:

- The Globe in Tokyo is still 19 turns away... We should speed that up. So, I support Rusten's whipping idea.

- Apparently, Han didn't go for the spot south of Nagoya (which itself is south of Tokyo) , so we could squeeze in another city there.

- We could whip a little bit in our smaller cities (Nagoya, Nagasaki etc.)

- I think we should take the GA for another golden age:
If we bulb chemistry with our two GS, we then have 13 turns to steel going full speed at 100% science. Will we manage to get a decent army + enough galleys to transport the units until then?

- We should swich our espionage to Charles immediately! Why did we go for Pericles?

Oh, and Pericles' city Miletos on that desert island is really annoying - we have to do anything to avoid closed borders...

 

[Snaaty]

Some thoughts:

We were in a bad position right from the start:

Small starting island, far away from AI´s
No warmongers, only techwhores
All AI´s clustered together, happily trading along

...

Now we have to do something to dig us out of this hole... ...my suggestion would be:

Go for cannons, total war against Charly, then Hanni. Don´t vassalize them, kill them totally. Move capital to their island... ...no colonial upkeep

Also take the nice island(s) Hanni settled...

An academy in our almost-ex-capital would still be interesting...

IF we manage that and dont go bankrupt in the process, we have about 20 decent cities against the AI´s who have on average 10-15 (and some crappy ones btw) and might be able to wrestle down at least Zara and Bull island for island... ...suhi would be great, also mining, but I don´t see how we could generate a GE (a GM... ...well, yes...)

Not sure about settling more islands... ...will leave it to next player / team to decide, because I dont know if we have the production to gear up for war AND get more settlers out + shipped

...

EDIT:

How about this plan for the next set:
Get to cannons, move units near front & prepare war for following player???

 

[Flo7]

Go for cannons, total war against Charly, then Hanni. Don´t vassalize them, kill them totally. Move capital to their island... ...no colonial upkeep

Also take the nice island(s) Hanni settled...

An academy in our almost-ex-capital would still be interesting...

Sounds good, especially the first point.

What do you think about trading theo (and banking if possible?) for PP with Charles, then switch to theocracy instead of pacifism and perhaps switch back from vassalage to bureaucracy in the next golden age.